Morning Rituals

Morning Rituals: Or, How to feel less like a zombie at 6AM

A couple of posts ago, I shared what I’ve been doing to become a Morning Person. In today’s post, I’ll be going into more detail around my morning rituals. I’m finally getting to the point where I don’t feel like a miserable mess when my alarm goes off, so I’ll try to share what’s been helping me.

Optimize your alarm clock

I don’t have one of those nifty dawn-simulating alarm clocks (though it is definitely on my wishlist), but my phone has two sweet settings that seem to be helping wake me up in the morning:

1) A smart alarm: Three minutes before my set wake-up time is mean to go off, a soft and gentle wake-up warning will start to sound. Sometimes, this is all I need to wake me up in the morning, often without waking up Erik. I have the option to snooze my smart alarm, and wait for the actual one to go off three minutes later.

2) Bright lights: When my proper alarm goes off (currently set to 6:30 am), it is accompanied by the flashlight on my phone turning on and off. It’s a little thing, but that bright light in my room has really been helping me get awake and oriented in the mornings, especially during these dark winter months.

Rev up your metabolism with Cayenne Lemonade

I went into detail about my beloved Cayenne Lemonade in last week’s post, so I won’t go into too much detail here. All you’ll need for this morning elixir is a mug of warm water, the juice of half a lemon, and a couple shakes of cayenne pepper (I recommend starting small if you are not a fan of spice). This Morning Elixir will help get your digestive tract moving by encouraging the secretion of stomach acid in preparation for breakfast, but it will probably also make you poop, so be prepared for that.

Have a protein-packed breakfast

Indulging in a protein-rich breakfast first thing in the morning will help keep your blood sugar balanced for the day ahead. That means that you’ll be more focused and satiated for longer than if you’d had a more carb-centric breakfast. My favourite protein-packed brekkies often include a plant-based protein shake, a bowl of quinoa porridge, or a few scrambled eggs.

Work standing up

I know that while sitting in a comfy chair first thing in the morning, I’m more likely to fall asleep than get to work. So I try to do some work standing up.

If you’ve got a standing desk, then lucky you, feel free to use that. Since I do not have a standing desk, I’ve found that a kitchen counter or island does the trick. Disclaimer: This may only work if you’re a short little lady like me. If you are not a shortie, maybe try adding a stack of books to your counter and see if that does the trick.

Matcha it up

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this on the blog, but last summer, I was finally able to kick my coffee habit. On the very rare occasion when I’ve let my desire get the best of me and have a cup, I’m very quickly reminded of why I stopped (it makes me feel like complete garbage). However, I am also somebody who really enjoys the ritual and camaraderie of visiting my local independent coffee shop, so I’ve taken up with another significantly more healthy vice: Matcha Lattes.

Matcha is an antioxidant rich green tea powder, with a fresh, grassy, and bitter flavour. I’ve heard that it can be an acquired taste, but that was not my experience at all. I loved matcha lattes the moment my first sip crossed my lips. My local cafe makes them with almond milk and a squeeze of honey, and they are to die for, IMO. I’ve also heard that they’re quite high in caffeine, but they don’t affect me in at all the same way that a cup of coffee or espresso-based beverage does. For me, they provide more focused, calm energy, which is a vast improvement from jittery, sleep-deprived me of yesteryear.

Bonus Tip: Pop a melatonin 20 minutes before bed.

Most nights before bed, I take a Melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone in your body responsible for sleep. In its supplement form, it can help you fall asleep and stay asleep. It has been a bit of a godsend for me because I often have a restless mind when I’m lying in bed at night. And even once I’ve fallen asleep, that anxiety can sometimes leave me tossing and turning throughout the night. It doesn’t work every night, but when it does, I am very grateful to sleep peacefully through the night. And I feel a lot more well-rested the following morning.

How to Have A Lovely Day

How To, Personal, Wellbeing

How to Have a Lovely Day

The idea for a How to Have a Lovely Day post comes from Sara Du Jour’s post by the same name. When I read it, I was immediately inspired to write a how-to from my own perspective.

So, without further ado: I had a day off and decided to Have a Lovely Day. Your idea of a Lovely Day may look different from mine, but if you also happen to have the day off of work, feel free to follow along.

Start the day off with a cup of cayenne lemonade.

Squeeze half a lemon into a cup of warm water. Add a couple shakes of cayenne (make it as spicy as you can realistically handle). You’re ready, Freddy. Sip away. Drink it all up before you have anything else to eat or drink. This stuff is like a magic elixir for flushing out your digestive tract (By this, I mean that it will make you poop. Have fun.), supporting liver detoxification, and giving your metabolism a spicy kick in the pants. Unf.

Enter: Bed Yoga.

Take your cayenne lemonade back to bed with you so you can work on stretching out that beautiful bod in the comfort of your bed. If you aren’t sure what to do to wake up your body, throw on a YouTube video (Yoga With Adrienne is one of my favourites) or grab an issue of Yoga Journal. YJ always has a section of awesome little sequences you can do whether you have ten, twenty, or thirty minutes to spare.

Is your cayenne lemonade gone? Good, because…

It’s time for a healthy breakfast.

On this particular day, I opted for a quinoa berry bowl. I made a big pot of quinoa on Sunday which makes it really easy to put together breakfast bowls or to bulk up a salad. You know what they say, “When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Get lost on the internet.

Like many other people I have surveyed — in a super official way, of course — my getting lost on the internet is a daily occurrence. I try to use this time to watch videos and read articles and blog posts that will inspire my focus for the rest of the day.

Spend time on your passions.

Do things that make you happy. Engaging in creative pursuits and having an outlet for your thoughts and ideas is life changing. I use this time to work on my Thousand-Words-A-Day Project, attend a life drawing class, or make something fun in the kitchen. Sometimes, I’m also passionate about binge watching Orange is the New Black or controlling various lives in The Sims (because I’m coo’ like that…), and that’s okay too. It’s your day off. Enjoy yourself.

Snack mindfully.

Make sure whatever you’re snacking on includes a healthy protein or fat source. You don’t want to be eating foods that are going to leave you with hypoglycemic and ravenous half an hour later. If you’re going to have a piece of fruit, slather it in nut butter or have it with a side of trail mix. I had leftover turkey burgers in the fridge, so when I found myself feeling a bit peckish, I had one of those with a giant scoop of hemp seed guacamole. Later on, I smeared organic peanut butter on apple slices and sprinkled them with cinnamon and dulse. (Dulse, if I haven’t mentioned it before, is a kind of seaweed. Sea veggies are a total superfood. They’re a great source of trace minerals, particularly iodine. I may do a sea vegetable-specific blog post in the near future. And show you my seaweed collection!)

But also, clean something.

I know what you’re thinking: Eff no, I am not cleaning on my day off. And if that’s your outlook, that’s totally fine. For me, cleaning something is cleansing, whether it’s purging my closet or sweeping the kitchen floor. It feels good to take care of my space, and keep it feeling safe. Like, I’m not afraid to lean on a counter top and come away with a sticky elbow. By keeping my space neat, I feel more focused and feel less lingering anxiety.

Exercise.

My workout routine changes frequently, especially during the warmer months (RE: When it isn’t winter.) when a hike or a lakeside walk isn’t too far out of reach. Lately, I’ve been alternating between yoga days and rock climbing days, which complement each other wonderfully. Bring some movement into your day by doing exercise that is fun and feels good for your body. Tune in to what your body needs on a given day, and go for it!

Get some Vitamin G.

While we’re on the topic of hiking and lakeside walking, spending some time in nature is mega important for having a lovely day. My day doesn’t feel quite right without breathing in fresh air, or taking in the sight of magnificent Mother Nature.

Dinner.

I try to taper my meals off toward the end of the day, eating much less for dinner than I would for breakfast so that my body can focus on things while I sleep that night. Important things like resting and repairing itself.

Bed time rituals.

I often have some trouble getting to sleep at night, so I aim to start winding down right after dinner. This ritual always typically requires having a book in one hand and a hot beverage in the other. And snuggly blankets, because why not.

For the rest of the evening, I’ll curl up on the couch and read or watch a movie with Erik.

And then it’s off to bed with me.

How do you make your days lovely? Leave a comment and let me know! 🙂

Q and A a Day, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Ham on Rye, Catch-22, The Best of Roald Dahl, Norwegian Wood

Why I Always Carry A Book Around

Personal, Wellbeing

A friend of mine recently asked me this question: “Why do you think we should always keep a book with ourselves? I personally feel that it a good way of staying in isolation and leading life with someone’s else’s experience. I love books and respect the fact that it gives lots of knowledge but I also feel we slowly become book worms and speak very bookish language and forget ourselves. What do you think?”

For as long as I can remember, books have been a hugely important part of my life. Throughout my whole career as a student, I always brought a book to school with me. I kept it on the corner of my desk to read whenever I finished a test early or to read during recess. I always have one in my purse, whether I’m going to a quiet social gathering with my friends or to some bigger function. Books are an essential and enormous part of me, and maybe because of this, I can’t fathom spending life as a non-reader.

Are Books Isolating?

I think that whether carrying a book around at all times depends on whether or not you think isolation is a bad thing or not. As an introvert, it’s always a comfort for me to have a book on hand so that if I’m feeling exhausted in a social situation, I can retreat into a book and find some privacy there. I don’t even necessarily need to read the book for it to be a comfort for me. Just having it around is nice. Furthermore, it’s usually the people that I’m closest to who I’m comfortable sitting and reading, enjoying companionable silence with.

I also don’t think that having a book on hand has to be isolating. In fact, I often find that it can be a topic for conversation when I’m out and about. I’ll get questions from strangers asking what I’m reading or if I see somebody reading something that looks interesting to me I’ll ask them about it. Books can actually serve as a way for me to connect with the people around me who I would normally be too shy to talk to!

Stories Make Us More Empathetic

Reading stories exposes us to the life stories, experiences, and emotions of the people we read about. There are many lives I’ve read about that I wouldn’t necessarily want to live for myself, but that I am grateful for having read about. By reading books written by different people and from their different perspectives, I feel like I’ve gotten a glimpse into so many lives and am better able to imagine things from their points-of-view. If you want a little more info, check out this video!

Books are one of my greatest joys, and reading is a very meditative experience for me. I don’t think there’s any thing wrong with being a bookworm or connecting with others over a story. Many of my friendships have been built through a mutual love for books!

Yoga Problems: My First Yoga Class

Personal, Yoga

If you haven’t noticed, keeping the blog updated has been a bit tricky as of late. There have been some fun and new things going on lately, so I thought I would leave you with this quick update.

I got to do something super awesome about a month ago – I taught my first public yoga class! This was a huge and hugely scary accomplishment for me, and I wanted to share my experience in the hopes that it will help any aspiring yoga instructors who happen upon this to feel more enthusiastic and better prepared for their own first classes.

Tackling Stage Fright

One of the first issues that comes to my mind in regard to teaching is the dreaded stage fright. Something I may or may not have mentioned here before (Have I? Ugh, my failing memory…) is that I have a crippling fear of public speaking. This is one of the big reasons why I wanted to do teacher training in the first place. I know that I have things I want to share with people, but this is significantly more difficult when you forget how to speak English while faced with an audience. Even if it is an audience of one! I wanted to become more confident in myself, more comfortable and excited to share, and challenge myself to do something that I could hardly imagine myself capable of. And so I did it!

Preparation

A good teacher training program will help you feel ready to start teaching and your first class will feel like the next natural step. The program that I took was 4 months long, and we spent that time putting together our first classes and teaching it to one another in pairs and small groups. I remember when I first demonstrated Warrior II to a partner, I could see my front hand shaking uncontrollably. I wanted to smack it accompanied by a firm admonishment, “You stop that, hand!” While the jitters hadn’t completely dispersed by the time I taught my presentation class, they had died down to giant butterflies and profuse sweating. But at least the trembling had stopped! I felt ready (as ready as one can feel in that situation) to teach because of all the practice we had done both inside and outside of teacher training, aided by the presence of my amazing support system and the opening of my class with many a deep breath.

Have a Support System

My presentation class was composed of my fellow teacher trainees along with several members of my family and friends. The really cool thing about this particular group was, while I was busy agonizing and massively working myself up about it, one of the big things that helped to calm me down was the knowledge that I would be surrounded by people who love me. These people have been supportive and excited for me throughout the whole YTT journey, and they wanted to see me succeed. This was powerful stuff, for me, when I was truly struggling not to panic.

Pranayama (Breath Work)

The breath work we did at the beginning of class (and working to maintain long, even breaths throughout class) was also extremely helpful in soothing my nerves. Deep breathing is pretty freaking magical. Not only is it calming, taking some time during the day to take some slow and deep breaths offers all of these other amazing benefits you can expect:

Improved sleep, energy, and immunity
Decreased heart rate
Decreased blood pressure
Improved concentration, memory, attention, and learning efficiency
Improved mood
Improved sense of well-being
Decreased feelings of depression and anxiety

Mistakes

I am sure I have many a lesson to learn throughout my yoga career, but here are some important ones learned during my first class:

Don’t take your child’s pose while trying to teach it. Yoga mats, I quickly discovered, are a fairly sound absorbent material and will muffle the crap out of your voice.
Things I felt I was doing really slowly went really quickly for students who were new to yoga. Vice versa, when I was teaching these things to more experienced students during teacher training, some of them mentioned that I was holding the poses for a bit too long. I also found that the length of time I was holding poses was difficult to gauge during my presentation class probably due to nerves. You can’t please everyone!
Next time I teach, I might actually try looking at my students while teaching! There were so many different things to focus on what with remembering my sequence and the cues to go along with it that I had trouble coming out of my head to check out what the class was doing. I know that all of this this will come with practice and I’m not too hung up about it.

Now that YTT is over, I should be able to update more which I’m looking forward to! I also can’t wait to get teaching and to continue learning and growing this new part of my life.

Hope your holiday season is going swimmingly! See you in 2015!
xxoo

Oh She Glow's nutty granola clusters with yogurt and green apple slices

Ode to Autumn

Holidays, Personal

Autumn is my favourite season because there seems to be so much potential in the air. I don’t know if it’s the the remnants of childhood nostalgia for each new school year, but ever since I’ve always felt excited for fall. It could be because the colder weather tends to keep me cooped up inside that I don’t feel at all guilty for taking advantage of that time to do indoor activities like curling up with a book, or settling into a writing session with a cup of coffee. Here is my ode to autumn, a list of some of my favourite autumnal things:

Bundling. Layering. Nesting. Cuddling.

I love the crisp and chilly air this time of year. My current uniform consists of giant scarves, leg warmers, fingerless gloves and wool socks. My bed looks like a bird’s nest of pillows and blankets (I have, approximately, 7 pillows in my bed, 3 couch throws, and a duvet). This time of year begs for cuddling. It starts to get dark so early, which is perfect for spending many an hour curled up in my bed fort and winding down.

Warm, comforting foods and familial feasting.

By the time autumn hits, I’m usually pretty over green salads. These days, I’m all about soups and stews, hot beverages, hearty salads (featuring warming add-ons like goat cheese, toasted nuts and seeds, roasted veggies, and whole grains), and comfort foods like this granola! I used the Nutty Granola Clusters recipe from The Oh She Glows Cookbook: Vegan Recipes to Glow from the Inside Out!

Florence + the Machine’s Ceremonials

This is my quintessential soundtrack to cold weather. There are elements of magic and fantasy throughout the whole album, with a tendency toward the sparkly and haunting. Florence’s voice floats effortlessly through a huge range of tonal qualities. Her voice transitions from loud and abrasive to quiet and choral, plus a bit of everything in between. My favourite song on the album is ‘Seven Devils’. There is a beautiful variety of songs on this album, but ‘Seven Devils’ is the stand out, in my opinion. I usually listen to Ceremonials in order, but I’m always excited for ‘Seven Devils’ to come on, though I usually do my best to resist the urge to skip through to it because I know it will be worth the wait. This song is filled with these big cacophonous sounds like someone is banging on the bass end of a piano, layered with some gorgeous dissonance and next level creepiness. Like, give-you-nightmares creepy. Which brings me to my next favourite thing.

Spooky Halloween stuff.

I love the air of spookiness that hangs around during the colder months. In addition to surrounding myself with creepy music, I love the Halloween decorations that people put out on their lawns and drape their homes with. I especially love a good horror novel, like my most recent read, “Let Me In” by John Ajvide Lindqvist. It’s this super dark and disturbing Swedish novel, and it’s an amazing read if you don’t feel like sleeping at night.

I have to say, I’m a bit worried. I hope to enjoy autumn for several more weeks. I felt a pang of panic when I heard this morning that we’d be getting some snow this weekend. Ugh, I’m not ready.

Annemarie Dixon

Designer in Burlington, Ontario

Personal