Women's Moon Wisdom Podcast Intro - Rebecca (00:01):
Stories, teachings, and guidance. Welcome to the Women's Moon Wisdom podcast, with your host, Rebecca Rankin.
Rebecca Rankin (00:19):
Hi there and welcome to the Women's Moon Wisdom podcast. Question for you. Are you an early bird or a night owl? I feel like we can fall into one that feels a little bit more easier than the other. And hopefully you're not both. You aren't both staying up late and waking up early. And if so, hopefully it's temporary. If you are, please be sure to eventually get plenty of sleep. You need it physically, mentally, emotionally. But for today, let's talk about four ways to help you stick to your morning self care routine. I must admit, I do love waking up early. I'm not really one for staying up late, unless I'm reading like a good page turner of a book, and I can't put it down. I have a friend, Nikki, who is just so on point with book recommendations and she always recommends the best books that leave me staying up way too late, finishing them.
Rebecca Rankin (01:21):
And it's gotten to a point that I have my partner remind me to curate what I read before bed, and to make sure it's not a "Nikki book". So, so for the most part, I'm early to bed and early to rise and there is something so beautiful to be awake before the hustle and bustle of everyone else. To watch the world wake up is a time that feels, it feels so, so sacred and precious. And at the time of this recording, we're just a few weeks away from the summer solstice, which means where I live in this Northern area. The sun rises early and sets late. And I swear at literally the crack of dawn, like I swear the moment there is a hint of sun peeking, its shiny face above the horizon that the birds just go nuts, that the birds outside just crazy.
Rebecca Rankin (02:16):
It's like they're squawking and yelling at each other to wake up and get up it's to the point that it's it's comical to me, they're so absurdly loud. And then after a half hour of singing chirping and going bananas and inevitably waking everyone in our household up, they quiet down and go on with their days. Well, not all of us wake up with such a start. My hope is that this episode will give you some tips to create a regular self care morning routine. And one that you can honestly, that you can stick to. The morning is my favorite time to do my yoga practice and my meditation. And though I also do a nice short meditation before I go to bed as well. And, and we'll talk about evening routines to help support better sleep in an upcoming episode. But today we'll talk about four ways to create a regular self care morning routine that you can stick to.
Rebecca Rankin (03:14):
Okay? Number one starts the evening before: have an early dinner. You wanna give your food plenty of time to digest before you head to bed. You can imagine if you go to bed right after eating, it can increase the likelihood of reflux and nighttime heartburn. And a general rule of thumb that a lot of nutritionists offer is waiting about three hours between your last meal and bedtime. And having a longer period of time between your last meal of the day and the first meal of the next day, can also help promote healthy digestion. This has been coined as a type of intermittent fasting called 'time restricted eating' where you go say 12 hours from the last meal of the day until you break your fast (breakfast) the next day. And of course honor what works best for you. Honor what is right for you. If you're waking up in the middle of the night hungry, then you might wanna address your eating schedule and patterns.
Rebecca Rankin (04:12):
So to see what works best for you. So this is a tip to remind you to try not to eat right before bed so that your sleep isn't disrupted and you can get a good night's sleep. If you think of your food as energy. And when you eat, you release the hormone insulin, which is energy for yourselves. This can actually shift your sleep wake cycle or your circadian rhythm, and actually stimulate your brain to be in a state of more wakefulness, which can make it quite difficult to fall asleep. So eat early and give yourself three hours or so before you head to bed so you can get a good night's sleep and therefore make it easier to get up in the morning. Alright. Number two, prepare before you go to bed. So get everything you need for your self-care practice ready the night before.
Rebecca Rankin (05:02):
So once again, sticking to a morning routine starts with preparation the evening before like set your alarm before you go to bed. Let's say you're planning on going for a morning run, like get your clothes, your socks, your shoes, your ear buds, all ready the night before. So you can just get up and go. Or maybe you're planning on doing a yoga practice or a meditation in the morning, have your space ready for you. Like find an area to roll out your mats. If you're using any sort of yoga on demand membership platform, look up what you wanna practice ahead of time. So you aren't wasting your precious morning light trying to figure out what you wanna do. You can imagine, you know, if you're waking up first thing in the morning to do your yoga practice and you're scrolling through to see what practice you wanna do, that's going to eat up a lot of time.
Rebecca Rankin (05:52):
So pick out the practice that you wanna do ahead of time or the guided meditation that you wanna do ahead of time. Pull out the clothes that you wanna wear for the activity you're gonna do. The more organized you are the night before, the easier it will be to transition into your practice. Just think of when you wake up to your alarm, make it easy to get out of bed and do the thing. The less decision making you have to do, the better, right? Number three, your morning, wake up routine. All right. So your alarm goes off, get outta the bed. I've never been one for, for hitting the snooze button. And I know some people are really attached to it. Some people love to hit snooze. I'm not one of them. I haven't really ever been one. So if you are, make up your mind to not hit snooze, make up your mind to get outta bed.
Rebecca Rankin (06:45):
So when you first wake up in the morning, your body actually gives you a head of cortisol, which helps you feel more alert and more wakeful. And if you hear the word cortisol and immediately think, 'oh no, isn't that like a bad hormone. I shouldn't want that'. So, cortisol is a necessary hormone that our body needs. We just want to make sure in our lifestyles that we aren't promoting excess production of cortisol through chronic stress. So anyways, you get this hit of cortisol that can help you feel more wakeful and alert. Use that to your advantage. So when your alarm goes off, get outta bed. So have a glass of warm water, use the bathroom. Think number one, number two. And what I also like to do is run my hands under cold water. Just for a few moments. I like to think of it as a mini cold exposure, instead of doing a full body cold plunge, I run my hands under cold water just to get myself a little bit more alert.
Rebecca Rankin (07:39):
All right. So you're outta bed. You drank your warm water, used the bathroom. Now it's time for you to do the thing. So whichever form of self care you chose, let's say you're going for a run. If you run regularly, you know that often the hardest part is just that first step out of the door. So lace up your shoes and just go for it. Or if you're stepping onto your yoga mat, just step on it and move your body, honor the commitment to your practice. And it doesn't have to be epic. Like none of these self care practices have to be epic. It doesn't even have to take a long time. Maybe you start with something simple as just 10 minutes in the morning and you gradually add more time. You'll probably be surprised that doing your self care practice, first thing in the morning, it gives you this, this sense of like accomplishment and a, a deep sense of self-worth like you've done your exercise, your meditation, your yoga, whatever the self care practice is before a majority of people are even out of bed.
Rebecca Rankin (08:37):
So rather than waiting all day to carve out time at the end of the day, when you're already probably feeling tired, exhausted, putting yourself first, it's a big deal and you feel that. So you're filling your cup first so that you are not giving from an empty cup. Alright, my last tip, tip number four, give yourself grace. The last thing you need is to put more pressure on yourself. Start off slow with creating a morning self care routine. Perhaps you start with three days a week, like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, then as you start feeling good and you find a nice rhythm, you add more days. And knowing that you are cyclical beings, honor the wisdom of your cycle. When you do all the things to carve out this time for yourself and you're getting plenty of sleep. And you still feel the urge to rest, especially in your inner new moon, your menstrual phase, honor that. Your body's talking to you and it's up to you to listen.
Rebecca Rankin (09:35):
So there you have it. Those four tips to creating a self-care morning routine that you'll actually stick to. Number one, eat an early dinner. Number two, prepare the evening before. Number three, morning wake up routine, do the thing. And lastly, number four, give yourself some grace. I mentioned earlier in the episode about a yoga on demand membership subscription. If you're looking for one, be sure to check out the library of practices that I've created. So there's over a hundred yoga movement, guided meditations, breathwork practices all within this library. Check out the link in the show notes for that. Also, if you are interested in aligning your morning, self-care practice to your own inner cycle. I highly recommend starting the women's moon wisdom self-care framework. It gives you daily practices to use that are specific to each phase of your cycle. I love cyclical living, I'm not gonna lie, it's transformed my life and I'm so eager to help other women feel the benefits of living in alignment to their cycle. And as always, if you enjoyed this episode and know someone in your life that could benefit from getting into a good morning routine, follow the podcast and share it along. All right, until next time, take good care and bye for now.
