Morning routine Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Fresh Orange Juice (No Juicer Needed)

Fresh orange juice is a popular, year-round favorite. In the winter, oranges are in season, so you can find an abundance of oranges.

That’s also when most people load up on Vitamin C that they associate with orange juice, and why orange juice grocery shelves can be full or running empty.

And summer is a popular time too as it’s served in vacation towns and resorts.

I share below how you can optimize an entire orange in homemade fresh orange juice squeezed by hand.

If you’re inspired by fresh juices, this is a smart idea to save money, be healthy, and enjoy conveniently at home.

And speaking of enjoyment, last week I had a nice surprise.

I won a gift card to a local smoothie place I’m inspired by. They are my inspiration for tropical smoothies.

One day I saw someone coming out of a yoga studio in my town who was carrying this mermaid blue color bowl that’s the size of a large yogurt container.

I had to find out what this healthy ingredient is!

I learned it comes from an ingredient called blue majik (that’s the magic in the blue bowl). 🥣

The South Block smoothie chain also uses ingredients like camu camu and maca root.

You feel like you’ve been invited to a new array of rainforest superfoods shipped from an exotic locale in the world and infused in your made-to-order bowl or smoothie.

It’s dreamy, no?

OK, I could go on and on excited!…

But, today I also wanted to share how you can optimize oranges in a house-made fresh orange juice.

I’ve become super sensitive to how much sugar I consume and that’s healthy motivation.

And that hopefully inspires you to think healthy food and drinks at least most of the time (as it does for me).

Vatas are attracted to oranges and sugar so this is perfect for satiating sweet cravings.

Next time you think about getting orange juice from the store, consider making your own fresh orange juice from whole oranges where there’s no added sugar.

Fresh Orange Juice

organic navel orange peel for fresh homemade orange juice. — Look for heirloom, organic, or local farmers market produce as in season (free of pesticides, good for us and the environment)

And oranges are one of my favorite fruits as I love the smell of oranges. Here’s why…

They are good for calming anxiety, aromatherapy, and if you’re leaning into the Vata mind-body ways or wanting to restore any Vata imbalance.

If you can’t get the work life balance or life is stressful, keeping an orange near you to sniff and that’ll help calm you.

And making fresh orange juice will also in its healthy-balancing effects.

And if you feel it in your nervous digestive tract, you can try an orange elixir like this recipe:

organic navel orange peel for ayurveda drinks

Orange Digestif Juice

Course Drinks

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

1 orange (pulp, zest, peel)
Apple cider vinegar (amount adjustable to liking)
5 Spice blend (Five spice is star anise, cloves, cinnamon, fennel, and black pepper) - (amount adjustable to liking)
water (dilute as needed)

Instructions

Zest and peel an orange. Keep all the parts. Tip: use navel, Cara Cara, blood, or heirloom oranges. They are good for the calming (and good for parasympathetic nervous system also affecting good digestion).
Squeeze the pulp into your orange juice container (or enjoy).
Add your zest and peels to the container.
Add five-spice blend.
Add apple cider vinegar
Fill up with water. Shake and refrigerate. Enjoy when you have an upset stomach.

There are so many orange varieties to choose from. I love the Cara Cara sweetheart orange variety (common around Christmas) that can be juicier and sweeter than a California navel orange that’s in season a little earlier.

Plus fresh orange juice makes me think of my second home, staying in nice hotels! Once upon a time I worked in hotel catering management where I got my first taste.

And you may have seen out and about those gigantic commercial machines that crank out fresh orange juice from whole oranges. That would be a fun job for a day!

You may have seen one of these at selective grocery stores if you live in a larger metro area.

Fresh orange juice definitely ruined me for any added sugar orange juice that comes from a carton (like I grew up drinking).

Concentrated is high sugar and harsh on the stomach, and especially along with a morning coffee routine that Americans commonly do. That’s double acidity.

Plus ontop of that, most common foods are usually acidic.

And if that’s your typical morning routine…

👉 You can opt for making your own organic cold brew coffee and diluting orange juice with water.

So let’s begin and get your fresh orange juice-on!

For equipment, you can use a citrus squeezing tool, which is one of my favorite kitchen tools because it’s bright yellow so I have no choice but to be sunny with the brightening citrus when I use it 😉.

And a zester microplane tool that looks like a zester.

These are the parts of the orange.

Orange Zest (essence). Before I cut into the orange for orange juice, I go around the orange peel, grating, and capturing all the outside orange zest as essence for zhughing up other sweet morning smoothies, dishes, and garnishes (that’s where my former-catering mind goes and yours can go wild too!).

Orange Pith. Most people throw the spongy, slightly bitter part out, but consider keeping.

This would good in the orange digestif recipe mentioned already.

The orange pith is high in Vit C (as is the juicy pulp) and anti-inflammatory flavonoids. For those reasons alone, it’s worth considering mixing in foods and drinks/smoothies.

Plus leaving no traces of fruit is good for not attracting critters. 😉

Orange Juice and Pulp. Then cut the orange in half (perpendicular to the top or the stem or from left to right).

I know it’s tempting to cut the orange any which way since it’s perfectly round, but cutting the right way lets you cut through each orange segment to maximize juice.

Otherwise you could get stuck on a pillowy-feeling orange segment.

Now you’re ready to squeeze each orange half or use a citrus squeezer tool, and squeeze away the juice into a tall glass.

Let go of all your stress squeezing oranges. Activating calming oranges around you is a relaxing sensory exercise.

Keep repeating until you have the amount of juice you want. Add back pulp as desired if you like high pulp juice.

You can also add some water to dilute some or stretch the juice out for more.

And enjoy!

No-Waste Eco-Friendly Ideas: Save the orange pulp if you prefer high-pulp OJ and add small orange pieces to your drink.

Save the seed to grow a plant. Save the pulp and zest for cooking and baking recipes. Save the pith that has the most nutrients for digestifs and foods. Save the orange sticker as a reminder for getting the Produce LookUp (PLU) item again. 😉

If you like fresh juices, you may want to give Fresh Peach Juice and Mango Juice other sunny yellow inspiring fruity juices a GO.

Morning Thoughts Healthy Reframe Exercise

Morning thoughts that aren’t always pleasant tpop up when we’re groggy and half awake coming out of dreams we don’t control.

And we can change our thoughts and attitude from this one exercise and yoga exercise habits described below. 👇

Below are some yoga moves so even you wake up on the wrong side of the bed or have a busy day, you don’t miss out on your best day where you feel good when your head hits the pillow at night.

Wake up, Sunshine! Rise and shine. In the morning when you get out of bed with groggy morning thoughts.

But you can change this with your breaths in present moment.

Morning is a great time to start deep breathing for more oxygen… a natural way to get more energy.

Sitting up and standing helps to clear your passages that can be stuffy from laying down.

Survey your home and where the best morning light is if you’ve never done that.

That will be the eastern exposure windows or if you have indoor/outdoor living.

Be sure to let light into your eyes for at least 30 seconds.

Wearing blue glasses to protect eyes from digital screens and shades during the day outside is is a good idea! 😎

In the morning when it’s not direct sunlight like at noon, take them off to look outside and see what’s happening in your natural environment while you enjoy your morning water, smoothie, coffee, etc.

If you’re not a morning person, this is especially good so you wake up.

And if you experience seasonal affective disorder (SAD), this can change your outcomes.

Women need more sleep than men and children need more sleep than adults. Waking up adult energy changes and depends on many factors including a Kapha imbalance (could be mind or body).

If you’re naturally a Kapha body, then this is your natural way more than your Vata and Pitta counterparts.

If you’re not sure which imbalances you currently have and want restoring suggestions on your specific body imbalance symptoms, then I encourage you to take the body balance quiz.

Morning Yoga

Morning yoga even for 5-minutes is worth the effort for restoring good morning thoughts!

Everyone has 5 minutes they can sneak in.

And getting into Table Top pose and doing Cat and Cow can change your day.

Your Ayurvedic routine can include ginger and water. And finding your imbalances. If you’re super tired, Kapha is dominant.

If you’re super hard charging, Pitta is dominant.

If you’re feeling scattered, Vata is dominant.

And if you feel all, know that your Vata runs the show. The other name for Vata is wind, so like howling wind, that will dominate. But then later in the day you may find that your other (Pitta and Kapha) moods kick in.

These are all natural but the more you can feel less moods and restore them to peace and calm, the better.

It’s like your healthy body that doesn’t have symptoms. And when there are symptoms, then you’re focusing on how you can fix the symptoms.

So in the morning, maybe in the kitchen or bathroom, survey what your mood is. Do you need to calm from anxiety, worry (Vata) or being critical of yourself or others (Pitta)? Or are you tired and withdrawn (Kapha) or the opposite extreme of being needy (also Kapha)?

Yoga can change your day. And deep breathing on your mat will help all these restoring needs…. calming anxiety, lowering blood pressure, and breathing in oxygen for energy.

This is a good way to ease into the morning even if you only have 10 minutes before someone or something needs you.

My stretch routine is below (and if you’re a yoga beginner or think you’re not-good at yoga because of body issues, I’ll explain how not to be intimidated).

Here’s a daily yoga morning practice that you can try and tweak to how you like.

Do your Sun Salutations that are done standing.

You can rise up slowly and as controlled as you can like one spinal vertebra at a time, into a standing Mountain pose position.

From there, test your body for where there are kinks in the body, where there’s tightness and especially cracking sounds that are common in the morning or if it’s cold outside.

It’ easier to do this seated or laying down.

Seated, do a Seated Spinal Twist to see if your sides are tight. This was one we did as kids (maybe, hoola hooping, doing Twister, or Sit-n-Spin).

Then check your back. Lay on your back in Corpse pose. Survey. Then when you’re ready, do a Bridge pose. See if there’s tension in your bridge.

Easy Yoga for Beginners

If you’re intimidated by the idea of yoga and doing poses wrong, don’t be…

I’ve been in yoga classes before where I would hear people say they’re “not good at yoga.”

Re-framing your morning thoughts help and then you’re better at it in the future!

We all start as yoga beginners and each morning is a re-start so your body feels different than the day before. It’s a good metaphor for being a lifelong learner.

If you look at laying down flat on your back as another name for Corpse pose, you can make the connection that yoga can be a fancy name for “just being.”

Besides, the funny and interesting thing is, no one is looking at anyone else in a yoga class. Everyone is too busy concentrating and looking at their own body parts and poses.

No one talks about other people’s poses, in or after class. The point of yoga is that it’s an individual sport. You get to look inward and see yourself like when you look in a mirror.

If you’re self-conscious, then yoga can help you break away judgmental feelings about yourself.

If you’re a beginner, doing more yoga gives you self-confidence, and you feel better about your body when poses work.

When I attended my first class I didn’t like it because I didn’t know what was going on, and that’s just par for the course of learning a new skill.

And practicing yoga at home gives you more confidence. So don’t be too quick to rule out yoga as a sustainable activity for you and your morning.

If that’s you at this stage, just have fun with getting to know your body, and center your mind on parts of your body and intention for your practice. The rest will work itself out.

We all have weak spots and our vulnerabilities and bringing them to light is how to go through them. You never know, you may end up loving yoga like I did and do.

And if you’re beyond beginner yoga overthinking or any yoga insecurity, then maybe use your morning yoga practice to work on your patience and resilience.

So that’s my morning routine start (that you can use) before my coffee and catching up with my daily news.

Then I make myself a breakfast smoothie or a breakfast snack and get to productive work.

I hope by reading this, you’re a wee more happy inspired to get up in the mornings and kick those negative morning thoughts to the curb!