Wake up, Sunshine! In the morning when you get out of bed, you use you mind-body muscles to get up, as part of the daily, morning routine.
You know if you’re an early riser or a night owl. You’re usually wired one way or the other. Morning people are usually proud of how much they get done early on, while night people stay up and enjoy more leisure time.
I’m not a natural morning person and I honor that, as I do appreciate sleep. Similarly, if you’re a slow riser naturally, I have some suggestions below that can help get you moving…
Women need more sleep than men and children need more sleep than adults. Waking up adult energy changes and depends on many factors.
If you normally pop up, right out of bed, but find it difficult this season in your life, then you may have a Kapha imbalance (could be mind or body).
If it’s recurring every winter, then seasonal affective disorder (SAD) can be an added layer of mood tiredness. You can change your morning routine so it’s enjoyable, and you look forward to getting up.
Embrace Your Vata-ness and Why This Matters Even If You’re Another Dominant Dosha
While usual daily variance on waking up energy is a good indication that you’re a natural Vata, you may find your partner or friends seem to get up at the same time every day. They’re likely Pitta dominant people.
In true-Vata form, if that’s your natural way, one morning you could start off feeling energized, and then the next day, tired and groggy waking up, that doesn’t always have to do with what time you went to sleep.
Your eyes can open at the same time every morning naturally, that’s part of your natural circadian rhythm and internal clock, but you want to rest and snooze for a few more minutes before you drag yourself to get up. This is especially if you wake up to an artificial alarm clock.
Your level of mood tiredness and body functions are separate aspects and both affect the energy you have for a morning routine.
Since we all possess traces of all the dosha traits, you could be imbalanced in a dosha that you or may not be dominant in, and that’s what I want to help you with today to invigorate a healthy, wake up morning routine.
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.
The results are revealing to what your body is trying to tell you at this moment without written or voice communication. Your non-verbal response can be simple, healthy behavior tweaks to prevent irritating symptoms from getting worse and so you can enjoy foods and activities you like.
In the same way, having an inspiring morning routine for your body is going to be better than a forced one. If you’re a learner you like to challenge yourself and that will help you to get going.
Easing Into Your Morning
So, while you’re starting your day drinking room temperature water (or a warm ginger tea is good) and visiting the bathroom, this is a good time to get mentally prepared about yoga stretching.
You may need or enjoy a cup of coffee or cappuccino to wake-up your mind, and that’s great.
As part of your morning routine, find a pause moment to be mindful, and think of something to be grateful for today, or that just happened recently.
You can find this mindful moment when you’re heating water for tea, straightening up along your path, or putting the clean dishes back in the cabinet. In America, we don’t usually stop reflecting on our busy lives and ambition. Living overwhelmed isn’t healthy.
And if you have a Vata imbalance, you easily move on to something else without finishing your current activity. Staying focused at least at the start of your day, and having a routine to stick to is especially helpful so anxious feelings don’t sink in.
So after getting mindful, and visiting the kitchen, a natural transition is to move onto stretching parts of your body that need just a little awakening and movement, from the wear and tear of yesterday and the day before. You can call this yoga or just stretching, it doesn’t matter.
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).
If you did a workout the day before, even if that was carrying groceries up a flight of stairs, you can reset your body for today, the new day and the only one that exists (at least in your mindful 10 minutes or the time you have).
Here’s a daily morning practice that you can try and tweak to how you like. If you’re a Vata you’ll naturally want to change up your morning routines.
To start off, you could get on all 4’s, and in a pose called TableTop where you put your bended knees on your floor or mat and lay your palms flat on the floor. Your back is flat and parallel to the floor. Your body looks like a table and you could set the book on your back, and it would balance.
Table Top is a neutral pose, getting you ready, and doesn’t require much energy even if you’re not yet fully awake.
If you’re still super tired from there you could go into a resting pose like Child’s pose (or a Hare pose with a rounded back). Be careful you don’t end up napping so you keep your focus on a general, not specific mindful intention like peace or love today. Take your time and don’t be in a hurry.
But once you’re ready to get up back into Table Top pose, you can flow into Downward Dog (inverted “V”). Then when you’re ready, you can walk your feet up to your hands on the floor or take a quick jump forward (the fun and energizing way to meet your hands).
Then you can rise up slowly and as controlled as you can like one spinal vertebra at a time, into a standing position. Then, take your hands and reach in the air to the ceiling forming a “Y” with your arms. If you’re by a window or outside, you can look out and pray or take a meditation moment, or inside, you can look up at the ceiling.
Move your hands down to heart center with the specific intention of your day, or love if you don’t have one in mind. Then, fold your body downward with hands to your thighs and shins and then shift to palms on the floor (or swan dive your hands straight down to the floor for more energy). You can repeat these morning sun salutations. They’re good for getting your mind and body into a calm and appreciative flow.
From there I like to test 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. You may not experience that type of sensation if your muscles are naturally more limber, as everyone has a unique body.
You may not discover these tight areas if you don’t move around. Testing slight bends and stretches allow you to appreciate your body at the moment for its abilities.
You familiarize yourself with your weaker spots and just by moving your body around, you can feel and discover where those spots are. Whatever that may be for you, you have your one and only body to fully take care of, so it helps to do these check-ins.
I like to smooth out muscles taken for granted. Where you feel tightness you can move the body part in the opposite direction to see how things feel.
I like to go from my morning Table Top waking up poses above to an inverted table (where my stomach is facing the ceiling) and move the arms behind me around, hinging back and forth. That gets tightness out of the upper arms that I wouldn’t otherwise know about.
I made that one up. In the same way, you can use yoga as a creative body expression to become aware of your body. You can make up and create your own poses and you can blend in more traditional yoga poses you like and know.
You can get in Seated Spinal Twist that has a name that sounds like a kids game you play (maybe, Twister or Sit-n-Spin?). …Anyway, it’s a pretty simple yoga pose and a great stretch for either side of your back that often gets ignored.
I was taught this pose, and have been doing these since grade school P.E. class (physical education), way before I knew any yoga poses, and before yoga was popular in the States.
And similarly, you too probably have been doing some yoga poses long before you knew their pose names.
So those are two examples of how you can get innovative and reinvent new yoga poses in your daily routine.
Still nervous about yoga body issues or intimidated as a yoga beginner?
If you’re intimidated by the idea of yoga, 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 thoughts help. 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 you’re a bit more happily inspired to get up in the mornings!