On Rising Early

Are you an early bird or a night owl? As much as I like the idea of waking up early to start a productive day, I generally have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning, especially as we enter these darker Fall and Winter months. Surprisingly, the time in my life when I came closest to being an early bird was actually in college, when I would easily wake up early to go to the gym before my classes. Of course, "early" back then meant 8am, so maybe that's not so surprising after all.

I'm trying to change my mindset about mornings--although first I should backtrack and mention Yoga With Adriene, the YouTube yoga channel that I've been following. After doing yoga in various forms over the past few years, finding Adriene's channel completely revitalized my practice. Her laid back approach has resonated with me more than any "live" yoga teacher I've taken class with. The channel's mantra is "find what feels good", which, to me, takes on a couple levels of meaning. First, it's the idea that modifying a hard pose or using a prop shouldn't be thought of as something only for beginners, but rather should be considered options to use depending on how your body is feeling on any given day. Next, it can be seen as the idea of trying to find some comfort and ease while you're in a yoga pose that might be uncomfortable, which is also a metaphor for how a regular yoga practice can translate into other areas of life and help you find ease in uncomfortable situations you might find yourself in. I highly, highly recommend the Yoga With Adriene to anyone with a remote interest in trying yoga. The channel has a ton of videos of every length, level, and purpose, as well as a Thirty Days of Yoga program that got me to commit to a daily practice earlier this year. Now I'm doing yoga almost exclusively at home and feel like I've gotten stronger and progressed more than I ever did in public classes.

(image via here)

But back to waking up early. Last week Yoga With Adriene launched Rise, a seven day program of yoga practices to do in the mornings. This seemed like exactly what I needed to get myself out of bed a little earlier and free up some time later in the day for other things (like keeping up with this blog!). I haven't made it through the full seven days of the program yet because I've been feeling a little under the weather this week, but I did enjoy the two mornings I got up to practice. So far, so good. And on a related note, I was very intrigued when I stumbled upon this blog post about the Miracle Morning program. It actually makes a 5am wake up call sound appealing, although I'm not quite sure I'm ready for that yet. Let's see how this morning yoga goes first.

Do you have any morning rituals?