How To Be A Morning Person - A Personal Experiment

Image Source: Thought Catalog

I am not a morning person. I wake up at about 7.45 am on a weekday and on weekends, well, let’s just say I don’t get to exchange morning greetings. Here’s why I am not a morning person. ‘Cos I usually wake up to a racing heart. Like I've already missed my morning bus. (Not that I have a bus to catch.) In my ideal world, the first fifteen minutes of the day would involve a sun salutation and morning kisses and a dramatic “It’s a new dawn” kind of curtain-sweep. This is what I tell myself every night when I resolve to reform my morning routine. In my actual world, I am swiping snooze about three times on my alarm and then addressing more alarming emergencies of my mind.

On a weekday, I wake up groggy with my left eye. That eye scrolls through social media while the right eye is deciding how to overpower the other with the ruse for a few more winks. A cursory look in the mirror. As expected, washed out.

And then my mind starts running.

“You know one of these days you should buy a night cream that elevates your morning look from toilet to passably regular. What are those funny kinks in your hair? Anyway, gotta get Saanvi to school. Yea, yea, she’s just in pre-school but school’s important. Must pack her a healthy snack. No, not another cheese sandwich. First, I need a strong brew of tea. But there’s no time for tea. And whatever happened to oil-pulling? Can I oil-pull at night? [Googles that.] Focus. You’re running late. Why hasn't the house-help showed up yet? Of course she’s not coming. What does she care? Only if you were more organized….Can I go back to sleep? Where are the bloody socks? One day, I'm going to have a meltdown cos of the damn socks! Sleep-deprived mum loses shit over a pair of socks. It’s possible. Why does she have to wear them anyway? Look at your cracked feet! You should wear socks at bed-time. Ooh you could get those cute kitty ones. Unlike her, YOU DO need socks. [Googles cat-print socks] Woman! You can do this later. We’re late. But why are you breathing so heavily? Is this a heart attack? [Types “Signs that you’re having…] Fuck no! You don’t have time for a heart attack!

And my mind goes on…

Some day, if I ever make it to the papers, they’re going to ask me for some wise morning routine advice. Sista, let me tell you now. I don’t have any. I still can’t tell when I should oil-pull or do stretches or take my vitamins. From the moment my day starts, all I deal with is fire-fighting level emergencies. Tiny details and chores that if missed, threaten to pull my day under.

And I realize that all I'm doing is getting through a normal day of a stay-at-home mum with some bits and scraps of writing jobs here and there. It’s not like I am managing multiple charities or feeding a million people, or saving dolphins or umm…fire-fighting. I talk fast. I eat faster. I don’t stop and chat thereby offending my neighbours. I am on the move even when I am at rest cos my mind’s either racing to the worst possible “What-ifs” or happy day-time fantasies that are entirely illusionary and have nothing to do with the present.

So you see the inside of my head is a confused battle-zone that doesn't quite know which side it’s on. As a close friend of mine once told me, “I'm my own worst enemy.”

When it gets too much, I escape to this fantasy involving a month long stay-cation. One fine day, I’ll hit the mountains alone in an idyllic cottage with just the right amount of people in the neighbourhood (I cannot handle being secluded) with enough money to survive, three changes of clothing, books and multiple bottles of shampoo and conditioner. There will be no wi-fi, no day commitments, no errands to run for others… I’ll write if I want. I’ll eat when I want. I’ll listen to music and go for long walks. I may even climb trees. I’ll clear my day of its mundaneness and reclaim whatever it is that is essential to being happy and in the moment.

But here’s the downer. I have no fuckin’ clue what makes me happy. I can pray for it all I want but I cannot define it.

I do know what makes me unhappy though. I guess it’s more or less the same things with everybody else.

• I don’t like being told what to do or how to feel. I like making my own mistakes and drawing up my own judgements and revoking them if needed.
• I don’t like nitty fault-pickings. Not just with me but with anybody.
• I don’t like worrying about everyday things like what to eat or drink or what to wear or how to impress someone.
• I don’t like feeling like I'm the only one going through the shit I go through. Cos I know for a fact that there are people who have it much worse.
• I don’t want to race to the top. I’d like the freedom to take my own time to get there. If at all.

So with that bit of wisdom unravelled, I thought I’d make some amends to my existing lifestyle. At best, it’s a personal experiment bordering on being a social one.

I
Skip the morning alarm (and snooze):

From tomorrow, which is a holiday here, and a perfect day to wake up to make-believe coffee from the hills of South America and smell the fuckin’ roses, I'm going to start my morning without being assisted by an alarm clock. Yea. You don’t need a godforsaken blaring alarm to remind you that you have a day ahead of you. Your body is enough for that. How does that make things better? Well, for one there’ll be no snoozing the alarm so you’re up the moment you open your eyes. Of course, I can’t go back to sleep, no matter what. I don’t know how this will pan out but we’ll see.

II
Find A Sleep Schedule

Which obviously means that at some point during the week, I’ll also figure that I need a somewhat consistently boring sleep schedule. I'm kind of a night owl cos my me-time begins after my daughter is safely lodged in her slumber land. So I won’t be forcing myself to go to bed early. But I won’t be stifling yawns to watch late night TV. Instead, I’ll read a slow-moving classic at bed-time cos I don’t want a gripping one to ambush my sleep-centre.

III
Stop With The Micro-Managing

My nerves may be jumpier than usual. So we need something for the nerves. The good ol’ letting the controls run loose. For the first few days, I’ll have no fixed human/super-human goals or food menu to achieve or errands to run. I’ll conquer the day as it comes. That can’t be good for the nerves you’d say? But I think there is a natural way to finding your rhythm and the first step to doing that is assuming you don’t have one. It can’t be from following the habits of most productive people cos well, everybody’s mind and body work differently. Sure, maybe I’ll figure that some things are not working or worlds are falling apart or I need more caffeine than usual.

IV
Control Caffeine Intake

Which brings me to the fourth part. There’ll be controlled caffeine consumption. What! I might as well give up on this whole bizarre Namaslay mumbo-jumbo, right? See with this death sentence right here, I don’t quite know if I'm going to make it through the week. But all I'm basing this on is some tenets of good living. I cannot, as a matter of habit, give up tea/coffee altogether. But I can get it down to two cups a day. The first cup of the day can be any time I choose but the second one will have to be before 6 pm. I could however flirt with other hot, sugarless pseudo-tea imposters in between meals like say cinnamon tea or lemon-grass tea or spearmint tea. (When I say tea, I mean hot water here.) I am more of a hot-beverage person so this may actually bail me out.

V
Eat And Hydrate

What will we be eating for the day? Anything at all we feel like along with the recommended eight-ten glasses of water. We’re more or less on the track of healthy eating already. We try to eat a balance of everything, including fruits. I don’t eat fried food. I don’t eat processed foods much. Serious. I don’t even like mayo or ketchup. I make my own dips and salad dressings and pasta sauces. Sometimes, I cheat with Maggi noodles but that is once in a blue moon when I don’t feel like cooking. I'm down to two small squares of chocolate in a day from wolfing down an entire bar. So I am leaving the pantry open for the sake of my sanity and with the blind faith that I don’t have an eating disorder... For the first few days, we won’t follow a set meal-schedule. I have a feeling we will arrive at the most optimal one in time.

VI.
Amp Up Exercises

Now, I'm assuming with all that, I should be able to gain back lost time to binge-watch the shows I've missed on Netflix or go on spontaneous dates with the hubby. Wishful thinking that. So what are we doing with the extra time? I'm going to try and amp up my exercise routine. Right now it’s about twenty minutes of yoga. So to that, there will be an added routine of moderate cardio and skipping. I’ll go slow and see if it makes me super-human any time soon — I’d settle for a smiler version of me. And I hope that the extra endorphins translate to more quality human interactions.

VII
No Gossip, no slander:

But socializing comes with its own cautionary levels of slandering and mean gossip and ill-founded comparing and spiralling into negatives. I have noticed that most of my conversations of late have revolved around that. As a result, my poetry is grim. So I'm introducing a curb. Whatever is going on in the head rarely translates into reality. Your worst fears have not yet happened. Your empty head is just killing time by drawing irrational conclusions. Unfortunately, I have no control over what happens in my head, only my words. So for this week, there will be no gossip or slander. No “He did what?” or “What was she wearing?” Unless it’s really gnawing at me from the inside and occupying all of my mind. I'm going to try and channel my free mind-space into creating something or discussing ideas or writing more poetry. I'm also going to try and explore the much-fussed about “good in everyone”.

I'm drinking my second cup of tea as I write this down. In between laying the table for breakfast and getting off the phone with an old friend. My mind is surprisingly still cos I have this seemingly genius plan to reset my mornings and my lifestyle. Everything seems perfect.

And yet, there’s a new dawn to dread, when it all really begins.

Stay with me to know how I made it through this week. And if at all, at the end of the road, I'm going to find a morning person :).

If you enjoyed reading this, please slam some motivational hearts back at me :).

XOXO
Shalini

The Karmic Kaam-wali Bai Connection

I woke up earlier than usual today. With a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. Not sure what the day's promising but I know for one that there'll be a bigger to-do list of things to accomplish. One that may run into a second page, actually. The first place I go to when I wake up every day, like every other woman immersed in housewifery I suppose, is the kitchen. Whoops! Am I in the wrong house? Did the elves not show up last night? You know the ones who magically scurry through my kitchen at night, clean the dishes and conspicuously tuck them away out of plain sight, organize all the cookware in the order it is to be used, perfume my squeaky-clean kitchen in lavender (with a hint of fresh lime), and in general assured me that they're on top all the gory grossness that can multiply like rabbits if left unsupervised. Oh, that's right! My maid's on leave today and that's why I'm here. To manage the ugly mess before getting into the domestic goddess groove and doing everything else that I love.

Deeply lamenting the absence of my personal God-sent Jeanie, I slowly inch forward, in an ascending order of disgust levels, to absorb the astonishing exhibits of the remains of the previous night's exotic fare (not looking quite as sharp now). Every now and then, I am introduced to this revelationary sight, only to be followed by meticulous planning on how I can get my kitchen more organized and welcoming, especially the next morning. That said, I'm not a very organized person and I don't really plan ahead and I wish, to all the harmless neuroses that I have, I could also add OCD. Atleast that way, I could elevate the out-of-bed morning look of my kitchen from toilet to passable attractiveness. Of course, for the next few days, I'll have fits of absurd cleanliness expectations and I'll do everything in my power to have no more pucker-faced broccoli florets staring at me from under the cooking range in the morning. But then it just doesn't stick. I do try to reclaim every little shred of normalcy in the way my house appears, but then everything seems to go out the window the moment we get new things for Saanvi. I may constantly shuffle and dislodge and buy new crap to hold my old crap all I want, but my compact 2-bedroom house, maintaining its stiff upper lip, isn't very hospitable to new additions. So, after exhausting all my laundry bags, under-the-bed and over-the-wardrobe spaces, I reach a point when I don't know where anything goes and resort to tuning off the out-of-control chaos that has now become the order of the day. 

I may be one of the moms who make religious efforts to look like they didn't pop out a baby yesterday, who're constantly experimenting in the kitchen to dish out chef-like culinary treats, who take up arts and crafts projects once in a while, like maybe making holiday cards, who spend a good deal of time grooming and accessorizing their babies and ensuring they're well-behaved but unfortunately, I'm not the mom who dwells for long on cleaning.

However, I do make it a point to put things out of the way if:

• they're actually in my way 
• pose a threat to Saanvi (My house in that sense is fairly babyproof)
• they're books (cos I can't stand seeing books disorganized) 

 But things that will have to try harder to get my attention are: 

• Clothes - if they're out of the wardrobe, either somebody wears them, or they go get washed, or they're stashed away in one of the many bags that I'm collecting to be given to charity, or they just sulk on the makeshift laundry table like a bunch of homeless outcasts until they get the sympathy vote.
• Dishes - I like to make it look festive while I'm cooking so there'll be loads of colorful dishes posing as buffers, tasting spoons and measuring cups. But the minute I'm done cooking, I tend to forget all about them. Working on it!

Well, as you know, that is enough to breed epic chaos, not to mention dust bunnies and indecipherable clutters of functional stuff neglected for too long. 

Which is where my awesome, wonderful, giving, WHIZ of a maid comes in. I adore her to bits, mostly  because of the infectious smile and energy she carries that magically turns everything around, sort of like in cartoons. Apart from her usual chores of giving my house a much-needed facsimile of order and serenity, she does a little bit of everything else from pacifying baby Saanvi in the peak of her high-pitched tantrums to altering my old clothes (Read widening). Next, and also awesome is the fact that she makes these super-soft, fluffy chapatis that I can never get my hands on exactly the same way. She's a freaking steal and God am I grateful! She's not even close to the stereotypical "Itne paise mein itna ich milega" Mumbai kaamwali bai and I know how intimidating and mean they can be through previous experience. Life can be cruel when you have an unreliable, calculating maid. In fact, it can revolve around them.  I even know of people who have their vacations based on when their maids go on an unwarranted, extended leave. So I guess I really lucked out. (Knock on wood!)

Over time, we've developed a somewhat symbiotic relationship with each other. Well  you see, I can't do without her and she absolutely adores my daughter and in a way, we've also become friends. So, until my guilt catches up and I feel like I'm lagging far behind the exalted supermom image lurking somewhere in my social consciousness, let me say a prayer. God almighty, while every other department in my life may need some improvement or reassessment and while I continue to work on my laid-back attitude, mood swings and inattention to details, in the maid department, may nothing ever change...God, no!

The Monk Who Wore Prada

There's stuff...And then there's more stuff. And before you know it, they're out there!

Ever witnessed something brand new in your closet that you hadn't the faintest idea you had? And of course, now it doesn't even make your heart race. Oh no it doesn't...While it might have stayed parked in your cool cat closet yearning for a comeback, it's about time it died a quiet, merciful death. And maybe it's time for a whole new focus, a fresh look at value. (Not suggesting another shopping expedition here...Hell no.)

Life's complicated. You have the things you want to do and be and the things you actually get to do, aka. the hard-boiled reality. And in the midst of this gory battle of worlds is the gleaming refuge that you may not necessarily have the time for a life hack but you can, in the meantime, buy your worth of content and happiness; what we popularly call Retail Therapy. And hey we all know it works like a charm. I remember how at the beginning of every month, flush with cash, I would sprint to all those fabulous window displays with dizzying lust, ogle my way in and claim all the season must-haves. Everything seemed right up my alley and I would always emerge with bags and bags of lace-paneled chiffons, low-rise skinny denims, psychedelic leopard print bags, or whatever was the hot rage at the time. I'd be carrying those feathery bags with a heavy heart. Why? Cos I had to eliminate something that also appealed to my insatiable sartorial appetite. An incurable fashion slut I was.

Hey, wait a minute. I don't want to drift off into a preachy self-assertion that I have renounced the love of clothes and am killing it with a minimalistic wardrobe of a nursing mom. (Read loose tracks and ill-fitted shirts). I still follow labels, snag the occasional deal on a smashing dress or two, maybe even overlook my wallet size once in a while. Minimalism is the new black they say. Oh, bite me! I enjoy the high of acquiring new things.

But what do you do when you buy a closet full of clothes bought on a whim or a fantastical holiday need and have to mass-purge every time you decide to clean your closet? There goes the weekend Mad Men marathon.

And therein lies the problem. Somewhere along the line, I ended up feeling consumed by the things I so dotingly devoured.

Long story short - I need a fashion consultant. Probably... But I figured that lusting for clothes and gawking at the Mango and FCUK mannequins like a sex offender is not the problem. The problem is when you walk out of that store with a bag of clothes that doesn't represent you or your idea of self-pride and happiness. 

Examples? Here they are:
 1. The Future Bombshell-Me Outfit: "If I get rid of this muffin top, I am going to kill it in this crop shirt. Just you wait."
2. The Imaginary Invite to the Red Carpet Event Gown: "Cos I know people who know people..."
3. Kate Moss Killed it in Head-to-toe Gold: "And so can I."
4. The Hot Trending, Traffic-stopping, Neon-Orange Pants: For God's sake, I know neon colors are in but don't join the fashion brigade just cos it's hot off the ramp. Think woman!

After some uncomfortable donations to my bai (Even she didn't have the stomach for metallic bandage dresses and knotted crop tops), I thought maybe I need to do away with the extraneous. So I decided to apply Graham Hill's principles of life-editing to my wardrobe.

Here's what you can do to make your life simpler and also feel a bit saintly (minus the abstinence of course):

1. Embrace yourself: Not to sound like Deepak Chopra but it's good to take stock of your assets and flaws before you splurge on a really expensive dress. A) If it's not right for you, it won't make you feel good.  B)You will procrastinate wearing it until it's a relic from the distant past.

2. Reality Check: Let's face it. Clothes cannot dictate how exciting your life should be so quit shopping to provide for the dream life you should be living. Are you a social butterfly or a recluse? If you don't see a lot of people frequently or work from home, maybe you can't warrant frequent wardrobe additions. Wean off shopping for a while to see if you can go without "committing the sartorial crime of repeating an outfit to a party"! And it helps if you can be creative and remix your existing outfits.

3. Downsizing: Edit your wardrobe to feature clothes that you absolutely adore and can't do without. If you have to shop, invest in good fits and neutral, earthy colors that can be teamed easily with other items. No I don't mean quit being experimental. Buy clothes with a twist; the little details matter!

4. Hunt it down: How often do we go shopping for something specific and find ourselves struggling to untether from other distractions? If you find yourself getting lured by a cute off-shoulder blouse instead of the black trousers you really need, just walk away from it with your dignity and credit limit intact. Instead, make it a shopping adventure to get what you really want. Take it from me...The chase is fun and the sense of conquest is exhilarating.

5. Sectional Assessment: If you carefully look at your giant elephant of a wardrobe, you will find that you have too much of a particular colour, cut, outfit type etc. Get rid of the boring patterns and save your shopping cravings to invest in something your wardrobe should really have and is perennially chic.

Ultimately, there are a lot of rules to editing your wardrobe fashionably, along with other sections of your life (Books, gadgets, friends even).You can trim it down a little or go for a complete overhaul. The aim should be to not have any retail indulgence to take a larger chunk of your life (and your garbage bin) than it's meant to. Who knows? Living with less can be more fulfilling than you give it credit for. Atleast you won't squander your weekend away appraising your wardrobe. After all, life's wilder than a closet full of shopping adventures...