Good Morning Lovelies, 

Mornings are not my thing! I have never been good at being woken up or having to get up early. From a young age, I struggled to function, yet give me something to do at night and I am all yours. In fact, many of these blog posts are written before I go to bed. Yet, recently I have tried to change this up a little bit.

For a long time, my routine has been wild. I have spent most of my nights up, when I should be resting, whilst wasting all of my morning snoozing in bed. Two things that I have struggled to deal with. I hate wasting the day and my head often tells me to change things and be better. However, with my mental health conditions making it hard, I find it tough to do so. 

Therefore, when the new year arrived, I decided that I wanted to change things, but at a slower and more steady pace. Going all in too quickly made me relapse a lot and I would fall back into old habits hard. By doing this, I have been able to change up my mornings for the better, so I thought it may be nice today to catch up a bit and share it with you lovelies…

9:30am - Wake Up: Previously, I would wake up at around 12:30pm, which actually really upset me. I hated feeling like I had wasted most of my day not doing anything, when I like to be productive. Therefore, I have worked with my mum to help me wake up earlier. I spend a bit of time after waking to get my head clear before I go about doing what I need to do each morning.

10:00am - Say Goodbye To My Mum: Being a nursery assistant, my mum leaves early in the morning to help cover the lunch breaks at her work. Every morning, we spend time together before she goes catching up on everything that we need to discuss and plotting down a little to-do list for me to help me function with her being gone. 

11am - Workout: This is the newest thing that I have added into my day. After six years, I have begun working out again and I won’t lie, it terrified me to do so. As someone who was previously addicted to exercise, I now dedicate only 35 minutes of my day to do a low impact HIIT style routine, with a little walk later in the day to meet my mum. I am really enjoying feeling my body move in different ways, with no weight loss intended. All I want to do is help tone and rebuild the parts of my body that I lost before. 

11:35am - Shower & Dress: As soon as my workout is over, I like to head straight into the shower and freshen up. Doing this also helps to make sure that my muscles relax, as I am currently rebuilding them and they can cramp or hurt easily if I don’t ease them out right after exercising. Once my shower is done, I pop on the clothes that I prepped the night before, adorn my favourite earrings, clean my teeth and spritz a bit of perfume on to help me feel fully human. 

12pm - Start Working On My To Do List: I am not a big breakfast person, so I often grab it a little bit later in the day. Due to this, I like to log on to my laptop and get to work on my do list right away. This often includes things that my mum needs me to do, as well as other important admin type jobs that make day to day living a lot easier. 

I will admit that I am in no way perfect with this routine and it definitely differs on the weekend, however, these big changes to my week have made me feel a whole lot better. Especially getting a little bit of exercise in, which helps me to clear my head in lots of different ways. 

There are a number of things I also still want to incorporate into my morning. One of those being reading more. I want to find a slot to just spend 30 solid minutes falling into a new world. I am hoping to do this during the time that I first wake up to say goodbye to my mum, as I think it will help me to see that I don’t have to get up and go go go all the time. 

Mornings will always be tough to me, so any tips that you may have in making them easier would be great to hear! Have you got a magic trick that will make me get up better? Let me know about it lovelies! 

Joey X