Monday:

Greetings and Salutations, Blog Readers!

Today I think I am starting a new experiment with sleep and health. I am going to be trying to wake up earlier, building on my morning I had today.

Basically, I woke up around quarter till 5, and then lay in bed contemplating what my life would be like if I became the kind of person who woke up earlier. I wondered if I would work out, if I would get writing done, and what my mornings could do to the rest of my day.

I thought about a new character, and what their name would be. I wondered if I would have a better mind for writing if I woke up earlier.

 I thought about how much I want to improve my health, and how if I woke up earlier, I would have time to stretch and do cardio, starting my day on a better note and prioritizing my health.

I got more done, and had a more peaceful morning, getting up when I did. Sure, I lay in bed for an hour, but I still got up well before my usual time, and before my first alarm. The extra 30-45 minutes gave me time for a peaceful morning where I could get some stuff done, and set my intention for the morning, along with get to work early, which allowed me to start the week on a better note.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that while it may be hard to get up earlier, I have been waking up naturally around 5 anyways, and then force myself back to sleep, just to be incredibly tired and groggy by 6, which has me hitting my snooze until 6:30.

This is a terrible waste of time and energy. Time spent not sleeping, but also not doing anything else, just chasing sleep, and then ending up more tired.

Silly.

But I am also not great at getting up early. I am getting better, but, I am not where I want to be.

My health, and writing are also not where I want them to be, however, and giving myself an extra hour could very well solve that problem.

And so, this week begins my attempts and waking up earlier and seeing what I can make happen in my week.

Tuesday:

Today, I got up even earlier, and much more intentionally, despite a long night of very little sleep.

I got out of bed before 5:30, and after doing my morning teeth/skin/hair routine, I promptly changed into some clothing, and hopped on the cardio bike. I did 6 miles in thirty minutes, after stretching, and then did a brief stretch after. I went downstairs, made coffee, fed the dogs, and was already fairly ready for the day, so I got to the office about 20 minutes early. Yes, I do work from home, but I was logged on and at my desk early, which gave me time to catch up on emails and messages, run back downstairs and make a delicious breakfast and then get back to the busy, hectic morning I had.

I feel great, much less tired than I thought I would feel, and I was able to get more done. I have been trying to use my lunch breaks for doing chores and a workout, and today I was able to wash the dishes, grab some fruit, and dive into writing, working on this blog, and yes, more “Flake City” related stuff. All in all, a very big win in the world of Abbi Grasso. I have managed to work out, and I am drinking tons of water, and I am feeling better.

Maybe, just maybe, my life can actually involve me getting up early and being productive.

Kind of wild to imagine.

I will update tomorrow with how the quest to get up earlier all week goes. So far, very good.

Wednesday:

Well today marked the day it was hard to get out of bed. My eyes struggled to open, my body yelled that it wanted more sleep.

I did some things to counter this, that offer you, my dear readers, now, to see if it would help you.

One: I took off my sleep mask. I have a lamp across the room, which turns on automatically at 5, (actually it slowly turns on from 5-5:15), so I took my sleep mask off, to stop me from dozing back off.

Two: Thought about how good it had felt to get up early, Monday and Tuesday.

Three: I thought about how much I wanted my life to be better in terms of health and writing. Getting up earlier has been good for me, hell, yesterday I not only worked out, I wrote, not just blogs, but more fictional writing. I finally launched into Flake City (outside of Flake City) content- I am finally writing from the perspective of a character I have had in my mind for a while. I have a cast of characters, and their various stories, of how the zombie outbreak impacts them, and I want so badly to keep writing those. Getting up early allows me to not only do that, but to fit in a workout, and my health means a lot to me.

Four: I drank some water from my water bottle, big gulps, which reminded my bladder that I had to get up anyways, and, that even if I were to try and stay in bed, I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep with the feeling of needing to pee. This, I must say, helps more and more the older you get.

I then got up, put on clothes, did my morning routine, and, still blinking sleep from my eyes, began to stretch. I thought about how much I wanted coffee. I got on the bike, I pushed myself to go faster than yesterday, my goal of getting back to my old pace in sight, I got just shy of 7 miles in half an hour, and worked up a good sweat.

I went downstairs, got some water, made coffee, and even made a nice breakfast of Gyeran Bap before work started. (Gyeran Bap is my new favorite easy breakfast, it’s basically eggs on top of rice (I do brown rice) with chives, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Today I did red onion instead of chives, and it was delightful. I ate my breakfast while I checked my morning emails and handled various tasks, and my day started better than I could have imagined based on how tired I was.

I took a sleep aid last night, because the night before that I had tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. I wonder if this contributed to my exhaustion. I had taken one on Sunday night, and wasn’t that tired Monday, and then didn’t take it Monday and wasn’t groggy Tuesday.

I guess we shall see what I do tonight. Tomorrow is Thursday. Over halfway through with the work week and this experiment. I know I will sleep in this weekend, because that reward is a good one, but, so far, I think I may keep this up. It is very good to know I have my work out done, and that I am taking care of my health, and it is wonderful to have the mental clarity from that and the added time to actually work on my writing in a fashion that I want.

We shall see what tomorrow brings.

Thursday:

I stayed up later than usual last night, so this morning came earlier than I wanted it to, but, I was able to get up, get ready, and start stretching by 5:30- I was on my stationary bike by 5:45, and logged just shy of 7 miles again. If I had gotten up earlier, I could have probably pushed forward and done an hour, but, I do want to make sure I have time in the morning to do my morning stuff, like make coffee, feed the dogs, and cool off before starting work. I also like to try and cook breakfast before work, but today, even though I woke up hungry, my appetite faded after my workout, so I didn’t make breakfast until a little later.

Either way, I managed to do a good stretch, and then bike a bit. I should probably be biking harder, but with only thirty minutes, I have to warm up and cool down. Clearly, the lesson on the work out side of this is that I need to be up earlier so I can fit in a full hour on the bike, so I can get back to my higher numbers.

I never thought I would say this, but I do miss getting 14-20 miles in a day.

So, Day Four of waking up early is going well. I am waiting till tomorrow to decide if I want to make this my new weekly thing, but I do think my life is improving doing it. Despite thinking I would be hungry, I have actually been able to stay awake and not feel drained. I have also been making some better choices, motivated perhaps from the way I start my day.

I have been mostly drinking more water (today I am slacking, work has been crazy but I am working on it) I have been doing better with portion control, eating a little healthier overall too, and, I will say-

I have heard many times that working out in the morning makes you feel better because you did that big task earlier and also the way your literally feel better physically – and I hate to admit that is actually right.

So, I will reserve judgment on tomorrow if I am gonna keep doing this, but I think I do like the results I am seeing.

We will see if I manage to get up early tomorrow, big day- FRIDAY.

Friday:

Well folks, my wonderful blog readers, we made it to Friday!!

Work finished early today because we smashed our sales goal this month, so we did a quick teams call and then ended early, a few of us stuck around for a bit, myself included, but then I also was puttering. I am in the middle of all of my cleaning for the day. For those who don’t know, I do most of my cleaning on Friday so I can enjoy a clean house for the weekend and not feel obligated to clean on my wonderful time off. I can instead use my two days to garden, relax, and do whatever errands or whatever that I need to take care of.

Anyways, I also biked this morning! I did 7 miles, and I could have probably went for an hour, but I wanted to have a few minutes to drink some coffee and get my head sorted for the day.

But, I did, once again, wake up early. I was stretching by 5:30- I got up at 5:15, did my morning routine, and successfully started by 5:30.

I feel great for having worked out all week, and I do feel healthier for my efforts. I think I may record how it goes again next week, partially to hold myself accountable, and partially to make sure I know how each day goes, and then decide for sure a new schedule for doing this- I haven’t quite figured out the time to wake up and the amount to work out, so I will continue to fine tune this next week, and we shall see how it goes.

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Thanks for reading!