When coffee isn't the answer

I was feeling a little sleepy when I started writing this morning. My yawns, deep and cavernous kept swallowing up my thoughts in a drowsy fog. Slowly my eyelids would close and as I struggled to open them my eyes watered. Coffee I thought! That will wake me up without a doubt. Needless to say I had already had one with breakfast, but apparently this morning I needed two. Maybe it was the grey day, with the sounds of rain softly tapping on the metal roof. It could have been the warm humid air that I was breathing into my body that made it feel like it hadn’t woken up yet. On the way to the coffee machine I had one of those aha moments. That was it; my body hadn’t woken up yet!

Moving your body first thing in the morning increases oxygen consumption and gets your blood flowing. The increased blood flow to the brain causes the release of endorphins that give a sense of well-being. This is what provides that feeling of being energized for the day that I just didn’t have when I flicked on the coffee machine. Realising this, as the water was warming I briskly walked around the house. Then I grabbed some weights. By around circuit 10 I was dancing. In the end, I had woken myself to the point that I really didn’t need that coffee.
In reality, there are many mornings when I wake, but struggle to get out of bed. Then the groggy feeling clouds my mind for the first part of the day. So is setting the alarm clock early for tomorrow for a quick lap of the block or some yoga moves worth it? I think so!