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Is it sometimes difficult to be as present to and with your children as you would like in the morning? Is your attention scattered or sometimes distracted by all the things calling your name in those moments? Let's look at how aromatherapy can help you be more present and grounded during the mom moments in your mornings...  More Present for Mom Moments For grounded moments at home with your children and family, I suggest clary sage essential oil... Clary sage carries spiritual timelessness within itself — a second could be a year, a year could be a second — and brings the realization that it’s how much love we can pour into a second that counts. Clary sage Encourages calm, confidence, grounding, regeneration, tranquility, revitalization, balance, and restoration. - Aromatherapy for the Soul If you're going to be at home, and would like a delightful fragrance to blend it with, add lemon or lime to the diffuser. But since they are both citrus oils, and can cause photosensitivity, avoid them when you know you'll be leaving the house. How do you stay grounded and present in moments with your family? Have you ever tried clary sage? Have a good weekend! Love, Jeanine ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ For more help with mornings, take the morning routine quiz. It will help you identify what challenges you most about your morning routine, and recommend where to start as you begin to take back your mornings. You also will find out how to access my cozy aromatherapy guide, free of charge. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
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You've just started to meditate or pray. And suddenly, in the distance, you hear the sound of the TV playing a cartoon. Or, you hear your spouse laughing with the kids. Or, that knock on the door. I know you don't have much time in the morning, and you don't want to waste it wishing for silence or an ability to tune out when noise happens. Let's talk about how to get centered enough to have a deeper quiet time or meditation experience...  Centered and Grounded Sandalwood essential oil is ideal for helping you get into a meditative state, and can help whether you are meditating or having a quiet time. It blends well with ylang ylang essential oil, which also is deeply relaxing. Go easy with the latter one. Just a drop on a cotton ball will be more than enough. You may want to keep sandalwood's scent subtle as well, so just a couple of drops in your diffuser should be plenty. Have you tried using sandalwood, before? Let me know in a comment. See you tomorrow! Love, Jeanine ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ For more help with mornings, take the morning routine quiz. It will help you identify what challenges you most about your morning routine, and recommend where to start as you begin to take back your mornings. Plus, when you watch the video, you'll find out how to try some warmer and cozier essential oil blend recipes for mornings. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ If you're not a morning person, you may find that when stress hits in the morning, it's harder to seal with than at any other time in your day. If that's so, create a self-care plan to soothe stress away in those moments, and let aromatherapy help...  Calming Down After Stress There are several essential oils you might use to return to peace after a stressful morning, or even after one moment of god-awful stress. (1) For its soothing, feels-like-a-hug properties, I'd choose lavender essential oil. (2) In a situation where the moment has passed, but a problem remains, and you want to let go of worry or cheer up for a moment, I'd choose orange essential oil. And they both play nicely with each other. Remember, though, that because orange is a citrus oil, you have to avoid photosensitivity. Choose lavender, instead, on any day you will be leaving the house. Have you ever used lavender or orange after a stressful moment? See you next time! Love, Jeanine ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ For more help with mornings, take the morning routine quiz. It will help you identify what challenges you most about your morning routine, and recommend where to start as you begin to take back your mornings. You also will find out how to access my cozy aromatherapy guide, free of charge. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Are you a stay at home mom who is frequently tired in the mornings, and often interrupted just when you find a minute to get something done? Maybe even the thought of getting things done is too much sometimes, so how can you find both the motivation and the focus to stay on task until the to-do list is done? Having a morning routine that creates space for the things you need to do can help, but then you actually have to do them, and that can be where the trouble is. Morning aromatherapy can help...  Morning Aromatherapy to the Rescue If I had to recommend one oil that you could use to get things done, and stay on task, it would be lemon essential oil. Lemon is an gives you an uplifting and centering fragrance and an essential oil that can help to clarify your focus and deepen concentration. I recommend inhalation - in a diffuser, or on a tissue or cotton ball - as the best way to use it. Because it can be irritating to the skin, it's not safe to use it topically, unless you dilute it. And speaking of dilution, never use an essential oil neat. Some will be more irritating than others, but any essential oil can hurt you if used topically without diluting it first. As a citrus oil, lemon also can create photosensitivity, so if you are heading out soon into the sunshine, you may want to wait to use it until you are back inside for the day. By the way, it blends well with rosemary, another essential oil that is often used for staying focused and on task. See you tomorrow! Love, Jeanine ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
For more help with mornings, take the morning routine quiz. It will help you identify what challenges you most about your morning routine, and recommend where to start as you begin to take back your mornings. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Do You Have Difficulty Getting Going |
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Some of you reading this post are old blog challenge friends, but for those of you who are new, welcome! I'm Jeanine.
I'm an author & lifestyle and faith blogger, writing here at Meet Jeanine about slow living, slow faith & slow morning routines. Every few months, when possible, I join other bloggers for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. |
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The Ultimate Blog Challenge
The Ultimate Blog Challenge, led fearlessly by Paul Taubman, happens several times a year, in January, April, July and October. The challenge is to write a blog post every day of the month and post it in the Facebook group so the other bloggers can love on it.
I love getting to meet new bloggers and see old friends each time. I've been participating off and on for about 10 years now.
Join us! It really helps with traffic, which is one of the things I love most about it, in addition to the experience, itself.
Morning Aromatherapy
This month's blog posts, here at Meet Jeanine, will be brought to you by the letters M and A, for Morning Aromatherapy. What is morning aromatherapy? I'm glad you asked.
Morning aromatherapy is the use of essential oils to transform your experience of mornings.
And I like the idea of making mornings cozy, so here, I'll be talking about cozy morning aromatherapy, which does the main job of making mornings easier, but also has a side hustle - it adds coziness and comfort to the mix.
I invite you back this month to learn more about it, especially if you struggle with mornings.
By the way, in the middle of the month, we'll be doing a 7-day morning yoga challenge, for beginners (like me) who aren't sure they could add a sequence to their morning routine, but are willing to try one pose a day. And each day, there will be a recommended essential oil blend to deepen & support your experience.
See you tomorrow!
Love, Jeanine
Do you long to pursue a slower lifestyle, but worry that you don't have enough time to make it work? I suspect this is a common reason slow living remains in the wish stage.
Slow down? I don't get enough done as it is!
Slow living asks you to make more time for what matters most. But what if it feels like there's no way you can do that right now?
It's always my suggestion that you start small and make gradual changes. It creating a slower lifestyle is going to be possible, this is likely to be the easiest way to find out and then, to do so.
And speaking of wishes long deferred, let's look at morning routines. Maybe your dream morning routine would require a lot more time than you have to spare, as a busy stay at home mom.
But what if you only had to find ten minutes? Here are 5 ideas for a ten-minute morning routine for moms, and one way to create a morning routine that combines them...
5 Ideas for Creating a 10-Minute
Morning Meditation Routine
As an added bonus to immersing myself in the moment, meditating for 10 minutes a day helped me develop a writing habit, a reading habit, a journaling habit, and a happier and healthier life. Simply put, meditation changed my life — and it could change yours too.
– Blake Powell in The Mission, Medium.com
I know. I have heard it, too. That if you really want to benefit from creating a meditation practice, you’ll need more time.
But as stay at home moms, we may not have more time. Should we give up and call it a day? I don’t think so.
You deserve to take time each day to get grounded and centered. Even if you only have ten minutes.
Here's how...
(1) The easiest way might be to simply sit quietly for ten minutes, focusing on breathing deeply and slowly.
(2) You also could meditate on chosen words or phrases, or affirmations, like “breathing in peace,” or “I am centered and grounded,” or “God is with me.”
(3) Your ten-minute meditation could be a walking meditation, spent quietly observing nature.
(4) You could use a guided meditation that is only ten minutes long.
(5) You might spend your ten-minute meditation imagining a peaceful scene, and picturing yourself there. If the weather outside is frightful, staying in and imagining it, instead, might be better.
There are endless variations on these ideas and other ones you can try. The main thing to know is that you don’t have to give up on meditating just because you don’t have much time.
Taking time out to pause during a busy morning will always be a good idea even if that amount of time is short.
And on the weekend, you can give yourself more time to meditate.
On a slow lifestyle Saturday, you could meditate on an intention you have set for your life, and give yourself time to imagine it manifesting, taking in every detail you can think of and really placing yourself there, right in the middle of it.
On your Self Care Sunday, you could meditate on a scene from the past week, taking the time to imagine and practice endless variations of how it could have gone differently.
What if I had said that, instead? Or, what if I had felt more confident, peaceful, or empowered?
Telling yourself a better version of the story and practicing it in meditation may help you create different outcomes in situations that come up in the future.
Or, you can take time during your Sunday morning meditation to dream up everything you want to experience during the following week. Let yourself see and feel it, as you imagine your intentions for the week coming true.
What do you hope will be your best moments in the week to come?
How might you sail through any challenges that come your way?
Giving yourself more time to meditate each weekend gives you the benefit of longer meditation times on days when you’re more likely to find the time to do it. And to enjoy it.
7 Ideas for Creating a 10-Minute Morning Quiet Time Retreat
First, find a place for some quiet and then make yourself go there. It could be a place outdoors, a secluded room in your house, or even a quiet walk in the neighbourhood. The best part about the ten minutes is that it can be anything. During my brief time on the bench I did an examen. You could sit in silence, do centering prayer, ask God a question, or just vent to God.
– Ten Minute Retreat, GodinAllThings.com
Is it ever difficult for you to find time in your morning for a quiet time with God? And when you do take the time, is it hard not to hear that voice in your head that reminds you of what else needs to be done?
As a stay at home mom, I know this struggle all too well. I’ve often decided that there wasn’t time, that I was way too tired to pay attention long enough, or whatever excuse occurred to my tired, beleagured mind in those moments.
But an alternative, on days when it feels like there just isn’t enough time, is to have a shorter quiet time. Here are several things you can do when you only have five or ten minutes…
(1) Read your devotional
(2) Read a chapter in your Bible
(3) Pray a psalm to God
(4) Sing a worship song or hymn
(5) Pray about anything coming up that day that concerns you
(6) Do a brief meditation during which you plug into God’s presence and connect with his love for you
(7) In your journal, write a brief note about any insights that came to you during the activity you chose, whether that was singing, reading the Bible, praying or something else.
Creating a 10-minute quiet time whenever you need one will take away the pressure to spend more time than you have, and free you from worrying about getting it done. But because you love God, you’re likely to long to keep spending time with him.
If you really can’t, though, there are three possible solutions I want to suggest.
One is to set a gentle timer that will go off as you get close to the ten-minute limit.
Another is to have a second and longer quiet time, whenever possible, during a slower evening routine, after the kids are in bed.
The third is to plan for and spend more time with God during your weekends. Here are several ideas for how to do that.
For your slow lifestyle Saturday, give yourself more time with God.
Dig into a Bible passage that is likely to offer wisdom or insight about the week that just ended, or guidance and encouragement for the week ahead.
On Self Care & Sabbath Sunday, give yourself a longer quiet time with God and dedicate the day to resting in him. Ask him for guidance about how to spend your time, and then, listen for what he knows will be most nurturing to you that day.
If you have gone to church that day, journal about anything from that day’s sermon that you’re still thinking about, or want to talk over with God.
Also, write about any challenges you experienced during the week, looking for times when you tried to carry those burdens or solve those problems yourself, instead of trusting God with them.
Hand them over retroactively, and listen for any insights or words of healing about the week you are leaving behind. Write it all down in your journal.
Praise him for all the ways he was there for you during the week and ask for his guidance during the week to come.
9 Ideas for a 10-Minute Morning
Journal Routine
Meditation, visualization, prayer, and journaling are all powerful activities that go very well together. But the journaling portion is where you solidify, clarify, affirm, and strategize your insights, goals, and plans. This morning journaling session only needs to be 5-15 minutes. – Benjamin Hardy,
Ph.D, in Better Humans, Medium.com
Is starting a journal one of the things you have wanted to add to your morning routine?
If one of the reasons you haven’t yet done it is that you don’t feel like you have enough time to dedicate to it each morning, the 10-minute idea may be a solution. On mornings when there just wasn’t enough time – even if that was every morning – you wouldn’t reject journaling altogether, you’d just spend a great deal less time writing.
And then, you’d have weekends, if you needed them, to make up for lost time.
Here are several ways to try a 10-minute morning journal routine…
(1) Create a self-care bullet journal and use it in several different ways…
-To write yourself brief love notes or affirmations when time is short.
-To set intentions for the day.
-To prioritize the intentions you’ve already set
-To jot down reminders you want to make sure you don’t forget during your busy morning.
(2) Use your other journal, but set a timer that gentle lets you know your time is almost up.
-Do stream of consciousness writing about whatever comes to mind.
-Choose a topic for exploration and write down any thoughts that come up during that time.
-Think about what is coming up for you that day and write possible solutions for any challenges you know you’ll face.
-Write down any insights you gained during brief moments of meditation or prayer.
-Write a brief story about how you would like for the day to go, and what would be the best outcomes you can imagine for all that you have planned.
Several of these will tempt you to spend more time than you have, especially at first, but you’ll be surprised at how easily you get used to journaling in short, brief bursts. And you can promise yourself you will get back to it when you have more time on the weekends.
During slow lifestyle Saturdays, you can give yourself more time to write. Journal about your dreams for your life. How can you nurture & support them in the days to come?
Think about any ongoing problems that don’t yet have a solution. Writing about them may help you think of one.
Use your Self Care Sunday to journal about the week you are leaving behind, and give yourself plenty of time to think things through and then, let them go. Brainstorm ways to handle any tricky situations that may be coming up in the week ahead, and set your intentions for the coming week.
The Ten-Minute Tea Time
With a cup of tea, we are invited to relax into all of ourselves, not letting the busy mind run the show. Allow any questions, reflections, or contemplations, but set aside to-dos for later. Keep breathing deeply, savoring your tea and any chosen mindful activity, landing ever more in the refuge of the present moment. – Katy Taylor, PlumDeluxe.com
My morning cup of tea is one of my favorite parts of my morning routine! But sometimes, commitments I have made for my morning keep me from having the full tea experience I want, with my great big cup of tea.
On those mornings, I make a much smaller cup; one that I can drink fairly quickly, instead of lingering over it to savor it as I usually do.
And sometimes, it’s the next day before I can get back to my regular big cup routine.
Do you love tea, too?
If you do, then, instead of skipping your cup of tea on your busiest mornings, just make a smaller cup. That way, you still get to have it, even though it isn’t the normal amount you are used to drinking.
On your slow living Saturday and Self Care Sunday, you could make a pot of tea and give yourself time to savor each cup, while reading or writing in your journal.
Or sip while watching the trees blow gently from your perch on the front porch.
The 10-Minute Morning Yoga Routine
My biggest complaint, that I was just too busy to do yoga regularly, went right out the window when all I had to commit to was 10 minutes. Even on days when I didn't have time to settle down until 10:00 or 11:00 at night, I could still stretch before bed. This is a good lesson that goes beyond yoga—making time for something that's important isn't actually impossible.
- Kasandra Brabaw, Prevention.com
Here are several links you can click to learn more about creating a 10-minute morning yoga routine...
(1)From Subtle Yogi
(2) Early Morning Yoga from JP Thomas
And here are ideas for yoga on the weekends...
During a slow living Saturday morning, you might go to a live yoga class and meet up with friends who could take the class with you and then, go get coffee afterward. Or, you might do a kids yoga routine with your children.
Or on Self Care Sunday, you might find a longer routine online you’d like to try, and you can give yourself more time that day to do the yoga sequence or poses.
What if you could combine some or most of these morning routine ideas into one ten-minute self-care routine for those days when you want as much goodness in your morning as possible?
7 Ideas for a 10-Minute Self Care
Morning Routine
“Slowing down and starting a self-care practice is one of the best ways to shift the energy of your entire day. Before you dive into all your obligations, deadlines and must-do’s for the day, allow yourself ten minutes to not have a single care in the world...” – EpicMatcha.com
(1) Light a tealight candle
(2) Put the pot on to make a cup of tea
(3) Do a brief meditation or some deep breathing while the pot is heating up.
(4) Say your affirmations while the tea is steeping.
(5) While sipping your tea, visualize the day you want to have & briefly, describe it as an intention in your journal.
(6) As you begin to conclude this self-care ritual, make a wish for your day.
(7) Then, blow out your candle
Repeat this self-care ritual on the weekends, but give yourself more time for each step, and include as many of the other ideas for a slow morning weekend routine as you would like.
Did you get some great ideas for a ten-minute morning routine you would like to try? Let me know in a comment.
See you next time!
Love, Jeanine
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Does your daily schedule or morning routine need a
makeover? Take The Morning Routine Quiz and
find out if it does, how much, and how and
where to get started taking back your mornings.
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Slow parenting is basically about learning how to stop the rush and prioritize quality over quantity when it comes to family time. In other words, it’s about making an effort to slow down versus always hurrying kids along from one activity to the next. - Rachel Bowie, PureWow.com
Slow parenting cherishes quality over quantity, being in the moment, and making meaningful connections with your family.
- Jaci Conry, Boston Globe
As moms, we all talk about how quickly life moves when our children are young. We don't want to miss a moment, because we know we won't get it back.
But sometimes, it's what some have called the glorification of busy that makes us miss quality time with our kids. In a rush to get things done, and give our children all the things, we over schedule both ourselves and them. And miss the moments we say we want to cherish.
The solution is slow parenting. It's about shifting our focus from what still needs to be done to how we can spend more quality time with our families and create meaningful moments with our children in the time we have.
As a concept, slow parenting has been a silent companion in our discussions of creating a slower lifestyle, being more present to and with your family, and creating morning and routines that give you time for what matters most. But I wanted to create this short and sweet post just to give it its own focus.
We'll return to it, in the days and weeks and months to come. But in a nutshell, slow parenting is the best motivation for slowing life down as a mom.
Slow parents give their children plenty of time and space to explore the world on their own terms. They keep the family schedule under control so that everyone has enough downtime to rest, reflect and just hang out together. Slow parenting means allowing our children to work out who they are rather than what we want them to be. -Carl Honore, NYTimes interview
Slow parenting is organic, it’s ever-evolving — the only essential is that families carve out time to connect. - Jaci Conry, Boston Globe
See you next time!
Love, Jeanine
Love, Jeanine
What Every Cozy Book Nook Needs
Welcoming comfort. Your cozy reading room or nook needs to become a haven of comfort so that you find yourself wanting to stay a while.
As sat at home moms, we so rarely large pockets of time to ourselves. So the scene needs to be set already, waiting for you to step right in, pick up where you left off and get right back to reading time.
Slowing life down, or creating a slower lifestyle in the larger sense, happens in moments. And you can empower them by making your home a place that invites you and your family to stop and rest. To pause for a moment.
Silent support for the slow living lifestyle you want to create.
Each member of your family deserves that feeling of welcome, and a cozy space - in addition to the bedroom - that feels like a haven made just for him or her. The cozy reading room can be one of those spaces, and can be furnished in such a way that it serves the whole family, if all of you love to read.
Be sure to personalize it in ways that reflect each family member.
But start with the basics to create a foundation of coziness everyone can enjoy. These basics are an essential way to get started and then, anything else you add will be icing on the cake.
Here are the 9 essentials...
(1) The ultimate in comfy seating: a chair and a half or a sink-deep comfy sofa.
(2) Great lighting: a floor lamp right next to the reading spot, and additional lighting in an overhead lamp, or table lamp somewhere else in the room.
(3) Big windows and a lovely view: for letting in light, but also maintaining a connection to nature during those moments when you lift your gaze from whatever you're reading. No view? Add art.
(4) A bookcase with plenty of room for your collection of reading material. But I suggest creating some spaces on the bookcase so that it's not just a wall of books, so your room feels more spacious.
(5) And end table next to your chair or sofa, with enough room for your latest stack of books to rest right next to you.
(6) Space for a cuppa, on your end table, for reading with your favorite beverage within easy reach.
(7) A comfy throw to snuggle under for warmth, nearby whenever you need it.
(8) A fluffy, fat, comfy pillow to lean against while you're reading.
(9) Your favorite candle to add warmth, scent and just the right mood.
The Cozy Reading Room Checklist
See you next time!
Love, Jeanine
As a stay at home mom, finding time for yourself can be a challenge. In fact, whole days can easily go by in a blink, unplanned, if we let them.
 | Slow living, as a philosophy, encourages you to live according to your values and set intentions for the way you will choose to spend your time. To reject busyness as a virtue and to slow life down to spend more time with those you love, doing what you love. But what does that look like, practically speaking? Here are 20 slow living routine ideas for stay at home moms & slow lifestyle families. |
Choose a few that appeal to you, that you and your family can try. Use them to create more time for yourself, and more time to spend with those who matter most to you.
10-Minute Ideas for a Slow Morning Routine
(1) Linger over a cup of your favorite tea each morning.
(2) Add ten minutes of meditation to your morning routine.
(3) Do a yoga or stretching sequence each morning.
(4) Take ten minutes each morning to write in your self-care journal.
5 Slow Living Routine Ideas for Evenings
(5) Spend time connecting with your kids after school, instead of chauffering them each day to one activity after another.
(6) Let go of one commitment that doesn't serve you & replace it with a daily or weekly activity that matches your values, like spending time with friends or family.
(7) At least once a week, eat dinner as a family without any electronic guests.
(8) Create time to read each night as part of your wind-down routine.
(9) Make a cup of lavender or chamomile tea each night to help yourself relax and unwind.
(10) Before getting up in the morning, identify your top 3 priorities.
(11) Take five minutes between one activity and the next each day to breathe deeply and slowly.
(12) Create a wind-down time each evening that helps you let go of daily stress & become sleepy enough for bedtime.
9 Weekend Ideas for a Slow Living Routine
(13) Bake cookies with your kids each Saturday afternoon for a slow living Saturday.
(14) Eat a slow cooker meal once a weekend with your family.
(15) Take the kids to see their grandparents each Friday night & have a weekly date night with your spouse.
(16) Each week, get together with your friends for a weekly game night.
(17) Have a weekly weekend movie night with your family.
(18) During your Self Care Sundays, set intentions for the following week.
(19) Create a brief letting go ritual & do that at the end of each day and at the end of each week.
(20) Create a capsule wardrobe, so each Sunday, it will be easy to plan next week's outfits.
(21) Bonus idea: set intentions for the week each Sunday and write them in your journal.
Which ones appeal to you most? Tell me in a comment below.
See you next time!
Love, Jeanine
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Get more ideas about how to create a slower
lifestyle for yourself & your family by
downloading my free Slow Living eBook.
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Are mornings difficult for you? Are you a night owl (and tired mama) whose kids wake up bright-eyed long before you’re ready to admit it's morning again?
I've put together the ultimate guide to creating your perfect morning routine and you can read it right here. It's a morning routine guide for moms who want happier mornings not just for themselves, but also, for their families.
Ready? Let's get started…
Lifelong Night Owl Tales of Woe
On the one hand, morning 'larks' prefer getting up and going to bed early, and are at their peak performance early in the day. On the other hand, night 'owls' like sleeping in and staying up late, and don’t perform well until afternoon or evening. - Psychology Today
A night owl is someone who not only prefers to be up later at night, but functions better later in the day or evening, and does not do so well early in the morning. Sleeping in works better for them.
A typical preferred schedule for a night owl might be going to sleep around 2 or 3 in the morning and waking up around 11 a.m. or noon. Is that similar to the schedule you would choose, if you could?
For night owls, going to bed at what seems like the right time, often leaves them lying awake, wishing they could fall asleep.
And then they frequently glance at the clock, still awake, and recalculate how much sleep they’ll get if they fall asleep soon. But they don’t fall asleep soon, because they can't.
I am all too familiar with this struggle.
I was born just before midnight, and I suspect I have struggled to go to sleep on time ever since. I remember lots of childhood nights, lying awake well past the time I went to bed, bored, and wishing I could be in the family room, watching TV with my parents. I could hear the faint sounds of whatever they were watching, and those sounds called to me.
My mother seemed surprised and annoyed each time she came to check on me, and found with my eyes open, still wide awake. She didn’t know what to do to fix it, and neither did I.
I know I did not get enough sleep during my childhood. Did you?
Children who are wide awake at bedtime and sleepy the next morning, often grow up to be adults who struggle to conform to the cultural norms of going to bed at a reasonable hour, and then getting up in time to go to work, or begin the day with their own wide-awake children.
Has that been your experience? It certainly was mine.
When my work days began at 8:30 or 9:00, I struggled nearly every day to make it work. I’d fall asleep right after David Letterman said, “wake the kids and call the neighbors.”
And the next morning would find me struggling to wake up, feeling like I was moving through molasses as I tried to get ready as quickly as possible so I wouldn’t be late. Eventually, I was eating in the car, and putting on my makeup, during the half hour drive to work just to try to give myself a better chance of getting there a minute before I’d be late.
Once my son became my personal alarm clock, the struggle continued, just in a different way. He was bright-eyed and bushy tailed, eager to hang out with his mommy, and I could barely open my eyes.
What is the solution for those of us who struggle with an early-morning wake-up call? Many night owls try to become a morning person.
Become a Morning Person?
There is lots of advice out there about how to become a morning person, but is that really possible? You can wake up earlier, start your day earlier, and decide to go to bed earlier at night, but can you become a morning person?
Based on what the experts say, I think not.
Most people can’t simply switch wake up and bed times, because their bodies won’t allow them to. Our circadian rhythm is controlled by a tiny area in our brains, the suprachiasmatic nucleus. -Dr. Nathaniel Watson, co-director of the University of Washington Medicine Sleep Centre, incoming president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. -BBC
But it is possible to get to the point where you are waking up in the morning, naturally, without an alarm, at your ideal wake-up time.
Your Ideal Wake-Up Time
Do you know what your ideal wake-up time is? Though it is less likely to be an exact time on the dot than a general range of time, it provides for the amount of time you need each morning.
That sounds simple, but for those who struggle with getting up on time, or with getting ready as quickly as we need to in order to be ready for our obligations, it may not be simple at all.
And I’m not saying that your ideal morning time is your preferred wake-up time. But it is the time that would make your morning life, and your mom life, run the most smoothly.
What’s your ideal? It may be affected by the time you go to bed, because functioning your best, on any given morning, is likely to depend on sleeping enough and sleeping well the night before.
Do you struggle to get to bed or to sleep on time? That would push your ideal wake-up time forward in a flexible schedule. But if it’s not as flexible, then we need to get you a better night's sleep.
Your Best Night's Sleep
For night owls, what constitutes getting to bed or to sleep on time may be different than it is for morning larks, those who love mornings. And if you don’t work outside the home, getting up early enough to go to work on time is not an issue.
Plus, there’s no universally agreed upon best time for going to bed and falling asleep. But whatever late turns out to be, for you, it will deny you the sleep you need.
| So the goal becomes whatever time gets you better sleep and enough of it. But with no agreed upon standards, your ideal bedtime will be based on your lifestyle and needs. If you’re a mom, it also will be based on what time your children wake up, what time school starts or homeschool begins, and when you need to sleep in order to be your best during their mornings. |  |
What is Your Ideal Bedtime?
Experts suggest that we need 7 to 9 hours of sleep in order to function optimally and be at our most healthy. So, in order to find your ideal sleep time, you need to know when your ideal wake-up time is.
If it takes you a while to “yawn and stretch and try to come to life,” (Dolly Parton, Nine to Five theme song) then your wake-up time probably needs to happen before your kids get going in the morning. How long does it take you to wake up properly and be ready to roll?
And what time do your children wake up? If it takes you an hour or two to be functional, then you’ll need to get up an hour or two before your children do, and be asleep 7 to 9 hours before then. That hour is your ideal bedtime.
It may take some experimenting to find those numbers. And you may need more time in the morning than you think.
Does it need to work out perfectly? Perfection may not be possible.
I find that I need to be awake and out of bed at least 3 hours before my son wakes up – probably because I am also an introvert – and now that he’s a teenager, and we start our homeschool day later in the morning, that works out well.
But when he was younger, I couldn’t make that work, and had to settle for 2 hours when I really needed three.
So aim for the best combination of sleep time and waking up, and then make the very best of whatever way it shakes out in practice.
And once you have your ideal bedtime and wake-up times in mind, the problem becomes getting yourself to sleep at that time, if you’re a night owl. What’s the best way to get to sleep at that time?
Well, you may have heard or read that getting to sleep on time will become much easier if you back away from your devices an hour or more before you want to go to sleep.
Ninety percent of people in the U.S. admit to using a technological device during the hour before turning in, and children often use electronic media to help them relax at night. If you’re among these nighttime technology-users, you may not realize the extent to which this can make it harder to settle down to sleep. But it can. The truth is, using electronic devices before bedtime can be physiologically and psychologically stimulating in ways that can adversely affect your sleep. -National Sleep Foundation
I found this to be true in my own life. I had just moved, and had to wait a week before my cable appointment. Plus, no one came at the scheduled time, which added another 2 weeks of being without my favorite TV shows!
But here’s what happened that surprised me.
I found that without having the TV on all night, it was easy to go to bed a couple of hours earlier than I normally did. And not only that, I would go to bed, thinking I’d probably read for an hour or so, and find myself getting sleepy in 20 minutes or less.
It was so easy. I got more sleep, and woke up earlier than I had been getting up before the move. So, to be honest, I felt ambivalent about finally getting everything set up with cable.
Would I be able to stick to my new schedule once those late night shows were available? I knew the answer was probably going to be no, and I was right.
TV can be irresistibly tempting. But it also, apparently, throws off your sleep biology and will make it harder to go to sleep at the time you have chosen.
Unless you are able to talk yourself into turning it off ahead of time.
But once you’ve turned off the TV, stepped away from the computer, and put your phone aside, what do you do then?
Do you like to read? Or listen to music? Have another hobby, like knitting?
This is where creating an ideal evening routine comes in.
How to Create an Ideal Evening Routine
for Better Mornings
If you need an earlier wake-up time, and thus, an earlier bedtime, then getting your evening routine right will empower you mornings. But what would make for an ideal evening routine?
Let’s talk about that next.
Here are 4 must haves for your evening routine…
(1) It needs to help you wind down well enough to become sleepy when you need to, so it will be easy to go to bed when you’ve chosen.
(2) Though this one isn’t a must, it is ideal – your evening routine should help you let go of and recover from any stress you experienced during the day.
(3) And ideally, your evening routine will give you time for things you love to do.
Reading, watching a movie, spending time with your family. In an ideal evening routine, there is time for what makes life sweeter.
(4) But that also means that eating dinner and getting the dishes done need to happen in time for the rest of your evening routine to occur.
How can you carve out time for an evening routine and what would it include?
Once you have planned an evening routine that will work for you, it’s time to craft the ideal morning routine.
5 Must-Haves for Crafting
Your Perfect Morning Routine
(1) It needs to give you plenty of time to come to life before having to function well.
(2) It needs to help you be more present to your children and what they need.
(3) It needs to make it easy to be on time for whatever you’ve got on your morning schedule without having to rush.
(4) It needs to empower and support the day you want to create.
(5) It needs to create the feelings you want to experience. How do you want your mornings to feel?
And would slower mornings feel better?
7 Reasons Why a Slower Morning Routine Will Make Your Mornings Easier
Slow morning routines are morning routines during which you don't rush through the process of getting ready and you take the time for self-care or other experiences you'll enjoy as you gradually wake up fully and become more alert.
Slow mornings don’t rush. In fact, they are carefully designed to move more slowly, and to bring what is needed to the person who got up for them.
So, aside from the beauty and wonder of slow living, in general, slower lifestyle mornings may actually be more practical for those of us who struggle with mornings.
Here are 7 reasons why…
(1) They give you the time you need to become fully functional. You’ll no longer have to do something while you’re only half awake.
(2) They eliminate the stress of rushing and falling behind in your schedule.
That frenetic, rushed, harried experience that happens when there’s something to do that feels urgent, but there isn't enough time, is part of what can make mornings so unpleasant in the first place, right?
(3) They give you the opportunity to create moments and experiences that help you enjoy mornings more. Like a self-care routine. Or morning coziness.
(4) If you're a woman of faith, a slow morning routine will give you enough space in your morning for a quiet time that fosters a deeper connection with God.
(5) Slowing down your morning routine will give you time to set and attune to your intentions for the day, and prioritize the ones that are most important.
(6) Your slower morning routine could be designed to give you some alone time before the deep dive into interactions with your family and others.
(7) With a slow morning routine, you can take back your mornings, instead of being owned by them, so that mornings feel better.
I'm a big advocate of designing your morning routine based on the way you want your mornings to feel.
But if you don't have a morning routine that you've created, and made time for, then you lose some of that freedom to choose the way you want mornings to feel. And they are much more likely to feel rushed.
So, I’m suggesting a slow morning routine, but how long should a morning routine be?
There is no ideal amount of time it needs to take. Instead, it’s whatever amount of time you need to become fully functional.
Do you know what that amount of time is, for you?
Even if you don’t fill it up with mindful activities, then your morning routine will allow that much time to pass. Silence and sips of tea are just as good as anything else you might include, as long as you don’t pressure yourself to be completely operational before you’re ready.
Cozy Mornings & Hygge Moments
What if you could make mornings more cozy?
Denmark winters are cold, dark and dreary.
But Danish people fought back with hygge and they won! Could deliberately creating cozy, hygge moments help you take back your mornings the way it helped them take back winter?
The definition for cozy is giving a feeling of comfort, warmth and relaxation.
And hygge, pronounced hue-geh, is a word that is hard to translate precisely into English, but involves the same kinds of cozy feelings.
Hygge is an intended focus on creating warmth and coziness, both through what you do and what you place into your environment. It is an emphasis on doing all the comforting things you enjoy, and it’s a way to enhance those moments so that they are even sweeter.
So if you love to read, hygge plumps the pillow on the chair you’re sitting in, brings you a cup of tea, lights a candle nearby in your favorite scent and hangs your favorite throw over the back of your chair in case you get cold.
If you love spending time with your friends, hygge invites them over for game night, but tells them to come in time for nachos & beer first, and promises dessert after the games are over so your friends will stay longer and you’ll have an even better time.
Then, it adds cozy atmosphere in the room where everyone will be by keeping a fire lit so they’ll want to stay inside where it’s so warm and cozy, rather than leaving to face the cold.
Hygge is like a cozy best friend!
Simply put, according to the dictionary, it’s “a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture).”
What would it be like to add elements of hygge coziness to your morning?
I know it has worked for me, over and over again. When getting to work on time was a struggle, and there were days I wished I could stay home, the promise of making my cup of tea when I got there, and lighting a vanilla candle or two, helped me have something to look forward to when I got there.
By the way, back then, no one seemed to care of you set your building on fire, so I was able to light as many candles as I wanted. But unfortunately for me, that soon changed, candles were disallowed, and I had to come up with other ideas.
I also made my office look like a cozy living room and seeing it, with my throw across one chair, and my other decorative touches, made me feel good each morning, and every cozy change I made helped make those mornings easier.
Now that I work from home, my mornings include a great big cup of tea, and any candle I want to light. Plus, other cozy moments that make each morning easier than mornings used to be.
Could that work for you, too?
Here are 5 ways to create cozy, hygge moments each morning…
(1) Light a tealight candle. This could be especially soothing if you wake up when it is still dark out, or not quite fully light.
(2) Drink your favorite beverage and give yourself time to linger over it.
Let yourself relax fully. And make that moment just about the tea or coffee, not a backdrop for whatever else you are doing.
(3) Spend your first moments in your favorite room and make it look cozy. Open the blinds or curtains to let the sunshine in.
Maybe you could have your beverage on your balcony or patio, so you can breathe in fresh air and watch the birds fly from one tree to the next.
(4) Instead of checking in on social media, to see whose pictures and status updates suggest they are is having a better life than everyone else, spend a few minutes reading, or listening to music that inspires and energizes you.
(5) Give yourself enough time to connect with someone you care about and you get to have the cozy warmth of that connection at the start of your day.
12 Ways to Use Aromatherapy
to Empower Your Morning Routine
I've created a cozy morning aromatherapy guide, with essential oil recipes and blends you can use to empower your morning routine.
To find out more about it, and how to access it, fill in the form for the morning routine quiz. You can use aromatherapy as part of your next steps in creating an ideal, personalized morning routine.
But first, let's look at 12 ways essential oils can be a positive influence on your mornings...
What’s so remarkable about essential oils is that they influence the whole being. Just as they are the catalyst that can make a wound heal, or a mind relax, so can they transport a soul. – Valerie Ann Worwood, Aromatherapy for the Soul
(1) Morning aromatherapy can ground and center you for a peaceful morning.
(2) You can use it to help you relax deeply for your morning meditation.
(3) Use morning aromatherapy to help you think clearly as you write in your self-care journal.
(4) Morning aromatherapy can help you stay focused on a task or project you need to get done.
(5) You can use it to help you wake up fully and become more alert each morning.
(6) Morning aromatherapy can help you leave behind the cranky mornings and have cheerful ones, instead.
(7) It can help you be more present with the kids.
(8) It can help you stay on task instead of becoming distracted or returning to sleepiness.
(9) Morning aromatherapy can support the way you want to feel as you do your yoga sequence or poses.
(10) Morning aromatherapy can help you banish the sluggishness & molasses moments that make it harder to move through your mornings.
(11) It can help you return to calm more easily after a stressful moment in your morning.
(12) Morning aromatherapy can help you create coziness as you spend mornings with your family.
Journal Prompts & Questions for Reflection
What changes have you felt inspired to make as you’ve read this post?
What will you need to do to make those changes possible?
Is there one change or shift you could make right away?
Putting it All Together
If you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken in a lot of information about how to create an ideal morning routine. And you’ll get more when you take the morning routine quiz and discover your morning challenge type.
But keep in mind that gradual change is more lasting. And creating an ideal morning routine is not about the shoulds, it’s about empowering yourself to create the best morning experience you can have.
Doing that will transform mornings for your children, too.
Start small and adjust as needed.
What’s the first change or shift you feel inspired to make? Tell me in a comment.
See you next time!
Love, Jeanine
P.S. Just a reminder that you can take my free, printable
morning routine quiz & then, watch my video for
results & next steps. Fill in the form here to access it...
morning routine quiz & then, watch my video for
results & next steps. Fill in the form here to access it...
Jeanine Byers
Lifestyle blogger & hygge hermit who will help you conquer mornings & create a slower, more family-present lifestyle in a single bound.
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Health Disclaimer
Dear reader, since I don't know you at all, I'm sure you'll understood when I say I can't possibly know you well enough to give you medical advice, to diagnose, treat or prescribe. But even if you were my best friend, I have no medical degree or license, so it just wouldn't work. Therefore, anything you read here is just for educational or informational purposes. Always consult your healthcare provider before making medical decisions about your health.
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