How To Get Out Of Bed
16 October, 2019 // in The Coffeehouse Cleric // by Alex Rowe
Getting out of bed is strangely difficult for most of us. For whatever reasons, that alarm sounds and we hit snooze. And so the cycle begins.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. By implementing a few practices, we can learn to get out of bed. We can learn to get out of bed without the snoozing, without the subsequent rush, and without that residual guilt that our good intentions have again been frustrated.
I’ve come to find that the way I start the day tends to be the way it continues. If my first hour is peaceful, so will the hours that follow. If my first hour is rushed and stressful, however, I’ll carry around that rush and stress for the rest of the day.
How I begin the day well changes and varies depending on the season of life in which I find myself. But along the way, I’ll picked up some helpful tricks that work for me. So, without further ado, here are three:
The alarm
…or, on how to force yourself out of bed.
Keep your alarm away from bed. That way, you will have no choice but to stand up and walk across the room to turn it off. Also, use something other than your phone to wake you up. That little glass box will distract you enough later, and its probably not good for your soul to check insta or email as soon as you wake up. Go retro and buy one of those old-fashioned, single-function alarm clocks. They’re really cheap, and totally worth it.
Extra tip: get some housemates. They have their own alarms and don’t like yours. (Though wouldn’t it be fun to have a “house alarm”? First one to turn it off wins…)
The kettle
…or, on how to actually achieve that “ideal morning.”
You might have high aspirations. You might imagine waking up well, steam rising elegantly from your morning coffee that sits on the table, while you settle comfortably into your favourite chair and peruse that day’s paper. You might even have a morning routine. But those aspirations quickly dissipate when your alarm rudely interrupts your sleep. You forget about that blissful, ideal morning, and all you want to do is dose.
When that happens, commit to doing only one thing: boil the kettle. Don’t think about your resolutions to begin each day with meditation, or go on a morning jog, or read for thirty minutes before the rushed onset of the rest of the day begins. When you first wake, you will lack motivation even to do the things that are good for you.
Boil the kettle. While the kettle rumbles and the water bubbles, while you stretch and yawn and rub your eyes, then think about what’s next.
The bed
…or, on how to set yourself up for success.
This next tip is counter-intuitive but important. In the minutes or seconds that your coffee takes to brew, go back into your bedroom and make your bed. You might be tempted to climb back under that duvet, still warm from your own body heat, but you must resist the temptation. Stare the bed down and refuse to give in to its lure.
Say to yourself with confidence some words of Anglican liturgy: “The night has passed, and the day lies open before us.” And then, recall to mind the wise saying by William H. McRaven with which I leave you:
“If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed… If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. And by the end of the day, that one task completed, will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never be able to do the big things right. And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made, that you made. And a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.”
PS. If you’d like to read more, I’ve written about this before in “How to Wake Up Well (Pt. 1)” and “How to Wake Up Well (Pt. 2).”
Thank you for reading this post. If you liked it, please do share it with your friends and family. The Coffeehouse Cleric is a blog by me, Alex Rowe.
