“This could be the start, of something new..”
Hey Sunshine!
Hello, I am Madalyn Alexander and welcome to GLOW’s first blogspace! I could not be more excited to act as a middleman between instructor ideas/opinions and the public's eye. Within this blog series, there will be educational material, from different trainers and different minds, as well as fun recipe posts to try, and so much more! Not only is this a place for us to share our ideas, it is also a place for the GLOW family to get to know each other and connect.. We want to hear different thoughts from everyone about what should be talked about, so please do not be shy! Starting out strong, I thought I would start out with some tips and tricks for starting your day early, and why.
I know for me, in the winter it is so hard to get out of bed and want to start your day when those bedsheets are so warm! Even with this crazy Raleigh weather changing the temperature day by day, it has always been a harder time of the year for me to get my day moving. Turns out, there is a lot of science behind why that is the case! And it all begins with the hormone melatonin.
Our brain tells the pineal gland when to release melatonin, and that is usually signified by the light outside. We see the melatonin working well during the summer, but why not the winter? Simply because of the sun setting earlier. In the winter, it gets dark around 5-6pm, which signifies the brain to release the melatonin a lot earlier than it needs to. That also may tell you why you get sleepy so early, have to fight to stay awake, and then when it's actually time to go to bed you're not as tired. That is because the naturally occurring melatonin has already run its course in your body! Then the next day you feel tired, lethargic, and possibly more down than usual.
Now that you know why the winter months are harder with sleep, let's talk about solutions that I use to help me fight this lack of sleep and hardship with getting up! I will mention multiple ideas that I have tried before, so feel free to take some and leave others, or just listen.
1. Have you heard of a sunrise lamp? These things work wonders for me. You can get them from amazon, target etc.. These lamps basically help you naturally wake up with light, starting before your alarm, that gets brighter as your alarm time gets closer until your alarm goes off! This prevents you from hitting snooze and helps your body get into a rhythm using light as your guide.
2. Vitamin D supplements help me a lot during the winter. Vitamin D works contrary to your melatonin, aiding you in the wake and sleep process throughout the day and night. It is a great way to help force some of that initial regulation.
3. Moving your body in the morning- sometimes for me this is stretching, a small walk or maybe a fitness class! Doing something to get your dopamine and serotonin levels up in the morning can help a lot with fatigue as you're starting your day early.
4. We do not give water enough credit. Right when you wake up, drinking a glass of water before any caffeine will not only fight those caffeine headaches, but also get your digestive system moving with some hydration.
5. Exciting breakfasts! I made breakfast my favorite time of the day with new recipes to look forward to every morning. Now I have found my staple five and each day during the week I am so excited to wake up and have a tasty start to my day. It is so easy to skip breakfast when you are running late, so having breakfast to look forward to will help with energy, motivation, and help clear your head before you start your busy day. I will definitely be posting inspiration recipes sometime soon!
6. Melatonin supplements at night can be beneficial for some and not for others. It is a very fickle supplement and can produce some vivid dreams and make you groggy - so I have some suggestions to help fight that. I suggest taking melatonin around an hour before you go to bed so it has time to get into your system before sleep. Make sure you also take it on a night where you can get plenty of sleep, or the remnants of the melatonin in your system can make you sleepy for the next day!
7. My last suggestion is to have a consistent sleep schedule. Not everyone's busy lives allow this, but on the days you can, if you can get down that consistency and try to get 7-8 hours, your energy will increase exponentially because you have a rhythm. For me, that usually looks like 11pm-8am, but on days where I am up earlier I try to go to bed closer to 10!
These are just some tools that I use for motivation, and I hope some of them are beneficial to you all too! If you are interested in learning more about melatonin production, there are really good Research Articles diving deeper into the science behind it. Here is an example if you would like to see! https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6017911/
I hope the introduction to this blog is as exciting and inspiring as it is for me. Please reach out with any topics you want tackled, recipe inspiration ideas, or any other questions I can help with!
See ya next week,
Madalyn, PowerGLOW Instructor
