Care For Yourself
Mindfulness Coaching

Care For Yourself with a Power Hour

Today, I’m going to tell you about the Power Hour. It’s a way to improve your well-being in an hour or less. The headline for this post easily could have been Get Excited About Getting Up Every Morning, because it will help you look forward to your day from the moment you wake up.

Does this sound too good to be true? Those among us who can’t call themselves morning people and who have to drag themselves out of bed are probably especially skeptical. I was like that for most of my life.

This method won’t just help you get out of bed. It will also give you the time you need to care for yourself and even to begin a self-care routine. Nobody really seems able to find enough time for this!.

Before I lay out the method for you, let’s discuss mornings for a bit.

Why Mornings Suck

Care For YourselfDo any of these statements describe you?

  • You hit the snooze button on your alarm multiple times every morning.
  • You always have to rush to get to work on time.
  • You feel like you don’t have enough time to do things in the morning.

Literally all three of those things used to describe me. I always found it difficult to get going every morning without hitting the snooze button. For like a whole hour. I eventually realized that one main factor contributed to this: I didn’t have anything to feel excited about in the morning. My morning routine, or the lack of one, just wasn’t doing it for me.

The Power Hour

I think the main reason people struggle to get out of bed in the morning is that we don’t have anything to look forward to. But thankfully, I came across a method that totally changed my mindset. I found a way to get excited about getting up in the morning. Plus it has the added bonus of helping me take care of my health.

So how do you do this? You establish your own personal Power Hour: spend 20 minutes caring for your body, 20 minutes caring for your mind, and 20 minutes caring for your spirit. And my verdict? It’s the real deal. At first I wondered if I really needed to get up an hour early to do this. But I was excited about it, and I knew it would improve my mood. That made it a lot easier to get up.

The Power Hour is all about your well-being. My overall mindset is more positive, I’ve decreased my stress level, and I’m much more productive since I’ve been starting my days this way.

How It Works

Start by choosing one activity from each of the lists below— one each for your body, your mind, and your spirit. You can choose other activities you love or that want to try even if they’re not be on the list.

Activities for the Mind

  • Meditate
  • Read a fiction book
  • Write in your journal
  • Color
  • Work Sudoku puzzles
  • Learn a language

Activities for the Body

  • Take a walk
  • Go for a jog or a run
  • Do yoga
  • Dance
  • Do cardio exercises
  • Do Pilates or another workout
  • Stretch

Activities for the Spirit

  • Play an instrument
  • Listen to a podcast
  • Read a non-fiction book
  • Watch or listen to a TED talk
  • Bake or cook
  • Start a do-it-yourself project

Now, set aside an hour every morning to complete your activities. It may seem daunting to you to wake up a full hour earlier. But the goal for you is to find activities that are enjoyable and exciting enough for you that it won’t feel like a sacrifice to lose an hour of sleep. If you’re feeling intimidated about doing this for an hour, you could start with baby steps. Focus on either a body, a mind, or a spirit activity for just 20 minutes every day.

Next, set a timer and do each of your activities for 20 minutes. You don’t need to go in a certain order; just do the activity that you’re most excited about first I usually like to either write or read when I first wake up, then I’ll move on to yoga, and finish my hour by listening to a podcast or watching a TED talk.

Note that it’s not necessary to do your Power Hour all in the same single hour, and you don’t have to do it all first thing in the morning. You can do your activities at different times throughout the day, or you could do them all right before bed. For me, the best way to be excited about my day is to do my Power Hour as soon as I wake up.

To make the process easier, track your activities for the first week. You can plan your activities out ahead of time, or write them down after you finish them. Also, you don’t have to do different or new things each day. If you want to spend every day’s mind activity reading, go ahead and do it. But if you’d rather try reading one day and writing the next day, that’s fine, too!

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