This will be another one of my introspective, “is it just me” type posts so if you find them infuriating maybe sit this one out? But I guarantee you, everyone has a relationship with morning, and yours is likely changing over time, as is mine.

For those of you raising children and/or showing up at a workplace which demands your daily presence, morning isn’t anything to ponder; it simply is, marching to the relentless drumbeat of responsibility and obligation. It won’t always be this way but that’s also a double-edged sword.

Once you are no longer subject to a regular schedule, morning takes on a whole new character, harassing you for a particular emotional, cognitive and physical response, although not always the same combination. You never quite know, as you’re dragged up from the depths, how you’re going to feel about the day, specifically its beginnings. Morning, huh?

If this resonates with your morning, please do share it.

There are days when morning comes gently, politely nudging you with its nose, like a well mannered cat, allowing the luxury of lounging for a bit, contemplating the undisciplined and uncommitted day ahead, the sun coming through the window and warming your face. The very next day, however, morning comes like a tossed bucket of ice water, complete with pounding heart, stomach knots, and a mind ill-prepared for the demands of the day. And then there’s the middle kind of morning, the one that sits on your chest and insists you make plans to achieve something, have an agenda, create meaning and value for fear of wasting the day and, goodness knows, none of us have spare days for the frittering. Those are the broken mornings, the enforced drive to chalk up achievement, tinged with pessimism and doubt that you can get there from here.

Perhaps you are one of the unlucky many for whom morning, or its pretender, comes repeatedly: at 1:15, 2:40, 4:07, until you finally doze for an hour or two to then be greeted by one of the true mornings, none of whom care what happened in the dark.

I’ve always loved the evolutionary theory of chronotypes, that there are early risers and night owls because our earliest ancestors needed people who were comfortable at opposite ends of the day and night so someone was always protecting the group from threats. Coincidentally, CBC just reported on a new study, lead by McGill University, that posits there should be more nuance than simply assigning us all to two types of sleepers and risers. The report says, in part:

Among night owls, there were:

* Those who outperformed the other groups in cognitive tests but had more problems with emotional regulation. They often showed impulsive behaviours or addictive habits like smoking, drinking and other substance use.

* Those who didn’t show better cognitive abilities and got less physical activity due to their schedule. They also had higher cardiovascular risks and depression levels.

* Energetic ones who loved to work out and socialize. This group tended to be mainly male and drank more alcohol. They also showed high testosterone levels on average.

Then, among early birds, there were:

* Those with stable lifestyles, fewer risk-taking behaviours, and who rarely smoked or drank and enjoyed club activities. They had the fewest health problems overall.

* Those whose schedules were more closely tied to depression. This group tended to show more typical female hormone patterns like lower testosterone.

In what sleep researcher Dr. Matthew Walker called “sabretooth tiger o’clock”, the call of morning was clear: you’re on the wall, protecting the community, so in a way that makes all this post-modern angst a bit of an evolutionary luxury. But I digress.

I didn’t set out to write about sleep, rather this piece is about the waking up part, the things we do to sabotage ourselves even before we force our eyes to open. Not being an expert or sleep researcher, I will rely on telling you the things I have found that help, and hurt, when it comes to getting the day started on a positive note.

Things I have done which guarantee a difficult day:

* setting the alarm for inadequate time so everything starts with panic stations

* setting the alarm for PM rather than AM. Admit it; we’ve all done it!

* reaching for the phone/screen while still in bed. Not only is doom scrolling a terrible way to wake up, even looking at emails to supposedly “get a jump” on things means you’re allowing other people to determine your priorities for the day.

* biting off a major scan of all things happening in your life and fixating immediately on the negative, even when it has nothing to do with the day ahead

* scanning the day’s agenda and circling the item you dread the most

Things I do that help start the day calmly and happily:

* a few rounds of box or four-part breathing before opening my eyes

* flexing and rotating my ankles before whipping back the covers. No one wants their first step to be a limp.

* running through the day’s events and finding something to anticipate

* whipping back the covers and jumping up

* drinking a big glass of water first, or second, thing

* stopping by the windows and checking the mountains for snow, the ocean for whales and the street for reminders that it’s garbage pick up day

I believe it comes down to believing in your own purpose, that what you do adds value to the world, and if today’s purpose is to simply indulge yourself, away from everyone and everything, you have my unconditional support.

Have a lovely day.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit joannapiros.substack.com/subscribe