Things You Can Do to Have a Great Day!

    Have you ever woken up and thought man I am going to have a good day, but then something goes wrong. You have to rush around because you are going to be late, you didn't eat breakfast so you had to spend all of the money in your purse just to buy some food. Well I am going to give you a few tips to help a better start to your day. 


             1. Do Your Homework When You Get Home from School
              By doing your homework when you get home from school, you are allowing yourself to begin to relax for the night, and then when you go to bed, you only have to read or study. If you have extracurricular activities/sports when you get home from school try to do some of your homework during lunch, in the car on the way home from school, or during any breaks that you have. 

           2. Lay Everything Out the Night Before
        The night before I have to go somewhere, my home school co-op, church, etc., I always pick out my outfit, including shoes and accessories, and lay it somewhere where it won't get wrinkly and won't get messed up. Once you have your clothes picked out, get your bags ready with everything that you will need for the next day. If you are not able to come home from school before your sports, go ahead and pack up your clothes, a snack, and anything else that you will need the night before also. Even if you do come home from school before your sports or after school things, set out the clothes and things that you will need so that instead of getting ready, you can use that time doing at least a little bit of homework. 



           3. Set Your Alarm
           When you set your alarm the night before, you can set it to fun, uplifting music that you will want to jump out of bed and jump to, or you can do something that sounds more human, you can set it something that you are not too fond of so that you will not become sick of your favorite song. Then before you go to bed, instead of setting your phone beside your bed where you will hit the snooze button, set it a good bit away from you bed so that you can dance over there or so that you will start to wake up while trying to find that annoying music. 



            4. Turn Off Your Electronics
    Once you have all of your clothes picked out, and your alarm set, do anything else that you need to do with electronics for the night. You should try to stop using your electronics and turn them on airplane mode, at least 45 minutes to an hour before you go to sleep.(Turning them on airplane mode will not let some of the signals from the device interrupt with your mind as you sleep.) So what I try to do is I try to do all of the homework or studying that I need to do on the computer, and then I put away my electronics, and then I will study using books and read until I begin to fall asleep. This way your body and mind can relax and begin to wind down. *Bonus- It is also better for you to sleep as dark as you are able to make your room, so that your mind can be at complete rest. 


         5. The Next Morning
Obviously the first thing you have to do in the morning is wake up, but what you shouldn't do is hit the snooze button. Even though you think that you are getting a little bit more sleep, you actually are not getting the sleep that your body needs. You are not getting this sleep because  your mind is now awake and you won't be able to go back into that deep sleep before your snooze alarm goes off again. So when you alarm goes off, that means that it is time to get up for the day. 


            6. Drink Water
             After you have turned your alarm off, you need to drink some water so that you are able to rehydrate yourself after your sleep, ( think about it you just went with out drinking water for like 8 hours) and also so that you are able to begin waking up your digestive system and the inside of your body. 

           7. Stretching/Meditation
         Doing some light yoga in the morning will also allow your body to begin to wake up. You should wake up your body from the inside out, and breathing is the top way to do this. When you inhale through your nose you should think about your lungs filling up with air to their max, and then when you exhale through your mouth, you should think about breathing out all of the air in your lungs. Another thing that you should do is meditate everyday, even if it is only a short period of time. Now I am a Christian so I believe that there is only one true God, but I am not meditating to some plant or something. What I am doing is taking time to myself to thank God for letting me wake up, and also allow myself to take a little time to just breathe and relax before my dance gets crazy. I also try to do this at night before I go to bed, because it just helps me to stay level headed and not go crazy. 

 After this, you should just eat a nutritious breakfast, and get yourself ready for the day. To continue your good morning throughout your day, remember to work hard at everything, think is your decision or what you are going to say going to effect you or someone else in the future, and most importantly to live in the moment because it is the only time that you are going to live that minute, of that day ever. 
                                                                   Stay Devoted,
                                                                              Hannah