Two Routines I Needed In My Life To Look After My Well-Being

Last month was doozy. I moved into a bigger apartment, work was light — I even took a whole week off work, drank like a fish and pretty much spent most of my evenings lounging in my bathtub. This was the first time in the entire year, I really felt at ease — I wish I could live like this till the end of the year.

It didn’t take long for the law of diminishing marginal utility to kick-in and after a while I was back on the hedonic treadmill, trying to chase the elusive concept of ‘happiness’. Happiness for me, I realised, emanated from the sense of looking back at my life to make sure I was making decisions that would result in positive life outcomes. When I looked back at the month, I felt a deep sense of dissatisfaction — reckless drinking, binge eating, being transfixed on my phone, being grossly underslept and not looking after myself. How was this different from the rest of the year, in fact, the last few years — except for the heightened degree of these perilous activities? And while all along, I was generously looking after my emotional needs, my life was wanting in physical well-being. Needless to say, the mental well-being devoid of physical well-being had only taken me so far….and, understandably so.

One great way, I could look after my physical needs was to reorient myself to some binding routines in life. Routines, that would ensure some level of discipline so I’d have the physical strength to look after my physical and emotional well-being.

I had long baulked and doubted the efficacy of a morning or night routine but just the fact that I realised I needed routines in my life, made me want to try creating one for myself. What the hell.

So what was my routine to begin with…. good question, did I have any? Let’s see I had to force myself to sleep every night after my eyes were weary of the overexposure to my phone screen while my screen time hours were shooting through the roof . This was resulting in a massive disruption to my sleep cycle, only to wake up in the morning, grossly underslept.

And upon waking up, it was time to get back on the horse. And the rest of the day was living through Groundhog day, every single day.

Starting a morning and night routine — yay or nay?

For better or for worse, I decided to give morning and night routines a shot as I needed to kick start my day on a higher energy note.

Morning routine — It is believed that to make new habits stick, the trick is to start simple with almost little to no disruption to the current habit. Keeping this in mind, I decided to wake up thirty minutes earlier than usual to incorporate the following as part of my newfound routine.

1. Expressing gratitude :- I realised how easy and convenient it was for humans to get accustomed to everything in their lives that feeling grateful and expressing gratitude to the universe becomes almost an alien concept, something that seems superfluous. I decided to start my day by counting my blessings and saying a big THANK YOU to the higher power watching over my shoulder. It would also be an excellent way to stay humble and not have the trappings of feeling privileged by living in a first world country.
2. Morning pages :- I first stumbled upon the concept of morning pages in an op-ed in The Guardian and it made me so inquisitive that the next thing I was looking at was a kindle version of ‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron where this concept was first introduced. Well, while the book is simply marvelous (I am still reading it), in it Julia hypothesises that the single biggest barrier that stands in the way of any person’s creativity is the whirlwind of random thoughts that eat us away from the inside and distract us from achieving our true creativity. If only, we write down three pages worth of our thoughts every morning, we’d be off to a great start every single day and be well on our way to elevate and activate our creative juices. I decided to bring my own spin to this by giving myself a pep talk in these morning pages so I’d find dollops of positive energy that would enable me to bring my A-game to both my personal and professional life.
3. Mindfulness :- Once I was bubbling up with the positive energy, mindfulness would enable me to channelise the energy in the right direction by helping me being present in the here and now and not getting anxious about thinking about the future or dwelling too much on the past. I am now trying to hone in on the ability to be mindful and have even written about it in a separate blog post.

That was it. Once I was through the above things, all I had to do was plug back into the rest of my usual routine of a good HIIT workout and starting my day on the right foot.

Night routine — Well, I wanted my night routine to leave me with a wholesome feeling while setting me up well for the next day. So naturally, dinner became an integral part of the night routine along with the lead up activities to sleeping.

1. Hello Fresh :- For people who know me, know how much I dislike cooking. Truth be told, I dislike the process of deciding what to cook rather than the act of cooking itself. This was naturally resulting in food selection taking a backseat where I found myself eating unhealthy food with reckless abandon and getting frustrated on why I wasn’t losing weight — well, you don’t say. This is when my husband and I came across HelloFresh. I have always a skeptic when it comes to subscription based services, my guard goes up with a resounding voice in my head “f%$#^&g hell, I am being hoodwinked”. Well honestly, this service has revolutionised dinners for me! Pre-measured ingredients with an elucidated recipe delivered at my door steps with such novel and flexible meal plans. It is an understatement to say that HelloFresh has made my life so much easier where my husband and I take turns in cooking the right meals for us and are left with a sense of contentment about making the right food choices.
2. Sharpening my axe :- I also spend about an hour each day in sharpening my axe either on the professional or personal front before I call it a night. This means I try to learn something new, no matter how small or insignificant it is, to ensure I take baby steps in building my repertoire. This can be either reading something in relation to my craft or watching something that gives me a new perspective on things. Some of my favourite YouTube channels for this are — TED-Ed, CNBC, Bright Side, CrashCourse, Vox amongst others. For me, the best feeling is the sense of having expanded my horizon each day — it helps me uncover part of my personality and the feeling that I know myself and the world just a little bit more.
3. Day One :- Day One is an app which can only be downloaded on Apple devices. I use this app to capture any thought that is worrisome to me. It’s like a dark pit where I throw in my inner venom and fears so I can start the next day with a fresh state of mind and fill out the Morning Pages with all the positivity in my heart. The best time to do it is before I hit the bed so I can let go of the inner weight and sleep it off because, let’s be honest, no one has a reservoir of positivity and we all need to let out the negativity eating up from the inside as burying or hiding them will only strengthen it before it starts to consume us. I also use this app to store any highlight of my day, for instance any accomplishment or something that stuck with me during the day — this is usually in the form of an image or a recorded audio.

If you are a naysayer of morning or night routines and find yourself in a complete disarray, I’d urge you to have a crack at some of the above routines and strategies for at least a week cause I’ve been doing these for over two — three months and I have found a remarkable difference in my mood and performance. Cause in the end,