Morning Anxiety Vs Morning Rituals

Do you have a morning ritual?

For years my mum started her day the exact same way. At 4:30am she’d wake, walk to the kitchen and put boiling water into the filter coffee maker and put lentils into the pressure cooker.

While the coffee decoction percolated, she was ready, out of the shower and saying her morning prayers.

When she arrived back at the kitchen, she’d pour the aromatic decoction off the filter to make coffee. By the time the coffee was ready, the Toor Dal had cooled enough to open and add the garnishing. Then she’d start cooking breakfast and other meals for the day.

Much to her dismay, I was not a morning person at all growing up. But over the years, I’ve cultivated the habit.

For one, I don’t have the dreaded morning anxiety filled with negative predictions for the day anymore – “what’s going to go wrong at the work meeting today? and such other seemingly stupid thoughts.

I’ve come to realize that this unexplained anxiety that most people suffer from just boils down to skipping breakfast, not having a full night’s sleep, improper or no planning and of course disliking mornings in general.

One ritual that I never miss is reading the newspaper (thanks to my dad) and solving puzzles first thing in the morning. It gets my gray cells up and running and I’ve heard it even keeps Alzheimer’s in check. Who knew! Since I’ve been such a puzzle buff for years – I even entered the Times Sudoku Championship a couple of years ago, mostly expecting to be beaten by the real pros. To my absolute surprise, I cleared one round after another and was ranked no.15 among thousands – my timing wasn’t bad at all and I scored 53/60, just a few crucial points away from No.1. Still, that felt good!

On the topic of rituals, I have a night ritual as well but that’ll have to be another post.

Anyway, do you have a morning ritual that you swear by? Tell me about it.