Thought of the Day: Rise & Shine

More and more this year I’ve found myself longing to become more of a ‘morning person’. You know, the kind of person who happily and easily rises at 6am to go about their day. You see this all the time in magazines like Stylist where they interview businesswomen and men and without a doubt all of them awake daily at 6am, if not earlier, with yoga stretches (or a jog) and a green smoothie. They make a to-do list, listen to a motivational podcast and then feel ready to conquer the world – and make more money, of course.

I can 100% percent say that is very much not me at the moment and that most mornings can be a heavy wrestle with the bed to get up. Each effort to arise seems to sink me deeper into the mattress and the rational part of my mind which is filled with urgency and the aspirational part of my mind which has none whatsoever battle each other. I set about four alarms (I know, don’t judge me) which all annoy me and surprise in equal measure when they go off even when I know I set them. In fact, I often feel like an imposter amongst a word of mainly morning people. Of course I have to adapt to survive (and have a job) but I actually find myself more productive in the evening and night. I’ll often have random ideas float to the surface of my mind at numerous points of the night and feel the need to urgently write them down. It’s actually the process of how a lot of my poetry and some earlier blog content has been written. But it is the dream though to be more of a morning person as opposed to someone who just rises early out of necessity. I often find on the days when I can wake up slightly earlier – I have more time to psyche myself up for the day, to pray and reflect before getting ready to go to the office and/or open my laptop.

Luckily at the moment I can rely on my body clock to wake me up consistently at a reasonable time to get things done but this is still something I struggle with so I’m very open to any tips. So far I’ve read about setting a to-do list for the day, meditation, brief morning exercise and making sure you read something in the morning.

What about you, are you a morning person or night owl? And do you have any tips on how to make the most of your morning?

*Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash

All Night Long

No, this blog post is not going to be about sex (despite the implications of the title.) So for all of you who thought that, you can either read something else or read more of this. I would prefer the latter but it’s a free country, so you decide.

Its 12:02am and I’m up. The worst thing about being up late at night? TV is really rubbish, so I get bored quite easily. Well that problem should be solved since I plan on going to bed…soon.

My song of the Month: Get Lucky by Daft Punk ft Pharrell Williams.

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I’m in love with this song. I first heard it on TV and straight away, the next day I listened to it about seven times. I read that the song reached a million downloads in 69 days- which  I find quite amazing, but listen to it and you’ll know why. The song is a smooth blend of funk, discotheque and electronic sound. Parts of it remind me of ‘Rock with you’ by Michael Jackson- I never realised I missed that sort of 70s, 80s sound till I heard it again…In the  form of this song. The icing on the cake for me was the harmonies during the words ‘…to give up to we are’. As a singing and lover of music I love harmonies and I would prefer using them to enhance songs more NOT autotune.

In general the song is upbeat, and a feel good song. I feel the impulse to get up and dance when I hear the funky beats that are embedded in its tune. The only downside I would say is that there isn’t much lyrical content to song itself- two short verses and the rest is the chorus.

Anyway, I would love to stay and blog some more, but sleep awaits me.

So Goodnight, or Good Morning, whatever way you want to look at it. 😉

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Images from

http://nahright.com/news/2013/04/18/daft-punk-ft-pharrell-nile-rodgers-%E2%80%93-get-lucky-final/ (album cover)

http://ipemb.org.uk/why-sleep-is-important/ (garfield)