For many of us, the day starts with the sound of an alarm clock. And we meet him, if not with disgust, then certainly without pleasure. This situation can be changed, psychologist Marina Baskakova believes.
Most often, we wake up not at all because we got enough sleep, but because we need to. It’s time to cook breakfast, take the kids to school, go to work. We do not experience any joy from this. At best, a sense of accomplishment. At worst, doom. But it turns out that this is not necessary at all.
Of course, it would be nice if we could go to bed earlier and get up not on call. But even if we can’t afford it right now, we can help our bodies make the transition to wakefulness more enjoyable. Gestalt therapist Marina Baskakova gave us a short course of effective awakening, giving us the necessary explanations for each step.
Pass the tests
- Are you getting enough sleep?
1. Separate awakening and rising. That is, do not jump out of bed right now, as soon as the alarm rings, as in the army. Give your body time to wake up. The ancients believed that at night the soul leaves the body, and during awakening it returns back. Using this metaphor, we can say that it is useful to give your soul time to fully return to the body and settle comfortably in it.
Many people are sleep deprived today, and almost all of us try to extend our sleep time a little. Therefore, the transition from sleep to wakefulness is too abrupt. Neither the body nor the mind has time to prepare for a new day. So what, after listening to the alarm clock, stay in bed? That’s right, the Gestalt therapist insists.
2. Yawn, sigh and stretch well. With this, all animals begin the cycle of wakefulness. If you have pets, pay attention to how they wake up. Perhaps this will give you a hint. Stretching, listen to your body, to its desires. Maybe you want to scratch or rub some place, arch your back or, conversely, curl into a ball. Do this by observing your reaction. Stretching is also useful because our body often maintains tension even at night – especially if we go to bed preoccupied, anxious about something. Sipping will help discharge this residual tension, relieve muscle clamps.
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3. Getting out of bed, walk barefoot on a clean floor or carpet – Slowly, listening to the sensations, having fun. The floor must be clean, because when we step on any dirty surface, we instinctively try not to get dirty, reducing the area in contact with the dirt. Therefore, we strain the foot, compress it, trying not to step on the full foot. And contact with a clean, pleasant to the touch surface gives us tactile pleasure, and we willingly press our foot to it.
At night, the feet rest from the load that they endure throughout the day. Therefore, in the morning it is good to restore their sensitivity. Those who are ready to pay even more attention to their hardworking legs can be advised to pick up small objects like balls or rags from the floor with their toes, and then move their attention to the heel, feeling how confidently and firmly it presses on the floor.
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4. Awaken the rest of the senses, offering them pleasant sensations. Stroke a cat or dog with your hands, touch something tender, soft, fluffy or silky. Do not force yourself to do this, but give yourself pleasure – look for what you like, what is pleasant.
Our eyes are also very important to us. There is such an expression “to open one’s eyes”. It is better not to tear your eyes, but gradually open them. To do this, you can look at something beautiful, and it’s better not at a picture or a screen, but at nature: at the sky, clouds, tree branches, flowers. And do not load your eyes with things related to business.
Often, as soon as we wake up, we are stuck in the phone, iPad, computer. It doesn’t mean we love doing it. This is a manifestation of the anxiety inherent in modern city dwellers: we live in a stream of continuous information that we do not have time to process, and this gives rise to anxiety, the fear of missing something. We strive to extinguish this unpleasant state by urgently engaging in communication, in the information flow. But such a desire only indicates the level of anxiety and does not meet our true needs.
It is more useful to give yourself a pause before switching on so that the body’s resources gather. In the morning it is better to allow yourself to calmly meet with yourself and with the world.
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5. Listen to pleasant sounds. Ideally, birdsong. If there are no birds nearby, then you can turn on soft melodic music.
And if we need to recharge our batteries and want, on the contrary, loud and cheerful music? It all depends on what we intend to get as a result. There is no universal recipe here, but each of us is able to guess what he is striving for. Some people like jazz and heavy metal. Perhaps someone will want to move energetically to this music. By the way, it is useful for everyone to rotate from side to side, freely dangling their hands
6. Create a buffer zone. Some people like to do gymnastics in the morning, but let’s keep in mind that gymnastics is a structured and purposeful action, and behind purposefulness it is difficult to hear the impulses coming from inside one’s own body. And in the morning, attention to them is of paramount importance.
Loud music and vigorous movements stimulate the body very strongly. They are good in situations where we need to mobilize ourselves for some emergency task, like taking an exam. However, resorting to hyperstimulation daily, we risk bringing our body to exhaustion.
With a concussion, doctors recommend lying down for several days in silence, without a TV, without a computer, without bright light. In such conditions, the body itself restores its resources. So after waking up, it is very important not to get up immediately, but to create a kind of buffer zone for a favorable transition from one state to another: from sleep to wakefulness.
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- “Sleep less than 6 hours is dangerous for health”
7. Take a cue from the sun. Dawn can be a good way for a proper ascent. The darkness of the night is not suddenly replaced by bright daylight. First, the darkness thins, gradually becomes lighter, then it dawns for a long time, the horizon turns pink, the colors gradually gain strength – and finally the sun rises to shine all day.
Perhaps the most difficult thing about this is giving yourself permission to take care of yourself. So that our own comfort and peace of mind do not seem to us an excessive luxury, but become a familiar state. Who will give us time for this? Only ourselves. Perhaps it will be easier for us to do this if we think that by getting up in a good mood, we will bring more joy not only to ourselves, but also to our neighbors. We will be able to “shine” in full force.
How long does it take to fully wake up? This is an individual value. And most often – unknown to us, because since childhood, when our parents got us out of bed to take us to kindergarten and school, we did not have the opportunity to see how the awakening process unfolds by itself, at its natural pace.
“It takes me about an hour to fully wake up,” admits Marina Baskakova. To find out how much time we need, we can try not to rush ourselves on the weekend, but on the contrary, slow down a little, and wake up slowly, listening to ourselves and delivering various pleasures to our body.