HEALTH & WELLBEING
Four-point lower and lift
The Morning Routine “Win the morning and you’ll win the day”, is a quote from American Entrepreneur, Tim Ferris. Now, as much as I truly love this quote and couldn’t agree more, I have to say, I, like so many of us, just don’t have this disciplined mindset. There, I said it. A ‘wellness professional’ is confessing that she’d rather stay in bed. I find the quote that aligns far better with me when it comes to a morning routine is: “I have to exercise in the morning before my brain figures out what I’m doing.” Well isn’t that more like it?! Now don’t get me wrong, I love doing Pilates, but our brains have a funny way of finding all the reasons not to do something, rather than jumping in and just doing it – even when it’s the best thing for us. You may think it comes down to having the motivation to do a class in the first place, whether that be taking a moment out for ourselves, connecting back to your body after a long period of not exercising – or dare we dream – toning for an exotic holiday. It’s normal! But I believe motivation often starts once we’re already on the mat, not before and a lot of the time our stumbling block is the M word. We’re kind of obsessed with it. But seeing as so many of us aren’t 28 | Cherubs Magazine
fuelled by motivation to exercise, how do we tell it to bog off so we can simply roll out the mat and get started before our brain can tell us otherwise? The concept of having a morning routine isn’t new, but with so many of us now having more time at home since the pandemic, one thing it has allowed us is some extra time to set aside for ourselves, instead of dashing for the 7am train to Waterloo. A 2019 study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that morning exercise improves attention, visual learning and decision-making, plus I can certainly vouch that it boosts your mood for the rest of the day. What’s helped me most in recent years is changing the narrative of how we should exercise. I don’t know about you, but I used to think if I didn’t have an hour spare to exercise, then I didn’t have time to exercise. But this simply isn’t true. The game changer for me was the realisation that short and sharp, but more frequent classes were the key to success when it comes to having a morning exercise routine. So slowly I built up the frequency of me hitting the mat in
the morning until it became a habit – and yes, my brain still has no idea! Keen to see how it can work for you? Well firstly we need to rethink how we see exercise. I often hear people groan or sigh at the thought of exercising. We know it’s essential, but because the media has made us believe we have to punish our bodies to get results we often see it as something that hurts, makes us incredibly sweaty and makes our knees as cranky as can be. This shift in perspective is what I promote a lot on my online Pilates Platform Haus Pilates Co. We’ve been made to believe ‘no pain, no gain’ is the key to get results, which not only is damaging to our joints and stressing our bodies, it’s also not great at connecting ourselves to our breath, which helps with our mental wellbeing. So, although we can trick our brain into not knowing what’s going on for our early dose of movement, we do need to rewire it to get us out of this dated mindset. With that in mind, I’ve created a morning challenge based on my ‘Quickie Pilates’ classes on Haus Pilates Co that will allow you to roll out your mat and get your morning routine off to a flying start.
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