Sometimes I can get a little sluggish, and more sluggish than I’d like. More often than not, I turn in assignments at the last minute, spend too much time scrolling through social feeds, chat it up with my friends and partake in other forms of procrastination. Additionally, I spend too little time at the gym and a lot of my time sitting (even though I work a job 17 hours a week that’s mostly on my feet). I hate having to remind myself again and again to be less lazy because of all of this.
Photo from enewsletters
Ironically, I was indulging in yet another lazy day of mine when I was on YouTube and stumbled across this Refinery29 video. The video is a part of a series called, Living With Lucie, and in it, Lucie challenges herself to live 5 days with a specific challenge. The challenge I found most inspiring was the one where she forces herself to smell the coffee at 5 a.m. for a week. Yes, 5 a.m. every morning!
With my ways, I found this to be an incredibly hard to achieve goal. I mean, how could I ever wake up at 5 a.m.?!?!
Surprisingly, however, I woke up at 5 a.m. the next morning. About 10 minutes later, I was putting on my workout gear, and soon after that I was at the gym.
I walked in to Ping at 6 a.m. and got right to things. While I was there, I ran about two miles in under 18 minutes, did a couple of weights and a lot of stretches. I know that this workout doesn’t sound that major to some, but again, I rarely wake up early or go to the gym at all, so this was a huge deal. I mean, I got to see the sun rise and shine through Ping’s huge windows… Is there anything better than that?
Because I do not have a campus parking pass, it was time for me to move my car before the clock struck at 7 a.m. (I’ve been towed before, and it totally killed my bank account!). Once I finally put my car’s gear in drive, I felt super tired. But I felt this unusual nick of energy come over me, like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I could already sense that this day was going to run smoother than most!
Once I finally arrived at my apartment, I had enough time to shower, eat a good breakfast and pick out a really cute outfit for the day. For once, I was able to go to school on a high note without feeling like I had to drag myself to anything. In class I was more productive than I’ve ever been in my life— I took thorough notes, I asked my professors smart questions, I got a lot of assignments done and I had the best day ever.
Not for one second on this day did I notice the two-hour deficit of sleep that I was without; in each second of this day I felt the need to get on with the next thing, and then the next thing. While I would not recommend making a habit of always going right to workout land in school (Wednesday Liquor Pitchers at Lucky’s is probably a better use of your sleep hours… lol), I do recommend it for times when life brings you stress— it helps you feel productive!
GIF from Giphy
Not only does an early workout help us feel more productive, it means not having to think, “Oh, I need to go to the gym” the rest of the day. If you hate working out, then why not get it out of the way early on?