Morning workouts
I’ve experienced difficulty falling asleep for all of my life. My earliest memories include laying in bed and telling stories to myself. As an adult, I arranged the rhythm of my days around giving myself the best possible chance to fall asleep more quickly at night. This meant exercise late in the afternoon and a hot bath with a good book just before bed.
That worked so well that I was in denial for months when things changed due to, well, The Change. It turns out that both exercise and baths are triggers for hot flashes. And hot flashes are not conducive to a good night’s sleep.
When I finally accepted these facts, I made some changes. Now, most days, I get my exercise in mid-morning and follow that with a shower, rather than a bath. And it has helped. I’m not sure that I’m having fewer hot flashes over all, but they are spread out more evenly through a 24-hour period rather than mostly happening when I’m trying to sleep.
I could sure use some help from all of you morning exercisers, however. How do you get motivated to move in the morning?
Partly as a result of some busy and/or unmotivated mornings, I’m slightly behind on my February exercise goal. I’ve completed 825 of the 1300 minutes I intend to do. That means I need to average about 53 minutes a day for the rest of the month — certainly doable, especially if I get in one or two long days. Now, if I could just get myself going!
Check out how others are doing with their exercise goals at today’s Checkpoint: CHECKpoint! Feb 21