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Take the misery out of your mornings
Improve your whole day with a simple yet revolutionary wake-up plan. By Anna Maxted
When Kate Oliver was small, she shared a room with her younger brother Toby. Every morning he would bounce awake ridiculously early and wrench her from sleep. “I’d start off whispering, ‘Are you awake?’ and get louder and louder,” he recalls. “And then, because I was on the bottom bunk, I’d kick the indentation of Kate in the mattress. We’d end up in a big row.”
No one (especially their parents) could have imagined they would write a book together on starting the day with routines to boost mood, productivity and focus.
Now 52 and 49, sister and brother are co-authors of Rise and Shine: How to Transform Your Life Morning by Morning. Kate is a chartered psychologist and executive coach, while Toby is a therapist and yoga teacher, so it draws on both science and ancient tradition. But aside from their combined professional wisdom, what gives this surprisingly profound book the edge is that they have both weathered episodes of waking full of apathy and dread – and discovered how to help themselves.
Kate, who lives in London and Hove with her son Nathan, her partner Nick and his daughter Lola, began to suffer from anxiety after a relationship breakdown in her early 40s. She would wake early and lie there. “Sometimes I’d feel sick and ruminate on quite trivial things.” While she would eventually force herself to get up, “it was an exhausting start to the day. I was feeling worn out and negative before anything had even happened.”
As for Toby, who lives in Sheffield with his husband Matt, his bad patch occurred when he was working in senior management and disliking it. “I was waking in the night, having anxious thoughts.” Then, for the first time in a life of waking naturally, usually before everyone else, “I’d be woken up by the alarm”. His day would start “swearing at the alarm clock and resenting having to get up and force on a suit” and end with “thank goodness that’s over”.
Apart from a weekly yoga class “which felt like an oasis”, he did nothing he enjoyed. (“I love reading. I was still buying books, but not reading them.”) One morning, waiting for the kettle to boil, he thought, “I just can’t do this.” Instinctively, he tried yoga, in his dressing gown. “I felt I was creating this protective shield that would see me through the day. I built on that.”
He began setting his alarm 15 minutes early in order to read. It felt like a marvellous secret. Finally, after “taking control of my mornings and my life”, he took voluntary redundancy and trained as a yoga teacher.
Kate, meanwhile, “feeling awful” about herself, found that structured journalling every morning transformed her mood and confidence. “I would reflect on the day before, how it had been in terms of physical, mental and emotional habits. But also, what I was grateful for, how I was going to be that day and what would make the day feel great.” This led her to investigate other ways to inject positivity, such as using positive affirmations. “People started saying, ‘You seem different – what have you been doing?’”
Kate’s affirmation was: “I love and approve of myself.” But it could be anything. Inspired enough to try some of their advice, I chose a quote from Maya Angelou: “This is a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before.”
Keeping a journal and chanting affirmations don’t suit everyone, of course, but the beauty of Rise and Shine is that is not prescriptive. “Rather than it being the formula for the perfect morning, we wanted to say that it’s often the small things you might start doing incrementally that can make a big difference,” says Kate.
The book suggests 30 practices, all of them customisable. The acronym SHINE represents five elements that will brighten your mornings, set the day’s tone and help you weather its challenges: Silence, Happiness, Intention, Nourishment and Exercise.
The idea for Rise and Shine was born after Kate and Toby attended a personal development workshop together. Initially, Toby wasn’t keen on Kate being there too, but it changed their relationship. “It built more trust,” says Kate. “You see each other as a whole person rather than this limited caricature that you always fall into when you see each other in your parents’ house.” They discussed how re-setting their mornings had been transformational – and decided to share their findings.
One “silence” habit is candle gazing. Our fascination with fire taps into something primal, the Olivers note. A study published in the International Journal of Psychological and Behavioral Sciences found that a month of regular practice led to decreased tension, anxiety and depression. It’s still dark when I place tea lights in my Nordic crystal candle holders, curl up and focus on the flames for several minutes. It feels magical and calming. “You’re starting the day by consciously bringing the light,” says Toby. Unfortunately, the mood is shattered by my husband loudly unstacking the dishwasher. That’s fine though, because I’ve mentally soothed myself. “You’re training your attention to refocus when there are distractions,” says Kate. “Then whatever happens in the day, we can connect to that sense of inner peace,” adds Toby.
As Kate notes, we did not evolve to live as frenetically we do now. Consequently, our minds can feel like shaken snow globes. “There’s a lot of external stimulus and demand and pressure,” she says. “So when we talk about ‘silence’, it might mean literal silence, but it’s more something that allows the snow to settle in the snow globe so that you’re finding some calm, some stillness, something that enables you to see things more clearly, to not feel overwhelmed and bombarded.” Some of the silence practices involve writing, she adds, “which in itself is a meditative process”.
Often, my mornings feel like a mess. I don’t have a philosophy and stumble thoughtlessly, often grumpily, into the day. My default routine is scrolling on my phone, drinking two coffees, then starting work in my pyjamas. “The whole reason we have habits is so we don’t have to be aware of them, so that they don’t take up our mental energy,” says Kate. It is only by becoming more conscious and intentional that you think, “Why do I do that?”
Quite. Since reading Rise and Shine, and considering the “nourishment” element (which, as well as drinking enough water, includes your mental diet) I have stopped listening to the news at 8am. “I remember doing that,” says Toby. “You start the day shouting at whatever politician says something you don’t agree with.” If that’s fine for you, continue, he says, “but if you wake up and the first thing you hear upsets you, the day’s run away with you. It’s like jumping in a speeding car and saying, ‘Oh, I didn’t want to go in this direction.’”
Squeezing some nature into your morning is another nourishment pracit tice. I don’t have time for full immersion, but I put out some peanuts for the squirrels. Minutes later, I watch a fat furry fellow breakfasting on my deck, which gives me pleasure. “That connection with nature is proven to have very strong wellbeing effects,” says Kate. “Even those little moments create that sense of awe and wonder.”
I enjoy tailoring their ideas to my lifestyle. As Kate says: “Sometimes we need something that will give us focus and gee us up, other times, we want something to make us more joyful.” Indeed “happiness” is one of their vital ingredients.
Can we manufacture happiness? No, but you can encourage it, says Toby. This isn’t about denial of challenges; it’s about finding things we can enjoy that give us, “that sense of starting the day feeling enthusiasm and looking positively ahead”. Some of their practices – feeling gratitude for even the tiniest things or hugging – all increase that. Kate says: “Hugging boosts oxytocin, the connection hormone that makes us feel relaxed, expansive and good.”
“Intention” – having a clear idea about the shape or content of your day – is another key element. It is also about being realistic, says Toby. “Some days success is, ‘I cleaned the fridge.’”
My favourite suggestion – one Kate’s executive clientele often find transformative – is creating a “to-be” list, “so if you’re going into a difficult meeting, what qualities do you need? Maybe you need to be calm and assertive.”
Thus, on a frantic work day, I resolve to be composed and confident. Adjusting mindset is powerful and the tiniest linguistic tweak can shift your mood from grudging to grateful. Instead of, “I’ve got to go to the doctor,” you might say, “I get to go to the doctor.”
Oddly, the hardest element to incorporate into my mornings is exercise.
‘They have known mornings full of apathy and dread – and learnt how to help themselves’ ‘Create a “to-be” list. Going into a meeting? Maybe you need to be calm and assertive’
Twice a week, I go for an early cold swim at the local lido (it ticks the entire SHINE list), but mostly, to quote Toby, I go from “lying horizontally to sitting on a chair”. Happily, the authors aren’t advising 10K before breakfast – though if that appeals, then great. “Exercise” might simply be making your bed or shaking yourself to relieve tension.
Often, says Kate, we are so disconnected from ourselves emotionally and physically, we only realise how stressed we are when incapacitated by backache. “A little bit of movement in the morning that loosens you up, or setting the intention of having little breaks and a stretch throughout the day, could make an enormous difference.” Over lockdown, she joined the Nobody’s Watching Wake Up and Dance challenge: 10 minutes of dancing on Zoom “as stupidly as you like; no routines” three mornings a week.
It’s impossible not to feel inspired. I dig out a weighted hula-hoop from my basement – even I can manage 60 seconds of activity. After two weeks of curating my own Rise and Shine routine, I feel optimistic and sunnier. As Toby says, this approach is like a talisman: “You go into the day feeling like you’ve done something for you.”