What did you achieve today? What did you do that made you say "Wow, today was awesome"?
Thoughts on waking up
Awhile ago I tried so hard to follow one of those positive attitude fads where they tell you to think HAPPY THOUGHTS! ALWAYS! ESPECIALLY ON WAKING UP! And I just can't. Humans can't be happy all the time and I can't be happy and smiley in the morning, sorry.
My first thought in the morning is a heartfelt "Ugh", followed by muttered curses at the alarm. It gets better once I've had my breakfast, I promise!
What are your thoughts on waking up? Happy thoughts? If not, how long does it take you to see ~the good in the world lol




I think that it's important to focus on positivity in the sense that, our brains are wired to prioritize negative things and remember them longer, and forget or discount positive things--even worse if you happen to have depression, but it's the human condition in general. So someone who accomplishes 20 things will think, "I got nothing done today" if they meant to do 30 things. Someone who gets 100 good comments and one bad one will ruminate on the bad one. So intentional rumination on good things can actually give you a more accurate version of reality. You're correcting bias and seeing the world for what it is--not actually a complete sack of shit.
But I think that positivity has to actually come from somewhere! You can go, "I did my laundry, good job, me!" and make sure you remember that next time you feel like a useless unproductive failure. But ~positive thoughts~ spun from thin air can actually be really unhealthy. Focusing on real positive things = mindfulness, awareness of reality. Focusing on feeling positive over nothing = delusion, forcing yourself to detach from reality. It's important to feel your authentic emotions, just to not let the positive ones you authentically feel get unfairly forgotten or swept aside while the negative ones get all the attention.
If you feel crappy when you wake up, listen to that feedback. Do you need to go to bed earlier and have more time to sleep? Do you need a few minutes to get some coffee and adjust to the waking world? Work with what you have, be gentle with yourself.
Also I consider it ideal to not wake with an alarm--especially a sound alarm. If you need help waking up, a light alarm is gentler and does more to help train your rhythms to wake naturally at that time.
I don't think I have proper thoughts when I first wake up. Mostly I just stumble around and do things on autopilot, dressed, breakfast, dog cuddling, bag packing. Things I've done day in, day out, month in, month out. Same old routine. If I do think of anything then, I couldn't tell you what it was. Probably something random. Usually, my first thought ends up being "8.15am, time to go and wake my daughter."
As for seeing the good in the world...that depends. Sometimes I wake up and I just know that the day is going to be a dark hole of sucking depression and that nothing is going to go well. And other days, I feel like dancing down the street in my pyjamas. Usually I just read Facebook or Twitter till that feeling goes away.
Waking up is possibly my least favorite subject, on account of my pesky sleep disorder. But! Amazing coincidence: today I got the results of a sleep test I took, and now a doctor has finally been able to say "Yes, there's definitely something weird going on in your brain, sleep-wise. It's not your fault. We have people who specialise in this. You don't have to fight a futile battle all by yourself anymore. We're going to help you."
I'm so relieved I cried the whole way home.
Right now I don't have a job but wake up early anyway to have breakfast with my husband and see him off to work. I'm awful at mornings, can't do them and don't enjoy them at all, so I actually set my alarm a half-hour earlier than his (he miraculously doesn't wake up, how) and then bend/move my feet around to help wake up my blood flow while checking my smartphone - the bright light of the screen also helps me to wake up. I have no feelings of positivity or negativity whatsoever. Everything is in a flat state of "..." until perhaps an hour or ninety minutes later, usually after a cup of coffee. It's morning for me right now. Coffee...
I don't have any thoughts waking up because I'm in that weird headspace between asleep and awake, so everything that goes through my head is just dreams tangled up with reality, if it makes sense.
The other night there was a huge storm and I was asleep through all of it, but I kept thinking "Ugh, this thunderstorm is gonna keep my awake forever" in my own dream LOL Pretty crazy, uh?
Random picture of the day: I found a cute snake in the kitchen, look! Or don't if you don't like sneks :(
Aww, hello noodle-friend!
My first thought is usually either "fucking alarm" or "cat stop wooing in my ear" depending on which noisemaker got to me first, lol.
Depending on heat, length of sleep, and whatever was plaguing me beforehand, I could get reasonably functioning inside of fifteen minutes, or stay in such a black mood I need to crawl back in bed for a power nap to reset my brain and my outlook.
Hilariously, that last trick actually does work!