As I have conquered donuts, I shall vanquish mornings

At my high school, there was a mid-morning snack time between classes. The dining room was open for coffee, crackers, fruit, etc. However, on Wednesdays, in addition to the usual snacks, there were DONUTS. (Or "doughnuts", I imagine is probably the proper spelling, the former being proliferated into common usage by Dunkin Donuts.)

Donut Day was a BIG DEAL. Everyone looked forward to Donut Day. Being on a Wednesday, it also coincided with "hump day", which is a not-well-thought-out phrase.

In fact, the phrase Donut Day sometimes even replaced the word Wednesday itself. If you said to a classmate, "I forget, when is that geometry test?" she might reply, "Next Donut Day."

And when donut time rolled around, the cafeteria staff had to keep the dining rooms doors closed until the official start of snack time, because people crowded around in antsy droves, jostling for position so that they would have their pick of the best donuts. When the doors were opened, the crowd would spill into the dining room and start snatching. (Boston Cremes went fast, the plain brown ones were always left last.)

Now, my best friend in high school and I were always cheering each other on in self-improvement endeavours. We were just as enthusiastic about Donut Day as everyone else, but we decided that donuts weren't very healthy and we shouldn't gorge on them every Wednesday.

The problem was, how did we persuade ourselves NOT to partake in the weekly joy of Donut Day? How could we possibly resist the sugary goodness? How would we stick to this seemingly impossible goal?

We decided to use the POWER OF WORDS. *Insert picture of swords vs. dictionaries here*

First of all, we decided to change the name "Donut Day" to "Excellence Day!" So while everyone else was tantalizing their brains by using the word "donut" constantly, we were reprogramming ourselves to think of it as a day of success.

Secondly, whenever we felt weakness, whenever we saw everyone else rush off in pursuit of the treats, we would start talking about how much we disliked donuts. "Donuts are just too sugary - I can feel the stuff getting stuck between my teeth", "donuts make my stomach hurt", "I feel tired and nauseated after eating even one bite of a donut". On and on we'd go until we'd thoroughly grossed ourselves out by the thought of eating donuts.

This actually really worked and we refrained from participating in the mad dash of Donut Day for pretty much the rest of high school.

What's funny is that many years later I got back in touch with my good friend and somehow "Excellence Day" came up. And she said, "You know what? I STILL don't eat donuts!"

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My whole life, I have had great difficulty waking up. And by "great", I mean that I will sleep for 12-16 hours straight if nobody wakes me up. I can sleep through blaring televisions, screeching alarms, and chainsaws outside my window.

I'm not really in a deep sleep, however. I seem to sleep deeply for about 6 hours and then I enter a sort of twilight between waking and sleeping. I am vaguely aware of the outside world but it doesn't bother me, I am still dreaming, and if I drift further back towards consciousness, I can re-enter dreams at will.

It takes me a long time to transition from sleep, to half-asleep, to mostly awake. When I finally pull myself out of bed, it's gut-wrenching because I am still mostly asleep and my body wants NOTHING to do with re-entering the real world. My limbs feel like bricks and having to leave my pleasant, slumbering state feels like the most cruel punishment ever devised.

Then I sit around the couch for a while, trying to shake off the drowsiness and fight the urge to just lay back down.

This brain-fog lasts for hours. I feel depressed about my state of affairs and my station in life.

But what if this is all a result of my deeply held *belief* that I am an oversleeper and hate mornings? What if I rose out of bed each morning and threw my arms wide and exlaimed "I LOVE MORNINGS! IT FEELS GREAT TO BE ALIVE! AAAAHHHHH YEEEEEAAAHHH!"

Would my attitude change? Could it be possible that I could actually start to wake up easier?

So, this idea occurred to me yesterday, and I didn't really do anything different - I just thought about it, and thought about the possibility that it's WITHIN MY POWER to change this aspect of myself. I started thinking some positive thoughts about mornings - like, wouldn't it be great if I woke up early enough that I could take my dogs for an invigorating walk. Or do some writing. Or go visit a new coffeeshop.

And this morning - I actually did wake up easier. I woke up around 6 am, and I felt pretty refreshed. I did fall asleep again though. But even after Round 2, when I did get up, I felt more energized and less like a miserable lump. It could be a coincidence, but I haven't had such an easy morning in a long time.

So I will continue to experiment with this and see how it goes. I will continue to affirm to myself "Hey, I actually LOVE MORNINGS! How bout that!"

For the record, I don't want to STOP being a night owl. I just don't want to sleep away my life, 16 hours at a time.