Self-Care Essentials: The Morning & Evening Routines

In this episode, Dr. Gina explains the importance of incorporating an evening and a morning routine as part of your self-care rituals. These rituals make you start and end your day with you as a priority. She talks about where to start and offers examples of simple routines. These basic self-care rituals shift your mindset and set you up for success. Dr. Gina and her hosts also discuss bedtime routines for children.

Transcript

Welcome to Living Simply, A guide to mindful living and mindful parenting with your host, Dr. Gina. Hey, Everybody. Welcome to Living Simply with Dr. Gina Maggiardano. That is Dr. Gina. And Crystal Tubbs, Hey, How are you guys? Doing good. Good. Thank you. Excellent. I'm wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Because I've been implementing some things that we're going to talk about today. So today, Dr. Gina, We're talking about self-care. Why don't you explain the realm of what we are talking about today? Well, Self-care is a huge category, So I thought we'd narrow it down with our evening and our morning routines. So, Because, Yeah, Like I said, It's such a big category and encompasses so many behaviors. So starting with those two things is the easiest place to start. What makes the morning and the evening routine as far as self-care so important? Maybe it's a question. Because you start your day with you and you end your day with you, And it sets the tone. So the morning routine sets the tone for the day ahead. And the evening routine sets you up for a nice sleep. And we all know how sleep is important. So starting calmly and ending the day calmly with you taking care of your needs, I believe and many others believe it's the best way to start and end your day and to take care of yourself to be more successful, Healthier and happier. Sure. So I personally have always what? It's just that you just kind of dismiss the whole thing. You're like, Yeah, Whatever. No, I was going to say, I've always thought that the nighttime routine was actually more important to me than the morning routine because it sort of builds momentum, Right? So if I don't have a nighttime routine, If I stay up until ridiculously late or whatever, Then implementing a morning routine is a lot harder. I need the momentum from the night before of setting myself up kind of from wanting to get up. So let's start with evening routines. Well, You made a great point. I agree with you. I think the evening routine sets it up for your gun. I don't know if you're still there. Yeah. I thought you were gone for a while. It sets it up and usually we have more time for the evening routine than we do for the morning routine. So I thought it'd be interesting if I'd walk you through an evening routine. Sure. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah. It's your show. Why don't you walk us through an evening routine? I thought I could give you an. . . It's so messy today. I thought I could give you a sample of how I do it and then it can give you an idea and people then tweak it to what they think works best for them. Obviously, If you have little kids, No kids, Your work schedule will be impacted. So you obviously want to tweak it based on your rhythms and your work and your phase of your life. But I find the evening routine starts after dinner, Basically. If we want to sleep, We need our brains to produce melatonin and we can't do that if we're go, Go, Go and there's tons of light in the house. So I always start with even during dinner, I think I've mentioned it before, We already start dimming the lights so there's not tons of lights all over the house. And so we wrap up dinner, Clean up and shut off the lights. I already go upstairs because my bedroom's upstairs and I turn on the salt lamp, Which is a nice orangey color. So no bright lights. I put essential oil diffusers so it smells calm, Lavender or some other oil that calms you down. And I start unwinding, So shutting off screens, Computers. I don't check emails. I don't go on social media. So if people need to work, I always recommend to get those lights, Those glasses for the blue light, Which helps signal to the brain it's bedtime, Like I said, To produce melatonin. Something like I start, That's the recommendation of my naturopath, But she said it takes 12 hours to get rid of caffeine. So I have one coffee in the morning and that's it. So no coffee, No alcohol, Not eating late. So whatever you ingest in your body to encourage sleep. I'll have chamomile tea, Which calms the body. Dimming the lights, No screens. What else? The cell phone on airplane mode instead of full blown turned on. And so then I can do sometimes a yoga routine if I'm a bit frazzled to calm down my body. And I read and then close my eyes and fall asleep. And if I'm not exhausted, I might do a meditation before I fall asleep. So that's an example of evening routine. So an evening routine can start two hours before you go to bed and usually go to bed by 10, No later than 10. And usually I find I get a better night's sleep than after 10. I'm curious about how you might implement that for a small child or an elementary school child and help them get ready for bed. I know I'm just pretty common. My niece has a hard time getting to bed, Staying in bed, Falling asleep. So how can we help our kids with this? Yeah, Actually I work with parents a lot on bedtime routines. And it's basically the same thing tweaked to the child. So if they have dinner at five or six, Depends on the family, You unwind after dinner, Dim the lights. I don't recommend watching TV after dinner. If they're going to watch TV, I say let them watch it after school. So before dinner. And again, Child depends if it's two, Three versus 15. So no screens again, So they're not all stimulated. Get them ready for pajamas, Take a bath, Brush teeth so that their bodies are calming down. So it's not put after dinner. If they get ready for bed, Then they can relax, Do art or play. And then when it's time for bed, It's time for bed versus, Okay, Now go brush your teeth. And then there's the fight about brushing teeth. Hurry up, It's time for bed. So I tell them just get in your pajamas early. You can still play in your pajamas, Get your teeth brushed. That way there's no fights and rushing. And with adults as well as kids, I always recommend consistency. So the same time to go to bed, The same time to wake up. And when you create that kind of ritual and routine, Your body gets used to it. And yeah, You can have reading stories, You can do yoga, Have a little bedtime yoga, Or if they take a bath, Put essential oil like lavender to calm them down. So I would say it's no different than the adult bedtime routine, Just different activities. And shorter because they go to bed earlier. Right. Makes sense. And I think it's the predictability of it. This is what I'm going to do. And if you're consistent, Then they see you mean business. You don't need to be authoritarian. It's just, This is what we do, A, Then B, Then C, And you keep repeating it. And it's just creating that habit. So my best friend's son is five. And he has had a nighttime routine here forever. And every night, When it gets to be around that time, He stops what he's doing, Brush teeth, Put pajamas on, Go to the bathroom. Maybe not in that order, I'm not sure. And then like a snuggle song, And then a book or a book and then a snuggle song. And then he goes to bed by himself. And never once ever got up out of bed by himself in the morning or sometimes fought it a little bit, But always stuck to the routine. And it wasn't until we moved to this new house where now he gets up in the morning by himself. But before that, From the time he was in his crib, Just would stay until he got woken up to get up in the morning, The nighttime routine for him because it was so steady and so reliable and predictable and calming and all of that stuff. I've seen it work so well with him that I'm jealous and I wish that I had a nighttime routine. So if anybody's interested in seeing snuggle songs, I'm kidding. What do you like then? I like the Hungry Caterpillar. Goodnight Moon. Goodnight Moon. Yes. Goodnight Moon. I saw a meme the other day. This is so off topic. I saw a meme the other day that was Goodnight Moon, Goodnight Zoom, Goodnight Fear of Impending Doom. Anyway, Back to this. So anyway, Gina, Your nighttime routine for yourself sounds very, Very nice. My nighttime routine generally includes leaving this bright LED studio light on until about two o'clock in the morning and then blasting either music or a YouTube video and then taking my phone into bed and watching something on it until I literally pass out. Do you think that that might be why I'm not sleeping well? Most likely, Yes. You must be up till four in the morning? Somewhere between two and four every day, Yeah. And then, So okay, So what do we, If you don't, If you're not implementing a nighttime routine, How essential is it and how do you take those steps to do it if you're so used to not unwinding your mind in that way or whatever it may be? Well, If you're really not used to it, First, And you decide you want to do it because if you're just doing it for someone else, It's not going to work. So it's got to be a priority and you got to connect it to your why. Why do I need a bedtime routine? So one, Make the decision to do it. Be clear on why you're doing it. And I would say, If I'd have a schedule like yours, I would say start small and create a new habit and build on that. So pick one thing. So if it's pick a time, Every night I'm going to go to bed at this time and try that for a week. And maybe then the week after, Turn off that LED light earlier. And then the week after, You decide to shut off your phone at a certain time and replace that with another activity because if you're like, I need to do something with myself, Then maybe replace it with a book or a meditation or yoga, Whatever, To check on. So I would say start small because it's hard to, If you're really at one extreme and it's chaotic, You're setting yourself up for failure. So I would say start small and especially don't compare to Joe or Mary next to you. See what works for you based on your personality, Your style, Your schedule. If you hate yoga and meditation, Don't do that. If you love reading, If you love singing, Drawing, Journaling, Whatever it is, So adapt it to you. There's no wrong way to do it. So I would say start small and one thing at a time and see how it goes and notice the benefits. So we are about halfway through the show, Which means that it's a great time to turn this around and going to morning routines. Morning routines. Yes. Crystal, You messed up my segue and I'm never going to forgive you for it. I can live with that. So anyway, Morning routines. What's a good example of a morning routine? Well what's your morning routine? What is my ideal morning routine? What do I strive for or what is my actual morning routine? Well I'm curious. What's your morning routine right now? Most days my morning routine is to get up, Make a to-do list and have the goal and the intention of sitting down and collecting my thoughts for the day, Meditating, Journaling, Doing something productive in the realm of I love Duolingo. I've been learning Italian, Not for any reason other than just because it's a fun thing to get my brain going and doing and I've been doing that for like three years on and off and then going into sort of the clerical work, The clerical side of work like editing or sending invoices and stuff like that to sort of get me into that. Now that is what I strive for. My ideal morning routine is sleep through my alarm because in my head I'm like, Yeah but I don't have the first show until blah, Blah, Blah or I don't have the first meeting until then. And then you went to bed at three. What's that? I said and then you went to bed at three. Exactly yep. So I sleep through my 6. 30 alarm and then I get up somewhere between 7. 30 and 8. 30 depending on how urgent whatever I need to do is that day. And then I look at the to-do list or I look at the journal that I laid out from the night before and I go, I will get to that in a minute. I just need to do this because this is like I need to take care of this fire right now. And then it is roughly 4 p. M. And I haven't eaten. And I look at the to-do list and I go, I can still meditate and journal and stuff for the beginning of the day right now even though it's 4 p. M. And then I still don't do it because there's more pressing things and then I'm exhausted. So nothing. Okay. That's my real morning routine. But I know what I want to do. I know what I want to do. It's just that I'm not doing it. I think that a large part of that has to do with the not having a nighttime routine. Yeah. That and you're exhausted. And having a morning routine and the evening routine means you have to put yourself first. So if journaling and meditating is what fills you up and you wait till you have time to do it, You'll never have time to do it. So that comes down to the priorities, Right? To decide this is what I'm going to do in the morning. The reason the morning routine is also important is that it sets up your day. So I'm not perfect. Sometimes my morning routine is screwed up and I see the impact on my day. I find if I make time for it, I'm actually more productive. I'm in a better mood. I'm not ever in a bad mood, But I can be stressed. So if I don't do it, Then I always feel like I'm behind. I have to do this. I didn't do that. Like I'm chasing something. So I find when I do the morning routine, It sets me up for more for success for the rest of the day. And it has a big impact on how I feel about myself. When I don't do my morning routine, The evening I always do it. But if I don't do the morning routine, I feel bad about myself. I feel I was lazy or neglectful or I failed at something. So it has a direct impact on my self-worth for some reason. Because I obviously didn't put myself first. So the morning routine I strive for is getting up early. And I think it's impacted by the seasons here. It can be really dark here in the morning, Even at seven, Seven thirty. So I find it's harder to get up at six. But I strive for around six thirty, Seven thirty, Depends on the season. And I start with me. So I put good stuff in my body, Water, Do a yoga routine or exercise. Depends on my level of my energy. I really meditate before I get out of bed. And I've made it a point a while back. I don't know if it's a year or two years to not check my email or work stuff first thing. I really make a point to make it about me first thing in the morning. So everyone will be different. If I have time, Because the mornings are more rushed, If I work or not. If I have time I'll do a bit of journaling. Do a to-do list about two or three things, Because if it's more than that we all know we don't get to it. And have a healthy breakfast. I never used to have breakfast, But I can have breakfast early or at ten thirty. It depends. I really listen to my body. I don't eat if I'm not hungry and I eat when I'm hungry. So it's a very simple and short morning routine and you don't need two hours. So people who say they're busy, They have kids. You don't need to think morning routine is for people who have no kids, A lot of time or lots of money. You can choose to have a morning routine that's ten minutes long. As long as energetically you've decided to put yourself first and give to yourself first basically. So, I mean you kind of touched on this just a second ago and a little bit ago, But maybe the big question here is why is it important to make ourselves a priority? I mean that's what the morning routines are about, The evening routines. Yeah, Well remember at the beginning I said let's start with evening and morning routines. But it's part of self-care and you should always be a priority and we've been often raised to think self-care is selfish. But the overused analogy of the oxygen mask in the plane is if you don't take care of yourself you're useless to the people around you. So even if you think you're doing well, You're not at your optimal. You're not taking care of your body, Of your mind. You can't be fully present. So self-care, People have healthy self-esteem, Take care of themselves. If you look at highly successful business people, They all have self-care routines and they all have a morning routine especially and an evening routine. But there's a lot more written about the morning routines, You know the 5 a. M. Club and stuff like that. So morning routines, Evening routines are part of a bigger self-care which is taking care of yourself before you take care of other people. Thanks. Does that answer your question? I think so. So I think that the, Well Crystal what is your morning routine? Or evening routine, Do you have a morning or evening routine? In the evening I try to journal and do a little bit of meditation before bed. I usually start maybe ideally like an hour before and in the morning, My mornings usually, I'm trying to get off my phone as much. I usually like read the news or something in the morning on my phone before I get out of bed but I found that that isn't necessarily very good for my day and I can still read it later in the morning. But I usually start with like copying in the shower and I eat breakfast and then I just kind of, I don't know, Chill for a little bit after that. It depends kind of what time I get up to, You know what I have to do and things like that but ideally. Nice. Very nice. So if people are wanting to structure a morning routine and an evening routine to get sort of in control of their self-care, Which one would you recommend that they try to implement first or do you recommend that they try to implement them together and what sort of resources would you give for people to, For where to start? If they only can pick one, I would pick the evening routine just so you can have a good night's sleep. Right there, You'll do a lot. Sleep is just as important as food. There's debates if you need eight hours, Six hours. I won't even go in the amount of hours but sleep is important, Whatever that means to you. Like I said earlier, I would start with the evening but I would start small and I would sit down and plan it and write your goals. It's been shown that people who write their goals are more likely to follow through. If you're partnered up, Have an accountability partner, Tell your partner or friends so you can do this together. You don't need to have the same routine but encourage each other to do it. And the other thing I would do is pay attention. Notice if you see any changes and notice if you need to tweak it a little bit. And as for resources, There's a lot of resources online. There are podcasts on self-care, Whether it's for business people, For moms. If you just Google self-care on YouTube, On iTunes, On the internet, There's a lot of good different ideas. And there's me, Obviously. You can connect with me online in the Facebook group. And yes, So there's a whole bunch of options depending on people's different tastes and what they prefer. There's even books written on it. There's two really good books I just finished reading. One is called The Joy of Missing Out and the other one by Kate Northrup, Do Less. So yeah, Those are an example of two books, Two good books about self-care. I watched, Ironically, Because I didn't know what the topic was going to be today. I was watching a video last night that I had seen before, But the morning routine, Evening routine thing had been on my mind. And this video popped up in my recommended on YouTube to watch again. So I did, And it has a great quote. So I just want to pull that up real quick. And it's called I Woke Up at 5 AM for 30 Days by Matt D'Avella. And here's the quote, And I don't know who the quote is from, But it's in there. The shorter your sleep, The shorter your lifespan. The old maxim, I'll sleep when I'm dead is therefore unfortunate. Adopt this mindset and you'll be dead sooner and the quality of that life will be shorter and worse. I don't remember who the actual quote is from, But the idea of the fact that people that sleep less than seven hours, You know what I mean? I knew that. That's an actual statistic that is referenced in that book. And that was scary and was like, You should get a nighttime routine and start getting your stuff together so that you can sleep a little bit more. So it's really important, The stuff that you're talking about right now. Well, You need sleep to heal your body and your brain. You need enough sleep so you can also have REM sleep. So when you're dreaming, It's repairing your brain. So if people don't have enough sleep, They'll have less REM sleep and the sleep is not as restorative. And we live in these bodies and there's an epidemic of insomnia, Sleep issues, Which then causes a bunch of health issues and stress and suicide and depression. There's a reason we sleep, Even animals sleep and even cavemen slept. So yeah, Sleep is just as essential as food and water. Yeah. Yeah. Well, It's that time. So if you guys don't have anything else to say on this subject, It is time for our moment of gratitude. Dr. Gina, Can you explain to us why, For anybody that hasn't listened, Why we end every episode with a moment of gratitude? Well, When it's a habit most happy people have, When you're grateful for what's going right in your life, It shifts your mood, Shifts your mindset, And makes you more positive. It has a good impact on your brain to be grateful. Stop seeing what's not right with your life. Start noticing what's right with your life. I love it. Crystal, Can you start us off today? Yes, Belle. Make mine quick since my dog is barking. I'm going to say I'm grateful for my dogs. I love my dogs. I've taken them out. Some of them sleep with me. They're great. I love my dogs. Awesome. Thank you, Crystal, And thank you for meeting yourself. I am grateful today for. . . I did some videos just for fun because I thought that they would be funny in April and May with my dad and I having a fake morning show where it was just the two of us talking about nothing. He was in the nursing home and it was just funny and I got him. . . He had an iPad and I got him to be on this platform that we're on right now. It was such hell getting him to try to. . . Trying to get him on the platform to do it. It took longer than the actual show took just to get him to type in the numbers correctly. But now I have these three episodes of this that are like an hour and a half of us talking together and now that he's gone, I get to share that with my mom and I get to watch it. I watched it last night. I watched one of the episodes last night. I'm really grateful that I did that and that I have that because we are not a family that took a lot of videos or photos or anything like that. So it's really cool that I have those and that's what I'm grateful for today. Yeah, That's amazing that. . . You see, It's the little things in life that make a huge difference when you did it. It was no big deal. It's not like going on a trip to Paris. Can I say this is really like a silly thing. He died at 632 in the morning and every single time that I looked at a clock, For the most part since then, Whatever time it is, It's something 32. I was annoying at first and now it makes me smile. Just as I said that and looked up at the clock, It was 632 PM. I have not missed a single 32 since this morning when I woke up at 730. It's weird. Every single time right on the hour I look up at the clock and I don't know what that's about and I'm not really that superstitious, But it's pretty weird that that literally just happened now as I looked up at the clock. Every time I see that, I just kind of smile and say thank you. Anyway, Continue. Him winking at you. What are you grateful for today? Well, It's similar to Crystal. Today I was working online and I get really tired and I had to write notes and I'm like, Screw it. It was nice and sunny. I took the dogs, My daughter, And I'm like, We're getting out of here. We're going for a nice walk and we went for an hour long walk. It was nice and sunny and yeah, It was just beautiful outside. I'm grateful for that today. Awesome. All right. Well, Thank you everybody for listening. If you have any questions on this topic, Please leave a comment wherever it is that you're watching this. Please leave a review. If you're listening to this on iTunes or Spotify or anything, Any site like that, Insight Timer, All of those things, Greatly appreciated. If you want to reach out to contact any of us, You can contact Crystal Tubbs at braveandboldwriter. Com. Crystal, What would people find that you do there? I can do web design, Graphic design. I can help with podcasts, Videos, Live streams as well. I don't want to take anyone out of your wheelhouse bin, But I also know you're really busy. Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. And Gina, If people want to work with you, Where can they find you at? Well, Right now you can go at drgina. Ca and you'll find a nice five-day program that's free for now, The Life Clarity Formula. And otherwise, My other website is drmadriagrano. Com. Awesome. Yeah. And check out that Facebook group too, If you have not already. The name of the Facebook group is? The Life Clarity Method. Awesome. Well, Thank you guys so much. And it's always a pleasure to spend my Monday nights with you. And if you want to watch this live, You can every Monday at 6 p. M. Eastern time. We are live on Facebook and YouTube and all of that stuff. So thank you guys so much for joining us and we'll see you next time. Thank you. For more information or to book an appointment with Dr. Gina, Go to drgina. Com. Or click the link in the description of this episode.