ITT: Nice to have no kids. :D
It gets easier as they grow older.
What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning
91–100 of 172 posts
Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And I'm a 9 hour+ sleeper, so I need those sleep hours. Most people need at least 8-8.5 hours (as in 99.999%). He does too, just doesn't realize it.
I do ok with 7. I’d sleep longer but my back starts to hurt if I’m in bed too long. I get up at 5am to avoid traffic.
I switched to a futon-style very firm mattress several years ago. Now any time we go out of town my back feels miserable in the morning. I honestly don't know why people subject themselves to the torture that is the modern box-spring mattress.
I think people would have much less back issues if they spent the two weeks it takes to sleep on a firm surface. Its all about learning to actually distribute your weight across the surface area of your body.
But I guess I am also relatively young and fit (I.e. 30 and not overweight or obese), so maybe I'm just not representative of the average person.
Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
For pranayama I practice things like nadi sodhana, bhastrika, and visama vrtti, with kumbhakas depending on what I'm doing. My meditation is probably closest to what people call vipassana these days -- it's watching the breath or another meditation object without any active control of it (which isn't completely correct, as attention does affect the breath). Pranayama on the other hand is an active manipulation of the…
I see. So do you practice pranayama prior to the vipassana in order to increase the effectiveness of the vipassana? Or do they do function separately for you?
That's a good question. I view them as separate but interrelated, and often times I'll practice pranayama without doing a corresponding meditation (e.g. after asana).
Pranayama in many ways is exercise which readies you for meditation. The Anapanasati Sutta makes reference to a form of it as a preparatory practice. It has helped me investigate and understand bodily sensations that arise in meditation that previously would have been distracting to me. Or to not be overwhelmed with fear or thoughts in meditation when occasionally you realize "hey, I actually haven't been breathing for a while".
Happy to talk about it more off thread if you'd like (email in profile).
Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning
#94I seriously considered switching jobs in December, as in had an offer and accepted it before backing out and taking the counter-offer from my current employer.
Honestly the deciding factor was that I couldn't stomach the idea of getting up two hours earlier every day. My mornings are long, drawn out affairs where I have ~3 hours to hang out with my kids, listen to the radio, do some chores, and generally prepare myself for the day. Having had that for the past several years, the idea of giving it up was just too much for me.
Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning
#95Yeah this is a core reason why a long driving commute is an absolute deal breaker for me and probably why I'll never end up working for a big corp in SF.
In Vancouver I can wake up at 7am, go to the gym in my building or the nearby community centre, read, do some shores, have a lazy breakfast and still walk or take a short bike ride into work at 10am.
I can't imagine throwing all that free time away just to sit in traffic.
Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning
#96ITT: Nice to have no kids. :D
I have three kids, though none are school aged yet. My mornings are when I have the highest quality interactions with them. We are all the most well-rested we're going to be for the day, which means everyone is likely to be pretty agreeable. Plus we have our routine figured out, and going through the motions gets us all off to a good start to our day.
(But also, the chances of me getting "An hour of meditation and reading the paper" are roughly zero :) )
Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm confident you could work in the morning if you readjusted your sleeping habits. This subthread is about the possible/probable genetic reasons why some people have more trouble adjusting their sleeping habits to that of everyone else. Saying that he just needs to adjust his sleeping habits is not really helpful.
I was a night owl from the time I was 16 until 33(sleep 2-3-4AM until 10AM-11AM-12PM), and then I adjusted my sleep cycle to be an early riser(sleep 11-6). It took about 4 days before I felt physically right. The hardest part was lifestyle adjustments around the differing hours. I don't believe I have any kind of special power. OP sounds depressed with a self-defeatist mindset. He considers himself unemployable becau…
Without clocks I will naturally go to bed between 5a and 7a and wake between 1 and 3p. I've had a "normal" schedule for most of my life, and have gone long stretches (months) where I was in bed every night by 10p. It doesn't stick. Without alarms and diligence, I will always revert to my natural schedule within days.
Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do this, but seasonality can be an issue. The last few winters I've added some artificial lighting that ramps up before sunrise, with seemingly positive results.
Curious how you implemented this. I bought a Phillips “sunrise alarm clock” about a year ago, but the light was weak and I didn’t feel a difference at all. Did you hack together something yourself?
Yep. The Philips one is a joke.
Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning
#99Goodness. I don't think I've ever met anyone else who values the slow morning as much as I do. If I could I'd go into work around 10:30AM every morning. I need 7.5 hours of sleep at least. Really 8.5 to be at my best. That means I'm going to bed at 11PM and waking up at 7:30AM ideally.
If I'm going to be at work by 9AM then I have to rush around to do everything. I've cut my morning activities down to do so but I'd like an extra hour or so every morning. An hour and a half would be ideal so I could get the gym out of the way.
But It doesnt look like that will happen anytime soon.
Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Early morning routine becomes getting kids out of bed, dressed, fed, and off to school. If you're getting up before THAT to do your own things, it would need to be really early.
Casey Neistat has two kids and gets up at 4am to exercise before taking care of them. This video goes over his time management technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Cvl3_CH2A
By his own reckoning he sleeps for under 5 hours every day. Maybe he's one of the vanishing few who can get by on that amount of sleep (you are not though, so don't try to emulate him), or maybe he's not listing naps he takes throughout the day, or maybe he's just setting himself up for a lifetime of health consequences from prolonged sleep deprivation.
Whichever it is, it's not exactly the sort of routine one should take too much inspiration from for one's own life.