Interdisciplinary Psychology:

Activity 1: Elevator Ride.

            A while ago, I created this weekly morning routine for myself in order to add more structure to the start of my day.  You see, I work nights in a restaurant / bar that has fairly late hours. To be specific this means that on average I arrive at work at about 5:00 PM and make it back home around 11:30 PM. By the time I actually get into bed to fall a sleep it’s generally around 2:00AM.

             Based on this schedule I was running into a problem were I would find my self sleeping right up until noon and not actually being ready to start the day until about 1:30 PM. After a while this routine became rather depressive. I always felt like I never had enough time to get anything done during the day. I was constantly tired and never really felt awake until it was time for me to go to work again. One day I decided I needed to make a change.

            After thinking long and hard about what positive changes I could make to my daily routine what I came up with seems to model the Elevator Activity we were assigned in class. Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for… Here’s what comprises my new positive morning routine:

            For most mornings during the week I set an alarm for 10:00 AM. This allows me the eight hours of sleep science recommends the average adult receives every night. Four out of the seven days I get right out of bed and head to the gym where I work out for about forty five minutes. When I return home I make myself some sort of two-egg omelet with bacon, toast, and a glass of orange juice. These two simple activities have turned out to be very “mood lifting” for me. I try to schedule my schoolwork, important meetings, or anything that requires a heighten level of attention from me to be done on the days I practice my “mood lifting” exercises.

            Now that we’ve explored with the mood lifting aspect of my routine it’s time to ride the mood elevator back down to a calmer state of being. As I said before I engage in my mood lifting exercises four days out of the week, this leaves three days to be filled with mood calming routine. On the days that I don’t work out and cook breakfast what I do is this:

            When my alarm goes off 10:00 AM I give myself until 10:30 before I get up. I then engage in some sort of stretching or a light quick work out that can be done around the house. I then pour myself some cereal or something equally easy to make and take my time returning e-mails and reading the news. I will also spend sometime playing guitar or listening to a favorite album. On the days I practice these mood-calming exercises I normally schedule myself with activities such as cleaning up the house, or going grocery shopping, the type of activities that would be considered low stress.

            Since implementing these changes to my daily routine I have noticed a massive amount of improvement in my day-to-day life. I no longer feel constantly tired, and I have plenty of time to complete the things I need to. In short I am a big fan and supporter of the Elevator ride activity.