BOWEM Routine: A Simple Acronym for Morning Energy, Stress Relief, and Lasting Wellness

I’ve been working on improving my routines (as always) and this is an acronym that I created along the way. I encourage you to try a BOWEM break as soon as you can once you wake up and also a few times a day to help your body to recover from the stressors of the day. Here’s what it stands for:

• Breathing (right now “box breathing” is working well for me, but you can experiment)

• Outside

• With Water

• Eat a high fiber, high protein snack or meal

• Then Move your body (something like a walk or a short mobility challenge or squats or something simple)

What’s the goal of the BOWEM routine? To improve (increase) our heart rate variability, tell our cells what time it is, lubricate our joints and keep our blood sugar steady. And this is not written in stone, so adapt it to fit your life. For example, this morning when I woke up, I opened the window and sat in front of the window to do my breathing and drink my water. I had half a protein bar. (Is it processed? I would say yes. But I picked one with no added seed oils and no added sugars, and I’ll follow it up with beans and protein after the dog walk.) I did my mobility workout and then got on the elliptical. For me, Charlie does not like the elliptical so I have to do it while he is still in his crate. If I go outside too early, I lose my chance to get on the elliptical. Charlie and I went outside together as soon as I was ready to get him up. So it’s not perfect, because life isn’t perfect. But it’s a good acronym to aim for a BOWEM break whenever you can to help your body to function at its best. Now, it’s time for my beans and protein and vegetables.

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Slowing down

As I mentioned in my newsletter this week, the challenge this month is to slow down and breathe. 

If you watch the Gottman Institute's "What's Baby Saying?" video, Dr. Gottman explains that "it is important to realize that babies operate on a much, much slower time scale than adults.  You may remember when you were a child, a summer seemed to last forever. Now as you get older, summers go by very, very quickly.  Because the world is so much slower for children, it takes time for a baby to react to things. Newborns, for example, will imitate you, but it's a great deal of effort for them to do this. It will take them 10-40 seconds before that imitation really happens. But as busy adults, we are often out of the room doing ten other things by the time the baby has gotten around to imitating us. So one of the first things you have to do is slow way, way down. It will add a lot to your life if you can turn off the television, not answer the phone, and really spend a lot of time in sustained play with your baby, learning how to read your baby's signals. Every baby is different, so you need to get to know your baby as an individual. You don't have to devote 95% of your time to playing with your baby. Just be fully present and engaged when you are playing with your baby. That's another thing that's special about babies. They are fully engaged in the moment!"

Speaking of newborns imitating, I love this video of a newborn imitating his dad!