Establishing a Routine That’s Helped My Anxiety (2021)

My morning routine for virtual college is quite simple.

Each morning, I am awake at seven thirty am and grab my phone to check up on my emails. A lot of people say not to do this when you first wake up, but since implementing a digital minimalism program, this is one of the only times during the day I check my phone. I do this for ten minutes, then roll over to grab my computer. I keep the main apps disabled: Slack, Discord, and Email, and I go through my YouTube subscriptions. I add them to a “To-Watch List”; I only allow myself to watch videos on Sundays.

By nine, my father has left, and I prepare raspberry or hibiscus tea. 9:30 is tea and breakfast. It is during this time I do more leisure activities, such as flipping through books, looking at online shops, and catch up on a movie or television show. By ten, I am clocked into work or ready to start working on my school meetings.

Depending on the day, I am clocked out of work by five, or, if it’s a Thursday, my costume class ends at 9:30. My Türkçe class runs on Mondays and Wednesdays, so from 6-8 I join my peers and teacher in Istanbul to practice the language. Some days I cook dinner for my family, when the workload isn’t too much and I can get away with making a meal during my shift. On non-Thursdays, I spend time with my father as he eats his dinner. He used to eat it alone, but when he almost died, I started lingering as he ate.

I shower, do my skincare routine, and by 10, I sit down to write. I alternate between my laptop and my writer’s journal, and, once I established that I would write from 10 to 12 am, I’ve gotten quite a bit done. I’ve written many short stories, poems, and essays during this time—it’s the sweet spot for me. Then I go to bed, to repeat this the next day.

All in all, this has eased my anxiety quite a bit. I am someone who needs major structure in my life, or I start losing it. I’m a planner, one who gets extremely anxious when something goes wrong. I also need to be productive and simple in my life, so this has helped immensely! I find that I’m not too stressed and that I get everything done—it’s a perfect balance!