I’ve never been a morning person. Through good times and bad, whether I’ve been getting up in the dark to attend a job I hated or sleeping in late before a day of leisure, I’ve always found the first few moments of the day really unpleasant. I wake up feeling scared. I’m never quite sure of what. If my mind is a filing cabinet, I feel as if vandals get in at night, start opening all the drawers and throwing the important papers around. I wake feeling discombobulated; unsure of my ability to confront the future. There could be a scientific explanation to do with cortisone levels. Look it up if you like, I can’t be bothered. What difference would it make? I’ve been struggling like this since childhood. I’m past caring what the cause is; I just want a cure.
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Recently, I think I might have found one. For the past few weeks, I have started waking up feeling happy. When I hear the alarm, I fling back the covers almost immediately. I scuttle downstairs merrily to feed the pets and stick the kettle on. I open the blinds and smile into the sunlight. Sometimes, I even have a little whistle.
The cause of all this is not some fancy ‘optimisation ritual’ learnt from a weird alpha-male podcast. I’m not fasting or taking ice baths; I’m not muttering affirmations or scribbling out a gratitude journal. It’s more straightforward than all that: I’ve just got really, really into puzzles. Concise crosswords were the gateway drug. My wife has been a big fan for years; I have always teased her for being a nerd. Crosswords seemed a bit too spoddy for me. I had an idea of myself as a renegade who lives too fast and burns too bright for the gentle pleasures of word-based conundrums.
Like many washed up middle-aged men, I clung to a daft fantasy for a bit too long. The more I give in to reality – and accept that I am perhaps more Stephen Fry than Stephen Tyler – the more relaxed I seem to feel about life.
It’s a shamefully late realisation, I know, but there is huge satisfaction in making gradual progress as a result of continued practice. Who knew? I do The Times crossword each day, painstakingly stumbling through each clue in order and then repeating until the whole thing is complete, or near enough. Once I’m done, I am overwhelmed by a sense of self-satisfaction. It’s a bit like the quiet smugness I feel after a morning run, only less messy and undignified.
