We all have morning routines which become part of our daily habits.
These habits may include hitting the snooze button, looking at your phone and social media, going for a morning walk, eating breakfast, or not.
What we do each morning plays a role in determining our day ahead. If you begin the day by looking at negative media, sculling coffee as you race out the door or telling yourself that it is going to be a bad day, you have already set your intentions and will find that all these actions and behaviours will flow on into your day ahead. If you instead, set yourself up with actions in the morning to create a healthy morning routine, you will start to see how this can change your entire day.
Your current morning routine is a habit and habits are hard to break. Below are some recommendations to set yourself up for a more successful and positive day. I would suggest introducing one new action a fortnight to not overwhelm yourself and to start moving away from the old habits to form these new ones.
Put Your Phone on Charge in Another Room
This is one of the most important changes I encourage clients to make. If your phone is right next to you when you wake, it is easy to pick it up and start scrolling through social media, emails, or the latest news events. Before you have taken time to wake and just be with yourself or your partner and family, you have instead looked at the rest of the world and taken on all their news. This can trigger both stress and anxiety, especially if you have read some negative media, rather than setting yourself to be in a state of calm to start your day.
If you use your phone as an alarm clock, buy another alarm clock, or have the phone in the next room where it forces you to get out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off. In addition, if you listen to meditations or calming music to help you sleep, you may play it through a Bluetooth stereo. There is always a solution to not requiring a phone next to you when you sleep.
Get Out of Bed as Soon as Your Alarm Goes Off
Have you ever noticed that when you press snooze, and the alarm goes off again 5 minutes later, just as you have started to fall back to sleep, you feel even more tired? Then for the rest of the day you feel drowsy. You have told your mind and body that you are about to go back into a sleep cycle. The sleep cycle is generally 90 minutes long, so when your alarm goes off again, you have just interrupted the cycle and your body and mind have already set itself up for a full cycle of sleep making you feel more tired and drowsy.
Do a Morning Meditation
There are hundreds of free online meditations that take no more than 10 minutes, available these days, thanks to platforms like Spotify and YouTube. Meditations I recommend in the morning include – positive energy, affirmations or setting an intention for a good day ahead. Depending on how you might be feeling will depend on the type of meditation you choose. If you are feeling rundown or had a bad dream you might do one for positive energy, if you are nervous about a presentation or feeling like you need some self-motivation you might choose one that includes positive affirmations to help remind yourself of who you are and what you are capable of. Or if you just want to have a good day you can do a meditation on setting good intentions for the day ahead and visualising how you want your day to look and feel. You may find these are some of your happiest and most successful days.
Make Your Bed
Just the simple act of making your bed first thing in the morning sets you up for a more successful day. By completing one task before you have left your bedroom helps you to feel you have already been productive which will encourage you towards having a productive day.
Move Your Body For a Minimum of 10 Minutes
Doing some form of movement or exercise for a minimum of 10 minutes gets the blood circulating and gets your body and mind ready for a successful day. Everyone is different so this could be anything from a walk, jog, yoga, basic stretches, a gym class or doing weights. If you choose a form of movement or exercise that you really enjoy, it will make this new habit a lot easier to start creating each morning. You will notice the difference to both your body as well as your mind, to feel more focused, energised and have greater clarity. You can begin with 10 minutes and over time may find this will increase.
Drink a Glass of Water
Your body is made up of 60% water and while you are asleep your body is losing water through breathing or snoring. To help replenish yourself, have a large glass of room temperature water to help to start rehydrating. It is also a good idea to add some lemon as this helps your metabolism to start moving.
This is just a few simple steps that will take no more than 25 minutes between them all. Who knows! You may even gain some extra time to your morning if you do not hit that snooze button.
