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So you want to find the perfect morning routine, but you’re not sure where to start. Maybe you’re not a “morning person” (yet), but want to explore what that may look like for you. Or perhaps you feel like your morning routine is chaotic and disorganized, and want to seek ways to regain order at the start of your day.
Source: ClickUp
Whatever your reason for wanting to set a morning routine, creating one that fits your lifestyle will be the key to finding and maintaining a solid morning routine – and one you actually enjoy having!
Wouldn’t be nice to start your days feeling refreshed and energized to take on the challenges ahead?
Benefits of a Solid Morning Routine
Having a daily morning routine isn’t about adding more to your to-do list for the day.
It’s about filling in your mornings with activities (or stillness) that you need to help you rejuvenate, reset, and refocus for the day ahead.
Here are some of the top benefits of a morning ritual:
Improved mental health and overall wellbeing
- Reduces stress and anxiety
- Improves focus and drive
- Less thinking power needed in the morning
- Helps you feel more grounded, connected, and confident
Provides structure to your day
- Gives you the power to take control of your day/schedule
- Sets you up for success
Promotes better time management
- Improves productivity
- Improves quality of work
A solid morning routine will brighten your mood and give you more energy during the day, reduce anxiety, boost your productivity levels, and make you feel better overall!
And when you take time to fill up your cup before the demands of the day get in the way, you’re more likely to have the mental, emotional, and physical capacity to tackle those challenges.
Calming your Morning Anxiety
Morning anxiety is not uncommon.
In fact, many of us experience morning anxiety because of stress from work, school, relationships issues, and so on.
Sometimes, anxiety can be caused by having too many obligations during the day, and other times it may be due to having poor planning and time management or lack of boundaries.
Either way, the feeling absolutely sucks!
While anxiety can occur at any time of the day, most people tend to feel it the most in the morning and there’s scientific reasoning as to why that is.
For most people, cortisol, which is the stress hormone in our body, is at its highest level during the early morning hours.
Because our cortisol levels are higher in the morning, we’re more likely to feel anxious, which in turn causes us to feel less focused and productive throughout the day.
This is where a morning routine that fits your lifestyle can help alleviate morning anxiety!
Designing a healthy morning routine can help reduce morning anxiety by:
- Protecting your peace by time blocking and setting boundaries
- Promoting self-care (showing up for yourself)
- Improving mindset and mental clarity
- Helping avoid potential distractions or sources of stressors (ie. phone/ computer)
Tips for Creating a Solid Morning Routine
Now, let’s get you into some of the activities you can start implementing in your morning to help you become your most productive, creative, and take control of your days!
1. Set up a wake-up time and don’t hit snooze!
Yeah, we’ve all been guilty of snoozing our alarms in the morning just to get five more minutes of sleep (so we think). The next thing you know, you’ve slept through all your alarms and you’re late and in a major rush…again.
While we think sleeping in just a little longer is helping us get more rest, it’s actually doing the exact opposite.
Sleep experts explain that snoozing your alarm messes with your sleep cycles and causes you to feel more tired and foggy because it disrupts your REM sleep – the stage of sleep when your brain is stimulated to help learning and memory.
The secret to starting your morning off right is to get upright when the first alarm goes off.
A little trick you can try is by counting down from five after being woken up by the first alarm.
Simply count down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… then roll out of bed!
2. Eat according to your needs
Is breakfast really that important?
This one will require a lot of effort and research on your behalf!
Everyone’s bodies are different and so are their needs. Understanding how your unique body works, what types of food it needs, and how much food (energy) you need to power you through your daily activities is key!
Take some time to understand your health and how the foods you eat affect your mood, energy levels, and mental clarity.
The more you know about nutrition, the more you can make better choices about the foods you eat, especially in the morning!
3. Get a sweat sesh in or practice breathwork
Regular exercise comes with tons of health benefits including boosting energy levels, improving mood, and cognitive performance to name a few.
Implementing movement in your morning routine can help you:
- Gain mental clarity and improve attention span
- Feel a sense of accomplishment, rejuvenated, and recharged after exercising
- Boost your metabolism and energy levels
- And more!
There areseveral types of exercises that you can do, but the key is, once again, is learning how your body works, what it needs, and knowing what kind of activities you enjoy.
Whether it be running, yoga, CrossFit, Tai Chi, or walking your dogs, the goal is to incorporate movement and breathwork into your mornings to feel good, reduce stress and anxiety, boost energy levels, and improve your productivity.
4. Journal or create a checklist for the day
Journaling is a great way to untangle your thoughts and put them on paper (or online notepad), clear your head, and tie your thoughts and feelings together.
While you can journal any time of the day, doing it in the morning can have several benefits to your mental health. It helps declutter your brain when you write your thoughts out and allows you to free up space for what’s truly important (like the information you need to remember for your big presentation!)
Aside from improved mental clarity, journaling in the morning can also help you connect with yourself and align with your intentions.
When you write your intentions down, you become more aware of what matters to you, which helps bring your focus to those goals.
5. Invest time for learning
Starting the day with learning can help bring a new perspective to many different aspects of your life and inspire you to think more creatively, especially at work.
Read a book, listen to a podcast, watch a YouTube video, practice your drawing skills, or fine-tune your guitar skills (as long as you aren’t waking your neighbors up with it).
No matter how busy you are, we guarantee you that investing even ten minutes for learning every day will help improve your personal and professional growth.
6. Spend time with loved ones
Humans have the biological need for connection, meaning our brains and bodies are wired to connect with others.
Not only is connection one of our biological needs, but it also has the power to create positive changes in the brain.
Take a few moments of your time in the morning to connect with your family, friends, loved ones, and so on. Whether it’s over the phone or in person, the connection will help you feel supported, which in turn will help you feel empowered, determined, inspired, and ready to tackle the day ahead.
7. Prepare the night before
Ok, now here’s a tip that’s technically not part of a morning routine, but it is key to ensuring your morning routine sticks.
Planning your days the night before can help increase your morning productivity and reduce the amount of thinking power that you’ll need when your day begins. When you plan the night before, you’ll know exactly what you’ll be doing the next day, what you need, how much time you need for each activity, and so on!
What you do the night before will have a domino effect on how your morning will unfold. So if you want to be your most productive self when the day comes, then write three to five of the most important things you want to get done the night before and block off the time you’ll need to knock those out.
