Wanna change your life?
I believe the easiest way to create changes in life is through establishing good habits in your morning ritual.
I’m not gonna tell you what’s the perfect time to get your day started.
I don’t believe your success or happiness depends on being part of the 5 AM club, but moreover in you living your life according to your body’s clock and sleeping pattern.
So whenever you’ve got a good amount of sleep, leave those cozy sheets behind and get ready for a happy morning!
Happy morning… for real?
Yeah even if you’re the complete opposite of a morning person you will actually be able to create a positive morning with the following eleven good habits.
1. DIGITAL DETOX
Probably the most essential habit for me to have a chill morning, although I cheat on this rule from time to time… with instant regret.
Put your phone in airplane mode before going to bed and leave it alone for at least the first hour of your day. Best to leave it off until you go to work or really need it.
I know it’s especially tempting when your phone works as your alarm clock and it’s already in your hand before you have even opened your eyes properly.
If you don’t need an alarm or if you can afford to buy an alarm clock I’d highly recommend to leave your phone outside of your room while sleeping.
In fact banning all electronic devices from your bedroom will have a great impact on your sleep quality.
Try this out at least for one week and notice the difference!
2. WATER IS LIFE
Congrats! You’ve managed to get out of bed and are ready to face the day.
Best way to prepare your body is to drink about 0.5 l of water before you do anything else.
During our beauty sleep we obviously haven’t been drinking for several hours, whilst our body has been working a lot, so it’s good to give back and get hydrated right away.
I personally like to add the juice of a freshly squeezed lemon to my water and have noticed positive effects on my skin, digestion and energy levels. .
If you’re not a big fan of lemon or struggle to drink a lot of plain water I have some ideas on how to make infused water with things you already have at home.
3. GOOD MORNING SONG
One of my favourite ideas that prevents me from going to work like a grumpy zombie: putting on music right after waking up!
This habit has especially helped me when I used to get up at 5 AM for work in the middle of winter when it was super cold and pitch black outside.
Sometimes I prefer mellow lo-fi music for a chill start while I’m still sleepy, on other days I put on some upbeat techno to get the move on or I put on a fun dance tune that lifts my mood instantly and makes me dance through the house.
Just choose whatever you feel like or pick after a mood you’d like to get in.
4. MORNING EXERCISE
Prepare & support your body for a long day of sitting at the desk, lying on the couch or even doing your outdoor job!
Waking up all parts of your body before leaving the house will give you an energy boost for the whole day.
You choose what kind of movement and how much is best for you!
It could be
- tapping all of your body parts
- gentle stretching
- HIIT (high intensity interval training)
- dancing to your favourite tune
- going for a run
- yoga
It doesn’t really matter what you decide to do, just try making daily movement a habit.
I also have a bunch of tips on how to make movement more fun and a list of different forms of physical exercises.
5. BREATHWORK
On average we take around 20 000 breaths per day.
But how many of them do you actually breathe consciously?
You don’t need to know anything about pranayama breathing, ujjayi breath or other breathing techniques.
Most important is that you focus on belly breathing instead of chest breathing, the latter is what most of us (including me) do unconsciously.
Let each inhale fill & nourish every cell of your body and let everything go with your exhale.
You can also inhale while counting to three, hold your breath for three more seconds and exhale for another three.
Whatever kind of breathwork resonates with you, do some morning breathing to get some fresh energy into your entire mind and body.
6. MORNING GRATITUDE
Having an attitude of gratitude is always a good idea!
Feeling grateful will train your mind to see the positive things in your life and focus on all the good things you already have.
Expressing gratitude in the morning will help you shift your mindset for the day ahead and remind you in unpleasant situations to recall the good in everything.
You can feel thankful & grateful for all things no matter how big or small.
It could be
- waking up healthy
- enjoying a delicious cup of morning coffee
- the weather
- you showing up for yourself
If you’re in need of some more inspiration for your gratitude list I have noted some from my gratitude diary.
You can also keep a gratitude journal so you can always come back to the pages you already wrote whenever you feel a bit low.
When practicing gratitude try to stop for a moment and really feel in your heart how grateful you are and give thanks to yourself / God / Source / the Universe / … whatever you believe in and resonate with.
7. MEDITATION
Nowadays it is well known that meditation is part of most morning routines of successfull people and its benefits are also backed by renowned scientist.
A decade ago most people still considered it some boring bollocks only esoteric and spiritual people would practice.
Yet there are so many different ways to meditate than just sitting in silence while trying to think of nothing.
From mindful movement meditation over focused meditation to vocal meditation you can pick whatever style fits you best.
You can also choose to visualize your goals in dreams as a form of meditation exercise.
Trying to ease your mind in the morning might seem unnecessary if you’ve just had several hours of sleep.
But don’t trick yourself with this fallacy – morning meditation will clear your mind and help you focus on what’s important, therefore it’s a great habit for your morning ritual to prepare for your day ahead.
8. JOURNALING
Do you keep a happy self journal?
Or do you think journals & diaries are only for kids & teenagers and you didn’t like that back then so why should you start now?
Well to be honest, the kind of journaling I’m talking about is pretty different from our childhood understanding of diaries.
It’s not about writing down every single thing that happened that day and how it made you feel whilst living in anxiety that someone may find & read, or even publish it.
The way I approach journaling is to keep track of my goals, dreams, finances, tasks and also to reflect my moods, habits and how I choose spending my time.
Whether you like to keep everything in one notebook or prefer to have a seperate gratitude journal, success journal, mood tracker, calendar and household book is up to you.
You can also use apps for everything if you’re more into it, but I personally love the old school way of sitting down with a book and also enjoy as much time as possible away from screens.
For journaling in the morning I can recommend you to write down your intentions for the day, what you want to focus on, how you want to feel and how your ideal day would look like.
Integrating journaling into your morning ritual will help you structure your day and remind you of your power of creation.
9. TO DOs
Writing down your to-dos on a list will help you declutter your mind and give you a good overview of your tasks.
Additionally you’ll lose the need of constantly keeping everything on your mind or worrying about forgetting something important.
I like to categorize my to-dos in two main categories: business & personal.
Which part you prioritize is up to you, for me as a self-employed I usually work on the business tasks first.
It can also help to mark which one’s are the most urgent and most unpleasant tasks and then rank them.
I know it’s particularly hard, but try to do the most urgent & most uncomfortable task at first. Then you can be proud of yourself for pushing through and you don’t have to think about it anymore.
Procrastination of important tasks will only make them come creeping back into your mind and leave you feeling worse.
Also don’t put an outrageous number of tasks on your daily to-do list, it’s better to keep your list short and when you’ve finished do some additional tasks.
This way you won’t have the feeling at the end of the day that you didn’t manage to do all of your tasks. But you will be surprised and happy, that you actually did more than you expected from yourself.
Creating a weekly to-do list will help you have an overview and select less tasks for the single days.
10. PREPARED OUTFIT
Do you ever wonder why successful people like Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs wear the same outfits almost every day?
It’s because the less decisions we have to make, the more energy we have for important decisions.
Now if fashion is important to you you have probably spent a good amount of time in front of your wardrobe in the morning wondering what you’re gonna wear that day.
I’ve run late several times in my life because it took me too long to create outfits and I do find running late equally as stressful as not knowing what I want to wear.
So whether you’re a fashionista or not, preparing your outfit before you go to bed at night will save you a bunch of brain power, nerves and time in the morning.
11. BREAKFAST
It doesn’t matter if your favourite breakfast consist of coffee & cigarettes, a smoothie bowl or maybe even nothing at all (the latter is actually my favourite as I cannot eat too soon after waking up).
But whilst everyone is talking about intermittent fasting I would just like to remind you that our brains and bodies run on glucose.
Whilst you’re sleeping your whole body is working hard trying to keep you healthy so when you wake up your organs are thirsty for some fresh energy in form of glucose to work properly.
So whichever way you like (or don’t like) your breakfast it is indeed recommendable that you get at least something in your system in the morning.
Surely it doesn’t have to be any food, something plain like the juice of a freshly squeezed lemon or lime in a big glass of water is perfectly nourishing for your body in the morning.
In case you have a juicer at home you could also go for fresh cucumber or celery juice, but lemon or lime will surely do as a perfect start.
Please remember that this is also important if you want to lose weight. Don’t fall for stupid lies like fruit is bad for you. It’s one of the best things you can put in your body.
A dash of lemon juice or any other juice (as long as it’s not added with refined sugar) won’t ruin your progress, but instead it will actually support your body on your journey.
Conclusion
Integrating good habits into your morning ritual will hopefully elevate your mind, body and entire day.
Pick some ideas you like and see how you feel with doing them.
The order I chose for my morning routine is just an example of how you could proceed.
Eventually you would like to have breakfast before some gentle movement or meditate in bed right after waking up.
Or maybe the first thing in the morning for you is to put on some loud music and express your gratitude for this beautiful new day?
Whichever way I hope you liked my thoughts for a mindful morning and would love to hear if you already practice some of these things or if you got inspired to try something new!
Love,
Pia