Why you should have a Morning Routine?

Do you feel the strains of the daily grind or feel like you’re on a constant hamster wheel? How do you feel about your day? Do you feel you’re stuck in a rut? If this is you, I understand where you are coming from, because this is exactly how I felt about my life before I started doing this one thing. Would you like to go to bed satisfied every night, if so that’s why you should have a morning routine. If you want to feel better about yourself and want to feel better about your days, the answer could be how you start your day. This is because how you start your day sets the tone for the day. If you start your day with intention you are leading your day, and starting on the right foot.

How you start your day is how you live your day and how you live your day is how you live your life.

Louise Hay

Why we all need a Morning Routine

This is why you should have a morning routine. I used to have to drag myself out of bed half asleep, and then get the kids up, get their breakfast, sort out their bags, coax them into getting ready, then dropped them off at school. Then back at home again to do the housework and daily chores. Before I knew it, it was time to make lunch for Jim before he went to work. I would get some essential shopping done then pick up the kids again. Then I had to quickly prepare their tea before I got ready for work.

Although I should feel accomplished, I did not feel satisfied at the end of the day. I felt nothing. If anything, I felt resentment. Don’t get me wrong I love my family and I love taking care of them.

However, while taking care of them I had forgotten to look after myself. It would seem selfish of me to devote any time to myself. The truth was I was running on an empty tank. I failed to realise that, taking care of myself meant that I would feel better, hence I would be a better partner, parent and just generally a happier person to be around.

Have you noticed during the pre-flight safety demonstrations on board a flight, the flight attendant always tell you to put your own mask on first, before your child. This is because you would be of no use to them if harm came to you. The same applies to us in life, as you must take care of yourself in order to be able to look after others.

The benefits of a morning routine

Here are some of the benefits of practicing a morning routine:-

1. It gets you off to a good start for the day and sets the tone for the rest of the day.
2. Starting with intention gives you focus and a sense of achievement.
3. It makes you feel happier. When you set intentions you feel you have achieved something other than a daily task.
4. You will have more energy and the more energy you have, the more alive you will feel.
5. It will make you more productive by giving you more focus.
6. Your day is more structured and has direction, otherwise you just continue through the day aimlessly.
7. It gives you something to get up for.
8. You feel better at the end of the day and go to bed more satisfied as you would have achieved some wins.

Think of these benefits as your reason why you want a morning routine. You want to feel better about life, you want to have more energy, you want to stop feeling like you are on a hamster wheel, you want to feel alive and get that spring back into your step. A morning routine will give you back your confidence when you take back control of your life.

What not to do first thing in the morning

Before I go into how to create a morning routine that will bring out the best in you, let’s take a quick look at two things I advise you not to do.

When you wake up in the morning, what is the first thing you do?

Picking up your phone

Do you roll over and pick up your phone, and start scrolling through facebook, or your instagram account. Or do you check the daily news? Looking at your phone first thing in the morning is the biggest problem we have. Technology has hijacked most of our minds.

When we do this first thing in the morning, we don’t even have a chance to gather our own thoughts. We are letting the outside world influence what we think. We start our day looking at what everyone else is doing and we start comparing our lives with snippets of someone else’s life. We do not see the whole picture and it may not even be the whole truth. Studies show that scrolling through social media can bring about feelings of envy, inadequacy, loneliness and unhappiness. We don’t want these negative mental states to be our first thoughts in the morning, as you can imagine it can impact the rest of your day.

Tip – So do yourself a favour and try to not do this first thing in the morning. Don’t let the outside world dictate your thoughts, by following other people’s agenda.  Try not to engage in social media or emails until after your morning routine. You will notice a change almost straight away, your mind will be lighter and your thoughts will start to flow.

Pressing Snooze on your Alarm

Plenty of us press snooze on our alarms, however do you feel better after those extra few minutes of sleep? Let me explain why it is not good for you if you do it long term.

Pressing snooze on your alarm disrupts your sleep cycle. When your alarm goes off the first time you are nearing the end of a sleep cycle. However when you press snooze and go back to sleep, you start a new sleep cycle. The next time your alarm goes off and wakes you up, it is in the middle of a sleep cycle which is why you end up feeling groggy the rest of the day. It also disrupts your sleep health.

Tip – So no matter how tired you feel, don’t press the snooze button. A tip here, place your alarm across the room so you have to get out of bed to shut it off and hey presto you are out of bed already so you may as well get up now.

Creating Your Morning Hour Routine

If you are serious about wanting to feel better in the morning and having a better day, try this. I call it my “morning hour”. However as time has gone on I have increased my time. You may do so too later on when you get into this practice.

Every day for a month wake up an hour earlier. You are dedicating this time to yourself before taking on peoples obligations, whether it be your kids, your work or your social life. This is self care.

20/20/20

This hour is split up into 3 x 20 minute sections. I want you to do 3 things.

1. In the first 20 minutes I want you to “move”. Do some sort of exercise or movement that will get your blood bumping round your body. You are waking up your body and priming it ready for the day ahead. Increasing the oxygen to the brain will improve it’s health.
2. In the second 20 minutes I want you to split this into 10 minutes of stillness or meditation and 10 minutes of journaling. After your exercise or movement, you can use this as a wind down or cool down.
   • For stillness try doing some deep elongated breath work, breathing in for 4 counts through the nose and then breathe out for 4 through the mouth. Or if you want to give meditation a go try downloading this free app called Insight Timer, which has 1000’s of free meditations. This will calm your nervous system and de-stress your body.
   • For your journaling write down whatever thoughts are going through your mind. It could be how you are feeling, what you need to do today, anything that is in your head just put it onto paper. It’s called a “brain dump” which is a decluttering of the mind. Then write down 3 intentions for the day. Not tasks, but goals or wins for the day. For example, phoning a friend that you keep meaning to ring, drinking more water, and eating more veg.
3. Finally in the last 20 minutes, read, learn or do something creative. Choose something to read, or listen to a podcast, or create something towards a personal project, for instance I would be looking at topics and ideas for my blog.

End of the day reflection

Coupled with your morning routine, it is beneficial to get in the habit of reflecting on how your day went. Not only is it good for your brain connections when you recall things, it is useful to evaluate your day. It enables you to gain an insight into what worked and what didn’t work on the day so that you can move forward.

Tip – preparing yourself the night before sets you up for success. Select the music, podcast or book you want to read the night before.

My One Non-negotiable every morning

I would like to share my one non-negotiable every morning and that is Making my bed. Every morning without fail I make my bed. Even when Jim gets up after me, as soon as he gets up I make our bed. The ones that do and the ones that don’t are quite equally divided. Which camp do you belong to?

A retired Navy 4 star admiral called William McRaven even wrote a book about the key mental health benefits of this ritual. He says that making your bed in the morning sets you up for success and that the idea that you have accomplished at least one thing will encourage many more throughout the day.

It’s about starting your day in an orderly manner, disorganisation has a negative impact on our day and can affect our ability to focus.

Plus what a bonus it is when you enter your room and see your bed all made up, especially at night when it can look so much more inviting.

To Summarise

I want this post to inspire you and give you a bit of a boost and to encourage you to give creating your own morning routine, a try. Start with using my guidelines in the 20/20/20 section then change it around to what suits you. Be flexible and experiment and most importantly enjoy the process! This could be the start to a better version of you.

Even if you don’t do anything else, trying the two tips from “what not to do first thing in the morning” would be a good start in the right direction.

If you enjoyed this post please share so that I can inspire more people and don’t forget to leave your comments as I love your feedback.

Living Agelessly

Kath