A strong morning routines adds structure to your morning and benefits you greatly throughout the day. The morning routine doesn’t have to be lengthy and complicated to work well for you. You can build a strong morning routine with just a few simple steps. The idea is to have structure and flexibility and adjust your morning routine based on the time of the year and based on the business of the period you are in. Choose habits that benefit you based on your work, your family size, your living environment and your age and don’t mindlessly follow what some successful people do in the morning. What might work for them might not work for you.

In this article you will find a collection of tips for promoting health, wellness, clarity, self-confidence, self-empowerment right from the early morning hours. Some of these practices are good for some people and some are better for others. The idea is not to include them all in your morning routine, but to choose form it those that seem interesting to you and see if that works for you or not.

In this Article:

• General Tips for Waking Up Easier in the Morning
• Food and health tips
• Mindset tips
• Emotional wellness tips
• Fitness and Self-care tips
• Productivity tips

General Tips for Waking Up Easier in the Morning

• Get a good night sleep – Adults need about 8 hours of sleep on average. This doesn’t mean fix 8 hours for everyone. It is more like a guide that a healthy sleep time for an average adult is somewhere between 7-9 hours.
• Get consistent with your sleep – Go to sleep and wake up around the same hours. This will set your internal clock and when it becomes a habit your body can work more efficiently during the sleep cycle and you will find it easier to wake up.
• Avoid snoozing your alarm – actually this is more about avoiding to sleep back after hitting snooze. You can snooze the alarm and lay in bed for 5 more minutes to think or cuddle. Snoozing the alarm and sleeping back is a sign that your body is experiencing sleep deficit. If your body needs more rest, then you may need to adjust your evening schedule.
• Allow yourself time to wake up– for most people it doesn’t help to jump start their mornings physically and mentally. Don’t misunderstand this. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be active in the morning. It just means not to be super alert and active in the first 10 – 30 min right after you open your eyes in the morning. Allow your body to go through a smooth transition form sleep to wakefulness. How active you get after this short period of transition time depends a lot on personal life conditions, your personal preferences and your personality type.
• Prioritize yourself. Get some personal time in the morning to care for yourself emotionally and physically. You can do some easy, repetitive task but leave emails and tough talks with your family members, colleagues for at least an hour after waking up. Try waking up a little earlier to leave yourself time to think and plan.

Food and Health Tips

• Drink a large glass of water – Water in the morning helps the body to re-hydrate after the night. You can put some lemon in it or a little spoon of apple cider vinegar (mainly when your goal is to loose weight). It is preferable to drink a large glass of water before you drink any caffeinated beverage.
• Honey – eating a small spoon of honey when your stomach is still empty gives you an energy boost and can reduce your morning fatigue and breakfast food intake.
• Eat something small -It is a good idea to eat something small in the 1 hour period after waking up. Depending on your dietary preferences this can mean 1 apple or banana, some nuts, 1 spoon of peanut butter. The healthier choices are those foods that are not processed. Eat something small to stimulate your metabolism. There are benefits to starting your metabolism with a healthy small snack within the first hour of waking up. You can leave for later eating the real breakfast, only when you get hungry. Some people prefer not to eat in the morning anything at all. And that is perfectly fine too. Do not force yourself to eat.
• B Vitamins -morning is best for any B vitamins. B vitamins are involved in the process of producing energy and they stimulate the stomach and the brain. It is better to take them in the morning because they can interfere with the sleep cycle otherwise. B vitamins and vitamin C are water soluble so you can take them with a glass of water, on an empty stomach, 30 min before breakfast for optimal absorption. It is generally better to take multivitamins and other morning dietary supplements when you are having your breakfast.
• Coffee or black tea in the morning – coffee drives out water, so if you are a coffee drinker it is a good idea to include drinking plenty of water in your morning routine. Otherwise the dehydration that occurs from caffeinated drinks can affect your mood and your productivity negatively later during the day.
• Healthy breakfast – The full wake up process of the body takes about 60-90 minutes and that is why most people start to feel hungry only about 2 hours after they wake up. You want your breakfast to be large enough to give you energy, but not too much, so you don’t feel like laying down for half an hour after eating. 1 croissant, 2-3 biscuits, a toast, yoghurt, a bowl of cereals or oatmeal, vegetables, avocado, eggs can be all included in your breakfast. Some people prefer eating sandwiches with ham, chicken breast for breakfast, some go for a full brunch like meal. What is a good breakfast choice for you depends also on what you are doing during the day.
• Fruits and healthy smoothies – it is a good idea to meal prep the smoothies the evening before. Mornings can get hectic and it is so easy to skip the fruits. You can easily prepare smoothies the evening before and keep them in the fridge for the night. Eating fruits in the morning is good for some and not so good for others. You can drink your healthy smoothies while you are dressing up, journaling, solving crosswords and so on.

Mindset

• Notice your first thought. Do you know where your mind goes when you wake up? It is a powerful tool of awareness to do an exercise as simple as paying attention to your first thoughts as you wake up. You can lay in bed just for a minute or two after you wake up and just simply notice what topic comes to your mind. You don’t need to remember all the details, just the general topic and how it feels. You can bring that thought with you into your journaling practice. You write down everyday your first thoughts ( or the topic that comes up) and reflect on how it feels a bit later in more detail.
• Avoid scrolling on the phone in bed as a first activity. That doesn’t get you places. You are not selecting so efficiently the content as you might think and a lot of ‘garbage’ can get in your mind. Scrolling images, colors at this stage gets you in a hypnotic mindset and programs your thinking without you noticing it. You have plenty of time later during the day to scroll on the social platforms.
• Avoid listening to or reading the news at wake up time. Embrace the moment and connect with your reality first instead of minding what others do. There is a part of your mind that doesn’t know where you are and only reacts to what comes through your attention. So when you look on bad news presented with a lot of drama, one part of your mind thinks that all that is in your immediate environment and reacts accordingly. It gets you alert, stressed, anxious, angry.
• Learn to connect with your immediate reality more often, by taking a minute or two to notice the world that is really around you. You can lay in bed and notice the comfort of your bed, the softness of your pillows. You can think about the benefits of waking up in a room instead of a cave in the desert, or in the midst of the forest. Or you can wake up in the midst of the forest and enjoy the benefits of that compared to the packed, asphalted city-jungles.
• Eliminate early morning decision making and conflict solving – wake up time (the first 1 hour after you wake up) might not be the best time for decision making. Decision making is a complex mental activity that needs to involve many parts of your brain for optimal results. Many parts need to work together even for a simple decision as what to wear. Some of these parts of your brain start slower, they are not on full capacity, because your brain moves through a complicated chemical and vibrational transition in the morning. It gets from one state of mind, being asleep and dreaming, to another state of mind, that is being awake and ready to make decisions. So it might not be the best idea to start your day with reading emails. Starting a bit slower can get you going further during the day.
• Automatize good habits – your mind works much on autopilot in the wake up zone so you can teach yourself some good habits like drinking water, contemplating and connecting. The ideal state would be that you woke up to feeling stable, connected, peaceful, secure, comfortable and at ease with yourself and with the world. From this general state of wellness and wellbeing you could than move up toward more complex, more demanding activities mentally and physically.
• Do sudoku, word puzzle, crosswords or play with an app – easy tasks like solving crosswords wake up your mind and start your mental activity without stress. Anything that is easy and fun and moderately interesting can be good as long as it needs a little training from your mind.
• Read few pages from a book, read an article from your favorite blog, listen to a YouTube video. This is a good time to read motivational and personal development material. Reading is also a warming up activity for your mind. Write down a few ideas that inspire you in your journal.

Emotional wellness tips

• Contemplation – Give yourself a few minutes of mindfulness before you begin the rest of your morning routine. This can mean looking out on a window, doing breathing exercises in bed and/or meditating in your zen zone. Look on it like contemplation time. You can choose to connect with the beauty and stability of the environment around you. Give yourself time to mentally connect with your body and your mind.
• Music – Music is a powerful mood booster. You can create playlists with your favorite morning music. At this phase in your waking up process it is better to go for some soft background music, coffee music mixes, lounge music or instrumental music that fits with contemplation mood.
• Connect with your confidence. Positive quotes & affirmations can boost your feeling of self-empowerment and feeling of gratitude. Open a motivational quotes collection booklet, watch a motivational video, print some positivity cards, collect affirmations for your mornings. It is best to do that in your evening routine so as you wake up you just look on them and let your mind take in the wisdom and inspiration offered. Quotes and affirmations are short and witty and they can help you start your day off with a good mindset.
• Journaling – clearing your mind. Writing 2-3 pages in your journal in the morning can help you calm down and start the morning in the right mindset. This is not about planning the day or creating a to do list. It is more like a morning brain dump. The point is to raise your awareness about your mental activity. Writing out things can get you out of mental loops and anxiety. This works best for those who are very active, very anxious. Just write anything until you fill 2-3 journal pages and you will notice how you start to feel more collected after that.
• Gratitude. – Take the time to activate that part of yourself that is responsible for feeling grateful and satisfied. This practice is about training yourself to feel well and start off in a positive mindset about life and about yourself. Morning is a good time to be general and simple. This can be as simple as listing the things that you like in the nature around you: flowers, trees, the varieties of the season. Why you like that? You could also appreciate something in your home. Train yourself to search for the things that you like and already have. The feeling of contentment and satisfaction is based much more on your skills in thinking than on what you actually have.
• Cuddle with someone you love. Take time to hug your partner, to cuddle with your kids and to pet your dog.

Fitness tips

• Warm-up exercises – speed up the process off shacking off the sleep inertia by energizing your body and mind with a short, easy morning exercise. This can be as simple as 2-3 minutes of warm up exercises ( neck, arms, core and knees), 5 minutes of easy cardio movements and 3 minutes of stretching (arms, back, legs). It can help with movement coordination and balance throughout the day. This doesn’t have to be more serious than the warm-up you do before jogging, but when you consistently do it day by day, you will notice how much more vitality and readiness you will feel to start the day. Moving your body for 10-15 minutes will get your blood flowing and you will feel physically and mentally ready to cope with the challenges of the day. When you have a large family, kids that leave a lot of mess around the house you can just go around and pick up stuff, arrange the kitchen counter, make the beds. That also counts as a warm up exercise.
• Full work-out session– When you have the time to fit in a full work-out ( 20 -40 minutes) than you can shorten the warm-up and continue with your choice of workout : yoga, jogging, swimming, taking a powerwalk, riding a stationary bike, indoor elliptic trainer and so on. Exercise releases endorphins, which are also called happiness hormones, because they can lead to improvements in your mood and optimism. So exercise is not only good for the body but it can also give you are morning happiness boost.
• Loosen your muscles with a foam roller, massage or with stretching exercises – You can do that together with the warm -up, work-out session or you can only go for the massage that a foam roller offers. Massaging your muscles boost circulation and improves blood flow. This is a good option to boost your systems when you really don’t feel like doing any physical activity in the morning. Exercising in the morning is not a must but it has benefits.

Self-care tips

• Cold or lukewarm shower/ swimming – there are many health benefits to taking a cold shower in the morning. It can improve general wellbeing and the resistance to stress. You can ease into that habit by lowering the temperature only a little and using lukewarm water instead of hot water for a start. Some people prefer a short swimming session in a pool in the morning.
• Sauna/ warm bath – Some other active, productive people prefer a short warm bathing in the morning or going into the sauna for 8 – 10 minutes. We are not the same. Try out more things and see what works for you.
• Allow yourself time to prepare yourself for your professional and social environment. How you feel about yourself matters a lot. Take time to do your morning beauty rituals so that when you go out you feel confident about yourself.
• Dressing up – When you set time for personal care and choosing the cloth that make you feel good, that can improve your self-image and self-esteem on the long run. You can experiment with laying out your outfit for the next day the evening before. This could be helpful mostly when you don’t have much time for the morning preparations. Sometimes it helps a lot that you don’t start imagining your outfit for the day as a white canvas, but you have a good enough option already prepared.
• Listen to energizing music or a morning radio show – this is not really a personal care tip, but while you are doing those self-care activities you can find the time to fit some good music in your morning routine.

Productivity tips

• Cross off yesterday from your calendar. -Start the mornings forward looking and focused.
• Settle in – Review the big picture plan – This is the time to shortly review your big goals and the vision board.
• Plan your day – You can than get more specific and take a short look on your weekly plan to see what is in it for today. When it is an empty day, meaning that there are no big events and priorities, you can take out the list of unfinished projects, works in progress and include the most important from there in your daily plan. You can do this in a to-do list, a weekly planner or a computer program. You name it. The idea is to spend a few minutes preparing your day before you jump into your productive or professional activities.
• Focus on getting something done. Find your “frog” = an important but most dreaded task. Start with that. Review what you will need for getting that things done today and create a logical flow for the rest of your day.
• Actually do something from that list before noon. – Eat the frog before noon. Focusing attention is better for many people in the morning hours, than later in the day, so choose to do those things first that need specific attention. When you wake up you have that 60-90 minutes of mental inertia, but after that your mind is working at it’s best. So plan for that time and than use it well. Morning is the most productive time of the day for many. Your mind is fresh and creative and not affected by much emotional experience yet. This is a good time to get things done. This is a good time to create something new.

Key Takeaways

There are many beneficial things you can choose to include in your morning routine, but not all of them will work for you. Some tips are good for people in a certain mood and mindset only. This list of tips can serve as a source of inspiration for building strong, beneficial routines. You can include some of these tips in your daily routine, some only in your weekend routine, some for the vacation time, some for the seasonal cleansing days. Feel free to experiment with how they feel to you, before you build habits out of them.

More from Lifestyle: Guide to Seasonal Cleansing

Resources and further reading ideas:  21 steps for a more productive day, 50 ideas of morning routines

Images : Morning mood,