Do you dread the morning hours?
That vicious cycle of hurrying out of bed, rushing to complete your daily errands, getting ready for work in haste, and followed by a series of curses.
Sounds like a normal day.
Not exactly, well, not for your mental well-being anyway.
Beginning your day in such a manner isn’t considered health-giving. You struggle to get started in the morning and maintain that untroubled pace throughout the whole day. Not to forget, it is a direct route to hit burnout.
Your daily routine should help you maintain a peaceful momentum that allows you to make the most out of your day and let loose your potential.
Easing into your morning calmly will make you start a stress-free day rather than taking the same routine, and you will be rewarded with a flourishing mind in the most laid-back manner.
5 Practice to Start a Calming Morning Routine
photo by uby-yanes on unsplash
1. Start a Night Before
After your alarm goes off every morning, you are slowly headed towards starting a hamster wheel.
You wake up, get fresh, have breakfast, and go about your business. But some days, your routine of daily repetitive chores can make you overwhelmed.
The daily pressure of completing them rife up your stress level and unproductiveness. So to spare yourself from this miserable rut, start your routine from the night before.
Initiate Good Sleep Hygiene
Lack of sleep can make you jittery and prone to more anxiety in the morning hours. Getting enough sleep by initiating good sleep hygiene is the best way to prepare yourself for a stress-free day.
- Maintain the same going to bed and waking up time
- Make your bedroom environment sleep-friendly
- Avoid using digital devices in your bed
- Indulge in relaxing practices to promote better sleep
Plan Your Morning Routine
The goal why you should plan your morning the night before is to avoid the stress of decision fatigue and improve efficiency. Like, deciding on which breakfast to make, choosing your day’s attire, and which task to perform, will allow you to focus on your other priorities the next day.
Planning your tasks and timing them is considered a part of an effective strategy called time blocking.
Not only will it help you start a stress-free day, but also help you amplify your task performance with less mental stress.
2. Get an Early Start
In the morning, the burden of responsibility and pressure falls on your shoulders, and as a result, you have increased morning anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and inability to start the day.
Waking up late will start with a rushed and uneased routine, which will only increase levels of stress and anxiety.
Rising early every morning gives you extra hours to devote to yourself and enables you to perform your tasks unhurriedly. You can spend the early hours of your day on self-care practices that help you calm down and prepare you to tackle the day ahead.
Exercising is considered the most beneficial practice to help awaken your mind and body at once.
Regular exercise can affect your central nervous system, which can regulate your stress response in the morning by reducing stress hormones and pumping up neurotransmitters, like endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin, which job is to perform as a natural painkiller and elevate your mood.
photo by sixteen-miles-out on unsplash
3. Begin Your Day With Mindful Rituals
In the morning hour, the body’s stress hormone called cortisol level is at its peak in most people.
Your daily routine and environmental factors furthermore give a spike to its production. And if the cortisol level stays higher for a longer time, it can increase your blood sugar level, which can affect your health, leading to type 2 diabetes.
Indulging in a few mindfulness rituals before going ahead with your day can help reduce the stress hormone level.
Unlike your daily routine, which is a series of tasks you perform over and over, mindful rituals are peaceful moments or practices that calm you and make you still.
It can be as little as writing a gratitude journal, reading a book, practicing mindful meditation, or something you find that makes you relaxed in the early hours.
Even some of the world’s influential people believe in mindful rituals to make their day more productive.
Oprah Winfrey, a famous American talk show host, tells Harper Bazaar about her morning. After walking her dog every morning, she reads 5 cards from her 365 Gathered Truths box. [which are handcrafted cards of inspirational quotes] and meditates for some time. Even as simple as sitting in her breakfast chair and observing silence for 20 minutes. It is something she believes is a beautiful way to start your day.
Ashley Graham, a plus-size model, and social media influencer talks about always making time for meditation first thing in the morning to set daily intentions.
4. Steer Clear of Digital Devices
For most people, their day starts and ends with digital devices.
As much as they have increased the functionality of the modern day, it has turned into an addiction that has many people on a leash.
Around 80 percent of smartphone users check their phones within 15 minutes after waking up. These can disrupt your calm mental state and make you a subject of distress easily.
When you use your digital devices out of daily habit, your focus is scattered for the time being. Even an innocent scroll on your social sites has the potential to hijack your morning.
You might check your smartphone to get a quick update on your work, but the chances of getting any enticing post catching your attention are high, and you might end up spending excessive time on them than you intend to.
Not only does it take up your valuable time in the morning, but it can drain your energy and affect your mental well-being above all.
Starting your day without any overpowering presence of devices can be meditative. It can make your routine peaceful, which can give off to a stress-free day.
photo by daniel fazio on unsplash
5. Be an Observant
One big factor that can contribute to stress in the morning is your home atmosphere. What environment you wake up to and work to play a major role to tune your mental state.
For example, waking up to loud and screeching sounds or finding your kitchen piled up with dirty dishes and your home in a heap of mess from the night before will put a damper on your mood and your day.
When your home is cluttered, it will keep distracting you the whole day till you organize it. To avoid this, be attuned to your surroundings. Acknowledge how it has a direct effect on your mood, and keep away from any bleak state.
- Open up the windows and curtains and let the fresh air come in.
- Before starting your routines, make your bed and do 5 minutes of decluttering to decrease the visual mess.
- Make a peaceful morning atmosphere with mindfulness rituals.
These practices will keep you in line with your mental wellness and help you kick off a stress-free day.
Take It Easy
Reorganizing your routine and leaving the one that you are accustomed to isn’t something everyone is fond of, even if it is not the most invigorating and fruitful. But the benefits you can get from it are immense and worth all the difficulty.
Slowly and gradually build your own rituals that can bring you value and productiveness and kick start a stress-free day and a stress-free mind.
