How to Start a Morning Routine
Mornings can be harsh. Waking up with a full body jolt to the sound of the alarm on your phone, and prying your eyes open to focus them enough on your phone screen so that you can turn off the alarm is intense. The to-do list comes crashing in, filling your mind with everything from the night before and the days ahead. You Immediately throw on that pot of coffee, clean up the dinner dishes from your pre-bedtime ice cream and snacks, and then plop yourself in front of your computer for a long day of staring at a screen (If you WFH, otherwise you’re getting yourself dressed so you can sit in traffic).
At least, this is how mornings felt for me for a long time. The harshness of your morning can set you up for the rest of your day to be difficult. Waking up on the wrong side of the bed gets you started in a place of stress, and you are bound to feel irritable, tense and unfocused as you move through your day.
So what's the antidote to entering your day in battle mode? When I started learning more about the concept of a morning routine, my relationship to mornings changed. Mornings became a time for moving slowly, self-reflection, centering, and getting grounded. When you take a few minutes to set yourself up for a morning routine, it can influence the entire rest of your day in a positive way. When you enter your day feeling spacious, grounded, and in touch with yourself, you can move through the day with a whole new energy of patience, compassion, focus and creativity.
You can set yourself up well for a morning routine beginning the evening before. If you are a worrier or have issues sleeping, start with a Bedtime Braindump in order to ensure a good night's sleep. Sleeping well the night before increases your chances of following your morning routine, so setting yourself up for good sleep is important.
[*Shame Cycle Disclaimer*
None of this is meant to be shaming in any way, so if that's where your mind goes as soon as you starting reading, please understand that I’m telling you this to be helpful and to share some hard-earned hacks, not to contribute to a cycle of shame filled with of “shoulds” and “musts” and “I’m not enoughs.” I really do relate to that, and there are times in my life where I just know I’m not in a position to take on new systems or routines. That's ok and it's important to trust where you are today. ]
Here are some elements to consider for your morning routine:
Waking up: (2-5 mins)
When you wake up, don’t immediately start scrolling through your phone as you lay in bed (Yes, we are all guilty of this to different degrees!) Instead, turn off your alarm, put your phone down, and as you lay in bed, give yourself an old fashioned, exaggerated morning stretch. Remember how you used to do it when you were a kid, before you slept with your phone on your bedside table. Take some deep breaths, stretch your arms over head, stretch out your legs and feet, and wiggle your toes.
Morning Beverage: (5-10 min)
Hydrating first thing in the morning is not only great for you, it’s also so refreshing. Start your day with a cup of warm water with lemon. Not only is the scent of fresh lemon delightful in the morning, but this warming beverage does wonders for your digestion, warms up your system, and provides a hit of Vitamin C, which is so important for a healthy immune system.
If you are a coffee or tea drinker, you can even drink your hot lemon water as your coffee brews.
Meditation/Breathwork Practice: (5-15 mins)
Beginning your day with even 5 minutes of meditation or breathwork can enhance your focus & concentration, increase patience, and lower stress and anxiety.
There are many apps, both free and paid, that offer tons of guided meditation options.
Our AMFT Atalie Abramovici has a beautiful FREE morning meditation video.
Calm (Free & Paid options)
Headspace (Free & Paid options)
Select a 5-10 minute meditation. I love body scans, Metta Meditations, Self-Compassion meditations, and breath-focused meditations.
If meditation is just not for you and you need something bit more active, try a breathwork practice of 3-5 minutes of Long Deep Breaths, box breathing, or 4-7-8 breathing for a calming and relaxation effect, or try Breathe of Fire for a more detoxifying, energizing effect.
You can use the timer on Insight Timer to create different lengths of self guided meditations with different interval bells. For example, I love to start out with 2 minutes of Breath of Fire, followed by a 5-10 minute silent sit, where I lead myself in a brief body scan.
Journaling (10-15 minutes):
After your meditation/breathing session, spend about 10-15 minutes journaling about whatever came up. You can do this long form, in a notebook, or type up your thoughts. If you prefer to journal on your computer that's fine, just make sure to not get distracted by your email or other to-dos (guilty as charged!).
A great journaling practice is called The Morning Pages by Julia Camron. This practice is really just an opportunity to put anything swirling around in your mind onto paper. Things you are worried about, anything that comes to you in meditation, insights, fears, to-do lists, intentions for your day ahead, things you are grateful for, etc. Use this time to check in with yourself overall. How are you feeling today? What is on your mind? Setting an intention for the day, like “patience”, or “be present”, or “creativity” can be a nice way to tap into yourself and whatever it is you want to pull in that day.
My Morning Routine:
Here’s an example of what my morning routine looks like (on a good day ;) !) My alarm is set for 7 am. When I reach for my phone I turn off the alarm, careful not to check my texts or emails. Ideally, I would sleep with my phone in the other room, and get an actual alarm clock to wake me up. I’ve threatened to do this a few times now, but haven’t fully succeeded :) After turning off the alarm, I take some deep breaths and give my body a nice stretch in bed. I take a few minutes to just notice how I feel, and then I get up to put on the hot water kettle. I squeeze the juice of a quarter of a lemon into a cup, and smell the aroma of the fresh squeezed lemon. I pour the hot water into my cup with the lemon, and usually add an ice cube or two so it's not too hot to drink. I drink my hot lemon water and feel the warmth of it as it enters my body. If I’m drinking coffee at that time, I have coffee brewing as all this goes on, but I make sure to start with hot lemon water for all the benefits listed above.
Then I head upstairs to my meditation cushion. I select some combination of self-guided meditations using Insight Timer or a guided meditation with one of the apps. I do a few Sufi rolls in both directions to warm up my spine a bit, then some shoulder, neck, wrist, and ankle rolls just to get things feeling looser. I select one of my interval pre-sets on Insight Timer, starting with 2 minutes of Breath of Fire followed by 6-8 minutes of a silent meditation where I walk myself through a little body scan.
After the meditation is over, I am careful not to open my phone, email, or texts. Instead, I open up my journal and long-form journal for 10-15 minutes. I write about any insights that came up in the meditation, concerns headed into the day, to-do lists, and set an intention for my day (this can be a full sentence or just a one word cue such as: calm, peace, rest, focus, etc.)
And that's the end of my morning routine! It can take anywhere from 20-30 minutes depending on how much time I have, and how into it I am that morning. Sometimes we just have less time or less will, and it’s fine to keep it short on those days.
If you have any sort of movement practice that you like to do in the morning, such as yoga, walking or cycling, you can insert that before meditation or after journaling. I would recommend you complete the meditation & journaling before the movement practice though, since it's very easy to get sidelined and not come back to it after your workout (I’ve done this many times, so I know from experience)!
Summary:
Follow these steps and you will be on your way to developing a morning routine that will serve you going into every day. Stick with this for 2 weeks, and I guarantee that you will notice increased focus & concentration, increased patience and compassion, less anxiety and stress, more self-awareness, and even more creativity.
Perfectionists, trust me when I say these are practices that we move towards, and move away from, and move towards, and move away from. I have periods where I do this everyday, periods where I do it just a couple times a week, and periods when I go weeks or even months without doing it at all. As Pema Chodron says “Things come together, and things fall apart.” This is the normal nature of practices such as these. We cannot get it perfectly right everyday, but we try our best :) Be compassionate with yourself and don’t beat yourself up for missing days, even weeks, here and there. Just notice and acknowledge it, and start anew tomorrow.
Give it a try! Start your morning routine and do it for 2 weeks, and let us know how it went for you. Did you notice any changes to your mood and energy levels ? Did any challenges come up for you? I’m excited for you to give this a try, and if you have any questions at all, I am happy to answer them.
If life is feeling too overwhelming to even consider a morning routine, that might be a sign that it’s time to start therapy. We’re here to help! Give us a call.
Warmly,
Becky White, LMFT
