The way you begin your day has a great role to play in determining the rest of your day. If you begin your day with a positive attitude, there’s a great chance that you are likely to keep up the attitude for the rest of the day. The same for when you start your day with a negative attitude. When you form healthy habitual behaviors for the morning, you set your day up for success knowingly or unknowingly.
What you cultivate in the morning influences how you feel, act, and think during the rest of your day. Here are 10 simple habits that you can add into your morning routine now, to ensure you are feeling, acting, and thinking at your highest potential for the rest of your day—and days—ahead.
- Stay Away From Your Phone
Some people use alarm as an excuse to justify their reason for waking up to their phone first thing in the morning. The moment you check your phone first thing in the morning, you tend to react to what you got on your phone, probably your mail, messages, or anything.
- Meditate
Even if its just for a few minute, it’s a very positive thing to do regardless of your religion, meditate on what makes you happy. To do this, first you have to get into a very comfortable seating position, and then focus on what you want to meditate on, guide and control the rhythm of your breath, try and balance it. It is easy to lose concentration, when you realize you are losing concentration, gently guide your mind back to what you are meditating on.
- Drink Water
Drinking a glass of water in the morning is a good way to hydrate especially after going several hours without water, drinking just water is fine but when you add a slice of lime, it gives you a clean breath and it helps stimulate weight loss and it aids digestion.
- Practice positivity
Before you even get out of bed, give yourself a few minutes to smile and practice gratitude. When you smile, it lifts your mood, relax your body, and lower your heart rate. Who wouldn’t want to start their day on this positive note?
Practicing gratitude reduces stress hormones and it also lifts the mood. So, adding a simple daily gratitude practicing is a great way to kick-start your morning. If you don’t know how to go about, you can start by smiling at what gives you joy, that thing you are grateful for. Yes its just an ordinary smile, yet, it goes a long way.
- Make Your Bed
It may seem like a waste of time, since you’re just going to use it again at night, but making your bed is a simple action you can take in the morning that makes you start your day feeling accomplished and what better tone to set than a sense of pride and accomplishment? Taking charge and completing simple tasks will give you the foundation to take on more and more throughout the day.
- Do Simple Exercise Or Yoga
Whether it’s a simple yoga routine, a brisk walk with your pet, a quick set of sit-ups and push-ups, or hitting the gym to work off last night’s meal, starting off your day with movement energizes the body and the mind. Determine what kind of exercise is right for you and schedule it. It doesn’t have to be complicated, long, or intense, but having some sort of physical activity in the morning will get your blood flowing and help quiet any mental chatter.
- Freshen Up And Look Good
Putting time and effort into how you look helps build self confidence. The time and effort you put in determines your result.
So, shower, wash your face, brush your teeth, floss, comb your hair, apply lotion/oil, dress to impress, and apply any other hygiene/grooming habits that make you feel good about yourself. This may involve picking out your clothes the night before especially if you are short on time in the morning or ironing your clothes whatever makes you feel like you are taking care of your health, looking presentable, and feeling confident.
- Eat a Healthy Breakfast
As we have heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. When you make time to eat a healthy breakfast which contains proteins, healthy fats, and whole grains, you’ll have more strength throughout the day and a stronger ability to focus and concentrate.
- Have a Plan For The Day
Create a to do list to plan your day. Then prioritize it so your day’s list has only 3 to 5 items on it ranked in order of priority to make sure you tackle the most pressing things first.
Writing down your “to-do’s” instead of keeping them floating around in your mind helps clear mental chatter. You also give yourself a sense of purpose each day when you know what you need to get done. And there is something satisfying about crossing off tasks on your list—it really cultivates a sense of accomplishment.
- Get Enough Restful Sleep
The last on our list but not the least on our list. The last but the very important one is getting enough sleep. Enough sleep is usually nothing less than 7 hours. More than enough sleep is not very advisable though as it has its side effects too, some people wake up with swollen face and a very tired body when they sleep too much. Well, before you can hope to implement new, healthy morning habits to begin your day with, you should have the foundation of a well-rested body.