Home Healthcare Tips – Creating a healthy morning routine
I know personally for me, my entire morning routine has been disrupted and for weeks I was feeling this anxiousness, lack of desire to propel myself to get moving, do something productive….then, out of GUILT, I started projects around the house and begrudgingly still wondered and criticized why I couldn’t get it together. I was disrupted. My Morning routine was forced on me and I was not being intentional in creating healthy solutions to transform it.
Either we wake up in a frenzy—snoozing the alarm, skipping breakfast, or we auto-pilot to distract ourselves with “fillers”. Those things we do when we forget how to be present with ourselves.
THEN….the rest of our day seems to reflect that mood, either with distraction, guilt or a sense of chaos. The tone of your morning will determine the tone of your day, so switching it up is a great way to create healthy mornings which in turn can lead the rest of our day.
When you form healthy habit behaviors for the morning, you set your day up for success. You will know personally what success means for you. Whether you are aware of them or not, we operate under habits (both good and bad) all the time—and they are an integral part of our daily existence. Part of developing a healthy habit, is to become intentional with it. Most habits are formed because they are easy or along the path of least resistance. If you want to cultivate positive habits, then you may need to put some intentional effort into forming them until they become second nature.
This is particularly true with morning habits. What you cultivate in the morning influences how you feel, act, and think during the rest of your day. Here are some 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.
This first one is a KEY FACTOR in setting the tone of your day and one that is hard to challenge….
1. Stay Unplugged from Technology
If the first thing you do when you wake up is check your phone/computer for messages or to start mindlessly scrolling, you are doing yourself a disservice. You are immediately cultivating a reactive mindset, instead of a proactive one, which will cause you to start your day in a defensive state, rather than a place of control and even peace. Instead, try remaining detached from technology for the first hour of your day so you can begin your day with present-moment awareness and a positive focus.
2. Hydrate
Simple. Drink one refreshing, cleansing glass of water first thing. Do this before you have that first morning coffee (this one’s particularly hard for me)!
3. Make Your Bed
I previously shared this in a recent post. There is actual mental health science that backs up the sense of accomplishment and direction in your morning simply by making your bed. True Story!
4. Exercise
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.
5. What’s Your Awesome Look Like?
Putting time and effort into your appearance helps build self-confidence. When you feel “put together,” it is one less thing to worry about throughout your day.
6. Practice Gratitude
Take a moment as soon as you wake up – wiggle your toes, stretch, sit up, give yourself a moment to take some deep cleansing intentional breaths, smile, and be intentional with grateful thoughts.
With all the shifts in our world right now, let’s take control and make some positive shifts in how we Start our morning, and watch how those changes propel and shift the rest of our day.
Janet