Setting intention to your morning is a surprising way to achieve goals, feel good and be more successful.
1. Make Your Bed
Making your bed should be an everyday habit because it kick-starts a chain of other good decisions. It teaches you self-discipline, which in turn makes you feel more capable and empowered. It lowers stress and improves your mood.
We spend about one-third of our lifetime in the bedroom and the appearance of your room impacts your mood. According to Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, a clean room is also one of the most common and simple changes that lead to happiness. It’s hard to feel calm, relaxed and grounded when you’re surrounded by disorganization. Making your bed creates a tidy environment, a subtle vibe of tranquility.
2. Hydrate
Starting your morning with 500 ml of water is a great way to stay hydrated and flush toxins from your body.
This also helps with digestion and constipation. Most people don’t drink enough fluids; starting your day with water is an ideal routine.
3. Write It Down
Journaling has many mental health benefits and is a great way to purge overwhelming emotions. It’s helpful for managing anxiety, reducing stress, coping with depression and controlling moods. Whether you use it to prioritize your problems, face your fears and concerns, document weight loss or just to feel happy – journaling has a place in your health plan. This can clear your mind for the day.
3 things you can journal:
Gratitude – Write down some things you’re thankful for and you can expect to experience more positive emotions, feel more alive, sleep better, express more compassion and kindness, and even develop a stronger immune system.
Your intention for the day – A daily intention is a conscious decision on where to focus your energy that day.
Emotions – Write down anything you are thinking, anything. This can range from the joy of cold crisp air in the morning to your darkest secrets. Emotional expression will make you stronger and lift a proverbial weight off your shoulders.
4. Change Your Alarm Clock
How we wake up sets the tone for the rest of the day. Standard alarms might as well be fire alarms. If your alarm goes off during one of your deepest sleep stages, you’re going to wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Phone apps that track an appropriate time to wake up are a better way to gauge your ideal wake time. These apps, such as Sleep Cycle, track what stage of sleep you are in and wake you up in the lightest sleep stage possible, as well as tracking your sleep quality.
5. Meditation
Having a meditation or a mindfulness practice is really about decreasing your emotional reactivity so you can proactively create your day and life. Ten minutes is a perfect start and studies show that mindfulness meditations can positively impact your mental and physical health. Try the popular Headspace app.
6. Exercise
We all know that exercise is great for you but we tend to lack the motivation to do it. The morning seems to be the best time to maximize exercise benefits, providing you with energy, motivation and a deeper, longer sleep.
If morning isn’t your favourite time to exercise, start with 5-10 reps of an exercise, such as 5 squats Monday, 5 push-ups Tuesday, 5 lunges Wednesday, and holding a plank for 30 seconds 5 times throughout the day.
