6 Excellent Morning Habits To Start Your Day Off Right
Madhura MohanAll of us start the day with a positive affirmation, but at the end of the day, most of us cringe at not being able to attain our goals.
It's an acceptable fact that, in the modern world, with work and home melding one beneath the other, we are all a little unorganized and fail to meet our targets. But how do successful people take it up a notch? The secret to their success is they follow a morning routine that primes them to go after everything they want to accomplish in a day.
Morning doesn't just mark the start of the day — it provides us an opportunity to set the right tone for the day. If you want to have a great day, you need to start on the right foot. Here are some easy-to-follow steps to building an excellent morning routine that can help supercharge your day.
1. Wake Up Early
Waking up early gives a head start to your day, minimizes forgetfulness, and gives you more uninterrupted time to complete your work. As per studies, waking up early makes a person proactive, optimistic, and more alert, helps concentration, and contributes to better decisions. Waking early brings clarity of thought, minimizes stress, contributes to better eating habits, and helps you stay more energetic throughout the day. Late risers often rush out the door and grab something convenient or skip breakfast entirely — leaving them feeling frazzled and grumpy at the office.
Waking early will help you unwind yourself and allow you a lot of time to spend purely focused on yourself.
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2. Avoid Scrolling Through Your Phone In The Morning
A tiny phone holds a lot of potential stressors and information. Most people reach for their smartphones while still in bed. When you open Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, emails, and other apps in the morning, you may not realize how you allow yourself to get distracted during the most precious hours of the day. When you wake up after a good night's sleep, your mind is in a relaxed state — it would be beneficial to maintain that relaxed state for as long as you can.
If you allow information overload to hit you as you wake up, you'll start the day tired and irritable. The stress build-up will make you prone to bad eating habits, and surfing your phone in the morning interferes with your ability to prioritize tasks — your brain will be stimulated to repeat this habit throughout the day.
When you start your day by mindlessly scrolling through social media, you make it a passive start, inculcating an addiction that will derail your routine and hit your productivity.
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3. Add A Short Exercise Session
Even a brief stretching or simple yoga session in the morning will contribute to starting your day on a positive note, making you feel more energetic and better equipped to face the challenges ahead. Shedding sweat in the morning boosts your mood by releasing feel-good endorphins, bringing a sense of accomplishment and an optimistic outlook for the day. Exercising first thing in the morning fosters relaxation, improves cognitive function, boosts focus, helps you make better food choices, and contributes to better sleep behaviour.
Even a short walk down the street, 10 minutes of jump rope, yoga, or lifting weights in the morning can boost your metabolism and circulation, counter anxiety, and uplift your mood.
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4. Meditate
Practising morning meditation, even just a few minutes per day, can make a big difference. Meditating daily will set positive thoughts, slow your heart, lower your stress hormone level, boost blood flow, and ease symptoms of anxiety and depression. Meditation enhances self-awareness, improves focus, helps you examine your thoughts, refrains you from distractions, and allows you to achieve greater control over how you respond to temptations and emotional impulses. With a greater sense of focus comes greater productivity and contentment.
Establishing a regular meditation practice will allow you to start your day with a clear and still mind, minimize racing thoughts, boost your self-esteem, and help you feel energized.
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5. Drink Water
Although the general habit of most people is to grab a cup of coffee first thing in the morning, this is not the best move. Calorie-free water is considered the 'gold standard' fluid for the body. Drinking water as soon as you wake up will rehydrate your body, boost your metabolism, reduce your calorie intake, and help in the faster digestion of food. Drinking a glass of lukewarm water helps regulate bowel movements, detox your system, prevent muscle cramps, reduce stress levels, strengthen the immune system, improve skin quality, and aid better oxygen delivery to the brain.
Making a habit of starting the day with a glass of water can help build a healthy routine that greatly contributes to your physical and mental health.
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6. Have A Healthy Breakfast
Having a healthy breakfast can be the best way to kick-start your day. A proper breakfast provides you with nutrients, vitamins, fibre, minerals, and the necessary calories to carry your tasks actively. A balanced breakfast will boost your metabolism, ensure proper blood glucose levels, reduce stress, and help avoid mindless snacking. Research has revealed that those who skip breakfast suffer from poor mental health, feel more stressed and anxious, gain weight faster, and are confronted with mental and physical fatigue.
Don't bypass breakfast to save time in the morning. Making it a habit to have a well-rounded breakfast can be life-changing — it makes you fitter and leads to a better mood.
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Never let your day control you — have the power to control your day. Cultivating a healthy morning routine could be a major step toward setting your day up for productivity and success.
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