What are the benefits of a morning routine?
The way you wake up in the morning is crucial for your energy level throughout the day.
Adopting a healthy morning routine allows you to approach your day more calmly, avoid being overwhelmed by daily stress, and maintain good energy throughout the day.
Creating a routine will prevent your mind from overthinking what it needs to do and will allow you to implement healthy habits more easily.
For many years, I have been implementing these wellness rituals to take time in the morning right after waking up. This helps me to recenter myself in the morning and calm my often-agitated mind. I thus start my day on the right foot, feeling more grounded, serene, and confident.
Morning routine: my 14 tips to start your day calmly for increased efficiency
I am going to offer you an example of my personal routine. Of course, each of you can take what resonates with you and what makes you feel good.
Implementing a morning routine can sometimes seem like a constraint because we are changing our habits, and it may not feel natural at first. By practicing it and seeing the benefits for yourself, you will more easily continue down this path, and the tasks will become habits. You won't even have to think about it; it will become a reflex, like brushing your teeth three times a day.
In this article, I will outline the steps of my morning routine, which I have integrated into my daily life as an entrepreneur and mother. Even with children, it is possible to take this time for yourself, and it is even essential to feel good throughout the day. I love this quiet morning time when the children are still asleep, and I can focus solely on myself.
1. Wake Up Earlier
In Ayurveda, we talk about living in sync with the rhythm of nature. It is recommended to wake up early to properly prepare for your day and bring gentleness to yourself.
In the morning, waking up earlier will be beneficial for embracing your day and taking time for yourself before facing the demands of daily life or children. Waking up early first requires preparing for sleep the night before to get quality sleep. For example, if you wake up at 6 AM, make sure to go to bed around 10 PM. The risk when waking up early is to continue going to bed relatively late. Your body might not get enough sleep, and this routine would tire you out more.
To help you wake up early peacefully, you can opt for an alarm clock with nature sounds and a light simulating dawn. This is personally the option I chose, even though my body has gotten used to waking up naturally. I advise against waking up with your phone. This could activate thoughts related to notifications and make you want to connect online instead of reconnecting with yourself first.
2. Take the time to return to yourself to create an inner space
Our senses are very often directed outwards, making it more than necessary to have moments to return to ourselves and create a stable and comfortable inner space. Returning to the body will allow you to let go of your mind and be more present, listening to your sensations and feelings.
To simply return to yourself, you can take a few minutes to stretch and take deep breaths in your bed, visualizing your breath 6 times on the inhale and exhale.
3. Use your tongue scraper to eliminate toxins
The tongue scraper is an excellent tool in Ayurveda for eliminating toxins on our tongue. From 10 PM onwards, our body detoxifies. Some of these toxins end up on our tongue. It is essential to remove these bad bacteria in the morning even before drinking a beverage or eating.
In Ayurveda, it is recommended to use a copper tongue scraper for the antiseptic and antibacterial properties of copper.
How to use it? It's very easy: grasp the tongue scraper with both hands and place it at the back of your tongue, then bring it forward along the tongue with gentle pressure to collect bacteria. You can repeat this action 3 times, then rinse your tongue scraper under water to clean it and remove the white residue that was on your tongue.
4. Drink a large glass of warm water to hydrate your body
Drinking lukewarm water is a simple habit with properties that have been recognized for thousands of years in Asia. Even before eating in the morning, drinking tea or coffee, it is recommended in Ayurveda to drink a glass of lukewarm water at 60°C. This is the best detox routine for your body because lukewarm water will hydrate, warm your body and your digestive fire, and help detoxify the body.
Drinking water regularly helps maintain optimal hydration, good concentration, and avoid fatigue.
To properly regulate the water temperature, you can use an adjustable temperature kettle.
5. Do a short yoga and breathing session to awaken the body and senses
There's nothing quite like getting your body moving first thing in the morning. Since your body is still waking up, I advise you to take it easy with your movements. You could, for example, gently practice a sun salutation. You don't need to go fast; instead, focus on being aware of each movement and your sensations. It's essential to synchronize your breath with your movement, inhaling on opening postures and exhaling on closing postures.
6. Meditate with mindful breathing
I suggest a short, easy-to-implement meditation combining deep breathing through the nose.
- Inhale for 3 counts and create space in the center of your chest. You can visualize yourself filling up with things that are beneficial to you: joy, abundance, love, calm.
- Exhale for 6 counts, completely emptying all the air from your belly. You can visualize exhaling all negative thoughts that may be present to free yourself.
You can consciously practice this breathing 6 times in the morning.
7. Practice gratitude
Often, we focus on the tiny grain of sand that wasn't there and takes up a lot of space in our minds. Practicing gratitude upon waking allows you to focus your mind on all the positive things in your daily life, bringing you well-being and confidence.
To do this, take a deep breath and list three positive things from your previous day. This could be lunch with a friend, a good meal, a story with your children, a presentation finished at work, or a successful client meeting.
8. Visualize the 3 most important things in your day
Good organization and productivity start with a morning routine. Visualization is a very powerful tool to mentally prepare for your day.
By sitting comfortably, you will visualize the 3 important things to do for your day. There's no need to add more; it's better to be focused and concentrate on the essentials. This is the basic rule in productivity. Visualizing will allow you to arrive at the office more calmly, knowing your top priorities!
9. Eat a healthy and complete breakfast
In the morning, for energy, a complete breakfast is recommended. You can opt for a savory option with eggs, sourdough bread, avocado toast with almond butter and sprouted seeds. Or a sweet breakfast with banana puree with lemon juice, chia seeds, cardamom powder, Brazil nuts or blanched almonds or walnuts. Our recommendations to get you energized in the morning:
10. Practice dry brushing to stimulate blood circulation
After the kitchen, head to the bathroom to continue taking care of yourself, especially your blood circulation.
Dry brushing is done before showering with the help of a brush. I recommend the one from the Ayuin brand
which is made of 100% vegetable Sisal fibers and beech wood.
Some benefits of dry brushing during your morning routine:
- Exfoliates the skin, making it softer and reducing cellulite. Dry brushing reduces orange peel skin and water retention. It helps to lessen the feeling of heavy legs.
- Cell stimulation activates the immune system.
- It stimulates blood and lymphatic circulation to better eliminate toxins.
You can make strokes from the ankle towards the top of the thigh and circles around the knees.
11. Oil up before or after your shower
To help you reconnect with your body during your morning routine, and to bring you softness and well-being, you can massage yourself for a few minutes with sesame oil, which has heavy and penetrating properties. Always move from bottom to top. Also remember to massage your arms, torso, and neck.
This routine can be done both in the morning and in the evening.
12. Choose your thoughts like you choose your clothes
To attract positivity, it's essential to have a positive mindset. Daily life, children's emotions, work, and the weather can all affect our emotions and cloud our state of mind and mood. What if we chose how we wanted to feel and experience our day? This is possible by conditioning ourselves towards a positive mindset that will attract positivity. So yes, of course, there might be traffic on the way to work, an unhappy colleague, or a child who doesn't want to go to school, but all these examples will take up less space and have less impact on our mental state because we will have conditioned ourselves.
13. Plan your day with a to-do list
Arriving at work without knowing your priorities is a mistake that costs us energy and wastes our time. Knowing your priority tasks for the day helps you stay focused and not get sidetracked by unexpected events. In the morning, we are productive and can easily stay focused on large projects that we will break down into time blocks. Generally, this is the ideal time to work on topics that require concentration (figures, strategy, writing, etc.).
To establish your priority list, you can use the Eisenhower Matrix, which distinguishes between important tasks and urgent tasks.
14. Focus on your task and avoid distractions
The hardest part is to stay focused and not let distractions divert us from our goals. I recommend the following:
- put your phone on airplane mode
- turn off notifications on your phone as well as email pop-ups
- inform your colleagues that you are working on an important project that requires concentration and that you do not wish to be disturbed for a given period of time
- give yourself a limited time for this task
- take a break once the task is completed as a reward
In conclusion, to organize a morning routine, you need to understand your needs and what makes you feel good, list your desires, and put them into practice. Nothing is set in stone; a routine evolves over time, depending on your organization, the seasons, and nature. You can dedicate a few minutes or an hour to it, it all depends on your habits. To prepare and organize well, remember to listen to yourself, that's the most important thing. This new habit will then become more natural, and you won't have to think about what you need to do. The steps of your morning routine don't matter; listen to yourself, and it can be different from one morning to the next. An evening routine is also different. It will help prepare you for sleep.
How to Create a Morning Routine?
Here are some steps to create a morning routine that works for you:
- consider the time available for the routine
- think about the purpose of the routine: to energize yourself, to re-center yourself
- find a quiet place in your home. You don't need a separate room, but a space where you feel good is necessary.
- add items that make you feel good: candles, plants, altar, deities, oracles...
- turn on a light that is not too bright or use candles to gently wake up with daylight.
- do not seek perfection or a specific goal. This routine is there to make you feel good.
- listen to your body's signals, your needs. Rituals can evolve according to your desires and needs.
What is the best morning routine?
The best morning routine is the one that suits you and adapts to your lifestyle, to your cycle. There's no need to put pressure on yourself; it's there to help you feel good. It can last a few minutes or an hour, it all depends on the time you want or can dedicate to it. Sometimes it's better to do a 10-minute morning routine regularly than an hour-long routine once a week.
What is the order of a morning routine?
- centering exercises first: yoga, meditation, pranayama (breathing)
- breakfast
- bathroom space or before breakfast depending on what you prefer
How to have a perfect morning routine?
A perfect routine means it suits you and brings you well-being. It will therefore be different for everyone. It's up to you to listen to the signals.
What is the best morning routine for school?
Personally, I do my routine before the kids wake up. When they wake up, we have breakfast together. Then everyone goes to their own bathroom. To avoid a morning rush and save time, they prepare their snack and water the night before.