Perhaps your morning is different every day.  Maybe, you just do what it takes to get by and get out of the house.  More and more we hear of high performers and successful people sharing their morning routines.  This leads to the question what is the best morning routine?

In fact, we were recently asked this exact question.  The easy answer to what is the best morning routine is… the one that you will do every morning.  Obviously, you want something more specific than that.

It is important to note that while there are commonalities across people’s morning routines, there is a personal factor that makes it something you will need to adapt to your own to make it work for you.

Routines Don’t Have to be Boring

When people hear the word routine, it often brings up feelings of boredom and being a slave to some schedule. While the word routine might not be exciting for many, the value of creating a ritual first thing in the morning is profound.

Instead of focussing on what is the best morning routine, we like to think of a morning routine as a way to prime yourself for the day. When you prime your mind and body at the onset of a new day, you empower yourself by taking control. When you do this each day, you are essentially taking control of your life.

Before we answer what is the best morning routine, here are:

5 reasons why you should prime yourself for the day

1. Proactively shaping your mindset

   If you wait until something external sets your mood and alters your perspective, you become a victim of circumstance.  Rather, create the state you want and gain control of the flow of the day.

2. The oxygen mask theory 

   You never know what you will face in a day. Surprises and challenges can occur and throw a day into chaos.  If you start the day primed by taking care of yourself, then you will be more resilient, level-headed and resourceful to face whatever comes your way. You’ll also be more capable of helping others.

3. Waking up on your own terms

   Most people wake up on the defensive.  Often people hit the ground running, managing emails and “herding cats” as they try and get their kids fed and out the door.  Your day’s pace is set by external factors.  Waking up a little earlier or altering your schedule to have the liberty of initiating the day with actions that best serve you is a key step to upgrading your life. Set your own pace and you’ll by more in charge of your life.

4. Build positive association to mornings 

   How many memes, commercials and videos have you seen where someone complains about the morning.  It is common to envision being abruptly woken up, feeling grumpy and being smacked in the face by a new day.  Really, every day you wake up alive, should be a good day. It is a new opportunity to make things better.  If things are great it is a chance to appreciate this and to build on your further success. We’d all do well to reclaim the morning as a point of joy.  That might mean going to bed earlier, or just a shift in attitude and introducing that make you excited for the morning.

5. Grounding yourself 

   In line with thousands of years of human existence on this planet, morning would start with contact with the natural world.  Only recently, has it been possible to wake up in an air conditioned home and arrive at work without ever having really connected with nature.  You don’t have to live in a cave, walk barefoot to the ocean upon waking and swim into the waves to make this connection. A few minutes of minimal effort is all you need the benefits of nature to start your day.  Sunlight, fresh air, a little natural human movement e.g. a walk and some clean water has the power to synchronize your internal clock with the natural rhythms of your location. Learn more about this in the article Getting Enough Vitamin N.

Now that there we’ve provided some reasons to get primed, we’ll look closer at what is the best morning routine. To do this we thought we’d share both of our approaches (yes, they are different). This way you can pick and choose between the two. You also can get a sense of our different motivations.

What is the Best Morning Routine

Bree’s practice:

I’ve tried many different things from journaling, meditating, walking, drinking lemon water, etc but what I find helps me the most and what I will do each morning are the following:

1. Drink a glass of warm lemon/lime water as soon as I wake up.  I really notice the difference when I miss drinking 16 ounces of water in the morning.  It rehydrates me, gets things moving and flushes out toxins that have accumulated through the nightly detox process.  Each night, I fill up an extra large glass of filtered water, squeeze half a lemon or lime in it and put it on my bedside table.  Simple, easy and effective.
2. I started Transcendental Meditation in 2012 and it changed my life.  I set my alarm to wake up 45 minutes earlier than the rest of my family and do a 20-minute meditation right after I drink my lemon water (I don’t even get out of bed).  This sets me up for the day, energizes me and gets me into the right mindset. My family knows how important this is to me and over time, we have developed an understanding that I am not to be interrupted while meditating.  Twenty minutes goes by very quickly and if my girls are up, they can entertain themselves for this time.
3. Getting outside for 5 minutes.  This can be a challenge for me on certain days but it is something that I strive to do each day.  It helps remind me of my place in the universe and grounds me for the day.  I usually drink a cup of licorice root tea on our deck before the rush of preparing breakfast, lunches and getting out of the house.

Brad’s practice:

My research has exposed me to a lot of different impressive individual’s priming rituals. This has certainly helped me figure out what is the best morning routine…for me. While I do similar things to Bree, I’m not as exact about my timing, (that’s just part of my personality).

1. While I don’t set out the water the night before, it is also the first thing I do in the morning. Half a lemon squeezed into filtered water goes down the hatch followed by a second glass without the lemon. This gets things moving and replaces the pull to go straight for a coffee. I almost always have this outside on the deck shirtless and barefoot with the sunlight on me.
2. I have been doing TM since 2012 as well but am not as consistent as Bree. I will often just get 10 minutes done rather than 20 minutes – something is better than nothing. Regardless, a little time quietly sitting in solitude calms my mind, gives me resilience for the day ahead and subdues my monkey brain (unproductive inner monolog). Whether it feels good or not at the time, it always improves my day.
3. I proceed to journal. After spending a few minutes writing stream of consciousness stuff, I record three points of gratitude and my goals for the day.
4. I crave movement when I wake up so by this point I am either doing a GymnasticBodies daily limber (an easy yoga-like 5-10 minute routine that achieves what it’s name states), going for a quick walk or getting in a workout (bike, weight training, paddleboarding, calisthenics, etc.). This always improves my mood and makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something no matter what happens for the rest of the day. Bree and I do something active together early in the day as much as possible.

What is the best morning routine…for you?

We recommend adopting someone else’s and running with it for three weeks. After that time, reflect on what is not serving you or taking your energy rather than giving you energy. Then eliminate and replace with something else. It’s okay to start with just one thing but see if you can build on it.

By creating an automatic process for your morning, you avoid decision fatigue.  The best morning routine takes you from dreaming to dream day – win the morning win the day!

We recently sent out an email, asking people to provide us with their biggest questions in regards to health.  We were pleased to get such an overwhelming response.  So going forward, we will answer these questions scattered through alternate blog posts, email newsletters and on social media.

This was our first but keep the questions coming. As qualified teachers, we embrace questions as an opportunity for everyone to learn.