Does your alarm startle you in the morning waking up from a deep sleep to only grab your phone to see 200 new unread emails, 5 text messages and a missed call from your mother-in-law? Only to actually get out of bed and realize you have no time for breakfast and need to get your kids to school and show up late for your first meeting. Oh, you too? Good. Let’s kick anxiety in the butt each morning and not have another morning like the one described above.
Mornings that start out full of anxiety and your mind racing with a million things it needs to do at once is not a way to start your day… especially not your day, day after day. What you can do is to create a bit more of a mindful morning routine to manage the stresses and what information you want to take in and when.
It will be important to play around with what works for you, but the whole goal is to make a routine that keeps your mornings less stressful. Keep in mind that your routine doesn’t need to be the same every day and it could change from season to season or year to year.
Here are a few things I make sure are a part of my morning to keep my mornings stress-free, or at least as stress-free as possible.
Breakfast already made
For the crazy that mornings can bring, I like to have breakfast already ready for me. The idea that I can just grab it from the fridge and take it with me, makes more time for other things I need to get done in the morning yet I am still well nourished. A favorite of mine is the night before taking some plain greek yogurt, mixing in a scoop of EBOOST PRIME, throwing a TBS of almond butter on top, some chia seeds and a little bit of granola and/or fruit.
Pick a soothing alarm
I understand that for most people it makes sense to have a blaring alarm go off to get you out of bed as quickly as possible. However, through experiment, it is actually a much better way to wake up when you have an alarm that increases in volume as the time passes. That way you are being woken up slowly. If you want to step it up another level, getting a Sleep Cycle app is great too as it will wake you up 10-30 minutes around your alarm but learns how you sleep and knows the best time to wake you up at due to your sleep cycle.
Say no
Whatever you do, do NOT check your phone. You will regret it almost every time. Give yourself some time to wake up and get in a little TLC before you start stressing yourself out with all of the new notifications it is showing you.
One Peaceful Minute
Allow yourself at least one minute (more if you can) to just breathe and take in the moment. If you are someone who loves coffee or a match latté in the morning, feel free to take this moment while sipping your beverage of choice. I also like to take a few large deep breathes of an uplifting and energizing essential oil.
