Mindful Mornings

Starting your morning in the right way comes with many unrecognised benefits that can elevate your mindfulness and refresh you for the day ahead.

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Setting the tone is very important for getting into a steady flow and balancing your workload throughout the day. There are many ways that you can kickstart your day in the right way, but it’s important to remember that everyone is different in how their body functions.

Having a good routine that you stick to each day is the first step towards mindful mornings, but it’s what you do within this routine that matters the most. From morning workouts to hearty breakfasts, there are a few tweaks that you can make to your daytime routines to enhance your life. We will explore these throughout this guide.

Make sure to stick around and read the rest of this article to help you get the most out of your mornings and embrace a mindful lifestyle.

Mindful Morning Techniques

Meditation

Morning meditation can be very impactful for helping start your day effectively. Especially if you have a stressful day ahead of you, meditating early in the day can help you overcome these stresses and manage your day better. Eliminating worries from your life will make you feel calmer and have a clear mind, which will benefit your concentration levels.

Mindfulness meditation is a calming technique, either guided or unguided, which involves sitting silently and observing your thoughts without judgement. This is different from other types of meditation like transcendental, movement, visualisation and progressive relaxation. Although they can all positively impact your day.

Yoga

Another stress relief technique similar to meditation is doing yoga at home. Not only is it effective at eliminating stress, but it can also improve alertness, enhance focus and boost performance. The first 21 days of a morning yoga routine is crucial, as if you manage to complete it continuously for this long there’s a good chance you’ll continue it.

If you’re someone who suffers from stiffness or aches in the morning, yoga will be particularly beneficial. It will improve your flexibility and help you build core strength, which should make you feel better physically throughout the day.

Consistent Wake Up Time

A key part of creating a good wake up routine is ensuring that you wake up at a consistent time every day. It can help you sleep better at night, which will make you build up a chain of healthy sleep and wake up times that will enhance your lifestyle. Having a fixed wake up time can also build a strong desire to sleep through wakefulness.

Sometimes you might want to have more sleep on the weekends, which is absolutely fine but you shouldn’t overdo it as if you sleep for a few hours longer, it can mess up your sleep cycle. It’s very important to maintain your circadian rhythm to help you feel on peak performance each day.

Body Nourishment

Nourishing your body correctly every morning is very important. After all, it is said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This is because it provides you with nutrients and energy to start the day, as well as kickstart your metabolism so that you can burn more calories as the day goes on. Skipping breakfast isn’t recommended, as it can cause you to feel hungrier later in the day and lead to overeating.

Starting Your Day with Intention

Some of the best ingredients to put in your morning meals include eggs, Greek yoghurts, oatmeal, berries, whole grains and nuts. All of these are proven to improve health and give you the nutrients needed for the day.

Hydration

Equally as important is to make sure you eat well each morning and sufficiently hydrate yourself at the beginning of each day. Drinking a full glass of water when you wake up can have many benefits for your health. When you drink water on an empty stomach when you wake up, it can boost your metabolism by up to 25%. This will make your entire body feel more alive and energised.

Drinking water can also improve brain function, improve digestion and cleanse your skin, so regularly consuming this every morning will bring you many long term benefits.

Set Daily Goals

The morning is the perfect time to think about your daily goals and aspirations. This can give you a sense of purpose each day and encourage you to kick start each day in the right way to give you the best chance of achieving your goals. Having a long-term vision will help you with this, as if you’re in the mindset of doing something every day, you can then take actionable steps.

Setting daily goals can also help you incorporate gratitude practices on the back of your achievements. This can shift your mindset from negative emotions to positive ones. To do this, you can write down three things that have made you feel grateful which will enhance your perspective on life.

Make Your Bed

Making your bed as soon as you get out of it will set the tone for your day and make you feel more organised. It allows you to start the day with one accomplishment, which can then set you up for more accomplishments throughout the day. The action can also present you with a sense of calm, improve your sleep and reduce stress.

Leaving your bed unmade and crawling back into a messed up duvet each night can lead to negative emotions that you could carry into the next day.

Avoid Bad Habits

It’s easy to pick up bad habits and include them in your morning routine, such as snoozing your alarm, skipping breakfast and spending too much time on your mobile phone. It can be difficult to get away from these bad habits and create new ones, so it’s important to take it one step at a time and improve each factor separately. There are some worse habits that people can pick up and do each morning. One of the worst habits you can do is smoke cigarettes within the first couple hours of the morning, as it can hurt your daily health and make you feel more fatigued as the day progresses. There are alternatives like nicopods that you can try if your cravings need to be settled.