Are your mornings stressful? Changing your routine can help boost your emotions, increase productivity, and make you less stressed. Sounds great, right? Where do you start? Moving your morning schedule doesn’t have to be a lot of work. A few simple changes can result in having a more productive and stress-free day.
Scroll through for our best tips to improve your morning routine.
1. Don’t Pick Up Your Phone
When you wake up, don’t pick up your cell phone for the first 20 minutes. According to a former Google design ethicist, Tristian Harris, phones have the power to hijack our morning routines. He writes, “When we wake up in the morning and turn our phone over to see a list of notifications,” he writes, “it frames the experience of ‘waking up in the morning’ around a menu of ‘all the things I’ve missed since yesterday.”
Other research suggests notifications and trigger stress. Harris suggests that filling your morning with your true needs will have a better impact on your day.
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2. Soak in the Sun
Step out onto your patio after you get out of bed. Sunlight is a natural energy booster and can wake your tired eyes up. The sun can boost mood, and give us a healthy dose of vitamin D.
Being woken up by natural light rather than an alarm can put you in a better mood.
3. Reflect on Your Day
Visualize how you want your day to look. Reflecting on your day can help lead to greater productivity. Visualization techniques and practices have proven to work in athletics and business, and choosing to use these practices in the morning will give us more control over our day.
Here are good questions to ask yourself in the morning:
- What do you want to prioritize at work today?
- What chores need to be done?
- Who do you want to spend time with today?
4. Stretch Your Muscles
Stretching can improve posture, increase blood flow, and give us a big dose of energy. You only need an extra few minutes to stretch out your arms and legs in the morning. Wake up five minutes earlier, and use those extra few moments to stretch out your body.
Increasing blood flow to the brain can wake your body up, increase concentration, and sharpen your senses.
