Having a healthy morning ritual is essential to starting your day well and remaining positive and productive for the remainder of the day. However, a good morning ritual does not just happen, you must plan for it properly and put in place strategies that will ensure that it serves to ensure that you have a purposeful day in which you achieve the majority of your goals. (1) While there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ morning routine that will work for everyone, certain crucial elements should be incorporated into the start of each day in order to ensure maximum success. The following are a few essential tips to help you create a healthy morning routine that will help you start your day off successfully:
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Wake up early
As the saying goes, the early bird gets the worm. Even if you are not a morning person, getting up early helps you get a few essential tasks out of the way e.g. exercising, preparing a healthy meal, meditating, getting the kids ready for school, etc, which still leaves you with enough time to get to work on time. Waking up early also allows you to enjoy the cool and quiet of the day before all the other activities crowd in. Ideally, you should follow your circadian rhythms to determine what time to wake up and give yourself at least one and a half hours before leaving for work or other activities. A good habit first thing when you wake up to drink 500ml of filtered water and the juice of 1/2 a lemon. This wakes up your digestive system, gently cleanses the liver, and gets your body ready for the day.
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Get enough sleep
It goes without saying that you will need to get enough sleep (7-9 hours for adults) if you want to start waking up earlier. To this end, set a constant time when you will turn in, get rid of all distractions such as television and the internet and generally create an atmosphere that ensures you get the required forty winks without any interruptions. Enjoying a cup of Golden Milk can be very relaxing and can help promote a good night sleep, grab the recipe and other health benefits here.
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Make room for meditation
Early morning is the ideal time to get in some much-needed meditation. Early morning meditation has several advantages, including allowing you to release any emotional baggage from the previous day, allowing you to clear your mind, lowering stress levels and many others. Just a 20-minute meditation session should allow you to access these benefits, and ensure that you are well-equipped to handle whatever the day may throw at you. (2) (3)
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Determine the essential activities
Everyone’s morning ritual is different and is designed to ensure that they achieve whatever goals they have set for themselves on that particular day. Before deciding on a ritual of your own, determine which activities are most important to you. As a rule of thumb, concentrate on activities that will lead to an improvement in your physical and emotional health, as well as those that will help you be as productive as possible. These include; taking a walk, drinking a tall glass of lemon water to rehydrate, meditating, weight training, writing down your to-do list for the day, and of course eating a healthy breakfast (i.e. following the “Complete rule of 3” protein, carb, & fat). Grab this simple Maple, Pecan Quinoa Porridge Recipe for a nourishing breakfast to get your fueled up for the day ahead.
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Set your goals
Whether you are employed, are a stay at home mom or on the entrepreneurial journey, you will find that there are a number of things competing for your time. An early morning ritual will help you to determine the most important ones and allow you to prioritize the ones that will help you be most productive. Start by writing down your most important goals for the day and ensure that you complete the most crucial ones first.
A morning ritual is among the best ways to ensure that you start your day on a positive note and remain productive throughout the day. By determining which activities are essential to you, you can create a ritual that helps you achieve your goals and ensures that you get the most out of your day. Start by incorporating a few essential activities, stick with these for a month and tweak your plan in order to come up with a ritual that works best for you. Do this and you should begin to see a number of positive effects in the form of improved health, more work was done and goals achieved in good time.