My morning routine...a work in progress

Morning routines seem to be all the rage these days. On so many of the podcasts that I regularly tune in to, most guests are asked to share their routine and they all seem to have one. For those mothers out there, especially those with really young kids, establishing some “me time” in the morning can be quite challenging but there are definitely so many benefits to finding the time to do so. The biggest reason is research has shown that the energy we wake up with tends to be the energy that we then take with us into the rest of our day. As a result on days where we set our alarm as late as possible and wake up with so much to do in a crammed period of time, or when we have our children as our alarm clocks wanting to be tended to the second our eyes open, we are setting ourselves up for a day of feeling more frazzled and stressed. I am sure we can all relate to those mornings. I have been working on this for over a year and can see which habits are easier to stick to and which ones are still “in progress”.

A great starting point for me was setting my alarm to a time before my kids are up or truly need me (my younger two are super early risers so it isn’t always possible to wake up before them). You can start small with even 5 extra minutes to yourself. I DON’T check my phone other than to shut off my alarm and the first thing I do is journal. I write down 3 things that I am grateful for, 3 things that would make my day great, one thing that I love about myself, an empowering and loving affirmation and my intention for how I want to feel throughout the day. And of course I make my bed, partly because I am a bit OCD about that but also because I read that starting your day with one task accomplished sets a productive tone for the rest of the day. I then go downstairs to my office and write out my to-do’s for the day, read the daily quote on my desk calendar and a page from a book that I have with daily inspiration. And then it is my water with the juice of half a lemon and sometimes a sprinkle of cayenne pepper. After that I tend to switch into “mommy” mode and get my kids and my own breakfast ready and whatever else needs to be done before we leave the house. Up until now these are the habits that have become non-negotiable.

For a long period of time, I had also been doing the daily 10 minute meditation in my Calm app and had become consistent with this habit. I did notice when I was doing that, I would feel even calmer starting the day, however lately I am finding it harder to not be focused on the rest of the things that need to get done before drop off and I am delaying this meditation to later in the day. Which often turns into not doing it at all because the day sometimes escapes me. I would also love to move my body in the morning even for a few minutes but this has also been a really hard habit to make consistent. I am fortunate to have a flexible job that allows me to do my workouts after I drop my kids at school but those workouts don’t happen every day and on those off days, I would love to be in the habit of doing something at home. I had even tried a 5-10 minute yoga flow for a short period of time however for whatever reason, I did not stay committed to this practice.

This is why I am still a work in progress as we all are. It is important to play around to see what works best for you but I strongly encourage you to make some time for self-care in the mornings, even if it is just a few minutes. You will feel better starting your day more tuned into yourself and how you want your day to unfold, and being in a relaxed state rather than a state of “fight or flight”. And holding off on checking your phone definitely helps set the tone for your day before you let the outside world in with emails, text messages and social media. I would love to hear about your morning routines and what you have found works best.