Does Your Morning Routine Set the Tone for Your Day?
How does your morning routine – or lack thereof – impact you?
Everyone sleeps. Some people sleep better and more deeply than others.
Because everyone sleeps – everyone has a “morning” when they wake up from their slumber.
It might not be the standard “morning” time. But I postulate that the time immediately after you wake up – be it 6am, 12pm, 10pm, or whenever – is your morning.
Many self-help, mindfulness, and other spiritual gurus and similar expound on the benefit of this morning routine versus that morning routine. And these are incredibly variable.
Some suggest getting up at 5am, doing vigorous exercise, taking cold showers, and similar. Others tell you to awaken naturally with the sun, spend the first hour of your morning in meditation, avoid caffeine, and the like. Still others will tell you to get right to work on whatever you must, make an entry in your dream journal, do profound reading, specific diet and exercise practices, and so on.
Each of these will tell you they are the “best” or “most effective” means to make your day.
To be fair – I’m sure they’re perfect for certain people. But here’s the thing – you are one of almost 8 billion people on this planet. Each of us – all 8,000,000,000 of us – has different, unique perceptions of reality. With that, we all have different aspirations, experiences, and yadayadayada.
In other words – there is never One True Way™. No matter who suggests their morning routine – nor its success for them and others – it might not be for you.
Instead, let’s look at the difference between no routine at all, unhealthy routines, and potentially beneficial morning routines in a broader context.
What is a morning routine?
In the simplest of terms, a morning routine is habitual, rote, and routine practices that include awakening, getting out of bed, and time between that and “starting your day” by going to work, going to school, or whatever else your given day entails.
For example – your alarm goes off at 6am. You get up, use the bathroom, make your bed, get the newspaper, make coffee, then sit and read while drinking your coffee for the next 45 minutes. Then you take a walk, come home and shower, get dressed, and leave for the office by 8:30am.
That’s a morning routine. It can be that simple.
There are numerous variations on this theme that can and will produce positive and negative effects. But before I get into this, let’s look at the alternative to a morning routine.
What does no routine look like?
How can someone have no routine? I’m not wholly certain that there is ever no routine at all to a given morning. But not having one in place – like the above example – can and does happen.
For example – your alarm goes off at 6am. Then you hit snooze from 2 to 6 times. Or you don’t bother with an alarm at all. Sometimes you get up and go for a run. Other times you get up and sack out on the couch flipping through random TV. Maybe you go back to bed. Perhaps you get online either via a smartphone, tablet, or computer.
No two days are alike. You get up when and how you do, without any regular set pattern, rote, routine, or habit. One morning you brush your teeth, one morning you don’t, and another morning you brush your teeth with beer.
To me, this looks really chaotic. And since it’s not my experience, I don’t know if it is – but I suspect anyone who lives this way lives chaotically overall.
No judgment here – if this is you, and you are living your life to the fullest and enjoying the ride – you do you, boo.
For me, my morning routine has had both negative and positive impacts on my life experiences.
Making habitual choices for good or ill
What matters more than the specifics of a morning routine is if doing so adds or takes away value in your life.
For years, I had a rather uninspiring morning routine. My alarm went off around 6:30am. I got up, started the coffee, and went to my computer. There I sat – with an interruption or two for coffee – for a good hour or so. I surfed the ‘net, played my uninspiring Facebook games, read emails, and generally goofed off.
When I started my day, I did so feeling like I had wasted some time. I frequently felt as though I could have made more of my morning before getting to work.
What better way could I start my day? How might I improve my morning routine?
I gave this consideration, and in time made a new choice. I either awaken with my wife’s alarm or naturally with the sun (typically I’m up between 5:45 and 7am). Then, I get up, make the bed, start the coffee – and sit to read books. I read at least 1 chapter of fiction and 1 chapter of nonfiction every day.
Then I go and post my blog. After that, I go for a walk. Then I take my shower and start my day (usually by writing the next day’s blog).
I chose to change my morning habit and create a new morning routine. And I believe that what I am doing is good for me and how I set the tone for my day.
Your morning routine can set the tone for your day
My old morning routine started me out uncertain, directionless, and with a feeling like I wasted the start of my day. Now, my morning routine feels good and sets the tone for a more productive and effective day.
There are lots and lots of messages out there from various celebrities, gurus, medical professionals, and various other experts for the “perfect” morning routine. One of these could be perfect for you.
Odds are, however, that they might serve you best as a guideline. Perhaps some of what they recommend resonates with you and might seem apropos for impacting the start of your day. But given that there’s no One Size Fits All solution, it’s best to approach these ideas with an open mind.
Look to morning routines others present to you as ideas that you can apply as best suits you. But if what you do now works for you – why change a good thing?
If it doesn’t, however – take some steps to mindfully change your morning routine. Begin one morning by asking yourself what you are thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what you’re doing, and what intentions might lie behind that. This opens you to mindfulness and conscious awareness. When you recognize and acknowledge that – you can analyze and change it as you desire.
This applies to any and all habits, behaviors, and so on. The main reason I see to be mindful of your morning routine is because it can and will set the tone for the rest of your day.
I don’t know about you – but I prefer when I set a positive tone for a given day than no tone at all or a negative one.
How does your morning routine – or lack thereof – impact you?
Recognizing how our morning routine impacts us isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of our thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct our actions.
When we become familiar with our morning routine – and if it has a negative or positive impact, if any, on us – we can use mindfulness to alter it in whatever way seems right for us. Knowing that there is no One True Way to start the day – but plenty of options for creating new habits and behaviors – we can positively impact how we start our morning to choose the tone for the rest of our day.
This empowers us – and in turn, our empowerment can empower others around us. That can expand to change the bigger picture matters, too.
Choosing for ourselves employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for our lives.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, we can explore and share where we are between the extremes and how that impacts us here and now.
Lastly, the better aware we are of ourselves in the now, the more we can do to choose and decide how our life experiences will be. When that empowers us, it can also open those around us to their own empowerment. And that is, to me, a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.
Thank you for coming along on this ride with me.
This is the four hundred and forty-eighth entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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