I’ve been following a morning routine diligently for the past 5-6 years and it is what truly transformed my life. Most of us don’t know what to do after waking up early so we find no point in waking up early.
I too used to think that way, but there is really a right way of starting our day that can slowly change our life.
Today I want to share with you 8 things to do before 8 am so that you too start your own morning routine and see for yourself, how it feels for you.
I can promise that just by following a simple morning routine you can change how you feel about yourself and your life.
All you must do is wake up a little early so that you can give time for yourself to do these things.
These are all little seeds of personal growth and by nurturing them every day, they help cultivate in us positive qualities and an enhanced lifestyle.
You are not just here to wake up, eat and rush to work and come home tired for another day of work.
You are here to experiment with life, develop yourself to experience your truest nature and enjoy life.
So give yourself some time for yourself in the morning. See how it feels to see the morning sun at 6 am or even 7 am and do this healthy morning routine.
Healthy Morning Routine: 8 things to do before 8 am
Table of Contents
1. Make your bed
The first thing to do is to make your bed mindfully. Fold your blankets or sheet slowly and mindfully.
Most people dismiss making the bed in the morning and leave it like that thinking it doesn’t matter or they feel they have no time even to make their bed.
That is living in a rush state. We need to slow down.
Even if you make your bed slowly and mindfully, it hardly even takes 3 minutes. Slow down and be there for your bed.
This small habit has a huge impact on mood.
Seeing my bed tidy and made up clears my mind and makes me feel ready for my day. If you feel lazy to make your bed, then you’ll remain lazy for the rest of the day.
The habit of making your bed first thing and tidying up your space is a wonderful habit to keep.
2. Be Thankful
As you wake up, be thankful for the 24 hours given to you. Be thankful for your energy being restored magically. The first thing I am grateful for every morning is sleep because it really is a magical thing and I know the hellish torment of not being able to sleep.
But now I am able to sleep with ease and every morning I wake up and am grateful for a good sleep. P.S you can read my post on How to sleep better with anxiety if you think you need it.
Anyway, also as you wake up, know that you have woken up.
I know this might sound weird, or even stupid, but really, how many of us really realize the fact that we are alive, and that, that itself is an incredible gift?
We have eyes intact through which we can see. We have hands. We have legs. We have a body which can move about freely and we are not chained to anything.
We are here not just to drag our bodies and ourselves through another day. We are here to move lightly, to make use of this body, this self and to fill our lives with courage, joyfulness and light.
We are here not just to live in survival mode, but to thrive. Creating a morning routine for yourself is the first thing you can do to live for yourself.
Give thankfulness to your body and to your life.
If in the beginning, you feel that you are still feeling drained and you have no energy in the morning, it might be because you have to fix some negative morning habits and your lifestyle.
Here are 10 toxic morning habits to stop.
Just start feeling grateful in the morning and be mindful and you will slowly find your energy is restored and stop feeling so crap.
P.S Why thankfulness is mindfulness
3. Tidy yourself
Next up, freshen yourself and tidy yourself.
At home, we hardly care about how we look. We don’t even give time to look in the mirror, apply moisturiser and never even care to comb our hair.
We tend to think, “I am not going out anywhere”
“There is no one who cares”, or
“It’s just me, it doesn’t matter”
But aren’t we always with ourselves? We say we don’t dress up for others, but for ourselves, and yet when we are only with ourselves, we hardly care about how we look.
And here it’s not just about how we look. It’s about how we feel.
You don’t need to be all dressed up, but after brushing your teeth and freshening up, change your house clothes, go in front of the mirror and apply moisturiser slowly.
Comb your hair and tidy yourself up.
I have been seeing my grandmother do this every day since the time I was a kid and earlier I didn’t use to understand its importance, but now I do.
That’s self-care. That’s taking care of how you feel.
When I do this simple thing, I immediately feel uplifted, my mood is boosted and I feel ready for my day.
P.S Tiny habits to boost your mood naturally
4. Drink your water in mindfulness
Drink your first three sips of water mindfully and sit to only drink your water. We feel we can’t afford this time but sit through it because you can afford it.
I suggest you not drink coffee first thing in the morning and instead drink only water or black tea.
Always keep a water bottle and a cup in front of you and try to finish it by 8 am too as you proceed with your morning routine.
5. Journal
After you’ve finished with your first part of the morning routine by freshening up, making your bed, tidying yourself up, sit for journaling every morning first thing.
Writing is healing. Writing is transformative. Write whatever comes to your mind. There is no right way or wrong way to write in your journal.
You don’t always have to write each and everything that happened in your day. You can write your thoughts about just anything you’re feeling at the moment.
Or if you have some events you want to write down, you can write them down too.
The point is to write about anything that is in your heart and get them on paper.
If you need some prompts and want to get help in journaling, you should try my 21-Day Journaling Challenge where you will receive prompts and guidance from me every day for the next 21 days.
6. Move your body
Always make time for your body in the morning. It needs you because it has been working for you all along tirelessly.
Just give it 10-15 minutes for it. You don’t always have to exercise to lose weight. You can exercise just for the sake of exercising because exercise is just good for the body.
Earlier, when I used to be very thin and skinny, and I’d exercise or say to people I exercised, they would tell me, why do I exercise I don’t have to lose weight or that I would lose even more weight so I should stop exercising.
But I’d say, I exercise because exercise is just good for the body, and it makes me feel so great after every workout and I feel so boosted and in high spirits after a workout.
You don’t have to do high-intensity workouts. Just simple bodily movements are also fine.
How many of us don’t even raise our arms above our heads, stretch our hips, or circle our arms in our day-to-day life?
It might feel like 10-15 minutes don’t matter, but it does. My mother who had severe back pain and back issues cured her back problem naturally just by exercising for 5-10 minutes.
Here is a stretching exercise I love. I love all of her workouts.
And if you feel you have more time and want to take on a challenge, I am currently doing Chloe Ting’s Challenge.
Here are her free workout programs and challenges you can do too.
7. Meditate and pray
Next, after I work out, I always sit down for some time in silence to meditate and pray. After a workout, this feels wonderful. It not only cools down my body but also my mind.
I feel sitting in silence is so powerful. It brings our true intentions and how we are living our life right to the forefront.
It nudges us to look inside ourselves and look into how we are living.
You can sit in silence and just focus on your breath and keep coming back to your breath every time you go astray, or you can follow a guided meditation.
Here is a podcast I listen to for guided meditation:
I also use the plum village app, which has many resources for mindfulness meditation and mindful living.
Sometimes I also like to listen to soothing music such as flute music, forest music, ocean music and Native American music and just keep following every note of the music and truly listen to the music.
I feel that is meditation too.
Then give some time for prayer and pray not for things or what you’d like to achieve, but pray for courage, lightheartedness, hope and give gratitude for anything you can.
If giving gratitude and having hope is hard for you right now, then pray to have gratitude, pray to have hope.
Just having that earnestness and praying sincerely to have these positive qualities is also a wonderful thing.
You may not be able to access them easily right now, but you will have them someday because you are seeking them.
Giving even 10 minutes for meditation and prayer in your day is something truly incredible you do for yourself.
Here is why I pray and how to pray
8.Sit for a morning read
Lastly, after you finish meditation and prayer, sit for your morning read.
Strive to read at least 2-3 pages every morning. We can finish ready 2-3 pages in just 10 minutes.
We don’t have to binge-read. There is no read to hurry to finish a book.
Reading just 2-3 pages, but reading every day, you can still finish 1 book each month easily and that means 12 books a year.
In the morning I recommend you not to read fiction books or novels.
Here is my morning read book recommendations.
And here is how I make time to read every day.
So these were all the ways to spend your morning and create a healthy, slow, mindful morning routine.
Morning routine before 8 am
Pin for later
It might seem like a lot, and you might feel like you don’t have time for it, or even get defensive, but I want to tell you that it’s okay if you can’t do it all.
Try at least a few. You can easily make your bed in the morning, you can easily tidy yourself up in the morning, and you can easily just give yourself a few moments to drink your water mindfully.
Then sit to the journal for a few minutes, sit in silence for 10 minutes, move your body for a little while and read a little.
This should take somewhere around an hour and I’ve given in detail in this post about a doable 1 hour morning routine.
Most of us easily spend a good 30-40 mins scrolling over our phones in the morning.
Just giving up this one habit will go a long way in creating your morning routine.
I hope you make time for yourself in the morning because it is the best time to give to yourself.
After 8 am, we get ready for work, ready for noise, ready for responsibilities and ready for all other roles.
Before 8 am, is the time you should give to yourself, because the first person you should meet fully, is your own self and be light-hearted and joyful in meeting your own self.
Only then can we meet everything that happens to us after 8 am lightly, freely and with stability.
One hour is the minimum time you must give yourself in the morning. You can do it!
You might also love
Leave a Reply