5 Things To Do In The Morning

Every morning is an opportunity to start new – even if yesterday was a disaster, today will bring something to get you on track. Most of the day is defined by what and how we spend the first two hours of our morning. Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock wakes up at 4 am and finishes his two workout routines of both cardio and strength exercises before he starts his day while Mark Wahlberg wakes up at 02:20 AM every day and spends the first 45 minutes praying and then starts his workout.

Starting your day early with a well-defined and good morning routine is not only good for your physical health but even for your mental health. In his famous Stanford speech, Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” Steve Jobs himself was up at 6 am and the first thing he did was to make his own bed.

Before you start following any of these things, it is important to know that waking up early is the single most important thing you can do to put your life together. It would be cruel on my part if I told you to wake up at 02:30 am every day so the question is How early should you wake up?

The answer is just one hour early.

If you wake up every day at 7 am then for the next three months wake up at 6 am. And if you already wake up at 6 am then start your morning at 5 am. You might need to put in some effort to achieve this if you are not a morning person already. Going to sleep early is one way to wake up early.

So you started waking up early. What next?

Waking up early by an hour only to spend the next three hours on your phone with red eyes, is not the objective. Instead, you might go back to sleep. Atleast its better than scrolling through Social Media. So the first thing that you HAVE to do is ditch that phone.

The first thing people do these days after hitting the snooze button on their phone is check those notifications on social media. If you want to have a better morning, drop the phone. Control that urge to check the phone as soon as you wake up – or at least for the next two hours and then include these five things to your morning schedule to make it a better day and a better life:

1. Wash your face with cold water

After you conquer the toilet without using your phone – which won’t be easy initially but you’ll get there – the next thing to do is splash your face with cold water.

For people who take a cold shower, it will be a piece of cake but for others, like me, you may start with warm water and eventually move on to cold water.

Why follow this morning ritual?

For starters, it will wash away the urge to use the phone. The next good thing it will do is get your blood pumping – so it will wash away the sleep and truly wake you up.

2. Make your bed

Making your own bed is the first thing in the morning that can give you a sense of achievement. If you put it off till later than its never going to happen and even if it did, then it would be in a hurry because you are late.

But if its the first thing you do in the morning, then it will impart you with motivation and sense of achievement – of completing things. You would be more energized to accomplish more.

Why follow this morning ritual?

Many productivity guru’s agree that making your bed as soon as you wake up is the way to smash your productivity goals and conquer the day. Motivation has a domino effect and the trick is to tip off the first domino in the morning by making your bed.

3. Relax / Meditate 

Once you have your coffee or tea, try to take a break and relax. Do nothing. Just breathe in and breathe out. If you are a person who enjoys meditation then do that. Some also like to perform guided meditation but if you don’t want to, then simply sit, close your eyes and do nothing – not fall asleep as well. The early morning quietness is a good thing for your brain. It can keep you relaxed the entire day and even help you in getting some mental clarity.

Why follow this morning ritual?

Meditation or relaxing your mind is one of the best mental workouts and a beautiful morning activity. It’s definitely more relaxing than scrolling through the waste of Social Media. Do this activity no more than 10-15 minutes.

4. Plan your day

After you are done with mediation or relaxing, then quicky plan your day. By planning, I don’t mean write down an account of every hour you will do but get a rough estimate of major activities of your entire day. It gives you a rough idea of what you are looking at.

This is also a good exercise for your mind to remember things. Memory is a very crucial gift and “opening the phone for something and forgetting about it while scrolling on social media” is becoming very common. It is not only harmful to our productivity but also bad for our mental health.

Try to make a rough to-do list of little things which we tend to overlook or forget during the day because once you complete those little things, it will make you feel accomplished at the end of the day. Success is but a collection of little steps taken every day.

5. Drink water

Even if you have six-pack abs, I would still urge you to drink water before you start your day. Doesn’t matter if it’s hot or cold, doesn’t matter how many studies show that drinking water is good or bad but the matter of the fact is drink water. You can always google to see what are the benefits of drinking water in the morning but the fact remains that it is NOT a bad habit.

Conclusion: While this is a list of 5 things to do in the morning which works for me, I’m sure it will help you as well. There could be other things which you would like to do like spending time with your pet or child when you have coffee, looking out of the window and sitting quietly or maybe reading a book or some light reading. In any case, as long as you don’t overload your brain with social media poison, you are good to do!

Comment below the things that work for your morning routine!