Simple morning routine can lead to better days
Starting with brushing his teeth before 4 a.m., fitness influencer Ashton Hall says he also swims, meditates, journals, rubs his skin with banana peel, lifts weights, submerges his face in ice water and accomplishes much more every morning before breakfast around 9:30.
A video of his morning routine has racked up millions of views on social media, while sparking reactions that range from disbelief to awe. It also jump-started the conversation online about how best to start the day, even if a six-hour regimen is ambitious to say the least.
Don’t worry, says Kamalyn Kaur, a psychotherapist in Cheshire, England: You don’t need to start your day with dozens of activities to improve it. But she says it is a good idea to re-evaluate how you get going, because setting up a relaxed, structured morning will pay dividends for your energy and mood.
“It just sets the tone for the rest of your day,” says Kaur, an anxiety expert who advises new clients to start by re-evaluating how they spend the morning. “If you set yourself up and you start your day properly, you start off feeling good, you feel organized.”
Establishing routine
As a professor of workplace psychology at the University of Oklahoma, Shawn McClean has spent years studying how work life is influenced by the rest of your life.
He says accomplishing tasks in the same order every morning is helpful because people have limited mental bandwidth before they have to recharge. The brain subconsciously reserves resources for tasks that require higher-level thinking, so routines are a type of mental shortcut.
“We’re cognitive misers,” McClean says. “We don’t like to use our mental energy on things that aren’t important.”
His research has found that employees perform better and are more calm throughout the day when they complete their morning regimen uninterrupted. Conversely, employees with disruptive mornings report higher levels of mental depletion late in the day.
“When it comes to routine disruptions, it throws off your whole day,” says McClean, himself playing catch-up on the day we spoke after having forgotten about his daughter’s show-and-tell. “You get to work and you realize you didn’t brush your teeth.”
What’s a good routine?
Most people already have some kind of routine in place, but few consciously decided on it before it became automatic, McClean says.
It’s hard to define what a good routine is, and there is no formula that is best for everyone.
“It’s going to be idiosyncratic to each person,” McLean adds. “It’s what helps them function. Now, can we have destructive routines? Yes.”
Rushing around in the morning to shower, eat and get out the door just on time is an example of a destructive morning routine, Kaur explains. The stress of a rushed morning produces extra cortisol, which is a necessary hormone that helps regulate the circadian rhythm, she says. It’s what naturally wakes you up and makes you alert in the morning.
Too much cortisol in the bloodstream, however, creates a feeling of restlessness and anxiety that can be similar to drinking coffee on an empty stomach, Kaur says.
Where to start?
People who often have hectic mornings should consider setting their alarm 30 minutes earlier — and resist the urge to hit the snooze button, Kaur says. For many people, snoozed sleep is disrupted sleep that might leave you more groggy.
Kaur recommends adding at least two or three quick activities to your morning that have been shown to improve mood — starting with making your bed. Research shows that clutter foments anxiety, and completing a task first thing in the morning promotes the secretion of the feel-good hormone dopamine, she says.
Next, have a glass of water. If you’ve gotten a full night’s sleep, you’ll probably be slightly dehydrated after not consuming liquids for eight hours. And try delaying caffeine until after eating to avoid being jittery.
At some point within the first hour of waking up, expose yourself to natural light, preferably by taking a quick walk, Kaur says. Even if it’s cloudy, daylight is another trigger for the circadian rhythm that promotes alertness first thing in the morning.
“These habits are important,” she says. “It gives you the optimum chance and the optimum conditions to function better throughout the rest of your day.”