I am a firm believer in the power of a morning routine. How we start the day has a huge impact on how the rest of the day will go. If we keep hitting the snooze button, wake up at the last possible second, rush to get dressed and get the kids off to school, skip breakfast, gulp down a cup of coffee and barely get to work on time, the chances that we’re going to be our best for the day are slim. On the other hand, waking up early enough to start the day in an intentional way stands a much better chance of setting us up for success as well as boosting our overall health and wellness. In this article, I’m looking at what a morning routine is, why it’s important and some of my tried-and-true morning routine ideas for getting the day started off right. 

What is a Morning Routine?

By definition, a routine is regularly doing things in a fixed order, usually at a particular time. A morning routine is any type of routine that happens as you’re starting your day – whether that day begins at 8am or 11pm for shift workers. According to Northwestern Medicine, “routines offer a way to promote health and wellness through structure and organization.” While we don’t want to have every minute of our day scheduled, it is beneficial to have some structure, otherwise it’s easy to be unorganized, distracted and not accomplish the things that we want to. 

While there can be many different views on what a morning routine is, I look at it as what I do before my workday starts. It is what helps to get me in the right place physically and mentally for the day ahead. Depending on your stage in life and whether you work from home or have a commute, a morning routine can take 30 minutes or two hours. It’s whatever works best for you. Some days, you may have to adjust it a bit, but for the most part, your morning routine is how you regularly start the day. 

Morning Routine Ideas

If you listen to interviews with some of the world’s most successful people, you’ll find that most rely on a morning routine of some type. Even before I learned this, it was simply something that came naturally to me. I knew that I felt better when I started my day in a more structured way and that I felt worse when I didn’t. It wasn’t too hard to figure out which I preferred. Here are some morning routine ideas that I can highly recommend. 

Set your alarm

If you have to be somewhere at a set time, get kids off to school or have any other morning obligations, you’re probably going to need to set an alarm in order to get your morning routine in. This may mean moving your bedtime forward a bit so that you get the sleep you need, but I can promise that this habit will be worth it. After you’ve conditioned your body to your new routine, setting an alarm may not even be necessary. 

Write in a gratitude journal

This doesn’t have to take long. Just list 5-10 things, people or experiences that you’re grateful for. An article in Greater Good Magazine cites gratitude expert Robert Emmons as saying that gratitude affirms “that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we’ve received.” This can be powerful if we’re struggling to see past our own problems or are feeling down or stressed. 

Write in a free writing journal or do a brain dump

A free writing journal gives us a chance to reflect on our experiences or anything that we’re feeling. A brain dump offers the opportunity to clear mental space by getting all the thoughts running through our mind onto a piece of paper. Both exercises help to acknowledge and process extraneous thoughts and feelings that may be causing us anxiety or taking up mental energy. 

Do some kind of exercise or movement

While at least 150 minutes a week is what the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommends, any amount is going to give you some health benefits. Even if you usually get your main exercise in during the afternoon, stretching or moving your body in some way in the morning will help to wake you up and get your body going after a night of sleeping. 

Read

If finding time to read is tough, carving out a few minutes in the morning can be a relaxing way to ease into the day. 

Get dressed for the day

While this may be a bit obvious, I include it as part of a morning routine because that makes it an intentional activity that I have to set aside time to do as part of my preparation for the day. If I don’t look at it in that way, I rush through the process, already feeling frazzled and as if I should be doing something else.

Fix breakfast

If you don’t take the time to fix breakfast for yourself because you simply don’t need it, then skip this. If you don’t fix breakfast for yourself because you don’t think you have time, then making it part of your morning routine will do wonders for your health and your pocketbook. Even if you don’t have time to eat it before you leave the house, take something with you to eat on the way or when you arrive at work.

Update your budget

What?? You might ask if you haven’t read my post on Creating a Budget for a Healthier You. As I mention there, taking 5 minutes to update your budget (what used to be known as balancing your checkbook) every day makes it so that it’s not an overwhelming task at one time. It also helps to guide your decisions throughout the day. 

Read or watch local news

Keeping on top of what’s happening in your local community is just as important as keeping up with national and international news. With all of the online resources available these days, it’s fairly easy to stay on top of national news. Local news, on the other hand, is easy to lose sight of. Setting aside a few minutes each morning to do this will keep you on top of what is happening in your own backyard.

Reattach to work

I love this one! If we’re successfully detaching from work at the end of the day, it only stands to reason that reattaching at the beginning of the day would make sense. Researchers found that reattaching, or rebuilding a mental connection to work, is important for staying engaged and focused during the day. 

This article in Greater Good Magazine suggests that in preparation for your workday, you ask yourself the following questions.

1. Why does the work I do matter to me? How does my work impact the lives of others?
2. Who are the people—both at work and in my personal life—who support me and my professional success?
3. What would I like to focus on today?

While you won’t be able to fit all of the above ideas into your morning routine, I recommend picking 2-4 that resonate with you and see how they work. 

The Morning Routine That Has Served Me Best

Depending on what phase of life you’re in, you’ll probably need to switch up your morning routine to accommodate your other obligations. You may also need to adjust the time that you wake up. When my boys were younger, having a little quiet time to myself was so important to me that I woke up at 5am just to fit it in. While that was definitely early, it would have been much harder on me not to fit it in at all. Now that I don’t have to do everything for my one son still at home, I get to sleep until 5:45am or 6am. 

Here’s a look at the most recent version of my morning routine that has served me best. 

5:45am = wake-up and get dressed in workout clothes

6 – 6:15am = meditation

6:15 – 6:30am = journaling

6:30 – 7:15am = exercise/stretching and listen to local and national news

7:15 – 7:45am = get dressed/fix breakfast

7:45 – 8am = eat breakfast, update budget, reattach for work

8am = start work

** This has been my best pandemic routine. In “normal” times, I would allow for the five-minute drive to and from the gym.

Clearly, life happens. If I need to go for a stretch of letting myself sleep a little later, I do. But if I let myself go for long periods of time without making room for my morning routine, I definitely start feeling off and know that I need to get back on track.

Bottom Line on Morning Routines

The point in all of this has been to give you plenty of morning routine ideas to choose from that might work for you. The key is being realistic about the kind of time that you have or are willing to make in the mornings to fit it in. Even if you can only sit quietly and then exercise for a few minutes, those are things that will help you start the day feeling better than if you had slept late and rushed out the door.

Do you have a morning routine? If so, let us know in the comments what it is so that we can all get ideas.

The post Morning Routine Ideas for Getting the Day Started Right appeared first on Peppermint Tea.

Research shows that meditation can help with our overall health and wellbeing, so why do so few of us do it on a regular basis? Probably because we’re trying to practice it by ourselves, with no guidance and no idea of what we’re supposed to be doing. I’ve been there and done that. I used to get so frustrated because I couldn’t stop thinking long enough to meditate in what I thought was the “right way.” But the way I was trying to do it wasn’t really “right” at all – at least for me. I was trying to sit there and not think about a single thing, to have my mind be completely blank for at least 10 minutes. I now know that I’m definitely not alone in the fact that this is nearly impossible.

The idea of meditation isn’t that you’re turning your brain off, in fact, the point of most meditation techniques is that they give you a way to be more actively engaged in what’s going on inside of and around you. But unless you’re a truly experienced meditator, you’ll probably need some help in guiding your mind in the right direction. In that, we are incredibly lucky. Meditation has become so accepted that there are now numerous resources to help guide you in your practice for almost any everyday life situation that you can possibly encounter. So much so that the abundance of meditation resources in and of itself can almost be overwhelming – which is not what you want to be feeling. That’s why I’ve put together a list of seven of my favorite free and affordable meditation resources that I would highly recommend for anyone – from beginners to those who are more advanced.

Loving Kindness Meditation to Develop Mindfulness and Compassion

The practice of metta meditation or loving kindness meditation is basically directing well wishes toward other people. WiseMindBody’s beautiful version of this is available in a YouTube video that anyone can access. It walks you through the entire process in a simple, soothing and easy to understand way that helps to take you out of yourself and to cultivate feelings of compassion and kindness toward other people. When might you want to do this? Anytime that you’re feeling too caught up in yourself; when you’re angry, upset or feeling judgmental toward someone else; on a day when you know that you’re going to be dealing with people in difficult situations; or when you’re simply feeling overwhelmed by events or actions in other parts of the world. The video runs 13:34.

The 6-Phase Meditation

The 6-Phase Meditationwas developed by MindValley founder Vishen Lakhiani as a way to help you become very intentional about creating your ideal life. In this guided meditation available as a YouTube video, Vishen takes the very abstract idea of manifesting abundance and walks you through how to do that in a very systematic, practical way. If you’re feeling like you’re floundering around without a clear purpose or goals in sight, or that your daily actions aren’t aligning with your vision, this is a fantastic resource to help you gain more clarity for your life and for the day ahead. The original meditation runs 21:18, but there is a condensed version that runs 13:36.

20-Minute Mindfulness Meditation for Being Present

While the 20-Minute Mindfulness Meditation for Being Present by The Mindful Movement is definitely on the longer end of the meditations I usually do, it is beautiful, powerful and grounding. I highly recommend using it on a regular basis because it helps you to develop the skill of being mindful and present. I also recommend having it as your go-to resource if your day is just clearly starting to go off the tracks. You know those days. We all have them. But we also know that if we keep plowing ahead just like we are, that things probably aren’t going to get much better and may even get much worse. So, what’s a 20-minute investment on a day like that? I can almost guarantee that this meditation will help you to reset and turn things around, or at the very least, it will help you feel empowered to be able to handle whatever comes your way. The YouTube video runs, you guessed it, 20 minutes.

The Tapping Solution App

The Tapping Solution App offers an easy and portable way of taking some of The Tapping Solution’s most popular guided meditations with you wherever you go. The Tapping Solution was founded by Nick Ortner and has helped to bring Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) or “Tapping” into the mainstream. I will fully admit that you may see me using this while sitting in my car because that’s often my best chance to stop and collect myself if things are starting to feel overwhelming or if I want to positively affect whatever it is I’m about to do. My favorite meditations are “Turn Your Day Around: Create a Great Day” and “Releasing Anxiety.” There are free meditations available as well as those accessible only with a subscription. The cost for an annual subscription is $94.99, and a monthly subscription is $11.99 per month.

Inspired Meditations

This website is one of my go-to resources for guided meditations. Laura Irwin offers a number of meditations for a wide-range of everyday situations in a down-to-earth way. And best yet – they are appropriate for beginners and those that are more advanced. The meditations are offered as individual downloads, so you can pick and choose the ones that will serve you best. Some are available for free, while others cost a small fee. Guided meditations are also available through video as well.

headspace

Headspace is the meditation resource that most people have heard of, and with good reason. It was one of the first to take meditation out of the esoteric and to show how it could be applicable to everyday people in everyday life. They even offer meditation for kids. While their meditations are available only by subscription – $69.99 for a year or $12.99 per month – this is the resource that many beginners say worked best for them. If you just want to try them out, you can get three sessions for free.

Soulvana

Soulvana is an app for those who are ready and willing to get a little more “out there.” While some of the meditations are very practical – the 6-Phase Meditation mentioned above is available for free – others revolve around energy work and may be seen as being a little more “woo woo.” While I like practical and down-to-earth, I also completely appreciate the benefits of energy work and have had very good experiences with the Soulvana meditations that I have tried. My favorite one so far is “Restoring Your Life Force Energy,” which actually isn’t nearly as abstract as you might think and does wonders for me when I simply just feel drained. While many of the guided meditations are free, there are also group meditations and classes that you can join. To be able to access the full package of resources, the cost is $59.99 for a year or $9.99 per month. A seven-day free trial is available.

Clearly, these are just a few of the meditation resources out there, but they are my favorites and should offer something for just about everyone. If you have other favorite resources or if you try one of these, please let us know in the comments section below.

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Many people who are interested in learning more about meditation often don’t because they get caught up in the idea that their setting has to be perfect or that they need hours every day to learn how to do it “right.” While it’s fabulous if you do have an ideal setting or plenty of time to go on a retreat, it’s not necessary. Meditation for beginners doesn’t depend on the setting, and to some extent, it doesn’t depend on the length of time you do it. In fact, it’s probably not as hard as you may think. The most important thing is that it’s about what happens inside you.

What is Meditation?

The point of most meditation techniques is not to be some esoteric practice that takes you out of or keeps you distant from what’s going on in the world. Just the opposite. The goal is to give you a more manageable way to be part of what’s going on inside of and around you. That’s what meditation for beginners is all about.

Laura Irwin is a meditation coach and wellness writer at Inspired Meditations. She acknowledges that meditation works differently for everyone. “If I have someone who is religious, they may relate it to prayer.” But, she adds, if someone doesn’t want to think of it in spiritual terms, that’s perfectly fine. It can be a form of personal growth through “taking time for yourself, mindfulness in the present moment, self-reflection or deep relaxation.”

Ways Meditation Can Help in Real Life

There are a number of ways meditation can help in everyday life. Laura says the overarching theme that she’s experienced herself and that her clients have expressed is the ability to “see things from a bigger perspective.” In other words, being able to take a step back or pause before reacting. This pause lets you take a broader view of what’s going on and what you want your response to be. It doesn’t keep you insulated or distanced from the situation, but it helps to keep you from becoming swept under by the hectic, seemingly out-of-control current that is often our daily lives. It offers a calmness in the middle of the crazy that lets you prioritize and put things in perspective.

Because of this enhanced calmness and clarity, meditation can also help with insomnia, anxiety and depression. Laura says that it allows people to recognize that, “I’m sad right now, but this isn’t going to last forever. Or, I’m anxious right now, but this is only going to be for a half hour or maybe a couple of days.”

Primary Types of Meditation

Depending on who you talk to, the number of various meditation techniques can be numerous or boiled down to a few similar concepts. Since it can be fairly overwhelming (see the stack of books I am now reading on the subject), Laura helped to break meditation for beginners down to some of the basic techniques.

Guided meditation

In this type of meditation, either a recording or teacher guides you into a state of deep relaxation through positive suggestions and affirmations. The primary benefit is that you don’t have to listen to your mind because you’re more focused on what someone else is saying. They can be done in person with a teacher or many are available as digital downloads or on apps. Laura offers numerous free guided meditations at Inspired Meditations and says this form of meditation is “the best way to achieve optimal relaxation, relieve stress naturally and eliminate bad habits while creating new, positive behaviors and mindsets.”

Mindfulness meditation

This technique focuses on your breath and following it as it goes in and out. As your mind wanders, you gently return it back to your breath. This helps to bring focus to the present moment, but it also allows you to monitor your thoughts and experience and just simply let things pass by without judgment.

Movement meditation

Some examples of this include certain types of yoga (such as Kundalini), Tai Chi, Qi Gong, walking, gratitude stretching, dancing and self-massage. Laura says the movements should be slow and involve the whole body. There should be no gadgets or fitness goals involved. Click here for more on what Laura has to say about movement meditation.

Loving Kindness Meditation

This type of meditation offers care and consideration for yourself and for others. Some of the general phrases that are used include, “May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be patient” and so on. Then you turn it around to others, whether you like them or not. “May you be happy, may you be healthy and may you be patient.” Laura says Loving Kindness Meditation has been described as friendliness toward yourself and others.

Transcendental Meditation

This technique uses a mantra to help you get focused and to ultimately transcend “the noise” of your thoughts and what’s going on around you. Note: this type of meditation requires a teacher and can be fairly expensive to learn. Obviously, that cost could be offset when you compare it to the cost of potential medical issues that may arise that could be prevented with the help of meditation, but it’s definitely something to be aware of. Click here to find out more about Transcendental Meditation.

Mantra meditation

This type of meditation uses the vibrations of mantras and sounds to connect the mind and the body. One phrase that Laura learned was, “Every day in every way, I’m getting better and better.” And of course, we’re all familiar with the Sanskrit om. The purpose of using a mantra meditation is to focus fully on the sound or phrase as you’re saying it, which will ultimately take you to a different level of awareness. Click here for a great article on mantra meditation.

Meditation for Beginners: Getting Started

What’s the best way to get started with meditation? Laura has these suggestions.

• Choose a time that works for you. Many people find that meditating in the morning is a good way to get their mind ready for the day, but for others, mornings are simply too busy. If that’s the case, consider meditating at night or during the middle of the day if you have the opportunity.
• Have a goal. Whether it’s to wean yourself off anxiety medication or to improve your performance at work, having a goal helps to keep you focused on the outcomes you want.
• Go to a class. While you don’t have to have a teacher to meditate, it can be helpful and a quick way to see results to have someone else guiding you through the process. It also offers a level of accountability and someone else to ask reflective questions that help you track your progress.
• Alternate days. Laura encourages alternating the days that you meditate so that you can do it one day and reflect on your experience and any changes that are happening the next.
• Guided meditations. Laura says these tend to have the most noticeable effect and are the biggest bang for your meditating buck right away. If you want to see results fast, you should definitely consider guided meditations.
• Invest your time in it. While Laura doesn’t believe that meditation should have to take hours, she is an advocate for putting into it what we want to get out. She says that 20 minutes for each main session is a good amount of time to reap the benefits. If you want to add in 5-minute sessions at other times during the day, you’ll get that much more out of it.
• Keep a meditation journal. After each month, write down what’s happened or hasn’t happened. Notice things like whether your relationships are changing, if you’re being more productive at work and if your mind is calming down. Be patient with the process, but if you don’t start to notice changes after a few months, you may want to evaluate whether you should meditate more or differently.

My Experience with Meditation

While I can’t say that I formally meditate every day, I do try to begin the day by quietening my overactive mind in one way or another. By doing this, I’ve noticed a big difference in my overall mindset and to some degree in the way I’m able to handle stressful situations. I’ve still got a long way to go though and would like to have a more regular practice that I could rely on to help quiet my brain more and to help me sleep through the night. That’s why I’m starting my own meditation experiment and will be sharing what I learn with you along the way. Real health is recognizing that our nutrition, health and wellness are all connected, and from what I’ve seen so far, I believe that meditation is a key component of that. I hope what I find benefits us all.

Lean on Your Community

Do you have a regular meditation practice? If so, please share what it is and how it benefits you in the comments section below or over on the Peppermint Tea Holistic Health & Wellness Facebook page.

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