Silver Linings: Creating Nurturing Morning Routines
For some of us, our morning routine includes nothing more than jumping out of bed, into clothes and rushing out of the door. Others wake up a few hours before heading out to work, and take their time to drink tea, read the newspaper and ease their way into the day.
I, too, have gradually started to take a little more time in the morning to get ready for the day. One year ago, I’ve blogged about my morning routines, and how I am constantly trying to fine-tune what I do before I get out. As I put it then (and this still holds true):
The ultimate goal is simple: I want to be energized, ready to dive into the day, and with as little friction and time-loss as possible.
Last Spring, I started to wake up earlier to meditate first thing in the morning. I also started taking more time to cook breakfast. After many years of eating cereal (or sometimes oats) for breakfast, I’ve decided to ditch the sugary stuff and treat myself a balanced breakfast of protein/fat and carbs. Sometimes I have eggs and sweet potatoes, sometimes toasted sprouted bread with avocado, sometimes a breakfast smoothie, sometimes a porridge, sometimes oatbran protein pancakes… all these things take a little more time to prepare, but they work wonders to my energy.
Recently, I’ve started to practice yoga in the mornings, and finish it off with a longer meditation. That means that I need an extra hour in the morning, and that means waking up around 6am (I’m still using the SleepCycle alarm clock, that’s why I mention “around” a certain time).
At the moment, I’m working from home and waiting for getting started on my next employment. That doesn’t mean I am staring at the wall or sleeping in every day. My current morning routine looks like this:
6:00 – wake up, brush teeth, drink water, etc.
6:15 – yoga & meditation (typically 40 minutes yoga and 20 minutes of meditation, but times are variable according to how I feel)
7:15 – shower and get dressed
7:25 – cook breakfast
8:00 – start working
Have you paid attention to your morning routines, and how it affects the rest of your days?
Share with your peers!
This Post Has 8 Comments
Uauu! That sounds great! Wish I could do that, well maybe I could but don't think I am disciplined enough. I can imagine the difference it makes on your energy and system! Thanks for sharing this.
I've kept this routine up for the entire summer, but at the moment, due to my moving to Ecuador, I need to revert to it again 🙂
How do you do yoga? I find it hard to do it by myself so I prefer attending courses. But I also would like to start my day with it. The only solution I can think of is performing several sun salutations. Not good enough to do a whole routine myself. I've found a couple of videos on the internet but those are usually 90 minutes long, which is a bit too long 🙂
I've been taking a class here and there every now and then, but mostly I use my yoga online… It uses a paid subscription, but I find it worth the little cost – they have \”challenges\” regularly in which they post a new video in a series every day (for example, they just had 14 days of \”more core\”). I'm looking for a place to take yoga classes around here as well, but I like getting up, going onto my balcony and practicing 🙂
Other than that, there's a number of 20 minute yoga sequences on Youtube too (see the channel of Eckhart yoga, or Tara Stiles, amongst others). Or doyogawithme.com (free too)
Thanks! I've made an account with doyogawithme.com 😉 looks good. would love to have a balcony, too 😀
Enjoy!
Thank you for inspiring me to go back to the 06:30 AM class tomorrow morning. I always feel better when I start the day with yoga. 🙂 X