Morning well-being practices

A healthy morning routine can help you transform from a low-energy, stressed human to a motivated and relaxed go-getter. These powerful mood modulators (aka your morning routine – structured and healthy habits) can set the tone for the rest of your day when it comes to how you feel, how productive you are, and how you handle your relationships throughout the day. 

What could your healthy morning routine look like?

5 Tibetan rites

Also called The Fountain of Youth, 5 Tibetan rites are ancient yoga poses that are meant to be performed daily. 5 Exercises, each repeated 21 times to sync your chakra and body movement – this practice is supposed to translate into increasing your physical, mental, and spiritual strength. Repeating each exercise 21 times might be discouraging and seeming like it is a lot to start with, so do not be afraid to start with a couple and then slowly get to 21 repetitions. On top of physical, mental, and spiritual benefits, adding this to your morning wellbeing practice will be a great way to get you out of bed and get warmed up before starting your day.

Washing face with cold water (advice from Fumiko Takatsu)

Fumiko Takatsu, the creator of the Face Yoga Method, shared that part of her morning routine consists of washing her face with just cold (below face temperature) water. She splashes her face 100 times, quickly. The main benefits of this practice are brighter skin and smaller pores (If you are curious to see this part of her morning routine click here). However, her recommendation does not come as a surprise since it has been proven that cold water has positive effects when it comes to the human body. Cold water increases circulation and potentially metabolism since the body needs more energy to maintain the right body temperature.

Ayurveda

Ayurveda is a traditional way of living originating from India. It focuses on the idea that the human body must be living in harmony with nature to remain healthy and strong. Full incorporation of this ideology into our daily lives is rather impossible unless we would resign from the modern way of living to fully integrate ourselves with nature living in wild, natural preserved habitats. Even though no official research or clinical studies have been able to confirm the actual influence of Ayurveda on one’s health, there are some practices, which have been passed from generation to generation, that could be implemented into one’s routine to potentially improve health conditions.

The easiest ones to implement are:

• Drink warm water with lemon daily
• Add spices such as ginger, turmeric, black pepper and others to your homecooked meals
• Make lunch the biggest meal of the day

Breathing Practice

Every morning, either during breakfast or right after you wake up, take a break, and focus on your breathing for one minute at a time. Each time, take six to ten deep, slow breaths per minute, this exercise helps promote ventilation, gas exchange, and brings more oxygen to the arteries. By slow breathing, the human body also optimizes the amount of cardiorespiratory reserve that can be used by our body during stress or intense physical activities. This extra oxygen is especially helpful when dealing with anxiety because it gives us extra energy while breathing exercises relocate our points of focus away from the stressful factors in our life.

Click here to check out Mindfulness of Breathing – Guide
Click here to check out Breathing Techniques for Anxiety

Face Your Thoughts

We all have better and worse days, but it is important to be smart about how we deal with those negative thoughts and feelings. At times, we dwell in our misery for longer than we should because the anxiety is getting to us. That stress shows on our skin. Cortisol, a stress hormone, has its release peaks around the time you are waking up. So, when you wake up in the morning and those stressful, negative thoughts are on your mind, give yourself 5 minutes to acknowledge how you feel. During that time, try to intentionally come up with positive and constructive solutions to your problems. Once 5 minutes pass, discipline yourself, and make a conscious effort to replace those negative thoughts with self-care activities. 

The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy is a great book that explains in detail the power of your mind and gives you sample affirmations that you can tweak and use as your own during the process of overcoming the negative thoughts. According to him, filling your mind with positive affirmations before going to bed, eases the anxiety in the morning.

Practice gratitude

Be intentional with your thoughts and deliberately challenge negative ones with gratitude. In a diary or on a piece of paper, write down 3 things you are grateful for each morning. Studies have shown that the more thankful you are and you fill your mind with optimism, the happier you will become over time. Shawn Achor, a happiness scientist, dives deeper into the 7 main principles of positive psychology and its benefits in his “The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work” book. If you ever need a pick-me-up, check out @thegoodquote or @positivepsychology_com accounts on Instagram for some positive vibes and motivational quotes.