Simply said, a morning routine brings regularity to your wakefulness and sleep. It also sets the tone for your day, allowing you to have some control over your schedule, before your schedule controls you!
We are so connected in our modern culture that it's become the norm to be busy and tired and overwhelmed, sporadically getting the time you need to rest and reset. It's called the busy-bandwagon. It looks something like this: staying up late to finish tasks because something else popped up earlier in the day, and then getting a decent or poor night's sleep and then getting up early to get back at the grind. Repeat this over a few days and you've snowballed away from your needs and are overextended, tired, moody, helpless.
Meaning, your schedule is controlling you, and your needs are falling apart as a result!
Sound familiar? Don't worry, there is something you CAN do about it...
Enter the morning routine...
... having a morning routine is important because it provides regular timing to your everyday rhythm and can help focus how you spend your day and ultimately how you spend your nights.
Getting up at the same time everyday and following a morning routine provides you with 2 benefits that synergistically improve each other: wakefulness and sleep.
First: wakefulness. Getting up at the same time everyday helps your body establish it's circadian rhythm; which are the physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. Since there are 24-hours in a day, one full rotation around the sun, a morning routine trains your body to establish it's rhythm that follows this 24-hour cycle. It's also referred to as a #sleepschedule and is a major benefit of a morning routine.
Following this rhythm gives our bodies the natural opportunity to come into alignment, which can boost energy, mental acuity, performance, and our overall health and well-being. A morning routine establishes predictability and stability into your schedule, so you have the time to collect yourself and be at choice before your daily schedule takes off.
In addition to establishing circadian rhythm, there are specific things we can do in the morning routine to further boost our health and well-being. I'll get more into that later...
Second: sleep.
Essentially, a consistent morning routine puts you on a sleep schedule, which allows your body to establish a stable rhythm. Not only will a morning routine improve how you spend your day in wakefulness, it will also improve how you spend your nights (hopefully sound asleep).
A part of our natural circadian rhythm is the process of sleep. Contrary to popular belief, there is so much that happens in our sleep that don't require our thoughtful input. This is where we dream, our bodies repair, our brain consolidates information and stores memory, our emotions get processed, and much learning happens too. All on it's own, outside of our awareness. We notice the benefits of sleep, but magically and mysteriously it happens all on its own, even better so when we promote the conditions for it to fully occur.
The trials and tribulations of all morning routines is to find what works for you to do in that time and how to use it wisely. There are many options out there and many coaches teaching different methods. In my time, I've found that I like to keep it simple, take care of myself and my nervous system before going about my day.
*If you would like more information on staring a morning routine, click the link below and I'll be happy to send you a quick start guide on "How to Start a Morning Routine".
**If you have a morning routine and would like to learn more about how to use that time wisely, check out my latest e-book release called The Golden Hour: A 3-Step Morning Routine to Unlock your Energy, Boost Performance, and Beat Burnout.
I hope you've enjoyed this article and found value as it applies to your everyday life.
Stay tuned for more articles and insights.
Cheers,
Brian Spear