Starting a Self-Care Morning Routine

Starting your day off right can help you live a longer, healthier and happier life. Building 
a healthy self-care morning routine doesn't have to cost much or require you to get up in 
the middle of the night, but it will take some planning.

Self-care is an important aspect of living a healthier life overall. It affects nearly every 
facet of your life, including physical, emotional, and mental health. You need to have 
time for yourself each day, starting with your mornings.

If you are someone that tends to be stressed shortly upon waking because there isn’t 
enough time to get everything done, you’re busy packing lunches, and hunting down 
missing shoes, then preparation might be what you need.

The following information will provide you with some tips and suggestions for having a 
healthier morning routine and really focusing on better self-care.

What Makes for A Rough Morning?

Having too many decisions to make first thing in the morning is a terrible way to start the 
day. So is waking up to a mess, or spending the first 45 minutes of your day running 
around finding notebooks and socks because you don't have time to get things 
organized. For parents with small children, it can feel like you're one cup of spilled 
orange juice from completely losing your marbles.

Keep reading to learn about developing a healthy morning routine for self-care, helping 
not just you but everyone around you.


1. Prepare Your Brain for Calm by Making Life Easier

To start with, you want to get your brain and body ready for the morning. Having a good 
morning routine doesn’t start in the morning, but the night before.

Here are a few things you can do to reduce the number of decisions you have to make 
in the morning. Not only will this allow you a calm start to the day, but experts suggest 
that decision fatigue cuts into your patience, burns too many blood pressure points, and 
can seriously stress your willpower.

Clothes

Before you go to bed, put together your clothes for the next day. From the skin out. 
From bra to bracelets. If you can, invest in some suit hangers and start hanging up your 
clothes for the week every time you do laundry. This will alert you to loose buttons and 
falling hems before they're an emergency. It will also free you from the worry of having 
to figure out what you're going to wear during the morning rush!

Food

If you're a coffee drinker, consider loading the coffee pot before you go to bed so all you 
have to do is hit the power switch. For fans of pour over coffee or cappuccinos, this may 
not be possible. However, if you get up a bit earlier in the day to have time to journal, 
meditate or exercise, investing in a small basic coffee pot might be a good idea; you can 
enjoy a cup and wake up before you try handling boiling water or hot coffee under 
pressure.

Location

For those who hate getting up early, spend a little time in a favorite spot enjoying a 
guilty pleasure. Love trashy novels? Set the timer on your oven for ten minutes and sip 
that first cup of coffee in your favorite chair while perusing the latest bodice ripper. Once 
you're caffeinated and acclimated to the early hour, you can either engage in some 
serious self care (or keep on reading!)

Accessories

Wear your fluffiest, coziest robe and cuddle up under a throw for the first couple of 
minutes. You've got coffee or another hot beverage; as long as you don't lay down, you 
should stay awake and enjoy a bit of cocooning all by yourself. 

Distractions

Do not pick up your phone during your self-care time. Do not check your emails, turn on 
any media of any sort or pick up a newspaper. Avoid earbuds, radio programs, or 
conversation. This is your quiet and alone time.


2. The Work of Self Care

Coffee and a little literary guilty pleasure isn't really the work of self-care. Your goal is to 
get a handle on your thoughts, build a gratitude habit and make yourself aware of how 
calm and positive you and your brain can be if you work at it.

Journal

You can journal in any notebook; putting paper to pen changes up how thoughts move 
through your brain and how much information you retain. While experts strongly 
recommend taking paper notes if you really want to retain the spoken word of someone 
else, it's important to remember that your self-care time is your time to listen to yourself! 

By putting pen to paper, you allow your thoughts to flow in new and creative ways. With 
a small investment, you can treat yourself to a beautiful notebook and matching pen that 
will become a precious spot for you to record your dreams. In addition, as you become 
accustomed to a daily journaling habit, you may notice that problems that follow you to 
bed become solutions in the morning.

Ambience

Light your favorite candle, or use reed dispensers to add your favorite fragrance to your 
space. Make sure you have a lamp that gives you enough light to write and read by. If 
possible, place the chair near a window so you can see the sky. Whether you're looking 
at stars or the sunrise, the sense of solitude you'll find under the sky will give you great 
comfort.

Water

In addition to a hot beverage, make sure you have cool water within easy reach. This 
will rehydrate you and boost your energy.

Meditation

While many people find meditation easier first thing in the morning, others find it makes 
them sleepy. If you can meditate, do so. If you've never meditated, remember that 
meditation is a practice and that even the experts sometimes struggle.

Some people tend to meditate at the end of the day; they find it very soothing and it 
calms my mind before sleep. If you’re especially tired, meditation can give you more of 
an energy boost than any nap ever has. However, Louise Hay offers a positive morning 
visualization to get your mind awake and moving linearly with love.

If morning meditation doesn't work for you, consider a visualization exercise where you 
can express thanks for all the things in your life. Rather than waking up and thinking, "I 
didn't get enough sleep," try being thankful for your soft mattress or your comfy sheets. 
Starting your day in gratitude rather than in lack is a great way to get your energy 
moving forward.

Exercise

If early morning is the only time you have to exercise, make it easy on yourself. Set out 
your workout clothes the night before; if possible, put them in the bathroom. You can be 
dressed and on your way to a great workout without any hard decisions.

Maintaining positive thoughts during your workout is easy if you start gently and 
incorporate a cool-down. Walk a couple of laps on the track, grateful for the facility you 
get to work out in and the people who start their day at the counter, smiling and handing 
you a towel. Be thankful for your body and that you can move it through space. If 
possible, spend part of your workout in the water; time in the water can reduce the 
pressure on your joints.

3. Plan for Down Time

Why are you engaging in self-care? Are you trying to break the snooze habit? Working 
to eat better? Just trying to get your brain working more effectively?

If productivity is your goal, the positive affirmations about how truly wonderful life can be 
will lift your spirits and get you out of the mental quicksand of worry. In addition to 
planning your day for maximum productivity, be sure to set a quitting time. The book 
The Five Second Rule by Mel Robbins encourages a terrific balance. Yes, focus on 
what you want. Yes, determine the next step in getting there. Yes, turn off the laptop 
and stop working when you promised yourself you would. 

For those working toward healthier dietary choices, treat yourself. No, you probably 
shouldn't have a donut. However, a cup of your favorite tea will boost your spirit, warm 
you up and remind you of the health you're working for.

To keep your brain moving straight ahead once you've woken, journaled, meditated and 
exercised, study Getting Things Done by David Allen. This brilliant book keeps us 
mindful of the difference between a task and a project. If "finish your taxes" is your goal, 
it will be hard to stop because you don't have the steps in place. "Gather all your W-2s" 
is a much better goal, and it will lead to the next step.


4. Preparation Is Key

For many busy people, the idea of getting up even earlier to engage in self-love seems 
silly and perhaps a waste of time; if I truly loved myself, I'd let me sleep, right? However, 
as previously stated, there are things you can do the night before to make your morning 
routine a bit more gentle, give you time for some journaling, some alone time and 
maybe even some exercise.

Before bed, load the dishwasher or at least rinse the dirty dishes in the sink. There are 
few things worse than waking up to dirty dishes.

Encourage your family members to follow your lead and put together the things they'll 
need for the next day the night before. This may mean clothes, homework, or trade 
journals. If possible, put some of this stuff in the car the night before so there's no risk of 
forgetting anything.







5. You Can’t do Everything

Spilled milk, hangnails and jerks who insist on passing on the right are going to happen. 
A great self-care routine doesn't mean that the ugly bits of life aren't going to crop up 
and cause fusses and hassles. 

However, by putting yourself first, you can prepare your mind for the messy junk of life 
that gets in the way of accomplishing what you need to get done. For example, let's say 
you hit the snooze bar three times, making yourself late to get in the shower. Your 
spouse can't find all the pages of the report they were working on last night and your 
six-year-old needs you to sign a very special form that they may or may not have 
brought home in their backpack.

You finally get everyone lined up with their reports and permission slips, grab your 
purse, and find, upon reaching the car, that you've got a flat tire. In your hyper-stressed 
state, you begin to cry. Child notes this and completely loses it while spouse gets 
frustrated and grumpy at your tears.

Meditation and self-care will not stop the irritants of life; this is not about creating any 
form of Nirvana. What a steady habit of self-care will change is just you. Your ability to 
handle stress, to solve problems and to see problems as detours instead of roadblocks. 
Will irritations keep showing up in life? Absolutely. Will horrible crap happen to you and 
the people you love? Sadly, yes. 

However, you will have built a brain path to a quiet, cozy space where you can focus on 
the people and things you love. The calm that lives in your self-care morning routine is 
accessible any time of the day or night; all you have to do is reach inside and bathe in it.

That is, once you build the routine.

Keep working on your morning routine, tweaking it as needed. Get a journal, change the 
time of your alarm, and start your morning off right. Whether you journal in the morning, 
enjoy some quiet time with your cup of coffee, or watch the news to get your brain more 
alert before leaving the house, this can help a lot with the rest of your day.

