Introduction
It is a fresh Monday morning. Having hit the snooze 13 times already, you finally manage to wake up at 08:37 with a heavy hangover from the late-night house party you had over the weekend. You swipe through the Instagram stories of your virtual friends, each having an equally exciting weekend as yours.
Scrolling through your feed for another couple of minutes, you reply to a random text as your eyes accidentally fall on the timestamp of the message. It reads 10:01, and that's when you know, your only workout for the day is going to be running behind your schedule. We have all been there. We have all made plans of not being there the next time and have still ended up being in the very same place the next week.
But worry not, we have a magic recipe to turn you into an active morning person. We are not going to bore you with cliched jargons of "you snooze you lose", "meditate your way to a healthy life", and "the early bird catches the worm". We offer you 5 workable morning habits of successful people that you can implement right now and start your every morning on a high note.
- Your morning routine does not start with the time you wake up. Your morning routine starts with the time you go to bed.
Compromising your sleep requirement is not a healthy way to wake up early and therefore, the time you wake up is a direct function of the time you've gone to bed on the earlier night. In fact, it is not only about going to bed on time.
Ideally, you should have a clear roadmap for how you are going to approach your next day. It is super easy for you to procrastinate when your goals are not pre-defined with absolute detailing and clarity.
Set clear deadlines and targets so that you have a well-defined path to follow. This includes the time you will wake up, the hours that are the most productive for you, and the objectives that you wish to achieve. Morning routines of successful people almost inevitably include a well-defined structure to achieve their short-term as well as long-term goals.
- "If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed."
- Admiral William McRaven, U.S. Navy
In a viral video that broke the internet, Admiral McRaven’s 2014 commencement speech at the University of Texas revealed the mantra for building a strong start to your day - something as simple as making your bed. The idea here is positive reinforcement.
This simple act of organisation makes you feel better about yourself, which further encourages you to do things that are good for your personal growth, thereby creating a positive feedback loop. And in case you have had a bad day, you still come home to a well-made bed; a bed YOU made. A positive start to your day can transform the way you perceive the world around you.
When you wake up in the morning, your natural tendency is to stretch out and move your limbs around. Having been in a stationary position for multiple hours straight, the joints in your body demand lubrication. Most basic stretching exercises help in getting your body up to speed and ready for the activities of the day. Additionally, you may choose to pursue a high-intensity workout schedule depending on your physical goals, demands, and diet.
However, any elementary level of physical activity and connection with nature - be it via taking your dog out for a walk in the Sun or by walking on wet soil with bare feet, can completely transform your biomechanics. Having achieved a certain level of consistency, you may then choose to add more subtle dimensions to your morning habits. But an active movement of the body is a necessary starting point.
- Nourishment and freshening up schedules.
We all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day as it keeps you charged for the day. But like it or not, there is another aspect of your morning schedule that you need to focus on - maintaining a healthy bowel movement. Uninterrupted and fixed sleep schedules are known to improve bowel functions.
Therefore, a healthy morning schedule does not just include consuming the right diet and at the right time, it also includes establishing fixed freshening up patterns (not to forget the magic that a cold shower can do in springing you back to life and pumping you with positive energy).
Additionally, there is something known as Circadian rhythm that dictates your sleep schedules. Keeping your sleep schedule in sync with the natural clock of the Sun helps balance your biological clock and optimises the functioning of your body.
Thus, if you wish to perform at your peak levels, establishing a fixed sleep time, eating pattern, and good morning habits can skyrocket your levels of physical and mental output.
- Change the memes you consume.
Most of us know memes as the millennial currency for humour. However, a meme is traditionally just a small unit of cultural information that you can consume through art, literature, academia, and pop culture. The knowledge we consume shapes our thought and perception of the world around us, and something that you've read early in the morning tends to stay with you for a significantly longer period of time.
Indian indie film director and producer Anand Gandhi emphasises the development of the human brain through cognitive gyms by establishing a routine wherein we scorn junk culture as we do at junk food and focus on consuming healthy nutritious information that would enrich us with cultural and technological information.
Thus, replacing our morning share of Instagram reels with reading about ideas that can change the world can indeed, change the world.
Conclusion
Getting up early puts you ahead of the world! A robust morning routine ensures that while others have just started their day, you have already taken conscious control of your life by taking steps to enhance your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
We are not saying that an early morning schedule ensures your success. But taking inspiration from the morning routine of successful people and incorporating it into your life puts you at a significant advantage. The only missing piece in the puzzle is you making a start and persisting with your best morning habits.
"It gets easier. Every day it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day - that's the hard part. But it does get easier." - Jogging Baboon, BoJack Horseman
