Author

Swiss 8

Date Added

31 May 2021

I will be the first to admit that building a healthy morning routine and remaining consistent with it, wasn't easy. 

I have always been somewhat of an early riser, but some mornings I would snooze my alarm multiple times, disrupting my sleep patterns and then when I actually did wake up the first thing I would do is go on my phone. This always wasted so much of my morning and I would always end up frustrated, late and still tired. Other mornings I would wake up, exercise and get ready to start my day, which actually made me feel good and my days were usually much better.

So, I decided to make my morning routines consistent, as well as add some new activities that I have been told will help to improve your day.


What I did:

I changed snoozing my alarms to getting up at the first one.

How did I do this? 

I set my phone across the room and set the alarm tone to the most annoying one possible. This way when my alarm went off it forced me to get out of bed and turn it off.

Additional benefits of this is that it stopped me from scrolling through social media before I was going to bed, and encouraged me to read a book before bed.


I replaced my pre-workout with warm lemon water and a shot of coffee before the gym.

How did I do this? 

Pre-making at-home cold brew coffee is actually easier to make than you think, it's also a hell of a lot cheaper than buying per workout.

1 cup of ground coffee and 3 cups of water, leave it for 24 hours then strain. This should last you about 2 weeks. 

Then apple cider vinegar and half a lemon mixed into warm water. 


I kept off my phone until I was ready to start my day.

How did I do this? 

I have to admit this one was a little harder to manage. But after turning my alarm off I left my phone in my room until I was ready to start my day.


I started exercising in the morning.

How did I do this?

I was already trying to get to the gym in the morning, but I wasn't consistent with it. If I snoozed through my alarm too many times then I usually wasn't able to make time for the gym or to go on a walk. So I started to be consistent with this and actually went each morning. After the gym, I would walk my dog for an hour.

Going to the gym first thing also helped with keeping off my phone for a longer period of time.


I added yin yoga to my routine

How did I do this?

I found a passion for stretching yoga practices but never made time to do it. So I scheduled the Blind Tiger Yin Yoga programs on the Swiss 8 app in my calendar and made time to do it.
Afterwards, I felt more relaxed and prepared for my day.


I added gratitude into my routine.

How did I do this?

Each morning in a notepad I wrote down 10 things I was grateful for. This immediately made me feel empowered and happy because I was able to recognise and focus on so many good things in my life rather than focus my energy on negative things. This 2-minute act quickly changed my mindset into being more positive and not hanging on to things that don't serve me well.


I did this for 1 month and I feel more energetic in the mornings, my days are more productive, my stress is lower, I feel more prepared and confident for the day and left a lot more room for me to achieve other goals in my day.

An added benefit is because I work from home so much, accomplishing so much before I started work presented a clear barrier between work and home life as I wasn't rolling straight out of bed and logging on.


By creating healthy habits to start our day we are effectively creating something that is stable, even when things around us begin to change we can still maintain control of something positive.