Can’t Keep up? 15 Ways to Simplify Your Morning Routine

It can become pretty stressful, right?

Every morning we have to struggle to get ourselves ready, get everything done and be out the door on time. And not to mention what it’s like if you have kids as well who just want to play around.

How would you like to start you day stress-free, happy and empowered by a new day? Wouldn’t that just change not only the quality of your mornings, but also the quality of your life? I just think that many of us haven’t realized what the true benefits of a great morning can be.

There is a very powerful Chinese saying that goes something like this (freely translated by me…):

“Springtime is the most important part of the year because it makes it possible for a great harvest in the fall and plenty of food in the winter.

Morning is the most important part of the day because it makes it possible for great accomplishments in the day and relaxed sleep during the night.”

So if you’re spending the first hour of every new day rushing and stressing, then that’s pretty much how the rest of your day will look like as well. You see, you’ve set the tone for your way of life.

With this mind I would simply like to propose 15 small ways you can use to improve and simplify your morning routine. Here goes…

1. Prepare your breakfast

Having breakfast is for most people the biggest part of their morning routine, and it can be a real stress inducer. It usually takes quite some time to make it and with our head still half-asleep it can be a bit tricky to make the process smooth.

So all I do is to simply prepare myself for breakfast. For example, if you have different breakfasts during the week, then write a schedule so you know once you wake up. And if you’re going to set the table, use a mnemonic of the items you need or even place them out the evening before.

In short, do whatever you can to make the breakfast as automatic as possible.

2. Lay out your clothes

You know why – it just saves time and minimizes stress in your morning routine.

3. Use a bathroom schedule

In case you are several people and only one bathroom in the morning, then I really recommend having some sort of schedule in place. It might sound boring and old-school, but it really works to avoid a lot of stress induced waiting.

4. Set a to-go alarm

I always have a second alarm at 8.00 in the morning. That’s the time I want to be out the door. By every day noticing this exact time I can easily see how I’m doing versus my wanted position and adjust something when needed.

5. Write down your morning routine

It doesn’t hurt to take 10 minutes right now just to write down how your morning routine actually looks like. You might find out that it’s all very chaotic and random. So now you have the opportunity to design your very own way of starting each day.

How would it be?

6. Jump out of bed

In essence, snoozing is bad for your morning routine and I bet you know that already. The single most efficient way to remove this type of behavior is to practice, practice, practice.

And I mean practice while being awake.

You want to make the process of getting out of bed as automatic as possible so you won’t even have to think about how tired you are when the alarm goes off. So go to bed, right now, set the timer for 5 minutes and pretend that you’re sleeping. Then as soon as you hear the alarm, jump out of bed.

Then repeat. At least 5 times for the upcoming days. Just trust me, it will pay off.

7. Let the sunshine in

By opening the curtains and getting some light you will notice how much easier it is to really wake your body up and get energetic. And energy and well-being are both good remedies against stress.

8. Get pumped up and smile

But getting some sun might not be enough. Why not really get excited? For me at least, there’s no better way than changing my physiology.

By stretching myself tall, extending my back, breathing from the top of my lungs and putting on a big smile it’s virtually impossible to try to not be happy and excited. Try changing your state and see if you can still be tired and stressed.

9. Skip the TV

If you want to make your mornings as calm and comfortable as possible, then try leaving the TV turned off for once. Having the TV on in the background just steals both your focus and your time. Don’t worry, you will find out what the latest news is quite soon anyway.

10. Ignore your phone

Same goes for your phone as with your TV. Just postpone checking your emails and don’t let that new app steal your focus – it will just make your newly awakened mind cluttered.

11. Turn on the music

I am talking about some soothing and relaxing music that will get you all relaxed and down to earth. As you go about your things, follow the rhythm of the music and just let it flow through your body.

12. Have fun

No one can feel bad while having fun. I strongly urge you to make your morning routine a bit more fun and include some activity that you know gets you motivated.

If you get to spend some time doing what you really love, that can really make all your other must-dos feel much simpler. Your worries will just go away and you can build on the excitement from having fun. You know what hobby gets you going, so just see if you can include it in your morning routine.

13. Breathe

What’s the ultimate way to bring yourself back to reality? To breathe.

What’s the best way to calm yourself down? To breathe.

What’s the most powerful way to simplify your morning routine? To just take some time to focus on your breathing.

To accomplish all of this, I like to do a small exercise. It goes like this:

Breathe in for 2 counts

Hold your breath for 8 counts

Breathe out for 4 counts

Then repeat that for 8-10 times. It’s simple, right? But if really does good for both your body and your mind.

In short, it helps to cleanse your body and it gets your mind focused and clutter-free.

14. Wake up early

To avoid putting any pressure on you, I have waited all the way until point number 14 before mentioning this. But we all know it’s one of the most efficient ways to improve a morning routine.

Nowadays, when I wake up at 4 a.m., I have all the time in the world to do what’s most important in my day before heading off to work. I can barely remember the time when I had to eat breakfast in a rush. It just makes everything so much simpler to have the time to focus on myself for a few hours before the normal hectic day begins.

15. Plan your day

If you manage to have a relaxed and simple morning routine, then why not bring that into the rest of your day as well? At least you can try. Just sit down for 5-10 minutes and write down what your main goal and most important tasks are for the upcoming day.

Just getting it down on paper will usually make it easier much easier to stay on target and avoid useless worrying.

These 15 ways to simplify your morning routine can actually do much more than that. If you try some of these methods and really take your morning seriously (serious as in important, not as in making it like work) you might find that you’re taking back a little bit control of your life.

Remember, you are the designer of your days and creator of your habits so I wish you all relaxed and joyful mornings!

by Matthew M. McEwan

The Science of Self-Control: Can You Increase Your Willpower?

Does any of this sounds familiar:

• You want to become an early riser, but once your alarm clock goes off,  you hit the snooze button, and go back to sleep.

• You decide to eat healthier, but you find yourself  ordering a meal at McDonald’s.

• You think that it would be great to hit the gym and shed those extra few pounds before the summer, but after a long way of work, you end up in a  couch in front of the TV.

Yes?

You are not alone. Most of us say to ourselves “I wish I’d have more willpower” on a regular basis.  However, is it really possible to increase our willpower, and if so, what’s the best way to go about it?

Science has some answers that might surprise you.

Why should we care about willpower?

Roy Baumeister, one of the leading researchers on willpower, notes:

“Most of the problems that plague modern individuals in our society — addiction, overeating, crime, domestic violence, sexually transmitted diseases, prejudice, debt, unwanted pregnancy, educational failure, underperformance at school and work, lack of savings, failure to exercise — have some degree of selfcontrol failure as a central aspect.

Psychology has identified two main traits that seem to produce an immensely broad range of benefits: intelligence and self-control. Despite many decades of trying, psychology has not found much one can do to produce lasting increases in intelligence. But self-control can be strengthened. Therefore, self-control is a rare and powerful opportunity for psychology to make a palpable and highly beneficial difference in the lives of ordinary people”

The research on the topic strongly supports the idea that increasing one’s willpower positively affects all the areas of one’s life. People who have more self-control are healthier, they relationships are stronger and more satisfying, they make more money and are more successful at their careers. It’s not surprising that those who have more willpower are also happier.

It seems that making a commitment to work on your willpower might be one of the best decisions that you can make.

What is willpower?

In order to understand how willpower works we first have to define what we mean when we use this word. We all have an idea of what we think it is. However, what do scientists who study this subject define as willpower?

In her book “Maximum Willpower”, Kelly McGonigal, a professor who teaches  “The Science of Willpower” class in Stanford, talks about three different aspects of willpower:

• “I won’t” power – the ability to resist temptations.

• “I will” power  -  the ability to do what needs to be done.

•  “I want” power – the awareness of one’s long term goals and desires.

According to McGonigal, willpower is about harnessing these three power of I will, I won’t, and I want in order to achieve your goals and stay out of trouble.

Why do we have willpower?

Willpower is a fascinating phenomenon. In fact, some scientists even go as far as saying that  it may be what makes us humans, well, human. That makes sense when you think about: there are no other animals that would have such developed ability to control their impulses. How come we are so special in this sense?

Early humans lived in an environment where the individual was very dependent on the group for survival.  One had to be able to control one’s  impulses in order to get along with those around him or her.  This put a lot of pressure on the brains  to develop ways to control impulses that might get individual in trouble.

Our current ability to control our impulses is a result of  thousands of years of adaptation  to an increasingly complex social environment.

Your brain on willpower: meet the prefrontal cortex

Prefrontal cortex is a part of  the brain right behind your forehead and eyes. Throughout our evolutionary history, it was mainly responsible for controlling physical movements (walking, running, lifting, etc.). Over time, it not only got bigger, but also became more connected to other areas of the brain and took on some new functions. Now, prefrontal cortex is responsible for controlling what you do, what you think, and even what you feel.

There are three different areas of prefrontal cortex that control the three different aspects of willpower:

• The left region of prefrontal cortex is responsible for  “I will” part of willpower.

• The right region of prefrontal cortex is responsible for “I won’t” part of willpower.

• The middle lower region of prefrontal cortex is responsible for “I wan’t” part of willpower.

Together, these three areas gives us our self-control and self-awareness, or, in other words, our willpower.

One of the best illustrations of the importance of prefrontal cortex are the cases of people who suffered injuries that affected this part of the brain. In 1848 Phineas Gage, a was a quiet, respectful, hard-working foreman. Unfortunately, he got into an accident which resulted in a very serious brain injury that damaged his prefrontal cortex, an injury that changed him forever.  Gage’s friends could not recognize him: he turned into an impatient, impulsive individual, virtually the opposite of his former self. Phinea’s Gage is one of the many examples of what happens when a person suffers from prefrontal cortex damage. This makes it clear that willpower isn’t something mystical, but rather one of the many functions of our brain.

Why our grandparents were more disciplined than we are

One of the most shocking discoveries regarding willpower is this: willpower is like a muscle that gets tired when you use it a lot.

Roy Baumeister ran many experiments in which he asked people to exert their willpower in a controlled laboratory environment (turn down biscuits, control their anger, hold their hands in an ice-cold water, etc.).  It turned out that the details of his requests didn’t matter much: people who had to use their willpower experienced a decrease in their ability to control themselves. This manifested in different ways: people who were asked to control their emotions were more likely to spend money on unnecessary items, resisting sweets led to procrastination, and so on. Finally, Baumeister came to a conclusion that willpower gets depleted when you use it.

Moreover, research indicates that there are many things that can deplete our willpower, some of which we probably  wouldn’t think of that way. Sitting through a boring meeting, trying to impress a date, not fitting in at your workplace – all these things drain your willpower. Every time you have to resist an impulse or make a decision, no matter how trivial, you are using your “willpower muscle” and therefore depleting your willpower reserves.

Kathleen Vohns, an associate professor of marketing at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minesota, notes:

“There is research that shows people still have the same self-control as in decades past, but we are bombarded more and more with temptations. Our psychological system is not set up to deal with all the potential immediate gratification.”

We might look at the people from previous generations and admire their self-discipline. As a martial artist, I remember how I  used to read the stories about masters of the past,   and beat myself up for not practising one punch for hours everyday like they did. However, it seems that the reason why our generation is not as diligent as the previous generations  is not necessarily the flaws of our characters, but rather the distractions that surround us. Would those martial arts masters have been as dedicated if they would have had Facebook, Twitter and Youtube? I guess we will never know the answer to that question.

Willpower on steroids: meditation

The good news is that we can increase our willpower if we commit to training our brain to be able to exert more willpower regularly.

Meditation has been shown to be one of the most powerful ways to increase willpower. Research on this subject indicates that three hours of meditation increases self-control and ability to focus and after eleven hours of mediation practice one can see visible changes in the brains. Why it’s so effective?

Meditation increases the blood flow to the prefrontal cortex. It looks like the brain adapts to exercise the same way muscle do: you do  push-ups, your gain muscle on your arms, you meditate, you improve neural connections in the brain between areas responsible for self-control. What is the best way to meditate if you want to increase your willpower?

Kelly McGonigal says that the following meditation technique will get the blood rushing to your prefrontal cortex, which is pretty much the closest we can get to speeding up evolution  and making the most of our brain’s potential:

1. Sit still and stay put. You can either sit on a chair with your feet flat on the ground or sit on the floor with your legs crossed. Try to resist the impulses to move: see if you can ignore itches and urges to change your position. Sitting still is an important part of mediation because it teaches you not  to follow your impulses automatically.
2. Turn your attention to your breath. Close your eyes and focus on your breathing. In your mind, say “inhale” when you breathe in, and “exhale” when you breathe out. When you notice that your mind is wandering, bring it back, and keep focusing on your breathing. This activates prefrontal cortex and quiets the stress and craving centres of your brain.
3. Notice how it feels to breathe and how the mind wanders. After a few minutes, drop the words “inhale” and “exhale”, and focus solely on the sensation of breathing.  Your mind might wander a bit more without these words. However, when you notice that you are thinking about something else, bring your attention back to breathing. You can say “inhale” and “exhale” for few rounds when you find it hard to refocus. This part helps to train both self-awareness and self-control.

You might find meditation very difficult when you first start practising it. That’s completely normal: in our daily lives, we often don’t notice how scattered and noisy our minds are, and sitting stills while trying to focus on breathing brings all that mess to our attention. However,  it doesn’t matter how bad you think you are at this: the research suggests that even five minutes of meditation everyday will give you  the benefits of increased self-control and self-awareness.  Don’t be afraid to start small.

Conclusion: don’t beat yourself up so hard!

I think one of the most important conclusions that we can draw from  the current research on willpower is that we should stop feeling guilty and blaming ourselves every time when we fail to use it successfully.  More often than not, it’s the chemistry of our brain that is behind our lack of willpower, not our inherent character flaws. The same way it’s not reasonable to expect your muscles to exert unlimited amounts of  strength, it’s not reasonable to expect your brain to exert unlimited amount of willpower.  You have to understand that you have to train in order to increase your willpower the same way you train in order to increase your physical strength.  Meditation for the win, people!

by Agota Bialobzeskyte