Mornings can be a chaotic time in every household: you sleep as late as possible, barely leaving enough time to shower (if you’re lucky), put on semi-clean clothes, grab breakfast to-go, and push everybody else out the door as you sprint to your car. Then you arrive at work with a coffee stain on your shirt and realize you left your lunch on the kitchen counter. You spend the rest of the morning wondering if you turned off the curling iron…. And it’s only Tuesday.

We’ve all been there. But why do we keep doing this to ourselves?

The morning sets the tone for your entire day. If you’re looking for increased focus, motivation, patience + happiness — it all begins with your morning. Do yourself a favor: wake up 15 minutes earlier and try the following routine. Even if it sounds crazy, TRY IT! If you do it for even 1 week consistently, I promise that you’ll notice a difference.

The Simple Morning Routine that Will Make you Happier:

Don’t press snooze

Try to set your alarm for roughly the same time each day. Setting your alarm allows for more quality sleep since it will help ease your worry that you might oversleep. When you hear your alarm, GET UP! Immediately. Do NOT press snooze! Do you really fall back asleep anyway? Get up before you have time to think about all the things you need to accomplish that day. It can be incredibly overwhelming if we start processing all of our to-do lists before we even get out of bed. It can make us feel defeated before the day even begins. Plus, you’ll be able to ensure that you’re the first one up in your household so you can get in some quality “me time.”

Drink water

Once you get out of bed, go straight to the kitchen and pour yourself a 16oz glass of water. Drinking water immediately after you arise will kickstart your metabolism, rehydrate you, flush out toxins, and give your brain fuel to begin the day. For an added health benefit, make it warm water and add lemon.

Journal

Take a couple minutes to express gratitude. Write down 3 things you are grateful for at the very moment (big or small). Expressing gratitude turns our mental focus to the positive and compensates for our brain’s natural tendency to focus on worries. If you begin your morning focusing on gratitude consistently, you’ll begin to notice increased optimism and happiness throughout each day.

Meditate

Take 10 minutes for meditation time. You can sit quietly, listen to calming music, count your breaths, or follow a guided mediation — whatever works for you! Taking time to focus your mental energy in a positive way will help you to start each morning with a clear a head. (check out my post on meditation here)

Eat a nutrient dense breakfast

You might prefer to wait and do this with the rest of the family, but be sure you eat breakfast. Eating when you wake up helps to  stabilize your blood sugar and give you the energy you need to get through the morning. Try to eat something high in protein so that you’ll have more sustained energy throughout the morning. Eating breakfast will also help you make positive food choices later in the day!

That’s it! Then you can resume with your morning routine as usual; wake the kids up, drink some coffee, take a shower…But you will have already completed the most important 15 minutes of your morning uninterrupted + with no distractions. You’ll feel energized, focused, optimistic + ready to handle whatever chaos gets thrown your way. Give it a try and let me know your results!