Morning Routine: 19 Excellent Habits To Start Developing Today!

This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you book or buy something through one of these links, I may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you. Learn more

Develop a great morning routine the right way with these 19 excellent morning habits, and strive for positive improvements in your health and wellbeing.

Morning Routine Habits

1. Move Around and Hydrate

You may not be excited about the idea of jogging or exercising in the morning, but simply moving around can help you get your day started. You don’t have to go to the gym to start your morning with a little movement.

Getting your body moving will boost your circulation. Try some simple stretches, on-the-spot jumps and jogging, or even dancing.

Drinking water will also keep you energized throughout the entire day. To help you, keep a water bottle with you at home or work, to remind you to stay hydrated. At the very least, drink a glass of water first thing in the morning.

2. Take a Warm or Cold Shower

Once you’re awake and moving, taking a warm shower before you do anything else will help you feel refreshed and energized for the day ahead.

Try not to have the water too hot. Instead, opt for warmer water. This will help both your digestive and immune systems get up and running for the day.

If you can, work out to a cold shower. Many swear by solely cold showers, but if you love a little heat in the morning, even a cold blast at the end of a shower can help kickstart our systems into gear and help blood flow.

3. Let the Natural Light In

While not always possible, waking up to, or letting in natural light is a far better way to start your day than being jolted awake amid darkness.

You can try leaving a slight gap in your curtains or your shutters so that even a little natural light can find its way into your dark bedroom before you awake.

If this isn’t possible, be sure to open the curtains in your bedroom, kitchen, or the areas of your home you spend the first part of the morning.

Natural light helps improve mood and helps align your day with your circadian rhythm. If you wake up in total darkness, your body still thinks it is nighttime, hence getting going in the morning is much harder.

4. Write in a Gratitude & Goals Journal

Start the day right by writing down five things you’re grateful for in your gratitude journal and visualizing five goals for the future.

Writing things you’re grateful for will put you in a good mood to start the day. You’ll also learn to appreciate the good things in your life!

After that, write down and visualize five goals for your future. Try to be as specific as possible, and really imagine what it will be like when you achieve those goals!

If you express gratitude, you can help keep negative thoughts at bay, setting you up for a successful day.

5. Eat a Healthy Breakfast

Your breakfast should be your fuel in the morning that will keep you energized throughout the day.

Choose healthier breakfast options that will satisfy your food cravings and give you energy, such as oatmeal, smoothies, low-fat sandwiches, or fruit and yogurt parfaits.

If you can, try to avoid high-fat and high-sugar breakfasts. While the initial sugar rush will make you feel energized, the inevitable crash will set you up for a day of mood cycles.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so it should be nutritious and help keep your energy levels high.

6. Prepare Your Own Lunch and Drinks

A good diet is key to focus, productivity, health, and happiness. But in those manic mornings, the urge to pick up coffee or snacks on the way to work is often simply too convenient.

But grab-and-go food and coffee is often packed with sugar, fat, and salt. Making your own packed lunch is the healthier option.

To help, either prepare the food the night before, or at least have the ingredients in the fridge, ready to assemble. Keep your lunch simple, and stick to easy-to-assemble meals, like fruit salads.

Preparing your own coffee in a travel mug too, for the sake of a few minutes of your time, is healthier in the long run, and will save you money on expensive takeaway coffee.

7. Message a Loved One

Keep in touch with the people you love by sending an encouraging text message to them every morning.

The message doesn’t have to be anything important or earth-shattering. It can simply tell your loved ones that you are thinking of them.

8. Learn a New Word

Commit to learning a new word every day – both the definition of the word and the pronunciation.

This may seem like an odd thing to do in the morning, but it’s a great way to keep your brain engaged and improve your communication skills.

Quick Tip: It’s even better to learn a new word in a foreign language every day!

9. Do Something That Makes You Happy

Have a few minutes of you-time in the morning. Doing something for yourself will help put you into a happy, positive mood, and help clear your mind, ready for the day ahead.

You could sit with your morning coffee and read the news, play with your pet, or get a little fresh air in the garden.

You could also listen to some music, doodle, write in your journal, or a whole host of other things. You know what you love best, so try to make a little time for it every morning.

10. Write Down 1-3 Goals for the Day

Don’t let the entire day go by without achieving anything important, so make a list of the things you want to do and the tasks you want to accomplish by the end of the day.

Don’t make a long list of tasks that are impossible to accomplish during the day as that will leave you frustrated and disappointed. To make things easier, rate each task with a grade from 1 to 5, based on its importance.

Pick your top 1-3 goals, and focus on those before moving on to any other items on your to-do list.

Keep Reading: Evening Routine: 10 Excellent Habits You Need to Develop

11. Make the Bed

Making the bed is one of the best morning rituals to adopt. The act of setting something untidy to prestine that helps you up for the rest of your day.

A made bed is one of those little things in your daily routine that only takes a few moments, but sets you up for the right frame of mind.

As good morning habits go, its one of the simplest, but so powerful.

12. Don’t Hit the Snooze Button

Succesful people know how to use their time efficiently. Even if you’re not a morning person, it’s a healthy habit to simply take a moment, and just get out of bed.

As soon as you hit the snooze button, you’re fueling one of your bad habits. Not only does snoozing eat into your precious time, it reinforces the idea of ‘do it later’, rather than getting on with the day.

If your rely on your phone to wake you up, get yourself an alarm clock. If you struggle to get out of bed, put your phone or alarm clock at the other end of the room, out of reach. That way, you will have to get out of bed to turn them off!

13. Don’t Check Work Emails or Mobile Phones

The urge to check notifications or social media can be overwhelming. But as soon as you do, anxiety can kick in, and you’ll feel dragged into your work before the day has even began.

Set boundaries. Develop a healthy morning routine that pushes checking emails, phone calls, or mobile phones to your work hours, not first thing in the morning.

14. Track Your Hours of Sleep

Getting a good night’s sleep is believed by many to be the best way to help have a productive day and keep both physical and mental health in a good place.

While not an instant fix, recording your sleep when you first wake up is the best way to slowly understand how much sleep you’re getting, and the quality of your sleep.

You can do this either by a sleep tracking app, or with a sleep tracker printable. Quality sleep ensures you start the working day on the right foot, and is the best thing for your health in the long term.

15. ‘Eat the Frog’ with your First Task of the Day

For most of us, if all is well, the morning hours are when we are at our most energetic. As the day goes on, we move through energy cycles, and slowly tire.

Hence, its a good idea to ‘eat the frog’, meaning to get your most loathed or feared task out of the way first. It could be work or life related, but getting it out of the way early on helps put you in a positive state on mind, and will lead to less stress as the day goes on.

16. Fill in a Daily Planner the Evening Before

The worst thing is to wake up energerized and ready to take on all your daily activities, only to be paralyzed by decision fatigue.

Therefore, it’s a great idea to plan the day out with a daily planner. The best time to do this is at the end of the previous work day, so that you can still unwind late at night.

Naturally, leave some room for unforseen events or spontaneous moments. But by prioritizing tasks, you can wake up the next day with a head start, knowing what needs to be done first. That way, you’ll truly feel like a productivity guru!

17. Reflect During Your Morning Cup of Coffee or Tea

Numerious studies show that many of us crave the routine and familiarity of making our morning tea or coffee, even more so than the drink itself.

While too much coffee is not advised, the simple task of making a morning beverage can help build a good morning routine, and make us feel in control and ready to take on the day in a good way.

18. Read Some Good News

Social media and news channels are largely full of negative news and stories. Even reading one of those stories can set you up to feel anxious and pessimistic for the whole day.

Instead, read or intake something positive. Watch a tutorial. Laugh at a funny video. Read an inspirational story. Do something in the early hours to put you in a positive state.

19. Practice Breathing

Breath control is a great way to kick off a productive morning. Mastering power breaths and deep breathing, even if for a few minutes every mrning, is one of those healthy habits to develop that can bring huge long-term benefits.

If you feel like mornings are a race against the clock, it’s time to take back your time, energy, and positivity.

Like anything in life, a positive morning needs a little planning and practice to get right. Don’t overwhelm yourself with too many changes.

Simply introduce one or two new habits at a time, and be patient. Over time, as you develop these morning habits, you’ll find yourself setting yourself up for happy and productive days more frequently.