How to Create a Killer Anxiety-Free Routine in the Morning

Have you ever woken up suddenly from a horrible nightmare?
It’s the worst feeling, right? Your panic levels are all the way up, which means your heart is beating fast, you’re probably sweating, and you feel a sense of dread. Maybe, if you’re like me (which you hopefully aren’t) you peer around the room into the darkness and flip on the lamp to make sure there isn’t anything lurking near you.
But the one positive thing about this is that the feeling usually drifts away fairly quickly.
But what about that sense of panic or dread that you experience in the morning when you first wake up? What’s that all about?
Morning anxiety is even worse than waking up from a nightmare because, rather than being able to pin the fear on your dream, you can’t find anything stable to pin it on — so you come up with scenarios in your head.
You have a meeting today that you’re worried won’t go well, or there’s a school assignment that you still have to complete.
Or maybe you don’t have anything in particular hanging over your head, but you dread getting up and out of bed to start your day. You fear what lies ahead, because that sick feeling in your gut is telling you that whatever it is, it can’t be good.
I’ve been there. In fact, I’ve had times when I’ve woken up every single day like that for months. It was awful, and there are still mornings when I feel like I can’t escape it.
Though I haven’t mastered the art of totally banning morning anxiety from my life (but then again, who has?), I have come up with several ways to make waking up in the morning easier.

1. Create a soothing alarm.
My boyfriend wakes up every morning to an alarm on his phone that sounds like a power drill malfunctioning. Needless to say, it’s not a pleasant thing to be rudely awoken to in the middle of your slumber. Choose a song or a sound that is calming to you, and set it as your wake up call each morning instead.
2. Make it opposite day.
Remember pretending like it was opposite day when you were younger and saying the opposite of what you really meant? Try doing this when you wake up in the morning and that sick feeling immediately rises up in your stomach, and those thoughts begin to go haywire. Tell yourself, instead of negative worries, things like:
“Today is going to be a good day.”
“I’m happy to be up and given the chance to live out today.”
“I’m going to make a difference in someone’s life today.”
“I am going to kill it today.”
“Today I am not going to let my anxiety get the best of me.”
Repeating simple phrases like this to yourself, not necessarily out loud, but in your head, can really help turn your anxiety on its head if you keep at it. Our brains are highly trainable, and repetition is the key.
3. Get enough sleep.
This one is kind of a no-brainer. If you aren’t getting enough sleep at night, your body and mind will wake up feeling less energized than usual, making it more difficult to combat feelings of anxiety. If you have a hard time sleeping or your anxiety keeps you up, you might want to look into taking sleeping pills to make your nights more restful.
4. Write down 4 goals you have for the day.
Setting goals is an important way to start out any day, whether you feel anxiety-driven or no. Make your goals realistic, and include at least one enjoyable one to balance the others out.
The number doesn’t have to be 4, it could be 2, or 3, or 6 — but write them down or make a list on your phone so that you can keep it with you and reference it when you’re out. A lot of times, checking something off at the end of the day and feeling accomplished makes you more motivated and self-appreciative.

5. Do something in the morning that makes you feel alive.
This could be anything depending on what makes you feel happiest — listening to your favorite radio station or playlist, getting a workout in, or making time to fix up your favorite breakfast food before starting your day.
It sounds cheesy, but what I got into the habit of doing when mornings were super tough was reading quotes and sharing them. Every day, I’d pick an inspiring quote from an app on my phone, quickly memorize it, then post it on Snapchat or send it to a friend. Finding things that help you is no fun unless you can also give it away to others.
6. Choose activities that get your mind off of your anxiety.
One of the lifelines I clung to during the mornings when things really got bad was work. I’ve been working with young kids for over 5 years, and that has been the primary activity that I’ve found works in making me forget my anxiety. During those 7 hours of my shift, I would be forced away from my thoughts and pushed into situation where I had to keep my attention on other little humans at all times.
Not only did the busy nature of my job work, but it also helped me just to interact with children who didn’t know what I was going through, wouldn’t be able to quite understand it if they did, but simply carried on with life in the most carefree manner possible.
So find your own healthy version of “work” — and if that actually is work for you, then great — and immerse yourself in it as much as possible. Sometimes we just need to find something more important to focus our minds on than the anxiety that attempts to drag us down.
If you have any personal tips on how to overcome anxiety in the mornings, leave them in the comments below!
