5 Morning Rituals to Turn Into a Habit

How do you start the day right? With full intention.

When we’re younger, we take our mornings for granted. We’d shuffling through our morning, groggy, moody and hungry. Especially when we’re in a hurry and we enjoyed being out the night before.

Our mornings are quite important. How we start out day determines how we react to incidents happening around us and to us. So we set good intentions. Here are 5 morning rituals that are sure to turn your morning around. 5 morning rituals to live by:

1. Drink room temperature lemon water — first thing!
Coffee is not important (blasphemy, I know!) in the morning. The most important thing you can do to start your day is cleanse your body from yesterday’s food. So cleaning out your intestines with room temperature water infused with lemon, is great for your body. A natural cleanser, lemon in your water is refreshing and works to neutralize your body’s PH level, also not allowing your intestines and your stomach to work too hard to digest the food you ate and will be eating throughout the day.

2. Wake up by quickly washing our face
Not going through your full face cleaning routine, but by splashing your face with cold — yes, cold water. Just enough for you to quickly wake up with a jolt. It’s not pleasant, but the cold water rushes blood to your face and to your brain sending signals to “wake up.”

3. Move / Exercise
One of the best things you can do for your body and your mind, is to start the morning by moving. If you feel lethargic in the afternoon, it is the same. According to Dr. John J. Ratey, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author of SPARK, “Regular aerobic activity calms the body, so that it can handle more stress before the serious response involving heart rate and stress hormones kicks in. It raises the trigger point of the physical reaction. In the brain, the mild stress of exercise fortifies the infrastructure of our nerves cells by activating genes to produce certain proteins that protect the cells against damage and disease.” These proteins also allow us to handle the stresses of the day a little better and allow our brains increased blood flow which in turn, makes us feel a little smarter, and aids in maintaining our focus throughout the day.

4. Meditate & Set your Intention
I personally never believed in meditation. It was something I had never been encouraged to do growing up in a filipino christian home. I was; however, always told to pray. Now, to me, there is no real difference. Whether I’m talking to God as I meditate or whether I’m making sure that I’m talking to myself, my inner self and setting the intention for the day.

When setting an intention, all yourself the freedom to observe it, rather than expect it. by definition, an intention has two:
i) a thing intended; an aim or plan
ii) a healing process of a wound
when setting an intention for your day, allow it to be both. An aim for the day for yourself, not for the day or for those around you. Will you be happy. Will you be a little more observant. Will you be a little more courteous, or will you try to handle obstacles that will occur through the day with observation and with a smile. I’ve found that when you set an intention for your day, you a little more forgiving to yourself when observing it. If an expectation is set, there is a sense of failure when that expectation isn’t met.

5. Eat your fatty acids — brain food

Eat you saturated fats and your unsaturated fats in the morning. Though unsaturated fats are better for you. Eating most of your fats and sugars int he morning gives your body as all that time to process the food throughout the day. Add in the exercise that you just did, and you’re on the track to success! I don’t necessarily mean go all out and eat a donut for breakfast. Although that’s something I do ocassionally, it’s not a healthy habit. I mean eating an avocado, or an omelet filled with cheese a yummy hash browns (you know you’re thinking it) is fine especially eaten in the morning. Still keep it healthy, though.