10 Incredible Morning Routines that Will Reduce Your Depression and Anxiety.

Forming a morning routine with healthy habits is a lot more powerful than we might think. What you do from the minute you wake up can have a severe impact on how the rest of your day progresses and your actual mood.

It can make the difference between a bubbly person who is energetic and ready to get their day going versus someone who dreads the idea of getting out of bed and is ready to go back home as soon as they left (totally me).

I recently saw a tweet that said “I want whatever that person who gets up at 6AM to run has” and I thought “Ha, abs probably”. But it’s more than that, it’s drive, commitment and better mental health.

You can also have those things too, abs included of course.

Having an ineffective morning routine completely transforms your anxiety because it makes you prepared and you know exactly what you will be doing and when.

A huge part of having anxiety is spending hours thinking of what to do then procrastinating all your tasks which then drives you insane at the end of the day when you realized you’ve accomplished absolutely nothing, this can easily lead to mental exhaustion.

It also helps you form healthy habits. It shows commitment to yourself and your mental health, it’s a huge boost to your self-esteem and confidence because you’ve proven how important you are to you.

The feeling of being productive, getting stuff done and checking things off your list creates a sense of accomplishment which makes you happy. 

Here are some morning routines that will help you to achieve better mental health, Enjoy 🙂

1. Wake Up Earlier

Everyone has different schedules and our days will all look very different but waking up a little earlier before your actual day starts has a lot of benefits. It allows you to start doing your tasks much sooner which leaves you feeling much more productive.

Your “earlier” might be 15 minutes and mines might be 2 hours, it depends on your schedule and what you have to do throughout the day, it’s definitely on you to decide. Take this as your “alone time”, no phone, just get up and be in the moment.

Open the curtains and take a deep breath of fresh air, enjoy being able to just do that. I like to take this time to just pray.

Getting up and taking your phone up to go on social media, reply to messages or look at your notification is a poor habit as you allow others to come into your space mentally.

2. 15 Minutes of Physical activities

Physical activities have been shown to drastically improve mental disorder like anxiety and depression, it releases stress, makes you feel energized, and boosts your overall mood.

Doing 15-30 mins of light exercises in the morning has improved my mental health so much because it makes me feel energized afterward and I feel so ready to tackle my day. Even something as simple as doing 20 jumping jacks every day can make a huge difference.

Physical activity can also look like taking a run outside for 30 minutes, doing yoga stretches, or whatever physical activity you prefer can really help.

It’s also a really great way to stay physically healthy because your physical health affects your mental health.

3. Drink a cup of water: Take supplements.

Rehydrating your body in the morning is a great way to break your night fast (unless you’re one of those persons who jugs a gallon of water at 2 pm), it wakes your digestive system up, and replaces the water loss after doing physical activities.

You can also use this as the opportunity to input your daily vitamins and whatever additional supplements you might be taking. Plus, it makes it a lot easier for you to have a bowel movement, you don’t want to be anxious, depressed, and constipated. 

That would be a disaster.

Related post: 10 Easy Ways You Can Stay Healthy Without Diet Or Exercise.

Drinking plenty of water is just a really great habit to have and it’s a good way to also stay motivated by using water bottles with affirmations and marks to reach.

4. Make Your Bed

Making your bed might seem like not much of a big deal. I was definitely one of those kids that thought “Why should I make my bed if I’m just going back into it shortly.”

But that’s the point, making your bed limits the thoughts of you re-entering it. Practice just tidying your sleeping areas and making your bed in the morning because it brings a sense of achievement and a clean physical space provides an opportunity for a clean mental space.

Going into a room that is untidy and filled with clutter gives me instant anxiety, coming home to a messy house makes me unhappy.

I now see why our parents wanted us to clean up before they came home from work.

I feel like there is just a mental connection with decluttering your actual space, cleaning and decluttering bring a sense of mental relief and so the same principle applies here. Constant cluttering is a bad habit that might secretly make your mental health worse.

Related post: 8 Bad Habits That Are Secretly Making Your Mental Health Worse.

5. Take A Cold Shower

This might sound a little brutal, cold showers in the morning? This woman is crazy.

But cold showers have amazing benefits, they do a great job of actually waking your body, increasing circulation, and reducing muscle sores after physical activity.

A warm shower is something I do in the night after a hard day to relax my muscles and help me sleep and so this isn’t a notion I recommend in the morning. 

It’s also good to just take a shower before starting your day because it makes you feel energized and rejuvenated like you can take on the world.

 I feel like I’m “washing yesterday off” and starting today new, say if I’ve had a bad day yesterday, I think showering mentally symbolizes starting a new.

6. Self Check-up

These are small but very important things you can do to mentally check up on yourself like journalling, doing affirmations and practicing gratitude.

Doing 15 minutes of journaling every day can have a significant impact on your mental health. When you get up in the mornings; do a mental check-up. Asking yourself questions like:

• How did my day go yesterday and how did I feel?
• How am I feeling today?
• What am I most grateful for?
• What can I do today to accomplish my goals?
• What do I wish to accomplish today?

Answering these questions in a journal can really be insightful, it’s like your own personal mental recharge. It shows your commitment to include yourself in everything and allows you to vent and practice intentional living.

Doing affirmations for your mental health and about productivity are really great morning routines that can change your mood and give you a positive outlook.

Gratitude is the perspective that can get you through a lot of things, saying everything that you are grateful for makes you want to get up live, do, and accomplish great things.

 And so I want you to download my gratitude journal which consists of gratitude affirmations and my anxiety affirmations and self-care checklist and make your personalized jar with things to say every day. And then I want you to look at your progress and how much it helps you in the morning.

7. Make A Cup of Tea

Making tea/coffee is another great way to wake up your body. This is a great time to do things like checking your emails, replying to messages and notifications while you are having a cup of tea.

Especially if you work from home or your day is usually busy having a cup of coffee in the morning is almost standard. Coffee keeps you energized throughout the day as well as the smell just makes you happy.

8. Make A Healthy Breakfast

Breakfast is the first meal of the day, it’s probably the most important one too because this is what will give your body what it needs to carry out all your daily tasks. 

Especially if you did a physical activity before, you’re probably going to be super hungry and so you need to reward your body for all the amazing work it’s been doing with something tasty and nutritious. 

What you eat has a direct impact on your mental health and mood and so get in the habit of making healthy meals, even if you have something not so healthy for lunch or you skip lunch, breakfast is important.

9. Start Planning Your Day

This is my favorite part of actually making a routine: planning. I love making plans, making a little list, and achieving them one by one.

You can also do this while having breakfast to save some time.

You can also try using a planner to make a list of all the things you need to do and want to accomplish by the end of the day and start making a mental sketch of how you are going to do them.

Planning allows you to feel in control and organized, it also brings a sense of accomplishment after ticking things off. These are great because having anxiety and depression can often make you feel like there’s a lot of things you can’t control- like an out-of-body experience and so this is very much like taking your power back.

10. Be Realistic and Set A Time for Each Task.

Not only should plan things out but you should also set a realistic time span for each task and kind of sketch out a mental map of the order of how you can do things.

It’s a great way to navigate your day and it prevents you from spending too long on one task which then leads to you not doing much and puts you back into that space of sadness.

For example: If your list consisted of cleaning the kitchen, doing laundry, replying to emails, running errands and folding laundry.

You’d probably schedule your tasks in this way:

1.Replying to emails – 45 mins

2. Cleaning the kitchen while you run the laundry- 50 -60 mins

3. Run errands- 2 hours

4. Fold laundry-30 mins.

 It’s effective and it makes sense. It is okay if you didn’t get everything off your lists, sometimes we stress about not being able to do one thing and not giving ourselves credit for the majority that we actually did.