6 Morning Habits to Start Your Day the Right Way

When we talk about getting a good night’s sleep, we often talk about your evening routine or your bedtime habits. But your morning routine is just as important for waking up feeling well-rested and setting yourself up to feel refreshed throughout the day. Here are our top six tips for good morning habits.

1. Drink water

Start your day off right with a cup of whatever you choose — coffee, tea, hot chocolate. But don’t forget to start drinking water right away, too. If a glass of cold water is off-putting first thing in the morning, try drinking water at room temperature or warm it up and add a squeeze of lemon. In addition to getting you hydrated, if you wait until the end of the day to catch up on your water intake, you stand a greater chance of having to wake up throughout the night to use the restroom.

2. Find your light

If you wake up before the sun rises, make sure you get outside once the sun comes up or at least station yourself near a window. If you don’t need to wake up before dawn, try keeping your curtains cracked, or buy sheer curtains, so you can wake up with the sun. Light plays an important role in regulating your body’s internal clock via your circadian rhythms, so use that to your advantage in the morning.

3. Move your body

If you’re struggling to wake up in the morning, try light exercise or deliberate, conscious movements after you wake up, like you’d practice in yoga or tai chi. If you’re having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, and that’s making your mornings miserable, consider adding more vigorous exercise to your daily routine (whether you can fit it in in the morning or evening).

4. Resist your phone

Develop a conscientious morning routine with regard to your screen time. We spend so much of the day glued to our phone or our computer screen. At the start of the day, see if you can spend some time without a device, either connecting with your family or planning for your week.

5. Make your bed

Making your bed in the morning does a couple of things, at least. It helps you keep your room tidy, and it makes it harder for you to dive right back under the covers, which can be hard to resist if you’re waking up tired and you work from home.

6. Get cleaned up and dressed

This one might seem obvious, but after 18 months of working from home, we all know how easy it is to slip into wearing pajamas to work all day and maybe skipping the shower one or two days in a row (!?). Getting clean and dressed will help you feel more alert and motivated, even if it’s just for a Zoom meeting.

If you’ve tried it all and still can’t seem to wake up feeling refreshed, it might be time for a new mattress. If you’re waking up with an achy back or sore neck, those are telltale signs of mattress breakdown. Come talk to our sleep experts and we’ll have you feeling like an early bird in no time.