The first hours of the day have a big influence on how good the day will be. Getting up early and the activities we use to start the day strongly affect our efficiency and performance. Here are a few tips on the morning rituals of successful people. Whether you are an early bird or love a long lie-in, in today’s article we explain why your alarm clock should go off as early as possible.
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Getting up early sets the quality of your day
The start of the day decides what the rest of it will look like. Many motivational and self-development books also tell us that successful people get up very early. It has been shown that we are most productive in the morning and have a sharp mind. In the morning, your thoughts also flow faster and you come up with various solutions to problems and ideas for improvement. Our mind is not yet tired from the whole day or overloaded with the information that starts pouring in over the following hours.
Let us take a practical example of two people with different daily routines. Adam usually gets up between four and five in the morning, and Lucy usually gets up at around nine or ten.
Adam gets up, has a good breakfast, stretches and refreshes himself with a cold shower. While drinking his coffee, he deals with all his emails and starts work at around six. His mind is clear, nobody disturbs him with phone calls at this time, and he works until lunch without interruption. Then he has a good meal, goes to his meetings, and on the way back he still has time to do some shopping, take a walk in the park and have a snack. It is three in the afternoon and Adam already has a productive working day behind him and can spend time on his hobbies, family and friends. In the evening he still has time to read a few pages of the book he is reading and falls asleep early to get some rest.
Lucy, aching all over, forces herself out of bed, and two missed calls are already waiting for her on her phone. She immediately feels stressed and pressed for time. She works the same 8 hours as Adam, but unlike him, she does not finish until six in the evening. Overloaded with information from the whole day, she lies down exhausted in front of a TV series, which she can watch until midnight because her whole day has shifted later.
Of course, a lot also depends on each person’s lifestyle, and the stories are told with some exaggeration (the names are made up and chosen at random). The fact remains, however, that each of us has 24 hours a day and it is up to us how we use them. If we decide to get up earlier and start our day as well as possible, the whole day will seem longer and we will get more done. By the time others are getting up, you may already have half your work done. On the other hand, some people do their best work late in the evening.
Rituals for a great start to the day
How can we start the day to boost our performance and good mood even more? There are several proven tips that will give you the loveliest morning, and you will be looking forward to getting up the night before. Some of these daily habits also strengthen our immunity, health or relieve stress. None of them takes more than a few dozen minutes, so you can try them all and put together a great morning routine.
Breathing exercise to relieve stress
You can try this ritual while still in your warm bed, right after waking up. It is an ideal choice for people who have to cope with a lot of stress and nervousness and whose nerves are often frayed from the very morning. The 4:7:8 breathing exercise works as follows. First, breathe in deeply for four seconds, then hold your breath for seven seconds, and then breathe out smoothly for eight seconds. Repeat the exercise at least three times in a row. Oxygen will reach your blood faster and getting up will immediately feel easier.
Morning meditation
You can also combine the first exercise with meditation, as regular, deep breathing is important there too. For beginners, there are guided recordings that take you through all the steps. You can find them on Youtube and Spotify. It is always important that the voice guiding you through the meditation sounds pleasant and does not distract you.
Exercise and stretch your body
It does not matter whether you prefer running, swimming, cycling or yoga. Exercising in the morning is one of the best things you can choose to do. Stretch your body, head outside as the first rays of sun appear and breathe in plenty of fresh air. Your body will release endorphins, you will work up a sweat, and all day you will enjoy knowing that you have already done your workout. And that is a great feeling, isn’t it?
If you work at a computer, sit down to it only after even just a 10-minute workout. Your body needs to wake up.
Coffee
Coffee is a great morning ritual. Experts do not recommend drinking coffee immediately after waking up. Ideally, you should get through your first round of morning activities without coffee and have it only about an hour and a half to two hours after waking up, which is the right time to give yourself a boost for better work performance.
Good-quality ground coffee is best, but you can also have a flat white. Coffee is considered a legal natural drug that improves physical and mental performance, mainly thanks to caffeine , and in the right amount it is also good for our body.
A cold shower to refresh you
After exercising, a cold shower will refresh you and give you an incredible boost. A great many of its benefits and advantages have already been proven. All we can add is that many successful people praise the cold shower as one of the best habits they have brought into their lives, and various influencers on social media recommend it too.
A cold shower combined with a short 10-minute workout is a very time-saving habit that will do your body a world of good and improve your overall physical fitness.
Listen to a podcast
If it suits you, you can listen to a podcast while running or doing another sport, for example. It is also great to put on a podcast while making breakfast or later during your lunch break. There are plenty of valuable and motivational podcasts, so just choose a topic that interests you. They serve as great motivation and inspiration, and listening for a few minutes in the morning can energise you for the whole day. Try, for example, the Brain We Are podcast, where in episodes 3 and 4 Vojta and Kryštof (the podcast’s authors) talk about rituals and habits and why they are so important.
Make a plan
Setting a clear plan for the whole day can greatly boost your performance. What do you want to get done? What will today involve? You can choose the to-do list method or visualising your day. Both methods are great, and different people prefer different ones. Some people need a paper list and feel motivated when they can tick off completed tasks. Others only need to imagine their ideal day and everything they will do, and they perform brilliantly. It is entirely up to you, so try all the options.
A small tip: If you know you have a lot of tasks ahead of you during the day and some of them are unpleasant, start with those. Once you have the worst behind you, you will feel better and you will not spend the whole day bothered by something you keep putting off because you do not feel like doing it.
So which habits do we recommend most for getting up more easily and staying productive all day?
- Do breathing exercises
- Meditate
- Exercise in the fresh air
- Refresh yourself with a cold shower
- Listen to a valuable podcast
- Make a plan for the whole day
Good performance also goes hand in hand with a great mood. Start getting up early and practising rituals for a great start to the day, and after a few days you will be proud of how much you have done and how good you feel. You will strengthen your physical and mental health, and lying in bed in the morning will start to feel like a waste of time.
If you are used to getting up late, start gradually. Suddenly cutting your sleep by 4 hours is not the answer, as you would feel tired all day and give up the next day. Get used to the new routine gradually and cut your lie-ins by half an hour or an hour at a time. In turn, you will go to bed earlier in the evening and you will soon get used to the new routine. As the saying goes, successful people do not set an alarm to get up, but to go to bed early.
