How My Morning Ritual Makes Me More Productive
Create your own rituals and make your life healthier
My “morning ritual” began a year ago as an experiment. The Covid-19 pandemic has just begun. I was sitting at home and had a lot of free time. So I decided to try something new in my daily life.… Wake up earlier. Cold shower. Meditation. Morning exercising. I didn’t have anything specific in my mind. I didn’t subscribe to those “4-week plan to become your best self”. I was looking for something that would improve my life by 1%. Something simple and effective. Something that I can use from the very start.
Spoiler: I did it. It took me almost a year. But I found those things that gave me even more than 1%.
Then I didn’t realize that I am creating my ritual. It was just a try-out of what I had ever read or seen.
Start with the to-do list
After two months of experiments, I decided to make a list. I already have some new habits. Getting up early. Drink a 23-ounce glass of water every morning (about 0.7 liters). Taking a cold shower. Doing morning exercising. Ah. It was terrible. I started to ask myself: “Why I am doing it?” It was a clever question.
When you do something just for the sake of action, you get nothing. You need to understand where you are going. You need a guideline.
For me, that guideline was the to-do list. When I started writing down everything I want to do in the morning, everything got much better.
When I started making my to-do list, the morning ritual was born.
- I no more getting up early, because of unclear benefits. I wake up early because I have to do my morning ritual
- I no longer drink a 23-ounce glass of water. I decided to drink less
- I do an adequate amount of morning exercise
- Cold shower changed to contrast shower.
This is my morning ritual. I am sure that this list will be longer in the future.
Morning ritual giving a lot of benefits. I will write about them further. Feel comfortable doing individual rituals. Only then it will work for you. I will not write how to do your morning ritual. But I write about mine as an example.
A glass of water
In my opinion, this is the most necessary thing. Wake up and have a glass of water. I tried this for a few weeks and checked the result. I found out that without a glass of water in the morning I feel dizzy. That’s reasoning enough for me to drink water every morning. But there is one rule. It should be a glass of clear water. No juices, no cola, no coffee. A glass of water.
The alarm wakes you up, but your body wakes up with a glass of water.
Morning exercising
The next step is morning exercising. For almost a year I have been doing morning exercising. At least five times a week. I tried different stuff. I did the home workout. I did yoga. I did HIIT. I was running. Etc. All this took from 10 min to 30 min.
Morning exercising has a few benefits. But when I started, I didn’t read about it. I just tried it and watched the state of my body change. And you know, it changed. I started to feel more energized, more productive. I feel less tired throughout the day.
But something went wrong. In a few weeks, I started to feel overwhelmed. “What the heck” — I asked myself. Everything was fine. Nothing has changed in my life. But I feel fatigued. I started to analyze. The problem was morning exercising. Sometimes I was training for almost 30 min. Thirty minutes of intensive exercises(as I told sometimes there was HIIT). I regularly work out in the gym several times a week in addition to my morning exercising. It’s too much.
Now everything is back to normal. I am no more overwhelmed. I feel energized and productive. My morning exercising requires no more than 10 minutes of moderate activity from me. This is the rule!
A glass of water will wake your body up, but exercise will wake up your muscles after sleep.
Contrast shower
I drink a lot of water. I love sports and activities. So there were no problems before this stage. Cold shower. I have been taking it for 2 months. It was insane to wake up in the morning and go into the cold water. How I screamed the first time while standing under cold water. Now I can make a laugh at it.
After the first quarantine ended, I went to work and found that taking a cold shower in the morning was no longer suitable for me. So I stopped taking it. Without a cold shower, I didn’t feel so energized. But the cold shower still a problem. I needed to find a solution.
Contrast shower more practical and still have the benefits of a cold one. The main idea is:
In the morning I take a warm shower. At this moment, my body warms up. After that, I switch the water to cold and quickly wash my body with cold water. Wow. It is exciting! Then I quickly dry myself off with a towel. Dress in prepared clothes. Done!
When you get out of the shower, you will be in state… Better try it on your own and find out.
Why I keep doing the morning ritual
After a year of practice, I can say for sure:
- It’s easier now to wake up
- I no longer suffer from typical body aches after sleep.
- I’m more focused and confident
- I drink coffee in the morning because I like the taste and nothing more.
- I am no longer late for work and I do not feel sleepy there.
Aren’t these benefits pretty good for keep doing? I will not dwell on this. I will continue to improve my ritual. The benefits are too great, and I am sure there maybe even more.
Thank you for your attention. I hope I gave you something new. Leave me your responses. I would be glad to read them.
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