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There’s nothing like starting the day with a mindful morning routine. How you begin your day can set the standard for how the rest of the day goes. If you want to increase your overall wellness and health, making the right strides to improve your morning is the right way to start. From what you put in your body to how well you sleep, gain some insight by considering the following mindful morning routine steps to follow.

1. Stay Hydrated

Water is essential for your overall health. Water is so important to human life that you can go much longer without food than you can without water. According to Healthline, everyone should drink at least eight glasses of water daily. If you are an active person, you should drink even more water than that. During the hot summer months, it’s also a good idea to increase your water intake to prevent the likelihood of heat stroke or dehydration. Add fruit to your water to make it easier to drink.

When you’re not properly hydrated, you can develop brain fog. In other words, improper hydration can inhibit decision-making or lead to you passing out at the wrong time, such as when you’re operating a vehicle. If you find yourself in the middle of an accident, don’t forget to hire a local accident attorney who can represent you. If you are suffering from a health crisis at the time, such as dehydration, it could help make your case. However, you can avoid such situations by making sure your body is properly hydrated and fed so you can be alert and avoid unnecessary accidents that could hurt you or other people.

2. Forget the Snooze Button

Sometimes it could be hard to get out of bed, especially in the cold winter months when you just want to snuggle up a little bit longer. So it may be tempting to hit the snooze button for an extra five or 15 minutes of sleep. However, if you abuse using the snooze button, it can have an impact on your health.

The body has a natural sleep cycle. If you keep hitting the snooze button, you may be disrupting that cycle and end up oversleeping. After oversleeping, you won’t be able to wake up peacefully because you may end up having a jerk up in a rush because you’re late for work, school, or other commitments. As a result, your mindful morning routine is off to a bad start because now you’re rushing around and stressed. If you’re constantly waking up with the urge to press the snooze button, it may be a sign that you’re not getting to sleep early enough at night.

You may want to try alternative means to force you to get out of bed on time. For example, you may want to set your alarm clock far away from your bed, so you have to get up every morning to turn it off. You may even want to go as far as calling a locksmith company to set an alarm on your bedroom door and customize it according to your preferences.

3. Eat Breakfast

Do you often find yourself stopping off for doughnuts or other unhealthy treats in the morning on the way to work or school? If so, you may want to add a healthy breakfast as part of your mindful morning routine. That way, you can start the day with nutritionally dense foods such as fruit, vegetables, yogurt, oatmeal, and whole-grain cereal. Some people like to start their day off with a nutritionally dense green smoothie. Smoothies allow you to add different fruits, vegetables, and add-ons like protein powder into one smoothie so you can get a jolt of nutrition That can energize you for the rest of the day.

Rethink skipping breakfast because you feel it’s not important. Consider some of the needy people out there, such as homeless teens who don’t have a good meal every day. Enhance your mindful morning routine by buying breakfast or making breakfast to hand out to people who are needy around your area.

4. Sleep Consistently

One of the benefits of being an adult is you can go to bed whenever you want. However, if you must wake up at a certain time in the morning, it’s a good idea to have a set bedtime so you can easily get up without any grogginess issues. According to the Sleep Foundation, adults should get seven to nine hours of restful sleep at night. So, your wellness goals should include getting a full night of sleep without any disruptions.

If you haven’t changed your bedding in a while, now is the time to switch out your mattresses, pillows, and linens with new ones. By having a clean and comfortable place to sleep consistently, you can aid in your ability to get restful REM sleep. That way, your body can go to its natural sleep cycle and won’t hesitate to wake up when your alarm goes off. Depending on when you go to sleep and how comfortable your environment is, your body may wake up naturally without using an alarm.

Your mindful morning routine should include making up your bed so that it looks nice and pretty before you leave for the day. By making your bed, you’re also symbolizing that you are fully up and you won’t be tempted to go back to sleep, especially if it’s going be a day when you’re working from home, or it’s the weekend. Then, when it’s time to go back to bed later at night, you’ll have a bed all ready for you.

5. Brush Your Teeth

According to the American Dental Association, everyone should brush and floss their teeth at least twice a day. The first time you should brush your teeth is in the morning when you get up. Even if you brush your teeth before you go to bed, brushing them again in the morning gets rid of morning breath and any bacteria that may have collected in your mouth as you slept.That way, when you go out into the world, you’ll have a nice fresh breath, and you’ll feel confident talking to people. As any affordable dentist will tell you, this mindful morning routine helps prevent your teeth from developing plaque or tartar over time.

6. Open Your Blinds

There’s nothing like seeing the sun every day. However, you don’t have to wait until you go outside your home to go to work or school to enjoy the rays of the sun. Bring energy and warmth into your home by opening up your blinds. Your home windows are your key to what’s going on outside. So if your home windows are old, it may be time to replace them. There are different styles of windows you consider, ranging from French windows to sliding ones. You can also save on your energy bills and improve your home insulation by upgrading from single-pane to double-pane windows.

The type of window treatments you have matter and can help make your mornings better than ever. Choose the right blinds for your overall home aesthetic and preferences. If you prefer metal blinds, wood blinds are ones made from fabric, pick the ones that are right for your bedroom and the rest of your home. Are you not a fan of blinds and prefer the idea of opening up your window shutters? You can have window specialists install elegant and colorful shutters on your windows that give the appearance of a European home. Further, enhance your window treatments by layering curtains of different materials ranging from sheer to thick black-out curtain material.

7. Ignore Your Phone

Is your phone already gone off with alerts or ringing early in the morning? If so, ignore it and give yourself time to properly wake up, think, meditate, and do what’s necessary to enjoy a peaceful morning. Your mindful morning routine shouldn’t begin with going through social media posts and sending funny cat memes. Instead of the funny social media cat names, why not watch your cat grooming itself and play with it for a while before you hit the shower?

Unless you’re relying on your phone for your alarm, why not keep it turned off until a designated time? Some people have a clear time when they keep their phones off. It may be from the time they get home until they start their day the next day. You may want to keep your phone turned off until after you have breakfast or after you shower. Do whatever is right for you so you can have a peaceful day that doesn’t start with being attached to your phone when you could be paying attention to your family, eating a healthy breakfast, or meditating.

8. Make Your Bed

Give yourself enough time in the morning to properly make your bed. A mindful morning routine should include carefully tucking in your sheets, folding back the comforter, fluffing the pillows, and adding some accent pillows on top. Then stand back and look at your beautiful bedwork with pride. Leaving your bed in a messy shamble isn’t a good environment to come back to when it’s time to go to sleep again. It’s not just important to have your linens clean and fresh, you also want them to be straightened up so that your bed looks like you took the time to care for it properly.

Do you have children? Make sure their mindful morning routine also involves making their beds. If your kids are small and have kids bunk beds, you may need to help them at first, especially when it comes to sorting out the top bed.

9. Be Physically Active

There are many ways to be physically active in the morning. Do you have a makeshift home gym that includes an exercise bike or treadmill? Having one can save you a trip to the local gym, in case you don’t feel like making that journey before work or school. Plus, if you have a way to exercise at home, you can get your workout in earlier and have more time to do it. According to Healthline, people should get at least 30 minutes of activity every day. For many people, the mornings or the evenings are the best time to do so.

If you’re not into indoor workouts, consider bicycle rentals. Then you can get some fresh air and quickly get in your 30 minutes of activity. Bicycle rentals are a good way to decide the type of bike for you and your needs if you’ve never really done regular bike workouts before. Biking is a fun activity that you can do with your spouse and kids as well.

You can also start the day off with some mindful stretching, such as yoga poses. You don’t have to be an extreme yoga expert to benefit from the practice that goes back thousands of years. Begin with some simple poses that you can look up on relevant YouTube channels. Take the time to find a yoga class near your home that you can attend in the early morning.

10. Keep Food Out of the Bed

Do you enjoy having breakfast in bed? If you want to have breakfast in your bedroom, sometimes that can be a romantic thing with you and your partner. However, you may not want to make it a habit of having food in your bed as it can breed pests. If you suspect any pests that can affect your sleep or quality of life, such as bed bugs, roaches, or rodents, don’t be afraid to call your local exterminator. While bed bugs don’t spread disease, they love to feast on human beings at night.

Remember, how you start your day can determine how the rest of your day goes. By establishing a mindful morning routine that you can stick to, you can get the most from your day and improve your overall health. Use these helpful tips above to create a routine that works for you and your family.