Inside: Want to increase productivity and your chances of achieving major goals? Read on to discover how to create an easy healthy morning routine to set your day up for success.
As a fellow spoonie and disabled mom, I know just how hard it can be getting out of bed in the morning.
There’s appointments to be made. Meals to be cooked. And work projects to be finished.
It never seems to get any easier.
What’s worse – a chronic illness flare up can strike at any moment, rendering you useless for the rest of the day, week or months.
It can be so challenging (and defeating) trying to stick to a schedule when you have a chronic illness or disability.
However, it’s extremely beneficial to your health to try and implement at least a couple of healthy habits into your daily morning routine. As clinical psychologist Ryan Howes, Ph.D., tells SELF, “A healthy, low-stress, [and] focused morning routine sets the tone for the whole day.”
How we start our first one or two morning hours impacts our emotional, mental, and physical throughout the day.
So, I’ve developed an easy healthy morning routine to help you pick and choose what productive habits you want to include in your morning routine. However, don’t feel pressured to complete all of these suggestions; listening to your body is the most important thing.
Even if you can only get one healthy habit in a day, that’s still better than nothing!
How to Create an Easy Healthy Morning Routine (Designed for Women!)
What Is The Healthiest Morning Routine?
A healthy morning routine is subjective to each person based on your body, daily life, and goals. For instance, someone who’s striving to be a comedian isn’t going to have the same wake-up routine as a morning news anchor.
It’s important to be realistic and think about what would work best in your schedule, because that’s the only way that you’ll be able to stick with it for the long haul. Although everyone’s ideal morning routines will be different, there are a few things that would universally work for any healthy morning routine.
What Is The Healthiest Thing To Do When You Wake Up?
Overwhelmingly, the consensus says that drinking a cold glass of water first thing in the morning when you wake up is the healthiest thing you can do.
Your body becomes dehydrated while you sleep, so rehydrating and kick-starting your metabolism first thing in the morning starts your body off on the right foot. So rather than reaching for your phone first thing in the morning, grab the water bottle instead!
How to Create an Easy Healthy Morning Routine (Designed for Women!)
The following habits will help you kick-start your day in a way you will achieve greater clarity, focus, and productivity. However, feel free to adjust these suggestions as necessary.
The most important thing is that you can implement these habits into your day without creating any additional stress. An easy healthy morning routine aims to restore and balance your physical and mental needs before starting your day.
1. Get Plenty of Sleep (7 – 8 hours)
Getting quality sleep is the first step to getting your day off to the right start. Sleep contributes to the healing and repairing of your heart and blood vessels and enables your immune system to remain functional. This system defends your body against foreign or harmful substances and it crucial to women with chronic illnesses.
Although it’s not always possible to get the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep, it’s important to try and stick to a bedtime schedule that would allow you to rest for that amount of time.
2. Don’t Hit Snooze (0 minutes)
Don’t hit snooze! Pressing the snooze alarm causes fragmented sleep and deprives the body of the rest it needs to heal and repair. Be sure to set your alarm for the time of day that you genuinely need to wakeup – that way, you don’t spare time in your morning routine, and you can dedicate those extra minutes to deep sleep.
3. Make Your Bed (2 – 3 minutes)
Making your bed helps reduce clutter, promotes good sleep hygiene, and may also have some therapeutic effects. It’s a great addition to your healthy morning routine, because you’re accomplishing at least one task first thing in the morning.
Before I met my husband, I never made my bed in the morning. My husband thrives on order, and I’ve since taken over the responsibility. It’s now something that I have to do every morning; however, it was much harder to do this when I had it to be in the office by 8 a.m. (pre-baby). The physical exertion it took to make the bed was too much for me to handle with everything else I had to do before work. Now that I don’t have to go into an office, I include this in my morning routine.
With that being said, don’t feel bad skipping this if it’s just too much for you in the mornings!
4. Meditate with Affirmations (10 minutes)
Meditations with affirmations can significantly transform your life. The even better news? You can do them in ten minutes or less! Look for a comfortable place to sit. Focus on your breath as you in and out, and when you become absent-minded, bring your mind back to the breathing pattern.
When I wake up, I first meditate with affirmations. I use the timer on my headspace app while I’m still lying in bed. It’s a relaxing way to start the day. Don’t feel bad if you can’t get out of bed in the morning to sit and meditate. It’s more important to try and clear your thoughts and set an intention for the rest of the day than to do it Buddhist-Monk Style.
5. Journal (5-7 minutes)
Journaling for a few minutes daily is a great way to reduce stress and find your momentum. By taking 5-7 minutes to write down your thoughts, you can develop self-awareness and re-evaluate your objectives and priorities.
Noting down your thoughts is therapeutic and enables you to increase your commitment. Besides, it is fun to reflect on previous entries and see what you have accomplished.
I don’t journal in the morning because I do it after our childcare comes. If you don’t feel like meditating in the morning, you could use journal prompts to write down your goals for the day or help get you organized.
6. Drink Lemon Water (2 minutes)
Drinking lemon water energizes you, hydrates your body and is a good source of vitamin C. According to the Food and Nutrition Board, general guidelines say that women should get at least 91 ounces per day. I drink one glass of lemon water every morning. To make it easier, go ahead and fill up a water bottle with lemon the night before and refrigerate it. This will makes it easier for you in the mornings!
7. Eat a Nutritious Breakfast (10 – 12 minutes)
Unless you’re intermittent fasting, it’s important to eat a healthy breakfast to prevent low blood sugar or overeating later in the day. I like to make detox smoothies and add hemp seeds and flax seeds with almond milk. Other times, I might put avocado on gluten-free toast or a handful of blueberries with kefir and honey.
Whatever it is, I try to make it the healthiest meal of the day to ensure that no matter how the rest of the day goes, I’ve at least put something nutritious in my body.
8. Get Moving (15 – 20 minutes)
It is essential to get your blood flowing any way you can. Although people with limited mobility face difficulties while working out, you can make your chair a workout prop or try some tummy twist, side-bend stretches, etc.
Since I’m disabled, I don’t do any treacherous workouts. To make sure that my body is getting some movement, I use the Chi Machine every morning. I lay on it for 15 minutes. Or, if the weather is good, I will take my son on a walk around the neighborhood.
9. Take Supplements (2 minutes)
Multivitamins work best when taken early in the day, usually on an empty stomach.
I take the Simplesea Vitamins for ALS every morning, along with Vitamin D. Whether it’s through the food that you eat or vitamin gummies/capsules, I would make sure to take a women’s multivitamin. It’s also fairly convenient nowadays to have a blood test done at home. Then, based on your results, you could decide what vitamins work best for your body.
10. Take a Shower (10 – 15 minutes)
Research shows that a cold shower as part of your healthy morning routine may do more than just wake you up – the cold and warm stimuli constrict and dilate your blood vessels, which strengthens your immune system.
A study by the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine also showed that cold showers have a positive effect on people who suffer from depression: the cold sends more electrical impulses to the brain, which can help ease depression.
11. Skin Care Routine (5 minutes)
Ditch your morning makeup for a supple, clean face instead! I try not to apply makeup as much as possible and focus on a daily skincare routine. This includes an exfoliator, vitamin C serum, eye cream, moisturizer, and sunscreen.
Final Thoughts on How to Create an Easy Healthy Morning Routine (Designed for Women!)
It is essential to create a healthy morning routine that works for you and your daily goals. Devise strategies to incorporate your daily routine in what you are doing instead of adding more to your daily schedule.
I truly try to focus on every area of self-care to create an easy healthy morning practice that works for my schedule. Basically, my routine ranges from 45 minutes – 1 hour every morning. I wake up at around 5:45 AM – 6 AM, do the routine, and then wake Asher up at 7 AM.
I hope you can use these suggestions for an easy healthy morning routine and make them work for you! Did I miss anything? Tell me in the comments below!
Allie Schmidt
Allie Schmidt is a rare disease advocate and disabled mom living with motor neuron disease. She founded Disability Dame in 2020 to provide tips to other moms living with disabilities and chronic illnesses.
In her spare time, you can find her traveling with her husband (she's been to 38 states and 16 countries!), watching reruns of Survivor, or tending to her near-constant sunburn from spending too much time outside. You can follow her adventures here.