A 5-Minute Morning Routine to Start Your Day Off Right

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive; to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love ~ Marcus Aurelius.

Are you one of the millions of people who just roll out of bed in the morning?

You wake up with no sense of direction or purpose. You scarcely have time to shower and brush your teeth before attending to the first scheduled item in your day. And you find yourself constantly feeling tired, cranky, and stressed.

And it’s not like you haven’t heard about the power of having a good morning routine. Maybe you’ve heard that many high performers and successful people swear by it. Maybe you’ve heard that in order for a morning routine to be effective, you have to wake up at 4 or 5 a.m. and have 60 minutes or more to spare every day. Maybe you’re thinking “I’m just not a morning person.”

The truth? You don’t have to be wealthy, have lots of time, or be a morning person to develop an effective morning routine. All you need is the desire to experience something different and a few minutes a day.

Essential elements of a good morning routine

I first became interested in morning routines after reading a powerful book called The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. My interest was piqued not just by the book but also by my own personal struggles at the time.

With toddlers in the house, I often got woken up by them earlier than I wanted. I would inevitably wake up cranky and stay that way for most of the day. I wanted to be more in control of my emotions. My singular goal to achieving that was training myself to wake up before the kids did.

So over the years, I started setting my alarm clock earlier and earlier until I was waking up at 5 a.m. That gave me an hour or more to spare to experiment with various practices including prayer, meditation, reading, writing, and exercise.

But I haven’t always been “successful” with my practice. On days I could wake up and give a full hour to my practice, I felt like I was ready for anything. On days when I didn’t I felt like an complete failure. I felt this way even after reading in Elrod’s book that I could have an effective morning routine that only took 6 minutes a day to complete.

It took a little more experimenting to realize the benefits of very short morning routines. After examining and studying the morning routines of various notable figures, I’ve identified some key elements that are common to almost all of them. The aha for me was realizing that each of these elements can be effectively done in minutes, even seconds.

1. Wake up intentionally

The exhortation to “wake up” is present in many of our spiritual traditions and is one of the most important aspects of spirituality. The sad truth is that so many of us sleepwalk through our days and lives. And even if you’re a person who sets an alarm clock by necessity, you may find yourself hitting the snooze button and going right back to sleep or dragging yourself out of bed without allowing your brain to fully wake up.

Elrod’s book introduced to me the idea of making an intention to have a good night’s rest and wake up feeling refreshed, no matter what time you go to bed. Of course, the earlier you go to bed, the better the chance you’ll have a good night’s sleep. But even on days when I go to bed later than I would like, when I say to myself, “I will wake up at 5:30 a.m. feeling rested and refreshed” as crazy as it sounds, it often works.

2. Breathe

Breath is life.

But so many of us take breathing for granted that we engage in shallow breathing rather than the deep breathing our bodies need to thrive.

One of the things I love about visiting Leo Babuta’s site, Zen Habits, is the ever present reminder to breathe. Deep breathing can help calm you and allow you to manage stress better. If you tend to wake up feeling anxious or stressed, a simple and quick breathing exercise is all you need to melt the stress away and start your day off right.

Here’s a simple belly breathing exercise taken from the University of Michigan website:

Belly breathing
Belly breathing is easy to do and very relaxing. Try this basic exercise anytime you need to relax or relieve stress.

• Sit or lie flat in a comfortable position.
• Put one hand on your belly just below your ribs and the other hand on your chest.
• Take a deep breath in through your nose, and let your belly push your hand out. Your chest should not move.
• Breathe out through pursed lips as if you were whistling. Feel the hand on your belly go in, and use it to push all the air out.
• Do this breathing 3 to 10 times. Take your time with each breath.
• Notice how you feel at the end of the exercise.

3. Hydrate

Simply put, too many of us aren’t drinking enough water.

We drink soda, coffee, tea, flavored drinks. Anything but water. But the body needs water almost as badly as it needs air to function and thrive. Drinking a nice big glass of water upon waking up will not only flush out toxins from your system but will also boost your immune system.

4. Move your body

As the body goes, so does the mind.

If you want to have a mind that moves in the morning, you must move your body. If you don’t have time for a morning run or walk, you can do simple stretches that can be done in as little as 30 seconds. Here’s an example from the site shape.com:

Plank
Wakes up the entire body, engages the abdominals, upper body, and lower body all at once.

• From standing, bend the knees and walk your hands forward into a palm plank position, making sure that shoulders are directly over wrists and hips don’t drop as you create one long line from head to heels. Knees can come down to modify, if necessary. Hold for 30 seconds.

5. Connect with your spirit

Every good morning routine incorporates some kind of spiritual practice.

Options include prayer, spiritual reading, listening to music, affirmations or goal setting, a gratitude practice, journaling, or silence. Whatever you decide to do, your spiritual practice will allow you to connect with something larger than yourself.

This element is absolutely crucial on days when we don’t feel like getting up. As a popular quote says “When your why is big enough, you will find your how.”

Putting it all together: A sample 5 minute morning routine plan

If you wake up feeling lethargic everyday and want to try something different to feel more energetic and alive in a short period of time, here’s a sample 5 minute plan you can try out:

Night before:

1. Set your alarm 5-10 minutes earlier than usual (30 seconds).
2. Make an intention to wake up at the time you set feeling energized using the simple script, “I will wake up at X a.m. feeling refreshed and ready to face my day.” Take a few deep breaths before and after setting your intention (30 seconds).

Morning:

1. Right after waking up, take a few deep and intentional breaths using the above exercise (30 seconds- 1 minute).
2. Drink tall glass of water. I usually keep a 24 ounce water bottle by my bedside each night and reach for it soon after waking up (15 seconds).
3. Do spiritual practice of choice (1-2 minutes).
4. Do wake up body moves (1-2 minutes).

Start your day off right

As you can see, starting your day off right doesn’t require huge chunks of your time.

You can start small and experiment as you go along. Soon you’ll find yourself feeling better, healthier, more productive, even kinder than before, all because you made a little tweak to your day.

So no more excuses for why you can’t benefit from doing a morning routine. What have you got to lose? Only about 5 minutes by my calculation.