8 Reasons Why You Need a Morning Routine

Many successful people swear by having a morning routine, and it’s for a reason. Getting into the habit of a morning routine offers many benefits, no matter what time you get up or what your daily schedule looks like. Whether you’re trying to meditate more often or use a facial cleanser every day, establishing a morning routine can help you check things off your to-do list and reach your goals. If you’re not convinced that you need a morning routine, here are eight benefits that you will realize from creating one:

It will get your day started off right.

Getting your morning started on a positive note often sets the tone for the rest of your day, while a rough morning often results in a crummy afternoon and evening as well. By setting a positive, productive routine that you do every single morning, you will ensure that your day gets off to a good start more often than not. This doesn’t mean that every day will go perfectly, but it does mean that you at least begin on a positive note rather than a negative one.

It will result in less stress for you.

Mornings are already a chaotic time for most people and many people experience stress and anxiety during this time. You are probably on a schedule, rushing to get to work or school on time before your caffeine has even fully kicked in. Trying to make choices about what to do and in what order only adds to the stress and requires you to make decisions before your brain is fully awake. By establishing a strong morning routine, you can go through the early hours partially on autopilot, and you won’t have to consciously think about everything you need to get done, reducing your stress.

It will cut down on wasted time.

When you don’t have a routine, it’s easy to waste a lot of time by dithering over what to do next (or even hitting the snooze button multiple times). But once you have a routine, you’ll get in the habit of going from one task to another, quickly accomplishing them without hesitation. If you can shift some tasks to your morning routine, you will also free up precious evening hours after you get home from work. This means that you can spend your nights relaxing instead of trying to take care of everything that you didn’t get done in the morning.

It will give your day structure.

Most people don’t do so well with large blocks of unstructured time, especially when they occur on a daily basis. Creating a morning routine (and a nighttime routine to go along with it) bookends your day and gives you a sense of structure and stability. Even if the middle of every day is different, having those two routines will give your day structure and create a sense of familiarity that will make you feel grounded no matter what else is going on in your life.

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It will reinforce healthy habits.

If you include healthy habits in your morning routine, then doing your routine will reinforce those habits. If you have healthy habits that you’ve been trying to build, such as flossing your teeth or applying an anti-aging moisturizer every day, including them in your morning routine is a great way to “train” yourself to do them on a regular basis. Once you get acclimated to your routine, you won’t even have to think about making these healthy habits on most days. Instead, you’ll just do them without having to consciously remind yourself of them.

It will boost your energy levels.

Hitting the snooze button multiple times and then stumbling around your house in a bleary haze is not exactly a recipe for feeling alert in the morning. Establishing a solid morning routine — and making a commitment to getting up when your alarm goes off — will take an adjustment period, but once you get used to getting up at the same time each day, you’ll feel more energized in the morning than you did before. We’re not saying that it will be enough to skip the morning caffeine (though it might be!), but you will feel a change in your energy levels for the better over time.

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It will help with goal-setting skills.

While most people think of goal-setting and creating habits or routines as separate skills, they are actually related. When you think about it, routines are kind of like goals that you accomplish without consciously having to think about them. Creating a routine is also a great exercise in goal-setting because you have to decide what to include in your routine (making coffee, doing a 3-step skincare routine, steaming your clothes, etc.) and then you do it every single day. This generates a big sense of accomplishment that will carry over into the rest of your day.

It will boost your confidence.

Speaking of a sense of accomplishment, creating and executing a morning routine will give your self-confidence a boost, even though you might be doing the routine for this benefit. Part of this comes from the goal-setting aspect of it — getting so many things done first thing in the morning will definitely give your self-esteem a boost. The self-care aspect also contributes to confidence because you know that you are taking care of yourself and doing what you need to present your best self to the world (whatever that looks like to you!).

We want to know what your morning routines look like. What tasks do you do every single morning without fail? Are there activities you used to include in your morning routine that you eventually got rid of? How often do you change up your morning routine once you’ve gotten into the habit? Let us know in the comments below!