DON’T DO This Mornings, or Else YOUR Day Will Be Ruined!

Your morning can sabotage the rest of the day. As with any long haul, a good start makes the difference between winning and losing. This golden rule also applies to getting up in the morning and the period of time that immediately follows. Most of the time, we just focus on being quick and getting the necessary done in a short and painless manner. Certain days, many of us often don't even know how we ended up at our desks. While for many people all that’s required for a successful morning is two identical socks finding their way to their feet on time, the truly successful celebrate their start to the day quite differently. A first step in the right direction would certainly be to simply omit the following eleven deadly sins of getting up in the future. 

1. Skipping the morning shower or showering too hot.

The cleansing power of water isn’t just hygienic: A shower in the morning helps make things easier on our fellow human beings who have to squeeze onto the train, bus or subway with us, as well as our work colleagues who have to spend the day alongside us. However, a rather cool shower in the morning has a decisive advantage to offer: We wake up faster, both in body and mind.

2. Opening the office at the breakfast table.

It speaks well of us that we can't wait to get to work. If you check your email or voicemail at the breakfast table, you may be on the verge of becoming employee of the month. However, by doing so, we’re calling on our mind to run before it has learned to walk properly in the morning. In other words, we overtax and stress ourselves mentally in this way. Apart from the fact that your home should be a place of rest and relaxation, let things take their natural course in an orderly fashion. There's room at the breakfast table for breakfast and maybe some inspirational morning reading, but no other distractions.

3. What do I wear?

This question should not arise at all in the morning. If you're smart and want to save yourself a lot of unnecessary stress, put together your entire outfit, including jewelry, shoes and handbag, the day before. You can win yourself at least 15 minutes of valuable time by jumping into pre-selected clothes this way. This is time you could use wisely elsewhere, for example by treating yourself to a second cup of coffee, taking a breath of fresh air and reading a few pages of a good book.

4. Getting a last-minute start.

We can do almost nothing worse to our bodies and psyches than stress. This has a direct effect on our cardiovascular system, jetting our pulse and blood pressure to unimaginable heights and allowing adrenaline to shoot through our veins unchecked. If you leave the house every morning as if a herd of wild buffalo were after you, don't be surprised if at some point physical symptoms catch up with you. There is a very simple, free and proven remedy against stress in the morning: get up an hour earlier. Racing around once and a while won't be immediately hazardous to your health, but anyone who goes through this madness every morning will eventually become ill and unhappy.

5. Paying too little attention to the body.

It may have just had some hours of pleasurable rest, but getting up in the morning is still a real challenge for our bodies every day. It might take a few minutes before all systems have been successfully rebooted. However, we can help our organism a little with a few simple tricks. The first action should be to drink two large glasses of water. We dehydrate overnight and this should be compensated in the morning. Also, ten minutes of stretching or a yoga session would be the ideal starting conditions for our body. Getting up at least half an hour for this is recommended, so that we can leave the house fit and rested, ready for anything that comes.

6. Not leaving time for good thoughts.

If you take a few minutes every morning to get a positive mindset going, you'll benefit from it throughout the rest of the day. Negativity, on the other hand, is a real motivation killer, jeopardizing the success of an entire day first thing in the morning. Try to imagine what you have to look forward to that day. There is always a reason to leave the house with a smile on your lips, you just have to look for it.

7. Hitting the snooze button.

Whoever invented it didn't mean well for humanity. The ringing of the alarm clock in the morning is a clear signal to get up. Our body understands this non-verbal imperative to act and is theoretically ready to get up. If you then go into sleep-overtime and press the snooze button, you’re discombobulating all your senses. The mind immediately goes back to sleep, our body doesn't quite know what to do, but of course dutifully follows the control center in the brain. Just as the sleep mode begins to set in again, the alarm clock rings again. Total confusion is thus the first item on the agenda. Needless to say, a good start to the day looks different.

8. Not eating breakfast or eating an unhealthy breakfast.

Turns out the do-gooders who have been trying to sell us breakfast as the most important meal of the day since childhood are right. Our bodies need fuel to get going. That's actually logical; after all, our car doesn't run on an empty tank either. Then, of course, there is the thorny question of what constitutes a healthy breakfast. Since for many people nutrition is now like a religious question of worldview, everyone is free to find the answer for themselves. In any case, skipping breakfast is not an option.

9. Cleaning up what was left over from the day before.

You don't make the morning better by cleaning up after yesterday. The first hours of the day really shouldn't be wasted on that. Better to close the door and ignore it. No one is likely to take your mess away from you; it will still be waiting for you when you get home.

10. Checking social media.

We all do it and we should just let it go: Looking at your smartphone and checking all your social media channels has a similar effect on our brains as checking email. Stress and the feeling of having missed out on something already are not good companions at the breakfast table.

11. Skipping making the bed.

Sounds trite, but it's not. A made bed in the morning not only affects our productivity for the rest of the day, studies have shown that people who make the bed as part of their morning routine are more relaxed, organized, and overall harmonious throughout the day.

Today’s Conclusion

Trade up for morning glory. Sleep in sufficient quantity and quality is vital. But just trying to squeeze in another half hour of sleep at the detriment of your morning routine is not a healthy long-term alternative. The first one or two hours after getting up make the difference between success and failure. That "good morning" is not an empty phrase, but should become our daily mantra for a perfect start to the day.