“Smile, breathe, and go slowly.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Your mornings set the tone for the rest of the day. We all know this. If you get off to a bad start, oftentimes the rest of your day follows suit.
The best way to combat this is to come up with a meaningful morning practice that acts as a buffer between getting up and starting your day, and puts you in the right headspace to go out and face the world. (Or do whatever it is you do, on a day-to-day basis.)
It gives you a space in the morning where you know you can be mindful to help you strive for mindfulness for the rest of your day, and it also kick starts your body and mind.
What is a Morning Practice?
It can be as simple or as involved as you want it to be. I like to think of mine as a set of rituals. I get up, drink some water, and then do yoga and Shiva Nata. After that, I ground, center, and then meditate for five to ten minutes.
Then I shower, get dressed, sit down at my desk, and do a daily one card tarot draw, recording it in my journal. After all of that, I can boot up the computer and write my words for the day.
It sounds awfully involved when it’s listed like that. In actuality, it only takes thirty to sixty minutes, and it has enough factors that it can be tweaked depending on how I’m feeling in the morning and how much time I have to spend on it.
You might notice that it includes not only physical activities, and not solely mental activities, either; it’s a good blend of both. It doesn’t do a lot of good to start the day mentally awake but with a stiff and sluggish body, and it doesn’t do any good to start the day with your body warmed up but your mind not.
The best way to wake up your body is through exercise. Obviously I am biased towards yoga and Shiva Nata, but you might like something else. Running is a popular option, or tai chi.
Exercise will get your blood flowing. It also makes you feel more energized and provides a rush of endorphins (basically, chemicals that make you feel awesome). Who wouldn’t want to start their day off with that?
There’s just as many options for waking up mentally. Meditation is another activity with well proven benefits, and it’s so simple that you can do it without any tools at all. If you like, though, you can listen to music without words or sounds to help you along. I like beach or water noises, personally.
I’d suggest starting out with an easily manageable chunk of time, just a few minutes, and then working your way up to ten minutes or longer. I’d also suggest meditating after exercising, so that there’s less risk of falling back asleep!
Another option is writing. I use 750words.com. It’s the digital version of the morning pages exercise from The Artist’s Way. Or you can write three pages by hand—whichever works better for you. This is especially useful for writers, because it lets us get all of the “gunk” out of our head. That way, when we sit down to write again later in the day, we have clear minds.
And of course, there’s always prayer, if that works with your personal worldviews.
Building Your Practice
If you don’t currently have a morning practice, don’t design something long and complicated when you’re starting off. I started off with five minutes of yoga. That was it. Then I went up to fifteen minutes, added a few minutes of meditation, added the daily draw and writing, and the Shiva Nata came last, very recently.
I first began six or seven months ago, so it does take time to build a balanced morning practice. But it’s so worth it to start with just one small change today. There’s nothing like starting your day off feeling fabulous, physically and mentally.
Photo by Shaun Scholtz.
About Michelle Nickolaisen
Michelle is a 22 year old blue haired Austinite, who writes about creativity and spirituality at Wicked Whimsy.
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 
I wake up really early and use both meditation and the morning pages (which to me are a form of meditation) – depending on how I feel – to start my day. It’s a wonderful practice that i would highly recommend to anyone.
I agree with the author.
I like the idea that we need to harness our internal energy and fuel our day in as much of a positive manner as possible.
What works for me is meditation and then some yogic breathing.
I have been trying to build a good morning practice. It seems that Tiny Buddha keeps reading my mind and giving me the articles that I so desperately need to read lately. I have been going for long walks as I find that walking helps my body and my mind. I like how you incorporated writing and said your write your “words for the day.” I think I may have to start doing something like that. Another thing I have been trying to do is eat a good and healthy breakfast. That may be a good thing to add. It feeds your mind and your body, too, I feel. Great article!
As you can probably guess I’m a huge fan of prayer. I like to use it in conjunction with Yoga and meditation. Without these three tools I would be a lost soul.
We need to appreciate the beginning of each day is vital to our happiness. I think what’s also important is what we put into our bodies. If we eat fresh fruit, whole grains, and drink water we are sure to set our day off to a good start.
You’re right – the morning pages really are another form of meditation, just a slightly more active one 🙂 I know a lot of people like to use their morning pages to write rough drafts of things, but I really prefer to just write whatever’s on my mind. Surprisingly, it really helps me have a clearer thought process!
Thanks, Caity! Eating a good breakfast is so important too – another way to start your day right. It seems like a lot of people really enjoy long walks for giving themselves time to think.
Good luck with your morning practice – I hope you find what works best for you!
Karl – yes, I remember reading your post on prayer! 🙂 I usually set aside some time for prayer at the end of the day and it really helps me get in the zone to get ready for bed.
Good advice on breakfast food too – I’m hypogylcemic, so I learned that the hard way. A massive blood sugar crash in the middle of the day is no fun for anyone!
Never heard of Shiva Nata until now. I see a few complicated-looking dances on youtube. Is there a simple one? I should do more Sun Salutes. At least those I know.
Thanks for your comment 🙂 It’s definitely true that when you get our day started off right, the rest of the day tends to follow suit. If nothing else because you’re in a better mood and so you react more positively to things.
The dances on youtube are the more advanced levels, if you’re interested I recommend checking out the DVD (it can be bought through Amazon). They start out a *lot* easier than that, trust me!
[…] How to Develop a Strong Morning Practice: Exercise, Meditation (tags: meditation morning routine) […]
Good to read since this reinforces my morning routine. I get up an hour earlier to build in time for my walking, yoga, and meditation. I always said if I don’t do it in the early AM before work, then life gets in the way later on and I never get to it. So my mentality is – exercise/yoga (whatever one does) needs to be part of my morning routine just like showering and getting dressed. I don’t leave home without it (having done it).
What an inspiration! Thank you!
Harriet, that’s so cool that you can get up and do it before work! I’ll admit, I work from home – even with all of the amazing benefits I get from my morning practice, I’m not 100% for sure I could get up an hour before needing to be someplace at 8 AM.
I do agree with you that mornings are definitely the best time to do anything. My thing is that I’m not allowed to open the laptop until I get my morning routine done. I’ve tried adding habits and doing them later in the day, and it just doesn’t work as well!
Thank YOU for your comment, Jodi! 🙂
[…] I found an article on developing a strong morning practice. It got me thinking about those days, about how much better I felt. I hate dragging ass going in to […]
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I gave up my car and decided to walk to work every morning. I walk through a beautiful park with a river going through it and rolling hills. It’s a wonderful reminder every morning and evening of the beauty the universe constantly provides, but I missed because I was cooped up in a car. I feel like I’m more in the “now” in the mornings.
This is truly a nice post. You have given me practical ideas on how to start my morning right.
My meaningful morning practice has been stepping onto my yoga mat or meditating. I call it “plugging into my soul” for the days guidance. It makes an incredible difference in my life. Thanks for the additional tips.
[…] months was because of guest posting. Since the beginning of November, I’ve guest posted at TinyBuddha, ThoughtWrestling, FeelGooder, ProBlogger, and […]
[…] Start your day with a PRAYER and some EXERCISE […]
I really loved this post! I’ve been trying to convince myself to stop sleeping in so late, and get back into the routine of a morning schedule once again. Because I completely agree, it really gets you in a much better place to face the rest of your day. I appreciated your suggestions and am now ready to get back into this positive practice, after your advice of beginning small. I have avoided it for so long because I’ve always made way more complicated, intense plans that seemed so overwhelming that I opted to do nothing at all. Thanks for the inspiration!
(I wanted to add, that I also used to include a couple of small cleaning tasks in my morning routine. I found this was also very positive because I wouldn’t be bogged down with a sense of dread all day about a messy house that I’d been neglecting. Get a little bit of that done in the morning, so when you return home there’s that much less you have to worry about.)
Wow thank you so much for 750words… Just the other day I was thinking I wanted to start writing again, but I did not want anyone reading it. The competition part of the points system gets me started and then my mind takes over and 15 minutes later I have 800 words. Thank you!! Also I love the tone of the article and the people who wrote comments really helped to intensify how someone could really benefit from these practices.
also after meditating ..coffee helps me get to a calm yet energized (if that makes sense) state.
I am having trouble getting up in the mornings. During the summer, I do not have this problem but in the winter, the dark cold mornings are very hard for me. I should wake by 5:30am to have enough time to get dressed and out the door. Lately, I am sleeping until 6am and I feel awful both mentally and physically. It also doesn’t matter if I go to sleep super early the night before. 🙁 Do you have any suggestions for waking up and staying up? Thank you 🙂 Nik
Coffe is credit card energy. It takes away more nergy than it gives by speeding up the adrenal glands and causing adrenal exhaustion. It also makes the body overly acidic which is an ideal environment for cancers, tumors, all diseases. Better to make a cup of herbal chai with ginger peppermint, cardamom cinnamon and cloves to pick you up
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