Stress – Morning Ritual

Transcript

When we think about creating a morning ritual for ourselves, I think there are three factors that are important to consider. The first is making it personal – knowing what really works for you. Sometimes we look at other people’s rituals and think that we want to incorporate those. But what works for each person is very different. The second is keeping the rituals flexible. This means being able to be flexible in how we incorporate them into our day, but also considering using rituals that we can take with us wherever we go. So for example, if we’re traveling, if we’re in a different location – that we can still stay consistent with our rituals if we would like to. And the third thing that I recommend is keeping them small. Really elaborate, time-consuming rituals often are difficult to maintain and practice. So thinking about just keeping the rituals really small and manageable so that we can be sustainable with them. When we think about morning rituals in particular, we want to think about what allows us to feel like we are bringing our best selves to the day – cognitively, emotionally, and physically. And we also want to think about how we can set our intentions for the day. So these are the two factors I recommend taking into consideration: so for example, for some people that might involve drinking a glass of water, eating a nutritious breakfast, and maybe doing a meditation or some journaling to help you clarify and focus on your intentions for the day. For somebody else, it might involve exercise and prayer or a spiritual practice. But really thinking about what’s going to allow me to feel my best and what’s going to help me get clear on what I want to get from this day is a great way to guide how you construct your morning ritual.