It’s likely that when you were deep in the darkness of your addiction that the first thing you thought of or did when you woke up in the morning was get high, get drunk, or – at the very least – immediately begin thinking about when and how you could obtain your drug of choice and get it inside your body! Thankfully, now that you are in recovery, that’s not the case anymore. You probably now understand that the way you start each morning can have a huge impact on your day – good or bad. Back when you were a substance abuser, satisfying your cravings right off the bat may have felt like a good thing, but you now know it was really the worst thing for you. As someone in recovery, you have become familiar with the concept of “one day at a time,” which can easily translate as “one minute at a time” or “one second at a time” and you now know that every moment of every day counts. If you start out your day on a positive note rather than a negative one, you are already on the right path to a happy and healthy remainder of the day. Developing a healthy and positive morning routine can help you start your day in an upbeat way that will stay with you and that will help keep you on the straight and narrow clear until bedtime.
Creating a Positive Morning Routine
Since its really easy to wake up in the morning and just lie in bed, or play with your phone, or turn on the television, it’s good to develop a plan for your mornings to ensure that you will immediately start the day off on the right foot. There are many bloggers out there who promote creating a morning routine to follow so that you will accomplish a great deal even before most of your friends and loved ones have had breakfast. This can be very helpful for you and can inspire you to make the most of every day, since you will have accomplished so much before your day hardly even really begins. This routine will vary based on the individual, of course, but what follows are some suggestions for building a routine that suits you best. Pick and choose what works for you, set an order of operations (and don’t be afraid to juggle and readjust if it doesn’t flow quite right at first), and make a commitment to yourself. Soon your morning routine will be a habit, and you’ll begin to ask yourself how you ever survived without it!
Potential Components of a Morning Routine
What a morning routine looks like may vary from person to person, but many highly successful people include some or all of the following in their own morning routine. Choose what works for you, and forget the rest.
- Meditation, Prayer, or Silence – Starting your day with a few moments of silence is a great way to focus on what’s important to you. Whether you pray, meditate, or simply take a minute or two to breathe deep and look out the window, beginning with silence for personal balance can be a great first step.
- Gratitude – We all have so much for which we are thankful, but sometimes it’s easy to forget. Every morning, list at least three or five things you appreciate in your life and you will soon realize how much they really matter to you. If you are in recovery, the first thing you should consider is your continued sobriety – recalling the importance of it to you each morning, and perhaps even saying your number of days clean aloud – helps reaffirm your dedication to your new life, every day.
- Exercise – Everyone can benefit from a bit of movement in the morning! Your body has been at rest for many hours and remember, an object at rest will stay at rest. Spend a few minutes stretching, doing some yoga, walking, or even going for a run on the treadmill or outside. Starting the day in an active way is great for both the body and mind.
- Journaling – The morning is a great time to write. Journaling can help you in your recovery by giving you the opportunity to write about your feelings and experiences for yourself. You can observe yourself privately and without any judgment. Also, you can work through your struggles and celebrate your victories – and have a record of these things to look back upon down the road.
- Reading – No one has ever said they should read less! However, reading is a habit that often goes by the wayside for many of us unless we make a concerted effort to do it. Why not read first thing in the morning, then, and get it out of the way? It’s amazing how much reading you can get done in just a few minutes. Perhaps you would benefit from reading motivational or religious texts at this point in the day, or, just choose some fiction or non, and enjoy.
- Affirmations – Choosing some positive statements to recite each morning can really turn your day – and your life – around. Many people believe that affirmations can help turn your goals into reality, and it makes sense; if you say something you want as if it is already a fact, then soon, it will become a fact.
- Visualization – As with affirmations, visualizations can be very powerful! Take a few moments in the morning to picture your ideal life, or even to simply imagine what reaching a personal goal will look like. In doing so, you will be more driven to strive for those goals and reach them!
- Drink Water – After sleeping for many hours, your body needs water! Drinking a glass of room temperature water (with lemon, if you like) can be a great way to get your metabolism going and get your body awake and moving.
- Make Your Bed – For notorious non-bed-makers, this suggestion may seem silly, but try it for a little while and you will find that making your bed each morning is actually quite wonderful. If your bed is made, you aren’t tempted to climb back in, your room looks nice, and you will have a nicely made bed to enter at the end of the day.
- Eat a Healthy Breakfast – Many people skip breakfast, but that doesn’t mean you should. After all, it’s the most important meal of the day! Starting your day with a belly full of healthy food can make or break your entire morning. Even if you just eat a piece of fruit, eating breakfast is an important part of any morning routine.
- Set Goals for the Day – Setting a few goals for the day will give your day some direction, and will help you organize what you need to accomplish. Don’t make your list too long, though – experts suggest three as the most effective number for success.
- Review Your Long Term Goals – Hopefully, you have developed some long-term goals along the way, and have them written down somewhere. Reviewing them each morning will help remind you of your plans and will remind you to work towards them each and every day.
How to Get in the Morning Routine Habit
Although it’s often quite difficult to begin a new habit, it’s certainly not impossible. You certainly shouldn’t try to take on every habit on this list at once, though. Starting small is key. Choose one or two things you would like to incorporate into your life and begin. After a few weeks of consistency with those, add another habit, and add another a few weeks after that. Continue on from there, and soon you will have a complete and thorough morning routine to help support your recovery. Keep a record of your successes in a notebook or on a calendar and soon you won’t want to break your streak – and you will just keep going, and going, and going, onward and upward, too!
A morning routine can change your life. You will be amazed at how accomplished you feel even before you have stepped outside or begun work for the day. Creating a morning routine using habits such as these will transform you and help to make you stronger and even more dedicated to your recovery than you are already.
At Transcend Clinic, we want to get you started on a positive and healthy path. Our ibogaine detox can help you interrupt your addiction and assist you in discovering and working through its root cause. Our intake specialists are standing by to answer your questions about our methods and the ways that we can help you!