Transform Your Morning Routine to be a Productive and Happy Mom

Some days it feels like I’m on a never-ending Merry-Go-Round. Do you ever feel this way?

It’s a cycle of important but also mundane tasks. Working, picking up clothes, cleaning counters, scrubbing toilets, sweeping floors, wiping butts and noses (hopefully at separate times), running kids to activities, helping with homework, cooking dinner, spending time with your spouse and squeezing whatever time is left to exercise and read all take up an ENTIRE day.

There are some nights when my head finally crashes into the pillow, I ask myself, “What did I even do today?” Or I feel completely and utterly drained. I have nothing left to give.

I fall asleep and jump back on the Merry-Go-Round the next morning emptier than the day before. 

Transform Your Morning Routine to be a Productive and Happy Mom

Being a mom is a tough job. We are constantly needed. 

I have found that if I feel productive and find a little time for myself, I’m so much happier and in turn, I am able to be a nice mom and wife. Instead of feeling like I’m on a never-ending ride, I am on an exhilarating roller coaster that fills me with joy. When it’s finished, I can get off and am recharged enough for the next ride. 

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How to Be a More Productive and Happy Mom

I can’t ever remember being able to wake up in the morning.

In high school, I would get ready in just enough time to throw clothes on, put my hair in a pony and head out the door. Then in college, I worked hard not to schedule any early classes. What has always bothered me though is that I WANTED to be a morning person.

The birds chirping, cool crisp morning air, and a refreshed brain enticed me.

My kids are late sleepers so I never needed to wake early. Recently, I decided I would pull up my big girl pants and go for it! Even though it’s been a struggle, the more I do it, the happier I’ve become. Spending time with God, journaling, savoring my surroundings, and preparing for the day, I have all the mental tools I need.

The way we start our day often predicts the quality of our day and quality of life. It all starts with a good morning routine. 

Kids desire routines too! Check this post out: Routines for Kids: Why They Work & How to Create Your Own

Tips on How To Become a Morning Person

How do we become a morning person if we aren’t already? Isn’t this the million-dollar question?

Genetics determines what biologists and psychologists call chronotype. The definition is “a person’s natural inclination with regard to the times of day when they prefer to sleep or when they are most alert or energetic.” 

According to Dr. Michael Breus, a psychologist, sleep specialist and author of “The Power of When“, there are four different chronotypes: 

• Dolphin – Light sleepers
• Lion – Early risers who wake with a lot of energy
• Bear – Sleepers whose internal clocks track the rise and fall of the sun
• Wolf – Night owls who have a hard time waking up early and are the most energetic at night

Half of the population are Bears like me, with the remaining filling into the remaining three categories. My husband is a wolf making morning very difficult for him to wake up.

For all chronotypes except Lions, retraining our natural wake-up clock is possible but takes time, practice and consistency. The trifecta of so many things in life, right? 

Retrain Your Sleep Schedule

There are six tips to help retrain your natural sleep-wake cycle. These come from Dr. W. Christopher Winter, spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (source). 

1. Figure out a good morning schedule, but don’t worry too much about bedtime. | When you focus so much on what time to go to bed at night, it causes you to become stressed making it hard to fall asleep. However, if you are waking early, you will eventually get tired and not be able to stay up as late. Focus on getting out of bed when you say you will. This has definitely been the case for me as I used to consistently go to bed at midnight but can barely make it to 10:00 pm most nights. 
2. Stay consistent seven days a week. | Try to keep the same schedule every day because if you don’t, your chronotype will take charge. It will tell your body that the early schedule is temporary starting the hard-to-wake cycle again. 
3. Use an alarm that makes you think. | A regular snooze alarm doesn’t allow your body to wake enough to really wake up. Instead, pick an app like Alarmy There are also alarm clocks specifically for sound sleepers. Or what I do is put my phone across the room so I have to get up out of bed to turn it off. I have contemplated doing jump squats to the alarm so I don’t get back in bed and fall back to sleep. Ha!
4. Light up your room! | Open your curtains to allow natural light to come in or if it’s winter, use artificial light. When my husband was in high school, he put a floodlight on a timer so it would blast him with light first thing in the morning. Light signals to the brain to stop making melatonin which is the hormone that helps you sleep. 
5. Move your body! | Exercising first thing in the morning helps wake the body. Exercise has so many benefits from sleep to energy levels and it attributes to good mental health. 
6. Eat a high protein breakfast. | We focus on having a high protein diet in our home because we found how it positively affects our kids’ moods and energy levels. Also according to Winter, “Protein facilitates wakefulness while carbs promote sleep.” So save those donuts for later in the day (or maybe not at all, wink wink). 

Read More: How to Take Care of MYSELF so I Can Give More to My Family

Start Habit Stacking Your Mornings 

Simply meaning doing a set of habits in sequential order the same way every day, habit stacking makes the sequence itself a new habit. Once you do this enough, it takes less motivation and energy to implement behaviors. 

Habit Stacking is created with this statement:

“After I {do something} I will {do the next thing}.

If I have a morning routine established, it’s easier to wake up. Having a plan is imperative or I wake up wasting time and thinking I should be sleeping instead. 

Morning Routine Ideas

There are many different habits you can start doing in the morning that will make you feel fulfilled and in turn, be more productive during the day. All of the steps contribute to self-care and soul care. I say this all the time, but we can’t give to others if we aren’t taking care of ourselves first. 

In order to have a kind of morning that energizes me, I need to do it before my kids wake up. Thankfully, our boys all sleep in making a distraction-free morning fairly easy to do.

If you have early risers, try to find ways to keep them in their rooms longer, give them their own morning routine to do that doesn’t require your help or if you can swing it, wake even earlier than them. 

Here are ideas of what you can do for your morning routine. They can be put in any order.

Read

The very first thing I do when I wake (before my kids) is to grab my current bible study book, Bible and head out to the back porch. Fresh air helps me wake up. I’m the opposite of a homebody so anytime I can be outside of my house, the better I feel. A perfect spot for you may be in your breakfast nook or on living room couch. 

Starting the day with God’s Word fills my soul. What I have been learning from my study is that I need to delight in the Lord first so I can be filled with joy for everyone else in my life.

Pray/Meditate

I take this time to pray which includes affirming God, thanking him for my life, praying for specific things and people and asking for forgiveness.

This time can also be spent doing Transcendental Meditation or guided meditation practice. Try to pick something where you can calm your mind, sit in silence and focus on the plans for your life. 

These Calm Down strategies for kids can help you get to a state of peace as well!

Gratefulness Practice

The next thing I do is write down all the things I’m thankful for and because of my faith, I thank God for those things.

If this is new to you and it’s a challenge to come up with what you’re grateful for, start with this: Write down something in your past, present and something that’s coming up in the future. Or look around your house. I’m sure there are at least five things that can help you instantly find gratitude.

Research has proven that gratitude improves physical and psychological health, builds relationships, helps with empathy and decreases aggression, attributes to better sleep, self-esteem and mental strength. 

In addition to stating what I’m grateful for, I also look around my backyard and savor the sounds, sights, and smells. 

Journal

Writing is very therapeutic for me. I write down my prayers, thoughts, and friends who may be going through something hard or a family member or friend I want to make sure I connect with that day. 

I do all of this in my Day Planner because it has plenty of space. I also want to get a plain leather journal like this to really write out everything floating around my mind.

Take this time to journal your thoughts or brain dump whatever is going on in your life. It doesn’t have to be more than a few sentences. 

Plan the Day

After writing down thoughts and prayers, I go straight to my schedule and to-do list for the day. On Sundays, I plan the week so I know what activities we will be doing, when I will be working, what appointments we have and what I’m cooking for dinner each night. 

During this time, take one to two minutes to write down your to-do list, figure out what is a priority, what you can delegate to others and what items can be saved for the next day. You can even set times to everything if this helps you stay on task. Use a paper or digital planner or to-do list such as Trello, Day Planner, etc.

Move Your Body

Lastly, I get my body moving. On the days I am unable to exercise, my whole family can feel it!

Find an exercise class you go to early in the morning, do an online workout video or yoga practice. Do what you like. YouTube is a GREAT place to find short exercise videos. You can even do 50 jumping jacks or jog around your backyard or block. The goal is to get your heart rate up.

According to SHAPE Magazine, exercising early has many benefits. Some of the benefits are:

• Unhealthy food will seem less appealing
• You will have more energy all day long
• You will burn more fat and calories
• Blood pressure will decrease
• Muscle is gained more efficiently
• It is easier to get good quality sleep

Make Over Your Mornings

Check out this course by Crystal Paine to really jump start your brand spanking new, morning routine!

Miracle Morning

Recently, I came across The Miracle Morning for Parents and Families by Hal Elrod and Mike and Lindsey McCarthy (the family version of Elrod’s Miracle Morning). This book implements a lot of what I was already doing. You follow a six-step routine using the acronym SAVERS which stands for Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading and Scribing. 

Prepare the Night Before

A few other things you can do is to prepare the night before. Lay your clothes out, pack the diaper bag, bookbags or your own purse/bag, take a shower, and have everything you need ready to go!

Whether or not you pop out of bed doing squat jumps or slowly crawl out with your eyes still half-closed, if your morning spot is ready, motivation will be easily available. 

Get Started Tomorrow!

The first day is always the hardest when starting something new. When you first implement a morning routine, begin with only a few habits or condense the habits into two-minute increments. Knock it out in ten minutes or less in the first week. 

Eventually, get up earlier and earlier. As your body gets used to waking up, find a good time where you have one solid hour to work on self-improvement.

You can also give yourself a goal of one month and cut that in half.

Two weeks! Try having a productive morning for two weeks then add two more weeks. Once you get to a month, it becomes a habit that your brain will crave daily. 

Do YOU have a Morning Routine?

Tell me, do you have a morning routine? Or if you start implementing these habits, is it changing your day? I sure hope so! Tell me about it below!