A Simple 9 Step Morning Self Care Routine for Busy Moms

A morning self-care routine is more than pampering and making yourself feel useful in the morning. 

Incorporating the morning self-care routine is going to help you to feel more energized, prepared, and ready for the day because, as moms who we need to make sure that we are ready for anything. 

You know the mornings that your infant decides to spit up all over your clothes before walking out or stepping on Legos left out from last night can put you in mommy monster mode.

Beginning your day with a routine can set you up to not be as productive and happy as you could be.

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A simple morning self-care routine

Exercise

So the first thing that you should seriously consider incorporating into your morning self-care routine is exercise. 

Morning workouts are one of the best ways to start feeling energized and ready.

It will help you to break this early morning sweat that rewards you with a lot of those feel-good hormones in the body that boost your mood and eliminates the stress. 

Also, working out and exercising in the morning can get your body going better than if you were to have a couple of cups of coffee.

It’s been found that exercising before work can help to lower your body’s cortisol levels. Cortisol is the stress hormone that is released when you get stressed. So an easy way to get that stress hormone down is by incorporating some exercise. 

Exercising in the morning will release some tension, relax your muscles, and help fight the adverse effects of stress. 

Now, if you’re wondering like, okay, how much exercise are you talking about? 

It can be as little as just like 10 minutes of doing some high-intensity workouts or even just some stretches or some yoga. 

Yoga

And speaking of yoga. Yoga is the next thing on the list to try to incorporate in your morning self-care routine. 

If you haven’t tried yoga, you want to give it a try.

Yoga is something that I’ve recently been doing a lot more. I’ve noticed a significant difference in my body and my mood. 

Valeria talked to us all about incorporating yoga for sustainable self-care in episode 25.

She also shares how yoga has so many physical and mental health benefits that you don’t want to miss out on it. 

Even if you’re just incorporating in a 15-minute routine daily, this is going to help your mind to get centered and get your body balanced and ready.

It will also give you these little jolts that will wake you up so that you have lasting energy that is way better than a shot of espresso.

Meditation

Meditation is one of the activities that many people tend to shy away from for many reasons. Some think that it is too woo woo or spiritual, but it’s really about getting your mind centered and focused.

Meditation is effortless, but it’s difficult to do because meditation requires you to be still with your body and your thoughts. 

Our minds tend to run off and many different ways throughout the day, so centering and focusing can help your brain to stay focused.

Meditation can enhance the activity in your brain that’s associated with the positive emotions and experiences and then with starting with meditation in the morning.

Practicing meditation can help you get out of that tired feeling and get you set up for a successful day. 

Also, meditation helps to release some of those feel-good hormones that will get you into a beautiful happy emotional wellbeing, and it’s an energy booster. 

Believe it or not, meditation is going to help you to set the tone for the day and give you focus. 

If you’re wondering, okay, how do I get started with meditation? 

There’s a couple of tools out there that are helpful. 

One app that I’ve found helpful is Headspace. So if you use Headspace, it will help with guiding you through meditation.

Even if you search on Youtube for guided meditation, you’ll find some videos out there that will help guide yours through mediation. All you have to do is close your eyes and listen.

I also recommend repeating mantras or affirmations while you’re sitting still with your eyes closed. 

Drink hot water with lemon juice

Now I’ve been staying clear of coffee and drinking more tea, but an even better option in the morning is hot water with lemon.

Lemons are high because they can help with flushing out some of the unwanted materials in the body, and it also encourages your liver to produce bile.

Bile is a chemical the liver makes that aids in digestion. 

So drinking lemon juice in hot water will help with digestion and give you a boost of vitamin C.

Considering that we’re coming up on the cold and flu season, the vitamin C in lemons will help with keeping your immune system up and ready.

Also, lemons have potassium in there that can help with controlling your blood pressure.

And some people have found that drinking warm water with lemon juice will help you with losing weight faster. 

So if you are like me and trying to lose a couple of pounds, try incorporating some hot water and lemon in the mornings before heading off to work.

Affirmations

Now I’m pretty sure you’ve heard the saying, you are what you think. 

This is a very true statement. Our minds can take us to places and make us feel things that aren’t necessarily true. 

So start thinking that you’re great and you will be great. Start thinking great things will happen, and great things will happen to you.

One way that you can start with changing your thoughts is through affirmations. 

Affirmations are going to help to strengthen your brain so that you genuinely start to believe that nothing is impossible.

Some affirmations that you can start to repeat in the mornings are:

I am healthy and strong today. 

I have all that I need to make this day a great day. 

I have all the information I need to solve any challenges that come up today.

I know how to make smart decisions for myself.

Money comes to me in many places. 

When you start saying these things over and over to yourself, your brain will start to believe that it’s true.

Gratitude

Gratitude is beneficial for improving your health and your mental wellbeing. 

There are so many things that you can focus on that are not right in your life.  Or not what you would like, and that can get you feeling down. 

You can get started feeling pretty depressed, but there are so many things in your life that are going well.

There are so many things that you’ve accomplished and so many things to be grateful for. 

So start the morning by setting your mind on thinking about all the things that you’re grateful for.  

Review the to-do list

I highly recommend you make your to-do this in the evening before going to bed. 

This allows you to release all of the things that you should do so that you can sleep better.

You just want to review the list in the morning so that you have a mental note of what you need to get accomplished for the day. 

Prep dinner

Now, if you have a few minutes, you want to just take a little bit of time in prepping dinner. 

And I’m not saying going and chopping up vegetables and putting it in a pan and start getting things ready. 

I’m talking about getting whatever’s in the freezer that you need to be thawed out for the evening.

For instance, my husband wants to eat steak tonight, so I’m going to take the steak out of the freezer and put it in the refrigerator and make sure that I have the spices he likes for the steak.

If you are missing any ingredients, make a quick list so that you can pick those things up on the way home.

Don’t rush

You want to make sure that you are not rushing. 

When you are rushing, you are putting a lot of pressure on yourself and you are actually making yourself more likely to make mistakes and to have to redo the things that you’re rushing through. 

When you’re rushing to get things done the only thing that you’re really thinking about is you.

You want to take the focus off of you because there are so many people and other things that you effect when you’re moving around really fast. 

So take time to just slow down and to really be present and think about what you’re doing instead of rushing.

Don’t touch your phone

Don’t touch your phone first thing in the morning. It’s a trap!

Now, the designers of these cell phones are geniuses. 

They have made them in a way that you actually get addicted to your phone and have to come back and keep using it.

Checking your phone first thing in the morning is going to do a couple of things. 

One, you’re going to see all these notifications on your phone and you’re immediately going to start thinking about all the things that you missed yesterday.

You will start to feel like you’re taking care of yesterday’s to-do list instead of focusing on today. 

If you wake up and mindlessly start scrolling through Instagram or Facebook, you can find that 20 minutes have past and now you’re late.

Or you start comparing yourself to whoever you’re looking at on social media. 

So let’s start our morning off on a positive note and touch your phone in the last step of the morning self-care routine.

Moisturize your skin and brush your teeth

You may have heard that the skin biggest organ that you have. 

So you want to take care of that. 

Keeping your skin moisturized is going to help keep your skin being a good barrier against the infections that are out there.

Also, moisturizing your skin keeps those wrinkles away and keeps that skin looking nice and young. 

And lastly, because I’m a dentist, I have to put this out there, make sure you’re brushing your teeth.

Brushing your teeth will help to remove the plaque that causes cavities and freshen your breath.

It would be nice if you brush AND floss. But brush your teeth before you leave in the morning. 

There are nine steps to incorporate in your morning self-care routine with a few bonuses. What step do you think you can start incorporating now?

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Key takeaways

• Morning exercise can wake you better than a cup of coffee.
• Yoga has many health and mental benefits, even if you do 10 minutes a day.
• You are what you think. Think good things with affirmations.
• Stop rushing and slow down.
• Do not look at your phone first thing in the morning.

Links mentioned in this episode

• Episode 37 with Naomi – This is why self-care is a necessity
• Episode 43 with Kimberly – 4 cups for self-care
• Episode 25 with Valeria – Yoga for sustainable self-care
• Headspace for mediation
• Mommy affirmations
• Guided meditation on YouTube
• Mommy affirmations