4 Mindful Habits to Help Calm Stormy Mornings

Bonus, they take less than 5 minutes to do each

In your world, the calm before the storm is gently blinking open the eyes and taking a breath when you wake up.

Then the storm hits.

It’s dark. The sun’s not fully up and there’s already a whirlwind happening. Your 2 year old body slams you awake. It becomes noisy and full of action, lightening quick.

Your eyes are still half closed as you’re packing lunches, rushing around changing out of pyjamas, brushing teeth for young and old. Your oldest is doing his homework since we forgot last night. Yelling “bags packed and shoes on” for the fifth time. The routine should be down pat but with little boys with minds of their own you just feel like a maniac stress-head.

Sound a little too familiar?

Me too.

It was my normal for 2 years. I felt like I was running on high speed before my thoughts could catch up. When they did, my main thought — I had to calm the stormy mornings rather than let the storm rain on me.

Storm busting habits

I never used to have a morning routine. I still don’t. At least not in the way others may think about it.

• Like getting up at 5am and doing exercise and fitting chores in before the whirlwind happens.
• Like skipping rope and burpees at home and meal prepping lunches for the week.
• Like writing for 30 minutes first thing in the morning to kick start a creative flow.

I loved the idea of having a morning routine and tried these all but none really seemed to stick.

Trying to save time but they weren’t really time savers for me.

I realised none truly stuck because I was working on my physical habits rather than creating mental habits. I wasn’t solving for the real problem.

When I realised that I made the switch.

I started doing little experiments with tiny mindful habits to see which ones would stick.

2 years later, I have a stack of tiny habits in the morning and each take less than 5 minutes to complete to help me feel grounded and ready.

You may stack 2 or all of these tiny habits together like I do each morning. Or you can just pick one and try it on for a week and note how it feels before and after the week.

1. Blink & breathe (2 mins)

Practice this regularly morning and night and you’ll love it for the calm that will sweep over you.

This is about focus on the breath the moment you blink open your eyes. Sit upright while you’re still in bed and the sheets are still warm and cosy.

1. When you’re ready, inhale in and slowly count to 4. The entire breath in, starts at 1 and continues until you get to 4.
2. Gently hold your breath in for the count of 4.
3. When you breathe out, slowly count to 4. The entire breath out, starts at 1 and continues until you get to 4.
4. Gently hold your breath out for the count of 4.

Feel your breath enter through your nose, notice how your chest and belly moves as you breathe in and out.

Do this for 4 breaths.

2. Twists in bed (2 mins)

Gently open up through the hips and side body with these movements in bed:

1. Lying on your back, bring your knees to your chest and hug them real close in to get a gentle stretch through the shoulders and the back. Take 5 deep breaths.
2. Release and straighten the left leg onto the bed. Take your right knee across your body and rest it back down beside you so you’re in a twist. Take 5 deep breaths.
3. Release from the twist and repeat on the other side. Take 5 deep breaths.
4. Release from the twist and bring both knees towards the armpits and the bottoms of your feet are to the ceiling.
5. Take hold of ankles or the outside of the foot and come into Happy Baby pose. Elbows stay inside the knees. Draw shoulders down. Take 5 deep breaths.

3. Affirmation Meditation (5 mins)

Science has shown that speaking positively about ourselves aloud can actually change our brains.

Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist has helped prove that the brain can be trained to respond to emotions in a constructive way. This leads us to affirmations.

An affirmation is a statement that is spoken aloud; and when repeated over and over helps release feel good hormones and pushes our brains to form new clusters of “positive thought” neurons.

Start with choosing an affirmation from the list below.

• I bring happiness to others by being myself
• I am worthy of great things
• I am surrounded by love
• I make my optimism come true
• I believe that the whole world is on my side, so long as I am true to who I am
• I am so strong that nothing can disturb my peace of mind
• The sunrise fills me with energy
• I move through my day with grace and love
• All I ever wanted to be is who I am becoming
• Falling down is part of life, getting back up is living

Discover more affirmations for gratitude, abundance and sleep in the article “52 Highly Charged Affirmations to Use in 2020”

Once you’ve chosen your affirmation, repeat it 20 times slowly with focus and attention. Visualise each word in your mind. When repeating your affirmations say them with command and conviction. It can be either out loud or silently to yourself.

Bonus: Write it down 20 times in your journal.

4. Write Stuff (5 mins)

You can choose to write down your affirmation 20 times or simply write down the first thoughts that come to mind. If you’re feeling uninspired, you can also find a writing prompt to uncover what’s true to you.

Here’s a handful of journal prompts to get started:

• What 3 things could you give up that would give you more time, energy and peace?
• What 3 things are you looking forward to the most today?
• What kind of person do you want to be when you’re with others?
• What does your perfect day look like? Be specific.
• Make a list of people who genuinely support you and who you can trust.

Bonus: After a week take a look back at what you’ve written. Is there a pattern, a reoccurring thought?

I liken writing in a journal to a conversation with my intuition — and it’s become incredibly therapeutic.

Key takeaways

You love the idea of having a morning routine but not one that requires you to do burpees at 5am in the morning. You want to start your mornings with calmness and purpose.

As soon as I wake up I start my day with:

• Blink & Breathe (2 mins) a breathing exercise to help focus my thoughts,
• Twists in bed (2 mins) to gently open up my body,
• Positive affirmation meditation (5 mins) to kick start the release of feel good hormones,
• Write stuff (5 mins) to tune into your own wisdom.

For me, these 4 mindful habits seem to stick. Probably because each takes less than 5 minutes to do.

They help me tune down the noise in my mind and gently open through the body to feel R E A D Y for the day.

Stormy mornings? We’re ready for you.

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Originally published at https://www.sevensundaysyoga.com on January 28, 2020.