Upgrade Your Morning Routine with These 7 Science-Backed Habits

Leverage your success with a powerful morning routine.

Morning routines are one of the most powerful tools at our disposal for leveraging our success.

Whether you want to make more money, become fitter, or simply be a better human being, your morning routine will set the trajectory for your entire day, ultimately determining whether or not you experience success. It is therefore crucial to include practices in your morning routine that will set you on course for a successful day.

Here are 7 science-backed ways to upgrade your morning routine.

1. Oil Pull

Oil pulling has benefits for so many aspects of your health.

Oil pulling is an Ayurvedic practice of swishing oil around in your mouth. It not only benefits your oral health — in the form of reduced plaque and a reduction in bacteria, but also has benefits for reducing systemic inflammation. Oil pulling is beneficial over other types of oral care such as mouth wash because it is able to remove fat-soluble toxins which dissolve from your mouth into the oil.

Oil pulling needs to be done first thing in the morning, before ingesting any food or liquids. Put about a tablespoon of high-quality oil in your mouth (I use coconut oil) and swish it around for 10–20 minutes. I also like to add a few drops of peppermint oil to make this practice even more refreshing.

2. Hydrate

Hydration is crucial for optimal functioning of our bodies and minds, and is the number one practice I recommend people including in their morning routines.

After your oil pulling, drink at least a tall glass of water, but aim for more if you can tolerate it.

This practice will help get your day started in a healthy way; there are so many benefits to drinking water in the morning. Without water, our minds will be fuzzy, our bodies won’t be optimized, and the processes in our body won’t be working at their full capacity.

“Waking up your body with coffee is like setting off a fire alarm as an alarm clock. When you’re dehydrated and have nothing in your stomach, the caffeine enters your bloodstream incredibly fast, releasing a flood of stress hormones from your adrenal glands that your body reads as a fight or flight trigger.” — Aubrey Marcus

3. Light

Light is the strongest Zeitgeber — an external cue that tells our bodies what time of day it is.

Getting bright light exposure as soon as possible after waking is a powerful way to reset your circadian rhythm, and subsequently optimize your health. You will set yourself up for a better sleep the following night, and will also experience benefits through the day.

“When you wake up, bright light is detected through the eyes blue light sensor, melanopsin, and when that happens, melanopsin tells the brain to stop producing the sleep hormone melatonin and start increasing production of the stress hormone cortisol, which will help you begin to feel alert and ready to start the day. Bright light in the morning also synchronizes your brain clock to the daytime so that your circadian rhythm and learning and memory will begin to rise and you’ll reach optimal productivity a few hours later.” — Dr. Satchin Panda

If the sun is up, get outside, or at a very minimum open your curtains and sit near the window. If the sun isn’t up yet, turn on some bright lights or purchase a daylight lamp. Another way to increase your light exposure in the morning is to not wear sunglasses on the way to work, if you can do so safely. Aim for an absolute minimum of 10 minutes.

4. Movement

Movement is another powerful Zeitgeber, letting your body know that it’s time to be awake.

Getting your body moving first thing is therefore a great way to wake up the body and mind. Movement gets your blood flowing and causes you to take deep breaths.

“A sedentary life causes you to breathe only shallowly, and this strains the heart and starves the brain… You think you are fatigued or bored at the end of a day of sitting, but it’s really more than that. Your brain is starved of oxygen, and so are the tissues in your body.” — Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar, Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life

Morning movement also has the following benefits:

Increases cognitive abilities as effectively as a cup of coffee
Increases metabolism
Improves sleep quality
Releases happy hormones such as endorphins, leading to increased feelings of happiness

5. Coffee

Coffee is one of the healthiest foods in existence.

It’s full of antioxidants and other powerful compounds such as polyphenols and cafestol and kahweol, making it a potent tool for improved health. Coffee has also been shown to have the following benefits:

About 1–2 hours after waking, have a cup of coffee. We want to avoid coffee within that first hour of waking, due to our natural spike in cortisol — our stress hormone. When we compound our natural cortisol spikes with a cup of coffee, it can dramatically increase our stress response, and can also cause our bodies to be immune to the impact of the caffeine. In the long term, this increases our caffeine tolerance, meaning we’ll need more and more in order to get a buzz.

6. Meditation

Meditation is an incredible practice to include in your morning routine.

I believe everyone should have some sort of meditation practice. We don’t all have to meditate in the same way, and a lot of us probably don’t even need to sit down to a formal meditation practice. However, having some sort of practice in your day where you can be still, introspective, and build this incredibly important skill is something that would be valuable to every single person.

Furthermore, there are countless studies that have shown the benefits of having a meditation practice. Here are some of the notable ones:

You can develop a regular meditation practice by following these 4 steps:

Start small: Aim for 5 minutes, or even just one minute if you think that’s all you can commit to. The idea is to commit to a length of time you can do consistently — ideally every single day.
Decide on a time of day to practice: Deciding on a time and doing your meditation at the same time each day makes it much more likely you’ll do it consistently.
Commit to this practice: While each session of meditation does produce benefits on its own, the real magic of meditation comes from consistent practice, and compounds over time.
Utilize supports: There are so many ways to support your practice. One of the most accessible supports is a meditation app. While using an app may not seem like “traditional” meditation, it can be incredibly helpful, especially when you’re starting out.

7. Grounding

The practice of grounding has so many benefits for your health.

Grounding is the practice of touching the earth with your bare skin — ideally, your bare feet on the grass. This allows for the transfer of ions between your body and the earth, leading to benefits such as reduced inflammation, better quality sleep, and a reduction in cortisol.

Furthermore, being outside is in itself good for our health. This can be explained by the Biophilia Hypothesis:

“According to the biophilia hypothesis (i.e., humanity’s innate tendency to connect with nature), humans largely relied on natural resources for survival and reproduction in human history, leading humans to evolve a tendency to prefer being close to nature through an emotional connection.” — nature.com

Being too removed from nature can have a detrimental impact on our wellbeing. Chris Kresser further explains,

“Contact with nature is an integral part of our well-being as humans…. Our relationship with nature is a vital component of our wellbeing, and one often neglected due to the concerns of modern life. In order to more fully address our health and wellness as humans, we must consider the biological appropriateness of our environment to be just as important as that of our diet and exercise choices.”

The morning sets the tone for your entire day.

And fortunately, upgrading your morning routine isn’t difficult. Start strong with practices that will leverage your success. Simply including some or all of these practices will get each of your days started on the right foot, subsequently leading to a day lived well.

Upgrade your morning routine and see how your life changes.

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