Not That Kind of Morning Routine Blog

The number of blogs and articles available online about morning routines is staggering. “How a Proper Morning Routine Can Change Your Life,” “My Morning Routine for Positivity, Gratitude, and Energy,” or “21 Steps for a Productive Day”: all promise a sense of purpose, a sense of peace, happiness, creativity, and better skin. They convince you that the only thing standing between you and your best life is a morning ritual—you just need to figure out which wellness guru got it right.

This is not one of those blogs.

CHANNELING WINSTON CHURCHILL

Part of the confusion around what makes mornings successful and the science surrounding it is that people invoke the science that routines are beneficial, but then extrapolate that to every kind of morning activity one can think of. “Routines enhance productivity, so you should exercise every morning like Bill Gates,” can be found right next to, “Routines give us a sense of control, so you should do an oil pull every morning like Gwyneth Paltrow.”

In case you’re not familiar, oil pulling is a 3,000-year-old tradition that Gwyneth swears by in which you swish coconut oil around your mouth for 20 minutes to help with bacteria, tooth decay, and bad breath. Do you know what else prevents tooth decay and only takes two minutes? Brushing your teeth. Do you know what people weren’t known for 3,000 years ago? Oral health. Or living past the age of 35.

Even the scientific articles point to the rich and famous of the world as proof that morning routines and rituals should be established. A 2021 research report in Personnel Psychology mentions that Jennifer Aniston, Beethoven, and Winston Churchill all began (or still begin) their day with a morning routine. Are you familiar with Churchill’s routine? He woke up around 7:30, but usually stayed in bed for hours. He would eat breakfast, read newspapers, and dictate to his secretaries from his bed. Depending on which sources you believe, he may have also started drinking at breakfast.

Is that the kind of morning routine we’re supposed to be emulating? Because honestly, that’s one I could easily get on board with.

Husband: Why are you eating in bed?
Me: It’s part of my new morning routine.
Husband: Who are you talking to?
Me: I’m dictating to my secretaries.
Husband: You don’t have secretaries.
Me: I will not have you dissuade me from my morning routine!
Husband: Oh my god, what is that smell?
Me: Whiskey and soda.

Okay, oil pulling and morning cocktails aside, what can we glean from the science on morning rituals and their benefits?

WAIT, THAT’S A ROUTINE?

In the Personnel Psychology article mentioned above, I was surprised by their claim that 82% of people adhered to a morning routine. I started thinking that maybe I was the only person not doing morning meditation and a 20-minute skincare regimen. But when I started poking around the research, the most common parts of these routines included activities like checking your phone, taking a shower, or drinking coffee. We’ve been led to believe that our morning routines need to be elaborate and include ancient rituals, but what research is calling a “morning routine” is what most of us just call having a morning.

Something is a routine when you do it all the time. It’s different than a habit, which is based on some sort of cue. Routines don’t require conscious effort and thought. We get out of bed in the morning and brush our teeth without even thinking about it. How can something we don’t even think about be important? It turns out it’s exactly because we don’t think about it that makes it important.

Routines are helpful to us because they preserve our mental energy. We don’t have to think about them, and so we can save our energy for other goals we have for the day such as tasks at work. It sounds overly simplistic but consider your typical morning. For me, it looks like get up, brush teeth, shower, get kids ready for school, take kids to school, come home, go for a walk outside, make coffee, and start work.

If there is a disruption to my morning routine (e.g., a child is home sick, it’s raining, I’m out of coffee) it impacts the entire day. Maybe not in a huge way, but I am putting more thought into what I’m doing. Do I need to take my child to the doctor? Can I squeeze in a walk in the afternoon when it’s not raining? Should I run out and get coffee?

The research published in Personnel Psychology found that morning routine disruption led to increased cognitive depletion and decreased calmness, both of which lowered work engagement and work goal progress.

YOUR ROUTINE DOESN’T MATTER—IT JUST NEEDS TO BE ROUTINE

So, what is the magic morning routine? There isn’t one. It’s different for everyone. The magic part is that it’s a routine, but what makes up the routine can be anything. If you feel good after working out, make that part of your routine. If you like a warm drink before anyone else is up, make that your thing (although your cortisol levels are naturally high upon awakening, so maybe choose herbal tea and save the caffeine for around 90 minutes later when levels start to dip). If you enjoy swishing coconut oil around in your mouth, don’t let me stop you.

Too much of the information out there on routines focuses on activities that are hard to do or hard to sustain, which is counterproductive to making it into a routine. The more important parts of our routines are often the more mundane. We learned this the hard way from some of the mental health issues that cropped up during the pandemic. Obviously, there were numerous difficult factors people faced, but much of what caused individuals to become unmoored was that they no longer had to perform their most basic daily activities (like putting on pants). Losing these primary routines having to do with sleeping, eating, and hygiene put people at a greater risk for poor mental health. A Journal of Global Health article stressed that it was these primary routines that needed to be prioritized because, “these behaviors restore a sense of normalcy, controllability, and predictability.”

Are you still looking for that magic bullet to make your mornings more productive? Research published in Nature Communications in 2022 shed some light on what can make you more alert in the mornings. There are three ancient traditions that have a direct link to morning alertness—sleep, exercise, and breakfast. Wait until Gwyneth hears about this.

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