John KIRAGU
- Dec 22, 2022
- 4 min read

Simple morning routines for a better holiday season

"Daily morning routines have the power to prevent holiday meltdowns caused by a lack of daily routines, over excitement, and diverging expectations."

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These routines are critical when the holidays are in full swing and families and friends are looking forward to spending time together. They enhance your confidence, boost your energy, lower your stress level, increase your productivity, and prepare you for the day ahead. Routines such as roaming in the garden, practicing yoga, jogging, and spending time with friends and family during the holiday season bring more peace of mind to your life.

Waking up early and setting up a morning routine can better your holidays and improve your professional and personal relationships all through the festive season. To have a better morning routine, it is essential to prioritize and set things in proper order. Here are some simple routines that will facilitate your holiday season.

Clear your head

Clearing your head in the morning facilitates self-awareness and can help control stress and anxiety during the holiday season. Practicing deep breathing and yoga helps to improve mental concentration, strengthen the immune system, boost the body's energy, and restore balance to the stress response system during the festive season. The mind and breath are mirror images of each other.

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Incorporating breathing activities in your morning routine can help you clear your head and boost both your emotional and physical states. When you feel groggy and out of sorts, especially when you wake up during the holiday season, consider taking about six to 10 deep breaths in a minute, as it can help you feel energized, refreshed, and relaxed. Here are simple steps for a breathing exercise that will help you clear your mind:

Lie on your back with your head supported and your knees bent.
Place one hand below the rib cage while the other is on the chest to feel the diaphragm moving as you breathe.
As your abdomen rises, take a deep breath to fill your lungs.
Hold your breath while contracting your stomach muscles, then exhale gently through pursed lips.
Draw all of the air from the bottom of your lungs, pulling your belly button towards your spine.
Take about six to ten breaths per minute.

Take a minute to hydrate

Hydrating during the holidays helps in boosting your mental performance, promoting digestion, curbing hunger pangs, assisting in weight maintenance, and increasing your energy by combating dehydration symptoms such as being sluggish and feeling drained.

During the holidays, drinking some water in the morning helps to flush toxins from the body and boost your metabolism. It also limits the symptoms of heartburn and reduces stomach acidity.

If you consider adding lemon to water as a detoxifying agent with numerous benefits such as digestive health and immune system boosting. Hydration is essential during the holiday season as it is a great way to prepare your mind for what comes next and help to clear your mind.

Practice about 2-3 minutes of stretches to wake up your body

Morning stretches help your muscles function efficiently and make your body feel better after sleeping. Incorporating simple stretches in your morning routine boosts overall body flexibility, facilitates your circulation, and manages joint stiffness and tightness. Morning stretches enhance your overall body flexibility as well as facilitate your circulation. You can incorporate simple lower-back stretches, shoulder stretches, and neck-mobility stretches to better your holiday and improve your start to the day.

Choose to eat a healthy breakfast

A healthy breakfast during the holiday season is vital for fueling the body throughout the day. Incorporating a healthy morning diet packed with proteins can enhance healthy weight balance, boost your metabolism, reduce belly fat, and make you feel full for a long time. Eating healthy foods such as grain toast, eggs, and avocados facilitates mental health as they are packed with fiber, proteins, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamin D.

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Get some sunlight by going outside

Natural light in the morning helps boost the circadian rhythm that facilitates numerous vital body functions such as digestion, the sleep-wake cycle, and hormone release. Vitamin D from sunlight boosts mental health, maintaining a healthy weight, rejuvenating aging eyes, fighting fatigue, and enhancing feel-good hormones in the body, which make you feel energetic and fresh all through the day. Insufficient sunlight at the appropriate time de-synchronizes your circadian rhythm, which is linked to altered metabolism and can cause weight gain during the holiday season. Consider getting enough bright light between 8 a.m. and noon.

Exercise

Morning exercise routines enhance focus, energy, and optimism in the morning. Exercise helps to control blood sugar, increases your overall activity, supports weight loss, increases your alertness, manages blood pressure, and improves your mood. Morning exercise reduces fatigue and increases energy during the holidays by allowing nutrients and oxygen to travel more efficiently to the lungs and heart.

You can incorporate simple exercises in the morning routine, such as Yoga, which is an important exercise in the morning, can improve your posture, muscle tone, and balance. It is also beneficial to the body-mind-soul connection, which promotes an emotional and physical lift for the holiday. Yoga in the morning raises your motivational spirit, gives a feeling of tranquility, and provides a full-body stretch.

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Walking helps you refresh and sweat, which enhances blood flow in the body, reduces hypertension, and limits the risks of heart disease. Consider walking as part of your morning routine for about 30 minutes, which lowers the risk of heart disease by about 35%. It also improves endurance, builds your overall stamina, and facilitates cardiovascular health. You will feel more energized and healthier throughout the day if you incorporate morning exercise into your routine.

Morning routines during the holiday season can be stressful and busy and even affect our joy. Staying hydrated, clearing your mind, eating healthy, practicing stretches, and getting out into the sunlight are some of the simple morning routines that significantly improve your holiday. They also boost and brighten your moods, facilitate healthy well-being, reduce anxiety, enhance your productivity level, and make you feel energetic and better during the holiday season.