The Best Morning Routine to Prevent Anxiety

It seems like everywhere I turn lately, someone is talking about morning routines. After listening to one high performer after the next talk about theirs, I decided to put together one for myself — it can’t hurt right? Now that I’ve gotten into the habit of starting my morning with intention, I’m never looking back!

The concept of a morning routine is pretty basic. You want to ease into your day with low-stress, dopamine-dripping* activities BEFORE you expose yourself to anything that spikes your cortisol*. This puts you in an optimistic, calm mindset for the entire day, and I swear it makes a huge difference in eliminating anxiety, stress and even irritability. When I start my day with this morning routine, I’m way less likely to let an email ruin my day, or find myself running to the wine store at 5pm. *You will find my notes on dopamine & cortisol at the end of this blog post.

Pro tip: If you decide to implement a morning routine, do tasks in the same order each time. Habit stacking means adding a new habit to one you have already mastered, and it’s a great way to form new, positive habits! For example, if you scrape your tongue first thing after going pee in the morning, it will become a habit you do on autopilot, and no longer have remember.

1. Do not check your phone until you’ve completed the routine

I repeat.. DO NOT CHECK YOUR PHONE! This includes social media, texts, or emails, anything on your phone, iPad or computer.. until AFTER you’ve completed your morning routine. If you check your phone first, you’ve already inevitably spiked your cortisol and screwed up the whole process. In fact, whenever possible, I turn my phone off overnight, leave it in the living room, and don’t power it back up until after the routine has been completed.

2. Make your bed

“If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.” — Admiral McRaven

I believe this to be true… plus I just feel like a much more organized and put-together person when my bed is made. Try it for a week and see if you agree :)

3. Scrape your tongue

Tongue-scraping is an ancient Ayurvedic yoga practice that I think most people are totally missing out on! Recommended widely by dentists to maintain oral hygiene, tongue scraping removes toxins, bad breath, and tastelessness in the oral cavity.

Buy this 3-pack of tongue scrapers on Amazon and keep it next to your toothbrush as a reminder. I scrape my tongue right after making the bed, but before taking a sip of water.. because I don’t want to swallow all the nasty white gunk that has built up on my tongue overnight. It’s honestly pretty gross and feels amazing to scrape it off.

4. Drink hot lemon water - before coffee

I took this tip from Holly Whitaker’s book Quit Like a Woman.

Some people argue that too much citrus is bad for our teeth, so if that’s your stance, just drink a tall glass of water.

Our bodies are understandably dehydrated when we first wake up, so it’s important to hydrate with water BEFORE we start drinking coffee.

But why hot lemon water? Some people argue that it…

• Boosts the digestive system

• A single squeeze of lemon is jam-packed with potassium, vitamin B and C, calcium, magnesium, antioxidants and iron

• There are claims that it assists in weight loss

• Encourages natural cleansing

• Tastes better than plain old water

• Aromatic and therapeutic

I love these seedless lemons from Amazon Fresh.. because seriously who has time for fucking seeds!

5. Mushroom Coffee with Lion’s Mane

I had to stop drinking coffee all together in my mid-twenties because all of a sudden one day it started making me feel really anxious and jittery. It totally sucked because caffeine is awesome, plus I love the taste of coffee.

But then I found this wonderful “mushroom coffee” by Four Sigmatic — which gives you 50mg of caffeine plus Lion’s Mane, with ZERO ANXIETY or JITTERS. I seriously have no idea how it works but it’s amazing.

As far as taste goes.. I’m not a coffee connoisseur, but I think it tastes great.. it does not taste like mushrooms whatsoever, I pinky promise!

6. Read something uplifting or inspiring for 10 minutes

This one is pretty straight forward. The point is simply to read something positive to set the tone and create optimistic energy for the day.. and to drip some dopamine to your brain before exposing it to any potential spikes in cortisol.

My favorite of all time is You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. My coach Karolina loves The Success Principles by Jack Canfield.

7. Meditate for 5 to 10 minutes

Meditation is personal, so do whatever works for you. If you’ve never meditated and want to get into it, I highly recommend Aura (iphone app), Calm.com or Headspace.com. I love guided meditations.. and find them easier than trying to just sit there in silence with no thoughts.

The point of a quick morning meditation is to relax, ground yourself, breathe, and again, drip some natural healthy dopamine to your brain.

8. Move your body for 5 to 10 minutes

I added this one because it helps wake me up. I’m not talking about a crazy workout — if that’s your thing then good for you, but I only workout in the late afternoon or early evening. You just want to move, get your blood flowing and muscles warmed up for 5 or 10 minutes. For me it’s walking my dog.

A quick walk is great, or you could try some light stretching or yoga.

9. Write a one-page plan for your day

This might be my favorite part of my morning routine. So much in fact, that I decided to design a super cute printable worksheet and share it with you!

[DOWNLOAD COMING SOON]

10. Skincare routine

My morning skincare routine takes me two minutes. I splash water on my face, then it’s serum, moisturizer, SPF. Want to know what products I use? Click here to shop my favorites on Amazon.

That’s it! If you enjoyed this post, you’ll love my emails. Subscribe below to have updates delivered to your inbox.

Rooting for you always,
Gretchen

🧠 EXTRA CREDIT: Understanding Dopamine & Cortisol

“Dopamine-dripping” is a term I picked up from Dr. Amen’s book Your Brain is Always Listening, which I recommend if you want to gain a better understanding of how the human brain works. According to WebMD, “Dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter. Your body makes it, and your nervous system uses it to send messages between nerve cells. Dopamine plays a role in how we feel pleasure. It's a big part of our unique human ability to think and plan.”

Dopamine is complicated though, because it’s also what teaches our brain to repeat a behavior — even if the behavior isn’t necessarily that pleasurable once we’re doing it. (I picked that up from Atomic Habits by James Clear—which I also recommend!)

Dr. Amen explains that some activities spike your dopamine— these are typically unhealthy substances or activities, which are highly habit-forming and even addicting. Examples of dopamine-spikers are alcohol, nicotine, cocaine, video games, social media, porn, sugary desserts and junk food, to name a few. Over time, your brain learns to crave this dopamine spike, even if the consequences are totally screwing up your life. You can see how this can become a problem.

Meanwhile, healthy activities give you a slow drip of dopamine. This basically means that they make you feel good, AND teach your brain to repeat the behavior… but you don’t get a huge rush or “high,” like you do from the dopamine-spikers. This is obviously what we want! Examples of dopamine-drippers are.. working out/runner’s high, being in nature, giving a friend a hug, holding your partner’s hand, eating antioxidant-rich foods like blueberries, playing a musical instrument, and my favorite… learning something new (…like reading this blog post now!)

I also mentioned Cortisol in the intro. Cortisol is the body’s main stress hormone. It’s necessary for a bunch of reasons, but when it’s spiked, you feel stressed out, anxious and like shit. Too much cortisol also visibly AGES you. Yuck!

Here’s an article from WebMD to help you understand Cortisol better.. and why we want to avoid it like the plague first thing in the morning!

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