What drove me to finally create my own slow morning routine? Well, as mentioned in previous posts, last year was a year in flux, personal and professional changes, a year where I felt pretty much at war with myself from beginning to end,  my mental health was at a low and I lost belief in my ideas and my ability to get things done. The overwhelm was real, guys. On the surface of it, things were great, we renovated and finally moved into our Clockhouse, I was cast in another major film production, I worked with some incredible brands but all the while certain things were getting on top of me and this feeling of anxiety and unease persisted.

Everything suffered until I finally came to realise that my daily habits needed to change to reflect the person I really wanted to be, I talked about it more in THIS POST.

As it turns out, whilst we’re never fully in control of our circumstances, there are parts of our day that we can mould and shape as we like, better yet – once we realise which parts of our lives are within our control and which are not, the happier we will be.

I mean, how much time do we spend mulling over something that has happened or something that went wrong? The emotions feel as fresh as they did the moment it happened and yet there is literally nothing to be gained by reliving that time. Anyone with anxiety will know that feeling all too well and whilst it’s hard to say that those anxious and intrusive thoughts can be banished altogether, it’s my personal experience that taking back control of certain elements of your life can change everything for the better.

Simply put, saying yes to more of what you want (and need) makes it easier to say no to the things that you don’t.

Which is where my new and improved slow morning routine comes in, I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now and it’s made a huge difference, I find it sets me up perfectly for the day…

MY SLOW MORNING ROUTINE

WAKE UP

7:30 Every day without fail my slow morning routine starts with me waking up, brushing my teeth and drinking a pint of water. I fill my glass the night before and it’s a brilliant example of a good habit so ingrained that I don’t even think about it any more. In fact, it’s so ingrained in my routine that if I get in bed one night forgetting the water, something feels off and I have to get out of bed, go back downstairs and grab some water so that it’s by my bed ready for the morning.

If only all of our healthy habits felt like that, hey!! Well, the truth is, they can – the simple and effective (but often hard) trick is to simply repeat them until you no longer have to think about it. As soon as you take the decision away, it just becomes something you do.

JOURNAL

I make a cup of tea or coffee (Or, Dan makes me a cup of tea or coffee – he’s the best!) and then sit down ready to meditate and journal through The Daily Stoic (HERE) ‘366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance and the art of living’. I literally read the page to myself, sometimes a couple of times and then I fill a page in my journal with whatever comes to mind. Sometimes it’s relevant to what I’ve read, other days it seems totally random.

MOVE

I pick a podcast, throw on some clothes and I head outside and walk for the duration of the podcast, generally between 30 minutes to an hour. This Christmas Dan and I treated ourselves to a treadmill and whilst it felt a bit frivolous when we bought it, it’s made sticking to this habit so much easier and I feel infinitely better for it. Combined with a dog walk later on in the day and whatever training sessions I throw in throughout the week this feels about right for me to combat all the sitting that I do.

CLEAN UP

Shower and get dressed in real clothes. This is a biggie for me. As a freelancer, if you’re working from home it’s so easy to wake up, plonk yourself down at your desk in your pj’s, slurp some coffee, tap away at your laptop and then boom… it’s 2 pm.

I don’t often wear makeup but you can bet that my skin gets some TLC every single day.

I will also take a few drops of CBD oil at the beginning of each day, I’ve been taking it for about a year now and swear by it!

TIDY

The last part of my slow morning routine is a 10 minute tidy. Simple and as it sounds, we set 10 minutes on the clock and tidy up and clean as much as we can in those 10 minutes. It stops it being a mammoth job every weekend and it also stops me from going bananas trying to work in mess and chaos.

As mentioned above, I don’t always complete everything on this list in this order, first thing in the morning but I know that the more I do tick off, the better I’ll feel and after the last year of feeling not so great, it really is a priority for me now.

IF YOU CREATE YOUR OWN SLOW MORNING ROUTINE (OR ANY KIND OF MORNING ROUTINE) I’D LOVE TO HEAR HOW YOU GET ON?

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