Alex Bloom, Psy.D.

Whether we’re talking about celebrities or Fortune 500 stars, the most successful people have morning routines. But you don’t have to have fame and fortune to start using these simple habits. Morning routines have been shown to lower our stress levels, increase our productivity, and even can make us happier people. Our habits can make us or break us. So here are some ideas that help us rise to the next level…and the best part is they don’t have to require a lot of time!

Move

Help your body and brain wake up and warm up. If there’s one routine that we need the most yet ironically do the least it’s exercise. It’s instrumental to our mental and physical health and releases the “feel good juices” in your brain (endorphins, dopamine, serotonin).

And the best part? There are so many different ways to do this! You don’t need to head to the gym to gain the benefits.

Before you get out of bed, practice some deep belly breathing or yoga stretches. Do a few minutes of high intensity interval training (HIIT), which has been shown to have similar benefits as the hour long workouts. Doing a set of jumping jacks, push ups, sit ups, or jogging in place for 30 seconds then resting for 15 seconds before moving on to the next exercise.

Meditate

It is well known that Oprah is a big proponent of meditation and starts out her day doing so. Take 5 minutes with your morning coffee and just sit outside watching the birds before tackling your laundry list of ‘to do’s.’ Or adopt a mindset of curiosity when you’re eating breakfast. What do you notice in terms of the aromas, tastes, textures of your meal?

Meditation helps us improve our focus, better manage depression and anxiety, can help us lose weight, and even helps improve the quality of our relationships.

Connect

As humans we are wired to connect with others. Be intentional about connecting with a loved one in the morning. Tell them you love them and mean it. Look into their eyes or take an extra 3 seconds when you hug your kids goodbye before they run out to the bus. Call a friend or say hi to your neighbors when going on your morning stroll. If you live alone, turn on the TV and do your best to intentionally engage with the morning show. Really listen to what they’re saying and allow yourself to laugh when something funny is said, call in when asked by the host or hop on social media to share your thoughts.

The more intentional we are about connecting with others the happier we become, our immune system improves, and even leads to longer lifespans!

Start strong

Research shows that willpower and self control are highest first thing in the morning. What that means is, therefore, to prioritize and tackle our most difficult tasks first

Barack Obama & Mark Zuckerberg basically wear the same thing every day because they’re familiar with the concept of ‘decision fatigue.’ Knowing you have one less decision to make if you wear a blue or grey suit or a gray t-shirt frees up your willpower points to focus on bigger priorities.

Build momentum by starting the night before

In short, plan ahead! Get your ingredients ready for your smoothie so it’s all ready to go. Think about what tasks and priorities tomorrow will require and write them down. Do you have someone you need to contact on the list? Put their phone number or email next to their name so you won’t have to spend time digging. Place your papers, purse and keys all in one location by the door.

Doing these tasks ahead of time helps us stay more focus and accomplish more. We’re being a friend to the future version of ourselves. Just think: “My good morning starts the night before.”

Mother’s Day can be a great reason to reconnect with that special person who helped usher us into the world. Yet, for so many, trying to bond with their mothers can seem more like a chore or obstacle. So what do you do if Mom is a difficult person? Or, for that matter, aunt, grandmother, or any other family member!

Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, is a powerful, well-researched, form of therapy and can shed some light on how to manage this tricky situation. So if you send your mother a Mother’s Day present and it’s not well received, how do you manage that in an effective way?

So, when mom starts nagging or sending those slight digs:

• Mindfulness: Tuning into the present moment in a non-judgy way. Stop and check-in with yourself. Do you feel your jaw tightening? Your thoughts racing to scramble on the defense? What’s happening with your breath?
• Distress Tolerance: Short term coping skills when our emotions intensify. Pause and take a conscious breath before responding to her. Practice cheerleading statements (e.g., “Just because mom is difficult to love doesn’t mean I’m unlovable”), or do something kind to yourself after your conversation ends (e.g., going for a walk, calling a friend).
• Emotion Regulation: Understanding your emotional responses and increasing positive emotions. This one requires more longer-term investment. What is a typical phone call with Mom like? When she starts into me, how do I typically react? What thoughts and feelings come up? How can I more consciously choose to sidestep this repetitive script to move from reacting to responding – being more conscious and intentional.
• Interpersonal Effectiveness: leveling up our communication skills and how we “people”. There are essentially three aspects to communication: What do I want to get out of this interaction (the objective), how can I as be tactful and diplomatic as I know how to be (the relationship), and regardless of how the other responds, how do I want to feel about myself and how I handled things once the exchange is over (self-respect).

How to Tame Your Nervous System:

When our stress levels go up, we feel that in our bodies because the “alarm” from our nervous system is going off. In order to reset the switch, we have to get in touch with our 5 senses. Therefore, thinking ahead and putting together a “self-soothe kit” or “comfort box” can do wonders for chilling our bodies out. 

In short, you’re wanting to find items that you can put in this emotional ‘first aid kit’ that are soothing and relaxing. Thinking about the senses: touch…vision…smell…taste…and hearing. 

As you put your kit together, make two: one for home and another for on the go (purse, work, car). I refer to the portable one a ‘stealth-soothe kit’ as there is no need then to feel embarrassed since no one will notice. These are more practical than we think!

Some suggestions for home:

• Take a warm bath
• View family pictures on your phone from that last fun trip you took or your fantasy vacation. Bonus points if you can print them out and actually put them in a photo album
• Chew gum or savor a piece of your favorite candy
• Create a chill-out playlist or a YouTube channel full of the funniest videos you come across.
• Spray some cologne or perfume that helps you recall a fond memory
• Schedule a massage or float
• Have a notecard for reminders: walk the dog, call a trusted friend to vent, write down your favorite easy recipe

On the go:

• Have a grounding rock/worry stone
• Put some essential oils on your wrists or temples
• Rub the palm of your hands with your thumb
• Plug in some headphones and zone out to a meditation app, look up some cute puppies on Pinterest, or watch that recording of your baby laughing

And if you have kids, create one this weekend for both yourself and them. And remember, it’s a simple two step process:

1. Recognize what we’re feeling
2. Utilize some of your self-soothing items to catch that ‘ahhh, that’s nice’ feeling. This is called the relaxation response and it’s activating your parasympathetic nervous system, or the brake.

This process then becomes not only an important “therapy skill” but a crucial life skill! No one should leave grade school without knowing how to do this and having kits at our fingertips.

We can also use these items as prevention! When our bodies are chronically stressed they become a depository for that stress. Over time we start to break down, a process called ‘allostatic load.’ By shutting off the alarm (taking our foot off the gas pedal) and pressing on the brake we tell our bodies we’re not in a life-threatening situation and can relax.

I’ll leave you with one last thought:

If we owned a Ferrari but never took it in for maintenance, it would underperform…to say the least)

Our bodies are extremely resilient, wondrous machines too. But we have to know how to know both use them and how to maintain them to live optimally.

Now I’d like to hear from you. Leave some comments below of what you put in your kits!

Spring is almost here so it’s time to dust those cobwebs and open the windows to let the fresh air circulate. While we do this with our homes, how many of us incorporate the same principle for our minds? Here are four surefire ways to reboot for the new season:

1) Carve out quiet time: Just like with exercise, if we don’t take time to be intentional about this it’s unlikely to happen. It’s easy to go without silence from the time we wake up to the time our head hits the pillow. Yet there are some easy ways we can incorporate quiet time: while we’re driving to work, lunch breaks, weekends. Meditate, hike, or take a few moments before bed to reflect on your day. This is more important than we realize. Research has shown that silence lowers our stress levels, frees up our ‘inner RAM’ so we’re able to problem solve more effectively, and might even lead to new brain cells being generated!

2) Nix the negative: It’s so easy to focus on what’s going wrong, whether it be with ourselves, with our circumstances, or with the world. Take an inventory of the negative influences in your life whether it be the 24-hour news circuit you’re connected to, what you choose to read, or who you spend time with. Challenge yourself to cut back on the negative – and here’s the key – replace that space with the positive. Post uplifting comments on social media, be intentional with how much time you spend with Negative Nelly’s or reconnect with an old friend, and watch funny or inspirational movies or TV shows.

3) Let go of loneliness: Did you know that the number of Americans who report no close friends have literally tripled in the last 30 years? And as we age, we generally have fewer friends and spend more time alone. With the holidays behind us and warmer weather ahead, now is the time to set an intention for reaching out. While letting go of loneliness is much easier said than done, it starts a commitment. Reconnect with someone you haven’t seen in a while, like that old friend you haven’t contacted in months. Or take a risk to try something new. Ask your coworkers to do a social event over the weekend (like a hike), join Meetup.com and search for local activities, or sign up for a class.

4) Challenge your chatter: Researchers have been peeling back the layers of our mind and what they’re finding is startling. For example, we generally have 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day…and 80% of them are negative. And did you know that only about 5-10% are new and not recycled from before? The most important point here is that not every thought we think is true, so it’s a critical life skill that we 1) grow in how active we are paying attention to our thinking, and 2) level up our ability to lovingly challenge what first comes to our mind. Play scientist with yourself and ask for the evidence of what makes this negative thought you’re stuck on absolutely true? Work to make your mind a comfy place to chill since we’re the one person we can never get away from!