Why your Simple Life Starts with Brushing Your Teeth in The Morning
Every morning we start a new day. Everyone has their own morning routine. This can be clearly defined actions or a lot of pressure and chaos because we have to take care of work, our children or our dog. Sometimes everything has to happen very quickly, so there's usually not much time for yourself.
Whether it's The 5AM Club or The Miracle Morning, there are so many good approaches and very good books on how to organize your morning. But why is it so important to get your day off to a good start? From my own experience, I can tell you that I have completely changed my morning after many years of just getting up quickly, having a quick breakfast and going straight to work.
The advantage of always having the same morning routine
Today, even though I have a lot of commitments and have to be there for a lot of people in the morning, have a long phone list waiting for me every day, have to prepare the next lecture, work on my next book and have a lot of other to-dos, I take a lot of time for my own morning routine every morning, even when I'm traveling.
It's always the same elements and it's always the same routine that I do in the morning. It starts with sitting quietly for a few minutes after getting up, breathing calmly and realizing that a new day has begun. This mindfulness exercise, which you should do immediately after getting out of bed in the morning, can help you to develop a completely new awareness of the day ahead of you. Then the first thing I do after getting up and doing this mindfulness exercise is to brush my teeth. This sounds completely simple and perhaps a little absurd for some people. Why should we attach such importance to a simple action like brushing our teeth at this moment?
But that's exactly the point here. In addition to good personal hygiene, which also involves very good skin care every morning, brushing my teeth is a fixed ritual that signals to my mind and body that a new day is beginning. It's a physical act that I perform, so it wakes me up and helps me to get a really fresh morning feeling when I brush my teeth for a long time. After that, I do yoga then another five-minute meditation exercise, I drink a glass of warm water and go out into the fresh air. Reading and writing things down is certainly also part of a good morning ritual. For me, however, this is not crucial.
No cell phones please
It is important not to look at a cell phone, iPad or TV in the morning. News and emails and many other stimuli will come later enough in the day anyway. You can listen to podcasts on the way to work. You can watch the midday magazine at lunchtime or the news in the evening. Of course, a good morning news program on TV also helps to provide good entertainment, as it discusses social issues alongside all the political news. However, I would strongly recommend that you don't start your day with a TV or mobile phone in the morning. Scrolling and looking at who has commented on which post causes far too much anxiety. Your mind will be preoccupied for the next few minutes, which you should only focus on yourself.
The combination of individual small rituals such as brushing your teeth, yoga exercises, meditation, drinking warm water and walks in the fresh air, regardless of the weather, will help you to build up your entire morning routine. It is also important that you get up immediately and don't keep turning off the alarm clock and trusting that it will ring again in a few minutes. Always use a normal alarm clock and avoid having your cell phone or an iPad lying next to your bed. This will ensure that you sleep more soundly and get up better.
Rituals help us to be more successful
If you practice these different points every morning as your morning ritual, you will notice that after 30 days and then after 90 days there will be a significant change in your daily routine. It has helped me a lot and I have created my own personalized morning ritual. A few years ago, I would never have thought that I could even start my day with yoga exercises. Rituals help us to be more successful. A well-established morning routine is a mindfulness exercise. You become much more aware of your own body and mind, you do something for yourself, you relax and gather energy for the day ahead.
Write down your experiences of how you are doing with your morning ritual in a diary. After 90 days, you can reflect on what has worked for you and what you would like to change.
It is very important to note that every routine has a beginning and an end. This means that at the end of your morning routine, for example, you say a sentence out loud to yourself or write it down. This can be a positive sentence that guides you positively through the day or reminds you of something specific that is particularly important to you. Then the morning ritual is over and you can go and have a shower, breakfast or do something else. It is important that your ritual has a beginning and an end for you.
Many people have told me that they have little time in the morning for their own morning ritual when they are raising the children, walking the dog, making breakfast, planning the most important tasks of the day and making the first phone calls of the day. It is therefore important that you inform those around you, i.e. the people you live with, that you are setting up a morning ritual for yourself so that you can really do your meditation, yoga and all the other elements of your morning ritual undisturbed. It is very important that your morning ritual is just a time for you when you do not want to be disturbed.