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What are routine? Why are morning and evening routines helpful in life? Let’s talk about this today and plan out your own routines.
Welcome back to The Burnout Doctor Podcast with Dr. Jessica Louie. Today, we are talking about how to start morning and evening routines. Thank you for sharing your action steps from our last episode on what not to do when you are burned out. Many of you are taking action by using our complimentary Burnout Starter Kit and Financial Freedom Kit – don’t forget to download yours today! We all write our own stories in our lives and homes. Let’s all bring joy into home and joy into work.
Episode 107 on Morning Routines
Episode 137 on Evening Routines
Why is a daily morning routine important for burnout?
We all wake up in the morning, right? Whether we are a natural morning person or a night owl, we all start our day at some point. Some of us wake up and grab our phones or check email or check social media or eat breakfast or pack lunches for children.
Science says willpower is highest in the morning. We have higher self-control in the morning and this decreases as the day goes on. We fatigue throughout the day.
Starting our day off right can literally change the mindset we are and determine what we accomplish on our daily goals.
What is a morning routine?
- A routine is a sequence of actions followed regularly
- A routine is different from a habit
- A habit is an impulse to do a behavior with little or no conscious thought. Not doing a habit feels uncomfortable, like not washing your hands after using the toilet or not brushing your teeth before bed.
- A routine is a behavior frequently repeated. Unlike a habit, skipping a routine doesn’t feel bad and without proper forethought, can be easily skipped or forgotten.
How to start a morning routine:
- A Routine will not happen automatically the way habits do
- We need to allocate TIME to routines
- Combine this with your Time Blocking exercise – start with 5 minutes and then build on this each week. Do not jump to 3 new activities in one routine right away. You set yourself up for disappointment.
- Intentionally schedule 15 minutes for your morning routine or 15 minutes to fold the laundry or 30 minutes to complete weekly grocery shopping
What is my ideal morning routine:
From studies, we know that this differs from person to person and I personally think it changes as our lives change.
But I will not leave you without ideas. Many morning routines may include:
- Drinking a full glass of water
- Stretching body
- Meditating or quiet time to reflect
- Writing out mantra or affirmations
- Setting up daily 3 goals to jumpstart day
- No phone in the morning and a do not disturb set-up until you want to hear new calls/messages coming in
Here is my morning routine:
- Wake up and drink full glass of water
- Breakfast and then coffee
- Stretch my body for 5 minutes
- Quiet time for 2-3 minutes
- Write out my daily mantra and 10 affirmations
- Use my essential oils to supplement what I’ve written and said out loud
- Set up my daily 3 goals based on my weekly goals (this could also be don the night before)
- Complete first goal before checking email or social media
What is an evening routine?
- A routine is a sequence of actions followed regularly
- A routine is different from a habit
- A habit is an impulse to do a behavior with little or no conscious thought. Not doing a habit feels uncomfortable, like not washing your hands after using the toilet or not brushing your teeth before bed.
- A routine is a behavior frequently repeated. Unlike a habit, skipping a routine doesn’t feel bad and without proper forethought, can be easily skipped or forgotten.
How to start an evening routine:
- A Routine will not happen automatically the way habits do
- We need to allocate TIME to routines
- Combine this with your Time Blocking exercise – start with 5 minutes and then build on this each week. Do not jump to 3 new activities in one routine right away. You set yourself up for disappointment.
- Intentionally schedule 15 minutes for your morning routine or 15 minutes to fold the laundry or 30 minutes to complete weekly grocery shopping
What is an ideal evening routine:
I really feel an evening routine is MORE important than a morning routine. It sets you up to make sure your morning starts off well. This is especially important because we know the importance of sleep and how burnout impacts our sleep.
If you feel you are not getting enough sleep, dive deeper into the reason behind it?
Is it because you are working out too late? Eating food/desserts/snacks too late? Watching tv or scrolling on your phone too late? Staying up to pick up or clean the house too late?
I see this a lot with parents who tend to pick up and clean after kids are in bed. This can cause problems if it takes a long time 30-60 minutes to do this or it feel like a workout cleaning up. This leads to more energy, higher heart rates and difficulty going to bed afterwards. So think about how you want to incorporate this into a different part of your day or become more efficient at it. Sometimes it also means acknowledging what “clean” means to you. I’ve personally let go of very restrictive perfectionist behaviors around “clean” and simplifying and having less clutter arounds also helps. It’s much easier to wipe down a countertop when nothing is on it! It’s much easier to clean floors when you don’t wear shoes in the house and no one drags dirt around.
If you feel that you need more sleep, slowly start working your bedtime up closer and closer to your ideal evening routine. This could be 5 minutes a week or 5 minutes a day. Start small. Overwhelming yourself and changing a bedtime by 1 or 2 hours the first night is going to lead to failure and a lack of confidence in this change.
But I will not leave you without ideas. Many evening routines may include:
- Stretching body
- Meditating or quiet time to reflect
- Writing out gratitude statement from the day
- Setting up daily 3 goals to jumpstart day
- No phone 30-60 minutes before bedtime and a do not disturb set-up until you want to hear new calls/messages coming in
Here is my evening routine:
- Shower if I haven’t done so after an afternoon/evening workout
- Brush my teeth and floss
- Stretch my body for 5 minutes and Theragun percussion massage
- Do not Disturb goes on at 10pm and phone goes on silent with alarm set for the morning
- Use my essential oils to supplement what I’ve written and said out loud
- Reading a book in bed
- New pillowcase on and lights out
In my Joy at Work Course, you can get even more advice and action steps on how to make decisions with confidence and how to say no with confidence.
Make sure you’re following along on our YouTube channel (youtube.com/drjessicalouie) as well with new videos going live every Saturday!
Until next time, spark joy my friends!
Note, my views are my own and are not associated or representative of my employer(s).
This podcast is for educational purposes only and not medical advice.