Mornings 101:
5 Healthy Habits to Begin Your Day

This is the fifth article in the six-part Mornings 101 series that focuses on how to implement the most effective strategies for dominating your day before breakfast.

When given the choice, I prefer to begin my day focusing on self-care.

That means I’m eating healthy foods, exercising, and filling my brain with brilliant information and inspiration. Healthy habits make for ideal choices first thing in the morning.

Photo Credit: Gratisography

I know from experience that if I begin my day focused on a few key healthy habits I can set myself up for enormous success. When I don’t make the time or prioritize these habits, I pay the consequences in lost time, missed opportunities, failed health, and an overall negative attitude.

Beginning your day well always begins with a healthy perspective.

5 Healthy Habits to Begin Your Day

Here are five healthy and practical habits you can work on, beginning as early as tomorrow morning. This list is far from comprehensive, but if you focus on implementing even just one of these habits consistently for the next week, you will certainly see a major difference.

1. Eat a Handful of Bananas

If I was stranded on a desert island and could only eat one food for the rest of my days, bananas would top the list. During various points of my life I have eaten as many as 30 bananas a day to stay healthy, energized, and strong.

Bananas are to your diet what dogs are to your psyche — a perfect match. You can’t help but smile when you see them and they will love you no matter what. Bananas are tasty, healthy, affordable, filling, energizing, available year round, easy to transport, easy to blend, and fantastic for your mind, body, and soul.

My most common breakfast includes water, coffee, and a banana smoothie. Just blend and go. It’s that’s simple.

2. Get Your Body in Motion

When I picture an ideal morning the first healthy habit that comes to mind is running. As an avid marathoner, I lean towards running to solve most of my life’s problems. In the morning, making time to workout (or especially to run) is a magical strategy to wake you up, pump your blood, and improve your mood.

If you are having trouble waking up early and want to solidify that habit, make exercise a central focus of your morning routine. If you tend to wake up feeling sluggish, workout for 21 days in a row early in the morning and watch how your attitude changes in just a few short weeks.

Making time to move your body before breakfast is not a chore or a requirement from your doctor, it’s a grand opportunity to make your best day come to life.

3. Dump Your Brain on Paper

One of the greatest productivity strategies that I use every day is what David Allen describes as a brain dump. I spill out all of my thoughts on paper and then organize them into logical lists and projects.

Even if you don’t believe you have an ounce of creativity in your body, you can use Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages strategy that she describes in her book, The Artist’s Way. Tomorrow, wake up and handwrite 3 pages of anything that pops into your mind. Literally, write anything. Just get thoughts on paper and watch as your mind comes to life.

When you begin your day letting all of your thoughts spill onto paper you open up your brain to think with greater focus and creativity all day long.

4. Meditate on Gratitude

When I interviewed Bob Proctor, one of the most successful personal development speakers in the world, he said that his first priority when he wakes up is to spend 10 minutes focused exclusively on gratitude.

I have found that many high-achievers and grounded people are truly thankful for what they have because they intentionally think about their blessings in life. Try waking up and thinking about how lucky you are, how fortunate you have been, and the many miracles that have happened in your life.

Thinking, meditating, praying, writing, or just simply thinking about gratitude can be a subtle and yet amazingly powerful force in your life.

5. Fill Your Mind with Positive Information

One of the most powerful forces in my life has been the positive words of smarter, faster, and more successful people than me. When I began reading on a daily basis I changed my outlook on life, the many ideas I had for the future, and my approach to grand goal achievement.

If you could only choose one healthy habit each morning, I would recommend reading a positive, inspiring, and helpful book that is focused on your current most important goal.

There is nothing more motivating and engaging than learning about how to improve your life when you first wake up each day.

How Do Your Ideal Days Begin?

What are your healthiest morning habits? When you begin your best days, which choices make it work so well? Share your best practices on The 5 AM Miracle Community group on Facebook.