If you have any of these 9 morning habits, you’re abnormally stressed out

How do you wake up in the morning?

Do you…

• Have an alarm across the room?
• Use your smartphone alarm right next to your bed?
• Make use of a smart light that mimics the sun?
• Naturally, wake up? 

Chances are, if you are like the estimated 8 in 10 who use a cell phone alarm to wake up, you are also part of the 80% who also check their phone within those first ten minutes of your morning.

Initially, this might not seem like a huge deal, but checking your cell phone right when you get up is actually a morning habit that might actually be leading to more stress! Let us explain below.

These X Morning Habits Are Likely Making You More Stressed

1. Cell phone use

We said it earlier, but starting your morning off with cell phone use is a bad habit, causing you stress. 

Whether it is social media (more on that one in a second), email, texting, or just playing games, cell phone use releases a chemical called dopamine. Dopamine, when activated, starts your brain on a path of craving more of it. 

That morning habit of turning your alarm off and playing on your phone is not just the most common time-waster. Still, chemically it activates the dopamine cycle, which also blocks the release of oxytocin. 

Oxytocin is the chemical that helps with bringing joy and increasing motivation; it also helps reduce levels of stress and anxiety! 

2. The news & social media

Watching or reading the news and checking social media is a surefire way to increase your levels of stress. 

Whether it is your social media feed, a news app, or some other form of media, diving in right away and starting your day with news is not a good idea. This isn’t opinion; it’s a fact. 

With any stress-reducing habits, the idea is to avoid the things that cause stress. News and social media are negative because, as many of us know, negativity sells. In fact, 

some studies have shown that 90% of news is labeled as a negative story. 

Rising to a fresh dose of negativity isn’t a good recipe for being productive, feeling joy, and happiness, so why not avoid the news and social media! 

3. No breakfast

Not eating breakfast might not seem like a huge deal, but it stresses your body out, which is not a good thing!

In most cases, you wake up after getting 7-9 hours of rest, but it could be as many as 12 hours since you last had something to eat. Your body is hungry and in great need of a jumpstart. But instead, many skip breakfast, thus causing their bodies and their processes to start doing some whacky things. 

Avoid unnecessary physiological breakdowns by making sure you fuel your body each time you wake up! 

4. The wrong breakfast

No breakfast isn’t a good way to start your morning, but the wrong breakfast can be equally consequential. The wrong breakfast – high calorie, high fat, high sugar, and highly processed items – is actually known to cause more harm than good. 

Yes, eating breakfast is important, but the wrong breakfast items can increase brain fog, lower amounts of energy throughout the day, and weight gain. In particular, high sugar and carbohydrate breakfast options cause a glucose spike in your blood that leads to more fatigue throughout your day. 

More fatigue, more stress. 

5. Not preparing the night before

Remember when you used to lay your school clothes out the night before the first day of school? 

What you might not know is that this type of preplanning – a form of executive functioning – was actually helping you begin the next morning with a lesser chance of feeling stressed out. Put another way, preparing the night before will help you alleviate hectic mornings. 

On the other hand, not preparing the night before can lead to a large amount of undue stress the next day. Forgetting to plan the night before leads to you starting your day off in an agitated mindset. 

Stumbling around your house looking for things, skipping breakfast, and find yourself feeling uneasy is highly stressful, but on the upside, highly curable when you plan the night before! 

6. Not enough sleep

We have all heard of the sleepless elite, but by now, you would know if you are one of those rare people who can function on four hours of sleep. For most, countless doctors and neuroscientists recommend a solid 7-9 hours of sleep. 

For many scientific reasons that we won’t get into, sleep is restorative as simple as possible. Not enough sleep can lead to your nervous system operating in overdrive. Relying on your nervous system to steer your day is like driving blind. 

Everyone needs a certain amount of sleep to fully function, and without it, you’re putting your overall wellbeing and productivity in jeopardy! 

7. Coffee right away

Are you someone who drinks coffee right away? Most people who drink coffee start their day off doing so, but this might be causing stress; here is why: 

Cortisol – the body’s primary stress-causing hormone – is at its height 30 minutes after you wake up. While it’s naturally occurring in our bodies, it’s not something we want more of. And some habits and things we do can increase it, one of which happens to be coffee. 

Coffee and the caffeine that accompanies it can increase your cortisol production, thus making you feel more stressed out. So next time you go to grab your coffee mug, consider drinking some water or at the very least using decaffeinated coffee. 

Wait a few more hours before having your first real cup of coffee!

8. Your kids & others

Ever get to work to get a bunch of pressing tasks complete only to be thrown off by your coworkers and their water cooler talk? 

The same thing can happen at home each morning if you live with roommates or have kids if you’re not careful. While it is harder to plan your mornings when others are involved, figuring out ways to work with those you live with is vital. 

Whether you pre-plan for your kids the night before, hold off having tough conversations with your spouse, or find a workaround for that roommate that hogs the shower – be sure to communicate with those you live with. 

Sometimes, your lack of communication is what really is causing the stress because you think they know how you operate, but chances are others don’t! 

9. No moments of joy

We have covered all the morning habits that will more than likely increase your levels of stress, but we will end with the one things you should do: 

Add as much joy as possible to your mornings! 

What we tell ourselves will often manifest itself throughout the day, so starting our day off in a joyous mindset is key to feeling great. However, thinking of mornings as pure agony and not experiencing joy can have quite the opposite effect.

Something simple like watching a motivational video, walking your dog and getting outside with nature, or simply playing with your kids can bring you joy, and that matters the most!

Try This: As we part, consider reflecting on just one thing you are grateful for in life and writing it down each morning. This one tiny habit takes all of 20 seconds tops, but it is highly effective. 

Starting your morning off with gratitude trains your brain to accentuate the positive first thing each morning instead of focusing on what is wrong.