Zen Morning Routine

Are mornings with kids pure chaos for you? They were for me. I have two girls in school and one 3 year old who stays home with me. I started to notice a change in my girls attitude and so did their teachers. I kept getting messages regarding my middle daughter Audrey. She was overly emotional most mornings at school or was having trouble focusing. I talked to her after school one day and realized it was because her days would start out hectic with lots of yelling. Something needed to change. My husband and I started talking about how to bring more peace in our home. We wanted to have our kids adopt the same concept of meditation and breathing that we practice ourselves. Not only would this help them now, but for the rest of their lives. That’s when we decided to create a zen environment for our kids in the morning and at bedtime. It just took some simple changes in our routine, I was all for it.

Wake up early. An hour before your kids is a great start. Giving yourself enough time to wake up, stretch and meditate will completely change your mood. My negativity was projected on my kids which would affect their mood and performance at school. Get your mind right before the kids wake up and chaos begins.

Each morning I wake up and do yoga. If you are new to yoga, there are tons of great morning flow routines on youtube! This one is a great video to check out for beginners. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0Ebi54JjUA Stretching and conscious breathing are two very important self-care routines that you should try every morning and night. Just taking 10-30 minutes a day or twice a day can completely change your life.

Some key benefits of yoga are:

• increased flexibility
• reduction in joint pain
• improved respiration, vitality and energy (yes please)
• cardio and circulatory health
• weight reduction

Yoga can seem daunting to someone who has never done it before. There are many levels just like in any workout routine, start simple and slow. You do not have to be able to turn yourself into a human pretzel to feel zen and relaxed. This is about stretching tight ligaments, getting your blood pumping and energizing your body and mind.

I also practice deep breathing. This is so important for your body to function properly. The benefits are amazing. They include:

• alleviating stress
• better sleep
• reduces anxiety
• better blood circulation
• energy
• improved digestion
• increased cardiovascular capacity

Set up your environment to be as relaxing as possible with few distractions. I love to diffuse oils with an energizing blend. I get comfortable, put on peaceful music and close my eyes. I take one deep breath in through my nose for 3 seconds, hold and then out through my mouth slowly for 6. I clear my mind and only think of something that I am grateful for. At this point you are wiring your mind for happiness and peace to set the tone for the day. I do about 6 rounds of deep breathing and then I let my breath fall back to a natural pace. Push all of those daunting “to do” lists out of your mind. Connect with yourself and ground. Some people are not super familiar with grounding, I will write a post about this soon because we truly believe grounding is essential. Now hopefully you have a great mindset to start your day.

Waking the girls used to be a pain in the butt. They hated to wake up and were so grouchy! I go into Audrey’s room and snuggle her, she’s my cuddle kid. They are only little for so long so I am going to really take advantage of this time in our lives. She gets up and does some simple yoga stretches with me (pictured above). When we are done she is awake and there is no fighting about getting dressed. She won’t miss a day of stretching now, it’s her favorite!

 Rylie, my oldest, has an alarm clock that goes off at 7:00 every morning. It is a unique one because it wakes her up in a natural gentle way. It is by the brand IREALIST and you can get it here on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/IREALIST-Simulation-Optional-Brightness-Customizable/dp/B07413T84S/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=sun+up+glowing+alarm&qid=1558053759&s=gateway&sr=8-6

I love it because it has a light that slowly turns on for 30 minutes so it “rises like the sun”. Then at 7:30 soft music plays and wakes her up. It’s not scary or jolting like most alarms. She never snoozes it, she just gets up because it slowly woke her over a 30 minute period. Think about it, if you wake up to someone yelling at you to get up right away and get dressed, you are probably going to be pretty cranky. This way of waking my girls has been a game changer and also great for their bodies.

While they are eating breakfast, I turn on Moving Art on Netflix. It is 2 seasons of beautiful relaxing video to music captured by an artist named Louie Schwartzberg. That in the background has amazing calming effects. If you have peaceful music, beautiful nature to look at and invigorating oils being diffused, it can easily change our mood. This works wonders for my kids. Such a simple change that can completely set the tone for everyone’s day.

Our family does this routine bedtime as well. When you read baby books, they always stress setting a bedtime routine. A morning routine holds the same amount of importance. When it is time to go to bed, we all stretch together, I diffuse oils in their rooms and they fall asleep to relaxing music. No more getting up 50 times to say goodnight, they fall asleep and stay asleep. Yay!!

 This can be applied to your home whether you are a working or stay at home mom. We get so busy that we forget about self-care. Setting aside time to decompress or start with a positive tone each day is so important. My goal here is to help other parents who may feel overwhelmed or stressed find a sense of peace. We still have rough days but they are few and far between and I am so pleased with that. I hope this works for you too! As always, share some of your tips and tricks below for finding calm among chaos. It takes a village!