Author Liz Baker Plosser knows that a personalized morning routine does wonders for your health and productivity, and that’s why she wants you to Own Your Morning.
While the editor-in-chief of Women’s Health magazine writes the majority of this book, other Women’s Health editors contribute personal stories of their own experiences fashioning a morning routine. Not unlike a magazine, this book is filled with bite-sized articles and lively photographs. Plosser understands that there is no cookie-cutter morning routine that works for everyone—it is imperative that you fashion a morning routine specifically for your life. Own Your Morning opens with exercises and prompts to help you identify your core values. Readers are encouraged to use those values as guiding clues for discovering a beneficial morning routine. Plosser writes,
Your morning has the potential to express the people, places, things, and feelings that are important to you. But for many of us, the way we spend our time isn’t quite aligned with what truly makes our souls happy. This chapter is all about pinpointing where you want to focus your precious energy.
Own Your Morning is full of practical information, like tips for waking up earlier, the secret to a better morning, and guidelines for creating a morning routine that works for your unique lifestyle. Many different types of morning routines are modeled throughout the pages, giving just about anyone the necessary inspiration to find something that works for them. There are tidbits from doctors and other experts as well. Plosser covers a variety of keys to creating a morning routine, including preparing for a great morning, getting the best sleep, cooking energy-boosting breakfasts (with recipes!), ways to get your morning exercise in, as well as important morning practices like meditation. Here are a few of my favorite bits of advice.
Evening Routines
The best way to ensure a happy morning is to start the night before. This includes preparing your wardrobe for the next day, prepping food, tidying up, and ensuring a great night’s sleep. Plosser writes,
Yes, I know how strange it must sound to devote an entire chapter in a book about mornings to nighttime. But the truth is that an amazing a.m. begins many hours before your alarm clock rings. It’s not just about banking a solid, restorative night of sleep. It’s about looking out for your future self—your tomorrow self—with some simple routines the night before. Putting each of your a.m. ducks in a row is the most crucial piece to feeling and being your best.
Morning Connection
Another element to an amazing morning routine is making time to connect with those you love. Whether it be through a few words over a cup of coffee with your spouse, a quick text to a friend, or a few minutes of cuddles with your kids, taking a moment to connect each morning will give your day an incredible boost. Plosser has this to say about taking time in the morning to connect,
Social bonds are essential to mental and emotional health, and there are myriad effective, easy ways to inject those important connector vibes into your life…whether you live alone or with a roommate, or you have kids, pets, or plant babies, you can create mini moments of connection with people you love and care about every single morning—whether they’re nearby or not.
The Power of Meditation
There’s nothing quite like adding meditation to your morning routine, even if it’s just a few minutes. Taking a brief moment to clear your mind and focus on your breath can do wonders for your health.
Plosser writes,
There is indisputable science-backed evidence that supports the health benefits of this modality. It has been shown to increase brain-wave activity—think: the daydream zone, when you’re taking time off from a task—which makes you feel calmer. Meditation causes your adrenal glands to dial back production of the stress hormone cortisol. And it also increases blood flow to your brain. Which may help lower anxiety levels while also boosting your memory.
This was not my favorite book in my series on Rhythms, and I imagine there are more in-depth, research-backed, books on the topic of morning and evening routines that I may like better. However, if you need a book that gives you the simplest, easiest read on the important components of building a great morning routine, this book is perfect for you.
Thanks for reading my review of Own Your Morning by Liz Baker Plosser. Look out for my next blog post, the start of my new Food series. To stay up to date on all of my blog posts, join my email newsletter below.
Photos by Kara Buse.
