Whether it’s optimizing your health, gaining more energy and productivity or just feeling happier, having a solid morning routine is the best way to start.

Setting the tone for the rest of the day, and doing a set of organized and purposeful activities consistently will have a positive impact on various aspects of life.

Not only does consistency breed confidence, but committing to a healthy morning routine builds integrity. As the popular motivational speaker Mel Robbins says, "A morning routine is a series of promises that make yourself you."

The world’s top health and personal development podcasts that feature experts in the field all emphasize the crucial importance of maintaining a morning routine and here’s what they say.

No snooze button

Mel Robbins’ first rule of thumb for her listeners is to never press the snooze button. Instead, she advises to countdown from five to one and to just get up, no matter how painful it is.

As Robbins says, "You may be spending five minutes doing something you don’t want to do, but you will feel like a million bucks the rest of the day." But the most critical reason Robbins advises against the snooze button is that it leads to sleep inertia because your body starts another cycle of sleep that can take four hours to recover from.

This means that instead of benefitting from the energy we innately have at the start of the day, using a snooze button completely negates it leaving us drowsy.

Maui habit

Habit expert and the author of "Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything," BJ Fogg shares what he believes to be the most important habit to set the tone of the day and that is to wake up and then immediately say: "This is going to be an amazing day!"

Call it the law of attraction or a simple mindset hack, either way, instead of dreading the day ahead, we can choose to be grateful for even waking up that morning and convince ourselves that even if there are challenges, it’s still going to be a good day.

Sunlight upon waking

One of the most important components of maintaining physical and mental health is getting enough sleep. Stanford neuroscientist and host of the immensely informative podcast HubermanLab, Andrew Huberman explains that getting five to 10 minutes of sunlight in your eyes as soon as you wake up works to set the circadian rhythm.

To do so, you need to be somewhere in direct contact with the sun, and sunlight through a window or sunglasses does not have the same effect. So, whether you choose to take an early morning stroll or opt to have a cup of tea outdoors, spend your first waking moments taking in the sun to invest in improving your sleep.

Huberman also adds that getting sunlight in your eyes around the time of sunset can also supplement supporting getting enough sleep.

Make the bed

Making the bed first thing in the morning may seem like a simple chore, a non-event and not that important to the success of your day, but that’s wrong.

Making your bed first thing in the morning has a significant impact on our mindset. Not only does it give you a sense of achievement, but it has a pleasing visual aesthetic, which reduces stress and teaches you discipline and routine. Many studies show that early-morning bedmakers are happier and more successful overall.

Journaling

As Dr. Chatterjee of the Podcast "Feel Better, Live More" cannot emphasize enough, the three M’s of the morning are mindfulness, movement and mindset. Well, journaling is a great way to get two of those three sorted.

Even for just five minutes, a journaling practice can help eradicate stress and give a boost of confidence and a greater meaning to your day. Dr. Chatterjee has recently published a journal that contains the same three questions to be answered every day and they are: "What are you grateful for?", "What is the most important thing you need to do today?" and "How do you want to show up?"

Gratitude Practice

As simple as it may seem, having a gratitude practice is perhaps the most important ritual you can have in your life. When we are grateful for the people we love and what we have and are fortunate for, good things happen.

Not only is this an immediate mindset switch that makes us happy, thinking of all we hold dear and how fortunate we are to have them, but it is also can invoke the Law of Attraction, as when we feel we are living in abundance, we can somehow reel more in.

Feeling gratitude also greatly affects our relationships as it allows us to understand the importance of the people around us.

Meditation

Known for creating mindfulness and increasing focus, meditation is something we should all aspire to do regularly. No longer just for Buddhist monks, having a regular meditation practice has been found to have immense mental and physical health benefits.

The good news is that studies show just 12 minutes a day is enough to be effective in calming and creating mindfulness. Find a spot to meditate and use the widely available meditation apps and guided meditations on YouTube to start.

Movement

Getting in some movement in the morning is beneficial for several reasons. Not only does it improve our health, weight and mindset, and helps to keep depression and anxiety at bay, doing cardio in the morning has been shown to result in a 30% increase in productivity throughout the day.

Whether you choose to take a long walk, ideally in nature, or do some yoga, get yourself moving in the early morning for that added benefit of increased attention and focus. Strength training and building muscles are also immensely important for how our brains, also a muscles, work.

So, even if it’s just a five-minute routine done in the kitchen while you make your coffee, which is what Chatterjee does, do some sort of movement to feel good and work better.

Delay coffee

Most of us tend to jump out of bed and go straight to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. Well, if you are one of those people who gets an afternoon lull, then Huberman advises to refrain from having your first coffee until 60 to 90 minutes after waking.

While this may seem like torture, especially when you are tired and groggy from having just woken up. But trust me, it’s founded in science as the neuroscientist says delaying that first cup of coffee prevents having an afternoon crash of low energy.

Drink water

Hydration is super important, yet for many, it’s often the least significant thing on their to-do list and sufficiently never gets done. That’s why it’s great to get a good start on your water intake as early as possible.

So instead of starting with coffee, have a glass of hot water or with lemon juice to hydrate, clean the system and set you up to get sufficient hydration, which many of us are lacking, throughout the day!