Good Habits, That Make Mornings, Less Stressful.<br />Your morning schedule can have a <br />huge impact on your overall mental health.<br />Here are some ways to ensure your morning routine is helping and not hurting.<br />1: Prepare the Night Before.<br />One of the most helpful ways to prevent stress in the morning is to plan the night before.<br />Experts suggest that tasks like laying out clothes and packing lunch the night before can be especially helpful.<br />2: Getting Enough Sleep.<br />Not getting enough sleep will make it harder to do other self-care activities.<br />Inadequate sleep pushes the sympathetic nervous system into over-drive, meaning that your heart will beat faster and you will interpret things as more stressful and overwhelming than they actually are, Roxanne Prichard, professor University of St. Thomas, via Insider.<br />Neuroscientists agree that adults need <br />7 to 9 hours of sleep each night.<br />3: Avoid Your Phone.<br />Though it seems natural to immediately check your phone as you wake up, this sets us up for failure.<br />4: Don't Skip Breakfast.<br />You may have heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This is largely true.<br />Make sure you avoid high-calorie, <br />processed foods for breakfast.<br />Processed and packaged food labels make it seem like they contain a lot of nutrients, but when compared with natural, real foods they <br />are seriously lacking. , Kate Martino, physicians assistant, via Insider
