Discover an effective HSP morning routine: 5–10 minute mental and physical habits to calm your nervous system and start your day positively.

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

I’ve always wondered if an HSP morning routine is even possible when life feels so busy. Right now, my mornings look like a checklist: brush teeth, shower, get dressed, grab breakfast, walk the dog Bailey, and dive straight into work. There’s no real pause, just a rush to check off tasks before the day slips away. If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. As a highly sensitive person, I know how important those first moments can be for setting gentle energy. That’s why I dove into the world of HSP morning routines, hunting down simple, effective mental and physical habits that fit into a hectic schedule.

In the tips below, I’ll share what I’ve learned, along with a few personal experiments, so you can build an HSP morning routine that feels like a supportive first appointment of the day, not a frantic race. All you need is 5–10 minutes each morning to lay the groundwork for a calmer, more centered you.

Why an HSP Morning Routine Matters

Highly sensitive people process stimuli deeply. Jumping straight from bed to email or from bed to a to-do list means our nervous systems rarely get a chance to settle. Without a moment to breathe, our bodies stay in “go mode,” and small stressors accumulate quickly. A mindful HSP morning routine, even just a few minutes long, gives us permission to ground ourselves before the world’s demands flood in, helping us avoid overwhelm and nurturing a sense of calm that lasts all day.

Treat Your HSP Morning Routine as Your First Appointment

Instead of seeing those few moments before work as “extra” time to rush through, try treating your morning routine like a booked slot on your calendar. Imagine it labeled in bold: “HSP Morning Routine: 7:00–7:10 AM.” When it’s framed this way, you mentally protect that time and take it more seriously, as if you were meeting a friend or client.

For me, that shift in mindset was a game-changer. Rather than guilt-tripping myself for “wasting time,” I started thinking: This is the most important meeting of my day, meeting myself. Even on days when I only have five minutes, I honor that block. If I wake up at 7:15 AM, I don’t hop straight to my phone. Instead, I sit up, take a deep breath, and focus on a simple habit, like drinking a glass of water or doing some stretching exercises. By treating this as a nonnegotiable appointment, I protect my sensitive system from jumping headlong into stress.

Sip Water First Things First

It sounds almost too simple, but drinking water as soon as you wake up resets both body and mind. Overnight, we lose fluids, so that first glass signals to our system: “It’s safe to start moving.” For highly sensitive people, dehydration can feel like an extra layer of stress, racing thoughts, tightness in the chest, or light headaches. When you pour a glass of cool water first thing and sip it slowly, you’re giving your body a gentle nudge toward balance.

Imagine waking up and pouring water while you sit on the edge of the bed. Instead of grabbing your phone, you bring the water to your lips, pay attention to its coolness, and feel it slide down your throat. This small, 30-second habit hydrates your body, helps clear brain fog, and creates a moment of stillness before you’re swept away by emails or errands. No need to overthink, just drink, breathe, and let your system register that you’re nourishing it, not neglecting it. You could even combine it with a mental visualization exercise where you imagine that the water is filled with positive energy, setting you up for an energized day.

Five Minutes of EFT Tapping and Affirmations

If you’ve never tried EFT tapping, think of it as gentle acupressure for your nervous system. The basic idea is to tap your fingertips on key meridian points, side of the hand, eyebrow, under the eye, collarbone, while repeating calming, positive statements. For example:

“Even though I feel rushed and anxious, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

When I first squeezed five minutes of tapping into my HSP morning routine after my water sip, I noticed my chest loosened, and my thoughts felt less frantic. The combination of tapping and repeating affirmations like “I am calm and grounded,” or “I am ready for this day”, kind of massages the fight-or-flight response right into rest mode. If you’d like guided instruction, in the HiSensitives Membership you can follow Betsy Dwight’s powerful EFT Tapping Masterclass to learn step-by-step techniques tailored for HSPs.

You don’t need a fancy chart. Look up a basic tapping guide, follow along with a short audio, or simply tap and say your affirmations aloud. Even if you’re half asleep, this practice gives your heart and mind a moment to shift out of autopilot. It’s a quick, effective way to acknowledge your sensitivity and set a calm intention.

Create a Simple “Calm Corner”

I don’t have a dedicated meditation room yet, as our attic is still under renovation, but I’m determined to carve out a “calm corner” once it’s finished. In the meantime, I choose a quiet spot, a corner of my temporary office, where I keep a small yoga mat and pillow, a folded blanket, and one grounding stone. Having these objects ready tells my brain: This is where I slow down.

If you have any tiny nook, a chair by a window, a corner of the couch, try designating it as your morning sanctuary. You don’t need a lot of space or décor. A folded throw, a favorite pillow, and maybe a small plant or grounding crystal are enough. As you wake up, step into this corner, sit down, and take a moment to breathe. You might stretch gently, rub your grounding stone between your palms, or simply close your eyes. The goal is to link that physical space with the feeling of calm. I’ll build my corner once the renovation is done and I’m looking forward to using it for 10-minute mornings of peace.

Keep It Short and Realistic: Five to Ten Minutes

When I started researching an HSP morning routine, I realized most guides suggested 30- or 60-minute rituals. But I also knew that trying to carve out half an hour before walking the dog and starting work was setting myself up for failure. Instead, I decided to focus on habits that fit into a five- to ten-minute window. That’s all my life can hold right now, and that’s okay.

A realistic HSP morning routine might look like this:

1. 6:50 AM: Wake up, sit on edge of bed, drink a glass of water (1 minute).
2. 6:52 AM: Tap EFT points and say affirmations (5 minutes).
3. 6:57 AM: Sit in your “calm corner” and do one gentle stretch (3 minutes).
4. 7:00 AM: Check your to-do list briefly, no screens before your routine is complete.

By the time you finish, it’s only ten minutes later, enough to feel grounded without feeling squeezed. The key is consistency: even on days you start late, aim for those five minutes. Over time, your nervous system recognizes this as your daily reset, whether you have five, seven, or ten minutes.

Lead with Gentle Light

One little tweak that makes a surprisingly big difference is waking up with soft light. If your bedroom is pitch dark at 6 AM, the sudden flip of a harsh overhead light can jolt your system awake the wrong way. Instead, I’ve started using a bedside lamp with a warm-tone bulb. As soon as I turn it on, I let my eyes adjust before grabbing my water or tapping. If you have blackout curtains, consider opening them a crack before you rise so a sliver of dawn light peeks in. Even a dim lamp or letting your phone’s “sunrise alarm” glow without sound can help ease your system into wakefulness. That way, you’re not racing from dream to full alertness; you’re transitioning gently, setting the stage for a calm routine rather than a frantic scramble.

More Small HSP Morning Routine Ideas

Here are a few other HSP morning routine ideas you might sprinkle into your day:

• One-Minute Gratitude Journal: Jot down three things you appreciate as soon as you open your eyes.
• Two-Minute Gentle Stretches: Do a few yoga stretches or neck rolls to ease tension.
• Mindful Herbal Tea: Brew a cup and sit quietly, savoring each sip.
• Nature Minute: Step outside and focus on the sounds, smells, and textures around you.
• Daily Intention: Write a short intention, “Today I will honor my boundaries”, and read it aloud.
• Calming Soundtrack: Listen to a soft playlist while you get dressed.
• Refreshing Splash: Splash cool water on your face and notice how it wakes your senses.
• Protective Visualization: Spend a moment visualizing a subtle bubble around you before you even leave the bed.

Experiment with one or two of these small practices to see which help you feel grounded, centered, and ready, even when time is tight.

Reflect on Your HSP Morning Routine!

Take a moment to reflect on these three questions to set yourself up for the perfect HSP morning routine:

1. Which two of these tips, drinking water first, EFT tapping, creating a calm corner, keeping it under ten minutes, or using gentle light, feel most doable tomorrow morning?
2. What’s one small change you can make to treat your routine as the first appointment of your day?
3. How will you remind yourself that this five- to ten-minute practice isn’t “extra” but essential for your well-being?

Ready to Build More Than Just Your HSP Morning Routine?

Join the HiSensitives Membership to access 18 expert-led masterclasses, 18 in-depth e-books, 72+ printable worksheets, and weekly guided meditations, everything you need to nourish your HSP life. Whether you’re exploring energy management, setting boundaries, harnessing intuition, or creating a calm home sanctuary, our ever-growing library and supportive community will help you thrive. Start your free 3-day trial for just $1/month afterward and discover personalized tools and fellow sensitive souls cheering you on every step of the way.

Explore the HiSensitives Membership for free for 3 days!

In this article, we collaborated with AI, meaning that the input and stories are original human ideas, but the text itself has been created with support from AI. All AI content is being edited and factchecked by our editor.

The post HSP Morning Routine: Simple Steps to Start Your Day Calm and Energized appeared first on HiSensitives.

Ready to ditch that procrastinator in you once and for all and learn how to create lasting habits? Discover 10 powerful tips in this blog!

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

As a highly sensitive person, it can feel challenging to create lasting habits. After all, functioning in a society that is not built for sensitive people is a real challenge itself.

You may feel like you are barely surviving. Hence, creating new habits may stress you out.

I’ve been there myself. After experiencing symptoms of burnout, I barely had the energy to get out of bed in the morning. How on earth would I be able to find the energy to build good habits?

After experimenting for a few years and reading up on valuable literature such as ‘Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones‘, I discovered a few techniques that proved themselves to be helpful whilst creating lasting habits as a highly sensitive person.

In this article, I’ll share my top 10 tips that may help you to get started on creating new habits. Once you implement these tips, your new habits will feel just as natural as brushing your teeth.

#1 Become Aware Of Your ‘Why’

When you want to form new habits, it often starts with a need within you. For instance, if you want to lose weight, your need is to feel healthier and more energetic.

Or if you want to start a business, it may be because you want to be more independent and have more freedom.

As you can see, the habit itself oftentimes only is a means to get to where you want to be. Becoming aware of why you want to start building a specific habit, is the first step in developing that habit.

It is what will help you to get started with your habit every day. For example, when you want to wake up earlier in the morning, it isn’t waking up early that motivates you to go out of bed. It is the extra time you get to spend on specific activities you enjoy!

Hence, try defining your ‘why’ when you want to start creating lasting habits.

#2 Start Small To Create Lasting Habits

Many of us fail with creating new habits because we set too ambitious goals. When we want to lose weight, we clean out our entire fridge and cupboards and fill them with tons of new food. Or when we want to exercise more, we start with an intense workout plan that contains 4 workouts a week.

Sure, for some people it may work to do such a drastic change, but most of us – and especially highly sensitive people – will feel overwhelmed by it.

Therefore, try to start with tiny habits when you want to create lasting habits. If you want to eat healthier and lose weight, start with eating a healthy breakfast every day. Once that has become a part of your daily routine, you can start adapting your lunch and ultimately also your dinner routine.

Or when you want to work out more, try scheduling small workout routines every day, rather than 4 big ones a week. Make sure to create a manageable plan that helps you to stay motivated.

Feeling like you succeed at maintaining a habit will help you stay consistent. By starting small, you create that sense of mastery and develop a steady base to build on for more change in the future.

#3 Commit For At Least Two Months

Another mistake many of us make when attempting to create lasting habits, is to quit too soon. Our brain needs time to acknowledge the new routine.

Some people claim that it only takes 21 days to make habits stick. However, a study on habits shows that it on average takes us 66 days before a new habit becomes an automatic process. Therefore, make sure to commit to your new habit for at least two months.

By creating small, attainable changes in your daily routine to implement the new habit, you’ll manage to keep up with your new routine and stay motivated.

#4 Use Reminders

Something that helped me tremendously when creating new habits such as a gratitude practice, is to put daily reminders on my phone. Each day at the same time, it reminds me to keep going and implement gratitude in my morning routine.

You can put your reminder wherever you want. Put it in your calendar, set an alarm at a specific time, or maybe put a little note on your mirror to remind you every day.

You may wonder what to put on your reminder! Sure, you can simply write down ‘Remember practicing gratitude‘, but I found that it helps me more to state the ‘why’ of my habit on the reminder rather than the habit itself.

So instead, I write ‘Gratitude helps me to reduce my anxiety, so remember being grateful’. This has helped me to establish a gratitude routine and ultimately make it a lasting habit.

#5 Track Your Habits

Another powerful way to create lasting habits is to start tracking your habits. Write down each day how you managed to maintain your habit and how it felt to do so.

Tracking your habits will help you to create a sense of mastery. Also, it is a wonderful way to stay motivated along the way. After a while, you will look back on your time spent building new habits and feel proud of the progress you’ve made.

There are many powerful habit-tracking apps out there. For instance, I am a big fan of the app Fabulous, which definitely helps you to keep track of everything you’re doing to build your habit.

#6 Create Lasting Habits Together

When you want to start establishing healthy habits on your own, it may feel challenging to keep up with the routine. Even though you do everything in your power to keep up with the good habit, your brain still may convince you to stay in your comfort zone and ditch the habit.

I don’t remember which podcast mentioned it, but I learned that from the moment you feel the urge to do something until your brain tries to convince you not to do it, you have 5 seconds. That’s a short window to get into action on your own.

Therefore, find somebody with similar goals. Try to motivate each other and keep each other accountable. This is a powerful way to create lasting habits.

For instance, I have a business buddy with whom I get together every two weeks to discuss my business activities and important goals. This helps me to keep working towards achieving my dreams. The same goes for your habits. Try to find somebody who also wants to establish that specific habit.

For instance, send each other motivating messages to keep up with the good work. Or get together every now and then to discuss your progress and celebrate milestones together. It is such a nice and fun way to keep the momentum going.

#7 Discover Your Limiting Beliefs

As I mentioned, your brain will do everything in its power to keep you in your comfort zone. Especially for highly sensitive people – who always are on the lookout for danger – this is the case. Therefore, it is important to get to know your limiting beliefs.

Your brain will always use what it knows the most to motivate you into ‘staying safe’ in the comfort zone. Hence, it uses your limiting beliefs against you, whether you want it or not.

For instance, one of my limiting beliefs is that I will never be a successful entrepreneur. Whenever I do something that is outside my comfort zone, like launching a new product, my brain will use that limiting belief against me to convince me to not do it.

Ever since becoming aware of those limiting beliefs, I acknowledge them when they appear. Learning how to talk to my inner critic and reformulate those limiting beliefs helped me tremendously in my personal growth journey.

Establishing new healthy habits will become easier once you identify your limiting beliefs and find ways to overcome them.

#8 Work With Affirmations

A logical follow-up from the previous tip, is to start working with affirmations whilst building healthy habits. Affirmations cannot only help you to overcome limiting beliefs that hold you back, but they also motivate you along the way.

An affirmation is a simple, motivating statement that is easy to remember. For instance, if you want to lose weight to feel healthier, you may use the affirmation statement ‘I am becoming a healthier version of myself for every day that passes.‘ Or if you want to step out of your comfort zone more and do new things, you could use the statement ‘I am brave for stepping out of my comfort zone into new exciting adventures.‘

Affirmation statements are very personal. Hence, try to write down your own affirmation statements that help you to create lasting habits.

#9 Find Role Models To Create Lasting Habits

Once you start your journey towards developing new habits, it is wise to look for role models. Role models that will motivate you to keep going and inspire you every day.

Thankfully, social media offers us the opportunity to easily connect with inspiring role models in various fields. Simply use the hashtag of the habit you’re building and browse through the content creators out there.

Whether it be on Tik Tok, Instagram, or Facebook, there are thousands of inspiring accounts out there waiting to be discovered!

#10 Celebrate Your Wins

Finally, one of my best tips to create lasting habits as a highly sensitive person is to reward yourself regularly. When creating a plan to build your habit, remember to put in milestone moments and work with a reward system.

Think of things that you experience as rewarding, whether it be a nice dinner, a shopping trip, or simply a movie night with your favorite snacks. Then, put down the various rewards at different milestones in your habit-building journey.

For instance, I want to wake up earlier each morning to have more time for working on what I am passionate about. In order to keep up the good habit, I reward myself with shopping moments. In the beginning, the reward moments are smaller but more frequent, but as I keep going, I increase the reward.

Why? Because maintaining a habit the first week is rather easy, but after a while, it is easy to forget the habit for a day or two, and then three or four days… until it is completely forgotten. Increasing the reward and the moments to celebrate your wins help you to not give up that easily!

Some Final Remarks

Now that you’ve discovered my top 10 tips to start creating lasting habits, it is time to think about what habits you’d like to develop. I hope that these tips will help you in your journey. Good luck!

What habit would you like to implement in your daily life? Feel free to share it in the comments.

Make sure to save this post for later!

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The post How To Create Lasting Habits As A Highly Sensitive Person appeared first on HiSensitives.

Do you want to improve your health? There are several simple lifestyle changes that can help you to live a healthier life. Discover them in this short read!

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

We all want to be as healthy as possible. But we are also surrounded by distractions and temptations that draw the majority of us off track.

The truth is, living a healthy lifestyle is simple if you put your mind to it. However, the best way to go about adapting to a healthier lifestyle and sticking to it is to make a series of small changes over time.

Deciding your going to become healthier overnight and making radical changes can place too much pressure on yourself, make it harder to stick to all of the changes, and has higher chances of resulting in a reversion back to unhealthy habits.

Here are just a few simple lifestyle changes to take under your wing, one at a time, to slowly step towards a truly healthier existence!

Cut Out Junk Foods

The majority of us are guilty of eating junk foods. Every once in a while, this is fine. But when you start eating junk foods on a day-to-day basis, you can find that your health suffers.

Junk foods – such as takeaways, fast food, ready meals, and unhealthy snacks – tend to be nutritionally devoid. They tend to use low-quality ingredients and they usually have high levels of salt, sugar, and saturated fats.

On top of this, they can even be addictive, encouraging you to go back for more and more. Their key appeal is convenience. So, to cut them out, you’re going to need to be more organized.

Make a meal plan for the week. Make sure it is balanced and packed with different healthy ingredients. Incorporate your five a day, each and every day.

This will ensure you stick to your main meals. Next, prepare snacks. Having healthy snacks at hand can prevent you from opting for unhealthy alternatives.

Pack Your Bag Well

It’s always a good idea to carry everything you may need during the day in your bag.

Packing some health items can help ensure you have what you need, as and when you need it. Some basic medicine, such as paracetamol, ibuprofen, or antihistamines, can come in useful.

Heat packs or cooling gel packs from accurategelpacks.com can soothe any aches or pains you may be experiencing. If you need an inhaler, keep it on you.

Packing your bag to deal with discomfort, pain, or issues such as allergies can allow you to reduce negative symptoms, pain, or discomfort quickly.

Get Your Exercise

It’s recommended that the average adult gets one hundred and fifty minutes of moderate aerobic exercise a week, or seventy-five minutes of moderate aerobic exercise a week.

This isn’t all too much, but all too many people still fail to achieve it. If you’re not hitting this target, consider why. Some people can’t motivate themselves. Some people don’t like going to the gym. Others just don’t know where to start.

The key to success with exercise is to find something you actually like doing. You don’t necessarily have to go jogging or lift weights. There are countless options out there. Swimming, team sports, dance, yoga, fitness classes. The list goes on.

For additional support with weight loss, you might explore Mounjaro for weight loss. Mounjaro, a medication for type 2 diabetes, has benefits including weight reduction, better blood sugar control, and reduced appetite, which can complement your exercise routine.

Hopefully, some of the above steps can be incorporated into your day-to-day life and make a real difference!

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The post Simple Lifestyle Changes That Can Improve Your Health appeared first on HiSensitives.

Struggling with sticking to your workout routine? In this short read, you’ll discover what it takes to maintain your workout momentum.

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

A fitness routine is a key element of living a healthy and fulfilling life. But, anyone who has tried and failed to start exercising knows how challenging it is to maintain momentum.

While you might do well for a few weeks, life can easily get in the way, so soon enough, you’re right back to where you started. Is it possible to maintain momentum, though? Of course, it is. You just need to know how to achieve it no matter what happens in your life.

Don’t Expect Immediate Change 

Too many people go into an exercise routine expecting to get ripped, develop abs, and run a 5K (or more) in a few weeks. This is not what will happen, and it takes much longer for you to see and experience immediate change.

As long as you’re consistent, you will see minor but positive improvements after every session, and you can use this as a marker of how well you are doing. Over time, you can compare your abilities to your first few sessions, and this should be enough to motivate you to keep working hard for the results you want. 

The Warm-Up and the Cool-Down 

People who have little to zero experience in exercise often forget about the warm-up and the cool-down. But, these are two crucial elements of building and maintaining momentum.

The warm-up will loosen your muscles, making it easier to move without feeling sluggish. Likewise, the cool-down prevents lactic acid buildup, so make sure to stretch after your workout to overcome aches.

You can also buy CBD oil or use a foam roller to prevent muscle soreness, which may happen regardless at first as your body isn’t familiar with intense activity. 

Ditch The Common Excuses 

It’s always fun to exercise in the sunshine, which is what makes Spring and Summer popular times of the year, especially for runners or anyone who likes exercising outdoors.

However, unless you live somewhere that has forgotten what seasons are, seasonal changes will impact your routine. When the rain falls and the wind rushes through empty streets, it’s tempting to stick inside with something cozy.

This isn’t going to do your fitness any favors, so think of alternative workouts or suck it up and get outside. 

Implement Other Lifestyle Choices 

Experts say that it is impossible to outwork a bad diet. Stuffing your face with greasy and sugary snacks means you won’t get the conditioning you need to take yourself to the next level. The same goes for smoking or excessive drinking.

So, if you want to see results and maintain momentum, consider how you can implement lifestyle changes to make your fitness routine more successful. You’ll end up being healthier as a result.

On Course 

There will be days where you don’t want to do anything, or you feel like you aren’t making any progress, so what’s the point? If you want to maintain your momentum and reach your fitness goals, you must power through these doubts and down days. Soon enough, you’ll see the type of results you were hoping for. 

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The post How to Maintain Your Workout Momentum and See Results appeared first on HiSensitives.

Needing some tips on how to be more productive with your days? Check out these 6 powerful habits to help you thrive daily and live your best life!

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

Do you ever feel like you need motivation to help you thrive from day to day? You have come to the right place my friend. We all need motivation sometimes!

I want to help you thrive, so I’ve put together a list of 6 Powerful Habits To Help You Thrive Daily! I’ll go into each one in more detail and give you some tips along the way to incorporate these powerful habits into your daily routine.

Let’s learn and grow together!

Now that you’ve seen the list, let’s look at each one in greater detail! 

#1: Morning Routine 

One of the first powerful habits to help you thrive daily is to have a consistent morning routine. We have all heard this said many times, “Want to be productive? Have a good morning routine.” 

So what’s the big deal with routines? Not sure, but for whatever reason they can be great catalysts for having an overall better day. 

Studies have shown that waking up around the same time each morning is helpful for your body. It’s more predictable and your body is ready to wake up at that time.

What makes a good morning routine? Great question! Here are some helpful ideas: 

• Same wake up time 
• Workout 
• Shower 
• Breakfast 
• Read (the paper, Bible, articles on your phone etc.) 

Now if for some reason you wake up 30 minutes later one morning, there’s no need to freak out and think that everything will go wrong. Therefore, give yourself some wiggle room and grace. 

“What is your routine?” I’m so glad you asked:

• 6:20-6:30 Wake up 
• 6:30 Shower/Get dressed 
• 7:00 Breakfast and Coffee (Make sure my daughter gets fed too!) ● 7:30 Read or Work on Blog Promoting 
• 8:00 Breakfast for my husband before he heads off to work ● 8:30 Walk or some outside activity with my daughter 
• 9:00 Homeschool Starts 

Obviously there’s some variance with this, but for the most part my weekday mornings look very similar to what’s reflected in this schedule.

I have found that even on the weekends when I can sleep in, my body usually wakes up around the same time because it’s a daily habit. No shame in that! It shows consistency in my life, which is very encouraging. 

What If You Don’t Have A Morning Routine Yet?

If you don’t have a morning routine, start little by little. For instance, set your alarm to go off at the same time every morning. Also, make sure that you eat a healthy breakfast, fueling your body with the energy it needs for the day. 

Try those 2 things and once they’re regular habits, add a third or fourth to your list! Progress over perfection, right? You can do this! 

If you want to deep dive into how to create a morning routine, you may enjoy the book ‘The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)’

#2: Write It Down 

This powerful habit is for all of my Type A personalities and list-makers. 

There’s something to be said for making a list and crossing things off as you complete certain tasks. It can be very gratifying and motivating! Whether you make a list by hand (that is totally me!) or you use an app on your phone or have a big wall calendar, write down the most important tasks for the day. 

Sometimes the visual of seeing what we need to get accomplished can be very motivating, and also helpful! I don’t know about you, but I can tend to forget things if I don’t see them in writing multiple times.

When I taught kindergarten there were so many things I needed to remember, especially around the time of assessments and report cards. 

A great help to me was writing a task list down on sticky notes and putting them on my desk. I could check things off throughout the day as well as have continual reminders of things still needing to be accomplished. Very helpful! I love sticky notes. 

Whatever version of “writing things down” that fits your personality and working style, just do it! I think you’ll be amazed at how motivating it can be for daily productivity. 

If you are looking for a nice planner to write down your to do’s, you may want to check out the legend planner.

#3: Take Care Of Your Body 

Another powerful habit to help you thrive is to take care of your body, and by that I mean exercising and eating right. 

You have to fuel your body for success, right? If you seem to have a never ending task list, there has to be some way to gain the energy needed to accomplish everything. 

Some people are very regimented in their exercise routine and they never miss a day. That’s amazing. Multiple high fives and fist bumps if that’s you! 

How To Find Time To Exercise

I have found that since having a child, finding time to exercise daily can be tricky. It’s not that I don’t want to exercise, it’s actually finding the time to exercise. 

There are some mornings when I feel super sluggish and experience lots of brain fog only to realize that I need to get outside and take a walk! Afterwards I almost always feel better and more energized. 

Living in the midwest can be tricky for outside exercise in the winter time, but this year we tried very hard to not be couch potatoes. 

For instance, we found great workout videos on YouTube and got creative some days with dance parties. I learned that if it was at least 15 degrees and not windy, I could handle a long walk. Regardless, find out what works for you and stick to that routine! 

Conversely, if you’re exercising daily but not fueling your body with healthy foods, you’re doing yourself a disservice. For many of us, I think we would like to eat better, but it’s finding the time to plan and prepare healthy meals and snacks throughout the week that’s the bigger issue. 

With anything in life, if you want it bad enough you can make it a priority. You just have to get from the desire to the actual doing. 

We can talk it up all we want about wanting to eat right, and even find lots of healthy recipes that sound amazing!

But in order to thrive throughout our days and weeks we need to turn desire into action and fuel our bodies correctly. 

How Do You Eat Healthy Throughout The Week?

Great question! I know that it’s so much easier to drive through somewhere or order food for delivery. However, what works for our family, and we’re definitely not perfect, is to do a lot of our prepping on the weekends. 

We are big into juicing, so making juice is usually on our weekend list. Cold-pressed fresh juice is absolutely delicious and provides so many amazing vitamins and nutrients for your body! I highly recommend doing this if you’ve never tried it before. 

Sometimes it can be overwhelming to plan out meals for an entire week, so my advice is to take just a few days and plan. 

Shop for Sunday-Tuesday and make a point to cook those planned meals. Stick to your menu! After those 3 days, see how you did and then you can plan for a few more days. Progress over perfection, right? 

My other tip is to have healthy snacks with you at the office or ready to go at home. What I mean by this is to have carrots washed, peeled, and cut so you can just pull out the container and eat them when you’re hungry.

Having healthy snacks available prevents me from binging on a bag of chips (which is a huge weakness for me!). If I’m hungry and I open the fridge to see tons of fruits and veggies that aren’t prepped, I am more than likely going to grab a different snack. 

When things are prepped, everyone (including my husband), is more likely to eat healthier. Therefore, fuel your body correctly and take care of it so you can thrive on a daily basis. 

Looking for inspiration to eat healthy? Have a look at this book: ‘Eat Better, Feel Better: My Recipes for Wellness and Healing, Inside and Out’

#4: Good People 

If you want to thrive in your daily life, another powerful habit is to surround yourself with good people. Seriously, who is motivated by toxic people? Not me. 

When you have good people in your life, it’s energizing and motivating. Toxic people can do the opposite. Especially when you are an empath or highly sensitive person.

Here’s how I would describe good people: encouraging, kind, trustworthy, helpful, positive, inspiring, good friend. 

Toxic people, on the other hand, can be described with these words: negative, rude, condescending, divisive, untrustworthy, gossips, hurtful, mean, demotivating. 

Given the choice, I think most of us would opt for surrounding ourselves with good people. Then why do we sometimes have toxic people in our lives and keep them around? 

Sometimes it’s family members and that can be tricky because family is always there. We have to work at those relationships. 

However, other times you might have toxic people in your workplace or in your neighborhood and it’s inevitable that you will run into them on a daily or weekly basis. My advice? Always be kind. 

Just because someone is awful to you doesn’t permit you to be rude back. Besides, you’re more mature than that. Don’t stoop to their level. 

When it comes to toxic people that will always be around, just be in their lives at a distance. Share very little, only interact when it’s absolutely necessary, and then move on. 

If you are struggling with toxic people in your life, the book ‘The Highly Sensitive Person’s Guide to Dealing with Toxic People: How to Reclaim Your Power from Narcissists and Other Manipulators’ may be interesting for you to read.

How Do I Surround Myself With Good People? I Want More Positivity In My Life. 

Great question! If you’re wanting more positivity in your life, go where the positive people hangout. Whether it’s at church, a mom’s group, book club, or just other families at a park, there are positive and kind people all around. 

Most of us are good at reading people and can tell right away if a person meets our standards for friendship. If someone gives you bad vibes upon first meeting them, you can just move on knowing that they’re not worth the investment of your time and emotions. That’s totally okay! Red flags pop up for a reason. 

My mom used to tell me that if you can count the number of really good friends on one hand, you’re very fortunate. I agree with that! When it comes to friendship and people in your life, you should look at it as quality over quantity. 

Find some good folks and keep them around. Surround yourself with positive, caring, and inspiring people. They will help you thrive! 

For those of you interested in teaching your kids about kindness, you should read my article about raising kind kids. Awesome tips!

#5: Healthy Mindset 

Another powerful habit to help you thrive daily is to have a healthy mindset. When I say a healthy mindset, I mean putting good and positive things in your mind and heart. 

Some people choose to daily meditate. That’s very popular these days. For me, my healthy mindset comes from spending time in prayer and reading my Bible. 

Being a mom, I’ve found it challenging to be consistent with reading the Scriptures, but there’s always time for prayer. My favorite prayer time? In the shower. No joke! 

My morning routine includes a shower, and it’s a good 15-20 minutes to take in the day and reflect. Right now we have a couple of friends who are walking the cancer journey, so they usually come to mind in the mornings. 

Praying and talking to God about my worries and struggles has been very life-giving to me in this season. If you’re a Christian parent and you’ve wondered about prayer, I wrote a very helpful article that teaches parents about praying for their kids!

Aside from prayer and meditation, another common thing for having a healthy mindset is to listen to good music, and to avoid reading or watching the news. 

I understand wanting to be up on current events, but seriously, the news these days is ridiculous! Making a point to not watch the news has been a very healthy choice for our family. 

One other tip about having a healthy mindset is to try and see things in a positive light, which brings me to my last point. 

#6: Practice Gratitude 

Gratitude can go a long way towards an overall healthier and happier outlook on life. Gratitude is defined as: the state of being grateful: thankfulness

Hence, if you want to make gratitude a habit in your life, it’s something that needs to be practised and taken seriously. In the video below, you can learn more about the practice of gratitude:

How Do I Practice Gratitude? 

Great question! There are many ways to practice gratitude, but a very common method is to start a gratitude journal. It’s as simple as a notebook where you record things you are grateful for when they come to mind. 

If you need ideas, go on Pinterest, there are tons of pins all about gratitude journals with prompts to get the ideas flowing. Some families may sit around the dinner table and share one thing that they’re grateful for from the day. 

Also, you may want to consider purchasing a gratitude journal like ‘The 5-Minute Gratitude Journal’, to stimulate your gratitude practice.

For us we choose to do this at bedtime. Before we put Addie to bed we each share something we are grateful for. Sometimes Addie has epic days and her response is, “I’m thankful for the whole day!” Oh to be 6 and carefree! 

We started this about a year ago and it has proven so effective for our family.  As we’ve navigated some rough waters including financial hardship and infertility, practicing gratitude on a daily basis has reminded us of the many blessings we DO have in our lives. It’s an amazing, life-giving habit! 

However you choose to incorporate the practice of gratitude into your daily life, my encouragement is to just start. You won’t regret it!

And if you choose to write down your gratitudes each day, you will have a catalog of wonderful blessings to look back on, reminding you of the many good things in your life. What a gift! 

Remember, practicing gratitude isn’t just beneficial for you, it can benefit your children too! 

That’s A Wrap! 

If you’ve made it this far, you definitely care about establishing powerful habits to help you thrive daily. Way to go! 

For all my note-taking friends out there, here is the list one more time. 

6 Powerful Habits To Help You Thrive Daily:

1. Morning Routine 
2. Write It Down 
3. Take Care Of Your Body 
4. Good People 
5. Healthy Mindset 
6. Practice Gratitude 

If this list is overwhelming, no worries! Start with one habit and try that for a while. Once you feel like it’s a regular habit for you, move onto another one. Give yourself a lot of grace. Practice makes progress, right? Making progress with these powerful habits is definitely worth celebrating! 

Thanks for taking the time to read this article! I would love it if you’d follow me on my social channels and even subscribe to my blog! I only send out encouraging and helpful content, which is a step towards a healthier mindset. 

Lots of love to each of you! 

Lisa 

—

If you’re a parent and wanting to hear the latest parenting hacks, check out some of my most popular parenting articles:

“Mom, You’re Fat.” The 8 Eye-Opening Secrets For Raising Kind Kids
6 Tips For Raising Grateful Kids Instead Of “ME-Monsters”
“Mommy, I’m Scared.” 6 Ways To Help Your Kids Deal With Their Anxiety
Build Confidence In Your Kids With These 7 Awesome Tips!

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The post 6 Powerful Habits To Help You Thrive Daily appeared first on HiSensitives.

Do you struggle from an overwhelming life? Time to change that and stress less with this ultimate guide on how to feel less overwhelmed.

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

Remember when you were a kid and couldn’t wait to grow up? Most of us longed for the freedom of adulthood. I certainly did. If we only would have known how overwhelming life can be at times, right?

Once you become an adult, you realize that there are many responsibilities to take care of. For instance, you’ll have to work, clean your house, maintain your social relations, stay fit and healthy, pay your bills and much more. This can be overwhelming for many of us.

As a highly sensitive person or empath you most likely know that life can be extra overwhelming for you. Besides the above mentioned challenges, you are increasingly sensitive towards your surroundings. Where highly sensitive people are experiencing overwhelm because of deep sensory processing, energies of other people tend to overwhelm empaths every now and then.

If you are both an HSP and an empath, like me, I can only imagine how overwhelming life must be for you at times. Therefore, I created this extensive guide to help you reduce overwhelm and feel happier.

Overwhelmed Socially? Try These Tips!

For many HSP’s and Empaths, it is common to become socially overwhelmed in life. Social overwhelm is caused by different aspects. For instance, it arises when you overcommit yourself to socializing. Also, it is a result of hanging out with too many people or people who do not fit your personality and needs. For those of you struggling with social overwhelm these tips might come in handy.

Identify Your VIP’s And Spend More Time With Them

If you find yourself socializing with many different people throughout the month, it may be wise for you to identify your VIP’s. Your very important people.

It may sound harsh, but this article states that about 20% of your relationships cause 80% of your overall happiness. Hence, only 1/5 of the people you socialize with, are having significant impact on your happiness. Therefore, it may be wise for you to look who belongs to these 20%.

Once you have identified the people that are important for your overall wellbeing, you know who to socialize with more often and who to see less frequently. This way, you can protect your energy and avoid becoming socially overwhelmed in life.

Let Go Of Unhealthy Relationships

While you are at it and evaluating your relationships with people, it may also be wise to look at the relationships that cause stress and overwhelm. Sometimes, this can be friendships which have changed greatly over the years.

For instance, you could have grown apart and have different interests, but still see each other because you feel obliged to do so because of the many years of friendship. Sometimes, it is okay to realize that you have grown apart and it is time to let that friendship go.

Moreover, unhealthy relationships could also be relationships in a business setting or even family members. Realize that it is not selfish to let go of those bonds. If they drain your energy and cause you to feel overwhelmed in life, this is the best thing to do.

I know that it is hard, but you will most likely feel relieved once you have decided to part ways. When I had to let go of some relationships in the past, I felt truly upset at first, but in the long run I noticed that it was the right thing to do for both parties. Therefore, do not feel guilty when friendly letting go. The release of those connections will make room for fresh energy and inner peace.

Set Healthy Boundaries

If you happen to be a people pleaser who cannot say no to others and wants to help everybody who asks, this one is for you. Most likely, you may struggle with setting healthy boundaries. As a result, you put everybody else first and ultimately burn out your energy.

Therefore, setting healthy boundaries is crucial for you in order to reduce social overwhelm. There are many ways to learn how to set healthy boundaries.

For instance, you may want to create a ‘helping others’-time budget. Clarify for yourself how many hours a week you want to spend helping others. Then, when people ask you to help them out, have a look at your time budget and see if you hold space for them.

If you want to help them out and have time in your time budget to do so, feel free to help them. However, if you are running out of time or you don’t actually like doing the task they ask you to help out with, don’t be afraid to set healthy boundaries and say no.

The method above is one of my absolute favorites, as I love helping people out, but sometimes struggle with saying no when I don’t have time. Setting a time budget at the beginning of the week helps me to manage my energy and still be of service to others.

Is Work Life Overwhelming? Implement These Best Practices!

Another major potential source for overwhelm is work. Many highly sensitive people and empaths struggle with finding a good work-life-balance. As the 9 to 5 is created for the majority of people, who are less sensitive, this work pace and these expectations can be challenging for us to live up to. Hence, it is important to be aware of how to manage work overwhelm in life.

Discover Your Ikigai

One of the biggest game changers for me in relation to work, was to identify my Ikigai. In the illustration to the right, you can see the Ikigai model. Ikigai means waking up every morning, doing what you love for a living. It consists of four aspects: doing what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs and what you can get paid for. Combining these four aspects results in your dream career.

In order to experience life as less overwhelming, identifying your dream career and pursuing it is crucial. For instance, this model helped me to realize that I could make a living from becoming a blogger and freelance writer/translator/social media expert. Self-employment would enable me to make a living, while doing what I love and am good at and helping other people with my skills.

At the same time, I managed to create a life that isn’t that overwhelming. I work no more than 30 hours a week and have enough room for rest. Something which is crucial for highly sensitive people and empaths.

Therefore, I highly encourage you to deep dive into discovering your Ikigai. I am 100% sure that this will reduce much of your work overwhelm in life.

If you’d like to learn more about Ikigai and implement it in your life, I recommend you to read the book ‘Ikigai – The Japanese Secret To A Long And Happy Life’.

Implement Time Management

Another important factor in order to feel less stressed at work, is to implement time management. Oftentimes, many of us have a to do list that only seems to grow. This can feel incredibly overwhelming in life.

At some point, you may not even know when you have time to do specific tasks. That’s where time management comes in handy. Not only will proper time management give you an overview of how you spend your time at work, but it will also serve as a guide when setting boundaries at work.

Similarly to your ‘helping others’-budget that I talked about earlier in this article, your time budget for work can help you to see what tasks you can take on. Also, it will allow you to set healthy boundaries towards co-workers and your boss. Moreover, proper time management will help you to prioritize work tasks and have a clear overview of what needs to be finished when.

Therefore, if you feel like you do not have an overview of your work tasks, it may be wise to sit down and put them into a time table. If time management is new to you, you may want to read the book ‘Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind’.

Rest

One of the biggest epiphanies I have had in my career, is that rest is the most productive thing you could do. I don’t know about you, but I used to feel guilty about resting. Even when I was working 8 hour days, I felt that I was being unproductive during my time off.

This resulted in me never being able to truly rest. “I could be doing something more productive right now”, was a thought that struck my mind many times.

However, after coaching with an energy coach, I realized that not resting was counterproductive. When you go to work without resting, you are not productive. You are tired, easily distracted and feeling down.

Do you know that feeling after a long vacation, when you feel like you can take on the world and be super productive? That is because you took the time and gave yourself permission to rest! What if you would allow yourself to rest during your day-to-day life? See your resting hours like mini vacations where work talk (and thoughts) are not allowed.

Resting is like recharging your battery. Hence, it is the best thing you could do for your productivity. Additionally, I guarantee you that you will feel less overwhelmed in life once you implement rest without guilt in your daily routine.

If you want to tackle the rest guilt tripper once and for all, I highly recommend you to read the book ‘Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less’.

For Self-Employed Females: Synch Work With Your Cycle

This one is for the female, self-employed readers amongst us who menstruate. For me, understanding my cycle and synching work according to it has been a true life changer in order to reduce overwhelm. Believe me, you’ll want to dive into this.

When I did not know much about my cycle yet, I scheduled work tasks without thinking about the hormonal changes in my body. Hence, I oftentimes found myself in situations where I had scheduled incredibly challenging tasks during that time of the month. Tasks that would require all my energy, both socially and physically.

However, did you know that we are supposed to slow down during our period? That resting during those few days of the months is better for us? I did not, so when I first discovered this, it was a big aha-moment.

Hence, I began an experiment. I dove into this insightful article and rearranged my work schedule according to my cycle. In the weeks after my period, I now schedule work tasks that acquire more energy, social obligations and public presence from me. I also do product launches in those weeks.

After ovulation, I schedule tasks that require more of an introverted energy, such as checking off the smaller to do’s from my list, creative projects like writing and doing administrative tasks.

Where I often experienced work as overwhelming in life, I now truly thrive. Being in tune with my body and its needs is a freedom that I hope every woman will be able to experience in her life.

Financially Overwhelmed? Here Are Some Finance Hacks!

“Money, money, money, must be funny, in the rich mans world.” While I love this Abba-song, money hasn’t always been funny for me. Perhaps because I am not a rich man, haha! Anyways, I know that many of us struggle from overwhelming feelings in life due to finances.

Bills have to be paid and of course, we still want to have enough money to do the things we want to do. Therefore, I have looked into ways on how to reduce financial overwhelm, so we can all relax a little more. Here are some tips that I found to be useful in my own finances and that many financial experts recommend:

Create A Financial Budget And Set Financial Goals

I remember when I moved out, my mom gave me a financial planner as a gift. Perhaps she knew how overwhelming the financial aspects of life could be. Therefore, I learned at a young age to set a budget and financial goals.

If you want to feel less overwhelmed in relation to finances, this is the first thing you need to do. Identify your income, so you know how much money can spend every month.

Additionally, it is valuable to set financial goals. If you want to go on a vacation, this might be a financial goal. Another financial goal might be to save a certain amount for fun date nights or for a hobby. The sky is the limit and you are in charge of determining what financial goals you would like to set.

Setting a financial budget will reduce overwhelm, because you take charge of your finances and are aware of what you have. Hence, start there in order to reduce overwhelm.

Identify Your Spending

Once you have set a budget, it is time to identify your spending. This task can be somewhat overwhelming, as many of us may not be aware of all the money we spend on unnecessary things in life.

In order to identify your spending, have a look at the last three months of bank transactions. Divide even the tiniest amounts into categories, so you know where your money flows.

After identifying your spending, you will know where you can save money. This will give you a sense of calm and inner peace in relation to your finances.

If you happen to realize that you spend more than you make, it is also a wake up call to make changes or perhaps look for a job that pays more.

Do you want to take control of your finances? This book helped me tremendously in budgeting and categorizing my spending: ‘Kakebo – The Art Of Saving’

Set Up An Emergency Fund

Another overwhelming aspect of life is to not always know what life will throw at you. Whether it is a broken washing machine, an unexpected medical bill or a new car; those costs can add up quickly.

If you are anything like me, you worry a lot about these things. Therefore, I advise you to set up an emergency fund. This will take a major weight off your shoulder, as you know that you always have some savings to pay for those bills.

Overwhelm Because Of Your Home Chores? Try this!

80 years ago, it was common for women to stay at home while the man took care of the financial aspects of life. Nowadays, both have to work in order to be able to make a living. This results in some big challenges for couples, who often have to work fulltime and also manage a household along with all its chores.

As a self-employed HSP and empath I know how overwhelming it can be in life to maintain your household. Meal planning, cooking, cleaning, washing laundry, folding laundry, gardening and overall maintenance… who would have thought that adulting is so challenging at times?

However, it is possible to make these chores easier. Below, you can find some of the activities to reduce overwhelm in your household.

Declutter Your Home

When you have less stuff, you have less to worry about. Decluttering your home will provide you with many benefits. You will have more space in your cabinets and drawers and it will be easier to manage everything you own. Everything will have its own designated space.

Therefore, my first advice to feel less overwhelmed, is to set up a plan for decluttering your home. There are many ways to go about this, but I found the KonMarie method to be very useful.

This method asks you to only keep items that spark joy within you and that enrich your life. Getting rid of items that do not check off this criteria, will give you a great deal of inner peace and calm within your home.

Identify Your Chores And Make A Plan

Another thing that helped me and Riny to feel less overwhelmed in relation to our household, is to identify all of the chores that need to be done and to divide them amongst us.

It is wise to have an overview of all your chores along with how often these chores need to be done. There are many apps for that. I found the app Sweepy to be very useful in this process.

In this app, you can add all of your chores and how often you want to do them. The app will then remind you whenever it is time to get these chores done.

Get Help From The Outside

One thing I learned in Dr. Elaine Arons book about parenting as an HSP, is that you as an HSP shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. This counts for parents, but also for people who are not parents (yet) and in need of help.

When you feel that you are overwhelmed with everything going on in your life right now, it is not a shame to ask for help. Riny and I have been working crazy hours in the last year, which is the reason why we chose to hire a housekeeper.

It is nothing to be ashamed of and it is okay to hire help when you can afford it and you need it. And if you are really struggling and need a kind push from somebody that cares about you, do not be afraid to ask for their help.

For example, if your garden needs to be maintained, don’t be afraid to ask a friend who loves gardening. You will have a great day together, doing something that your friend loves and that helps you.

Oftentimes, we are afraid to be a burden for other people, but just remember how much you appreciate when somebody asks for your help. Most likely, the other person also will feel flattered that you think of them when asking for their help.

Asking for help will help you to get back on track with your household and maintain it in a calm and structured way in the future.

Automize Chores At Home

Finally, one of my little secrets for reducing the overwhelming household chores in life, is to automize whatever you can automize. There are some appliances that can take over some of your chores.

For example, you may want to consider buying a Roomba, which is a robot vacuum cleaner. Riny and I got one 3 years ago and it honestly was the best buy ever. With a dog in our home, this is a true life (-and time) saver!

Therefore, I can highly recommend you to invest in some automated kitchen- and home appliances. They will definitely make your life easier!

What Are Your Secrets To Reduce Overwhelm In Life?

Now that you have read my top tips to reduce the overwhelming aspects of life, I am super curious to discover your secrets! Feel free to share your ultimate life changers in the comments below!

You May Also Enjoy Reading These Articles

• How To Avoid Holiday Overwhelm As An Empath
• 7 Ways That Self-love Helps Conquer Feelings of Overwhelm
• Book Review: The Highly Sensitive Parent: Be Brilliant In Your Role, Even When The World Overwhelms You
• 10 Life Changers That Help Me As An HSP To Feel Less Overwhelmed

The post How To Create A Less Overwhelming Life appeared first on HiSensitives.

Do you want to start journaling but are you not sure where to start? In this blog, we share 7 tips for creating an effective journaling routine.

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

As highly sensitive people (HSP), we know how difficult it can be to get through life while wearing our emotions on our sleeve.

From wrangling an expanding professional career to dealing with the dynamics of social life, these feelings can wear us down.

One of the most effective tools to reduce the fatigue and sensation of being bogged down is expressing our inner-most thoughts in a journal.

Using a sophisticated cross pen can enhance this experience, making the act of journaling feel more intentional and luxurious.

Journaling, when completed on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis, can help us better understand our thoughts, emotions and point of view.

7 Tips For An Effective Journaling Routine

As you may know, living with an HPS trait often makes it difficult to decipher and filter our feelings on any given day.

If this sounds like you, here are some tips for an effective journaling routine that you may find helpful.

1. Date Every Entry

When we begin to write in a diary, the thought of dating each entry sounds burdensome.

For some of us, the idea of dating a paper takes us back into our school years, which causes anxiety to build. However, having an archive of your feelings and ideas as the years progress is an efficient tool for healing and change.

Can you recall a time in your younger life where things were chaotic? Having a journal in those moments, and being able to go back and reflect on them in the present moment, would have given great insight into how you’ve developed over the years.

Whether we realize it or not, a great way to become more in tune with ourselves is by loving and accepting who we are at any given moment in our past.

While your journaling routine may change and shift in the future, always make a habit of dating each entry.

A few years from now, when you go back and reflect on your day, you will be thankful you did.

2. Thought Flow

As individuals with the HSP trait, we know what it’s like to filter our thoughts and change our words to fit the social narrative. In our journal, however, we don’t need to do this.

The next time you write a diary entry, let the thoughts flow naturally onto the paper. Rather than edit and change the phrases in your mind, write them in their pure, raw and unadulterated form.

Society has cold and harsh ways of making people like us conform to societal norms. While it may help us within an academic environment or professional setting, it blunts our ability to process emotions and feelings.

By creating a journaling routine that compliments our organic thought pattern, we become a better version of ourselves.

3. Be Unapologetically You

For highly sensitive people, experiencing emotions can be likened to getting hit by an avalanche of emotional and mental stimulation. For most people, they can brush these instances off and return to their daily lives.

With us, it paralyzes our ability to move forward and maintain a productive schedule. As a coping mechanism to deal with these issues, we’ve developed a mask that we wear to hide from the world.

Try to avoid the mask-wearing when developing your journaling routine. Do not filer or minimize your experience to make others more comfortable; be your true self.

4. Emotional Release

A good journaling routine can be a cathartic tool to release emotions that we’ve locked inside for years.

When society tells us to bottle up our emotions and never show our true nature, journaling encourages us to explore the emotional side of our character.

Do you refrain from discussing your HSP traits with friends, family members or coworkers for fear of ridicule?

If so, a journaling routine will act as a launching pad to explore your inner voice.

After years of suppression and silence, you may be surprised at what occurs when your pen meets the paper!

5. Cultivate Appreciation and Growth

Common issues that many individuals struggle with when they first start their journaling routine are overly-critical thoughts and judgement of their writing.

After reading an entry from the past, cast your criticisms to the side. Explore the thoughts and emotions that were stirring inside as you wrote those words.

Once you begin to paint a picture of yourself at that moment, use the lessons to find inner peace.

Although you may not agree with what you wrote, it was the catalyst for inner-change and growth.

We must learn to appreciate and accept our past if we want to experience positive change in the future.

6. Meditation

Although many people don’t associate meditation with emotional growth, science has long-since known the effects of daily mindfulness practice.

When you sit down in a quiet space to explore your inner stillness, recall back onto the words you wrote in your diary.

Use these words as a meditative anchor that roots you into the present moment, melting away negative thoughts or emotions.

You may be hesitant to try this method, and that’s OK!

Once you open yourself up to the practice of meditation, you will be shocked at how powerful a tool it is.

Meditation before journaling can also be a powerful exercise. Why not try this meditation for self reflection?

7. Don’t Stress Yourself

As we conclude, it’s important to remember not to become overly-stressed or burdened by your journaling routine.

If you’re having an overwhelming day, or you want to relax and watch The Office on Netflix for the 20th time, that’s perfectly fine!

Journaling, in a general sense, is a tool that allows you to process thoughts and emotions that would otherwise confuse or disarm you.

On the days that you feel as though the world is causing you internal conflict, put pen to paper.

Your journaling routine should assist you, not define you.

Is A Journaling Routine Right for You?

If you’re a sensitive person that becomes bombarded with emotional stimuli, a journaling routine will act as a filtering mechanism.

It will give you the power to still the chaos around you and help you develop inner wisdom.

Diaries can provide an unseen world of love and acceptance, where you author a version of reality that meets your standards.

It allows you to see that even though you may struggle with certain aspects of life, you’re not alone.

Try developing a journaling routine and see what hidden truths you discover as your pen crosses the paper!

You May Also Enjoy Reading These Articles

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• Highly Sensitive Person And Love: How To Thrive In Your Relationship

The post 7 Useful Tips For An Effective Journaling Routine appeared first on HiSensitives.

As a highly sensitive person it is common to overthink and be stuck in the past or the future. In this blog, I explain how to be more present in the here and now.

Hey there, lovely readers! We want to be completely transparent with you. Some of the links in this blog are affiliate links, which means if you click on them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. 😊

We only recommend products and services we genuinely believe in and have personally used or researched. Your support through these links helps us keep bringing you valuable content, so thank you for being amazing!

Estimated reading time: 17 minutes

Do you feel the desire to be more present in the here and now? 

Are your thoughts preventing you over and over again from achieving this? 

Do you feel that your trait as a highly sensitive person is blocking your path towards a more mindful and present life?

Keep on reading, because I have investigated further on the topic of HSP’s and mindfulness and found some interesting insights!

What Does It Mean To Be A Highly Sensitive Person?

In order to truly learn how to be more present in the here and now as an HSP, it is important to know how highly sensitive people tick.

15-20% of the world population are highly sensitive people. That is 1 in 5! 

Highly sensitive people process sensory stimuli more intensely. Because we pick up on every tiny signal around us, we tend to feel more easily overwhelmed.

Loud noises, bright lights, specific smells are all external sensory stimuli that might result in overstimulation within a highly sensitive person.

In addition, a highly sensitive person has a heightened amount of active mirror neurons, which results in high levels of empathy.

We are excellent at understanding what the other person is going through and have a tendency to pick up on their energy quite naturally.

Another common trait for highly sensitive people is that we have an increased depth of processing what is going on around us. This might result in hours and hours of overthinking.

All these aspects that come along with being a highly sensitive person, might feel like roadblocks on the path towards a life in the present. 

But don’t worry, it is not impossible for highly sensitive people to learn how to be present in the here and now!

In this blog, you will learn why you as an HSP might struggle to be present in now. Also, you will read why it is important to be more present in the here and now. Finally, you will receive some practical tips on how to achieve that.

Why Do We Struggle To Be Present In The Here And Now?

Being present in the here and now is a common theme that has been introduced thousands of years ago.

“If you think about history, you will be depressed. If you think about the future, you will have anxiety. If you think about the present, you will be in peace. ” – Lao Tse. 2000 years ago.

New-age philosophers, Buddhists, our modern psychology and thousands of other resources preach about the importance of putting your regrets about the past and your worries and anxious thoughts about the future aside to make more room for the present.

While it seems so easy in theory, the practical execution of this idea is a tough nut to crack. Why is it so hard for us to bring our mind to the present? There are two obvious reasons: cognition and evolution.

Our intelligent cognition denies the existence of the present. It is almost impossible for our mind to grasp the concept of it, because it views time as a constant and linear process.

To be more specific, any second before the now is the past and every second after the current moment is the future. No wonder our minds struggle to be present in the here and now!

The other factor that plays a major role when it comes to struggling to be more present is evolution.

It is our awareness that sets us as humans apart from other species. Evolution has hardwired human psychology to focus on the past and the future.

Learning And Planning

While other species’ instincts and reflexes are wired to help them survive, the survival of humans is founded on learning and planning. 

In order to be able to learn, you have to look at the past for mistakes, so you won’t make them again. Feelings such as regret and guilt are our mind’s way to tell us to learn from our faults and not make them again.

For planning, a look into the future is necessary. Thoughts about what is going to happen in the future is essential in the process of motivating us. It motivates us to spend time on doing something displeasing today for the benefits of our future well-being and happiness.

Without looking into the past, we wouldn’t learn from our mistakes. Without focusing on the future we would stand still. We simply would not grow. Therefore, it is not a bad thing to be thinking about the past and the future. It is human.

How Does The Cognition- & Evolution Theory Work When You Are Highly Sensitive?

While every human thinks about the past and the future, highly sensitive people are wired to do this on an even deeper level! 

The capability to process external stimuli more deeply compared to non-hsp’s is a strategy to pause to check, observe and reflect on the things that we already have noticed, before undertaking further action.

It is a survival strategy that involves observing before taking any further steps. Way back in time, when danger was around every corner, this was a necessary skill for the group to survive.

So next time you are harsh on yourself for focusing much on the past and the future, know that this is an evolutionary trait which actually brought the human race to this point.

Nevertheless, it would be nice to switch off this skill every now and then and to be more present in the here and now, wouldn’t it? Let me tell you why this is an important skill to master.

Why Be Present In The Here And Now?

While most of us like to think that we have control over the future, the here and now is actually where we are fully in control.

Also, the present moment is the place where you will feel the most comfortable. This is the only place where you truly can control your level of happiness.

Studies have shown that there is a correlation between happiness and being present in the here and now. 

They claim that your happiness does not occur from the things that happen to you or happened to you in the past. Happiness occurs from being able to master your mind, thoughts, mindset and attitude.

It is impossible to control how you feel about a certain situation in the presence, but you do always have the power to control how you think. 

50% of your happiness are determined by your genes and 10% by your circumstances. However, there still are 40% of your happiness which you are in full control of. 

I know, it sounds incredibly challenging and it is. Most of us don’t take on our thoughts in full awareness, but rather let thoughts control us. 

How Your Mind Is Blocking You From Happiness

Have you ever caught yourself in a situation where you were triggered by something specific and you let your mind wander off to a degree where your level of happiness was affected? I certainly have. Let me give you an example. 

Whenever I see a dog being put to sleep, I start to think that I have to put my dog to sleep somewhere far away in the future. Then another thought occurs where I think about how sad that moment will be. Consequently, my body starts to react to those thoughts and I feel sad and on the verge of crying. See what my mind did there?

This example shows how one current thought can affect your happiness in the present. I let my mind wander off into the future instead of saying to myself “Hey, we still have many years to go, enjoy the here and now with your dog!”.

So instead of being sad or upset about things that might or will happen in the future, focus on your current situation. What is happening in the here and now? Focus on your thoughts, mindset and attitude. This is called mindfulness.

The Benefits Of Mindfulness

There are many benefits that come along with being present in the here and now and mindful living. 

For example, mindfulness results in decreasing stress and sadness and increases focus and happiness.

In addition, living a mindful life enhances your ability to deal with illness and pain. Also, it boosts your working memory and reduces emotional reactivity.

All of these benefits can be achieved by living in the here and now. Now that you know why you might struggle to be present in the here and now and why it might be beneficial for you to focus on this, it is time to have a look at the HOW.

How To Be More Present In The Here And Now?

As a true personal growth junkie, I love to try out a variety of practical methods. Below, I have listed scientifically proven methods that you can try to be more present in the here and now.

1. Breathing Meditation

“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.” Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness (affiliate link)

A breathing meditation is a powerful tool to bring your mind back to the here and now. You do it continuously and it is part of the here and now.

Because you do it continuously, it is always available! Wherever you are and whenever you feel overstimulated or are overthinking, you can use your breath as a tool to bring your mind back to the here and now.

Science shows that there is a direct biochemical link between your breathing and your brain. Once you put your focus towards your breath, you can control your brain to become more conscious.

By consciously focusing on your breathing, you can shift your brain from the Sympathetic Nervous System (Fight or Flight) to the Parasympathetic Nervous System (Rest and Digest). 

Especially for highly sensitive people, who have a tendency to be in fight or flight-mode, this is a crucial technique to bring your mind and body back to the present moment.

If you’d like to give it a try, this breath meditation is wildly popular on Youtube:

2. Body Scan

Another tool you always have available for bringing yourself to the present moment, is your body! By performing a body scan, you can bring your mind back to the here and now within no time.

But what is body scanning? It is a conscious moment where you pay attention to the parts of your body and its sensations gradually from feet up to your head.

Here, you scan your body mentally and bring awareness to every aspect of it. In this process, you notice specific aches, pains, tension or overall discomfort. 

By noticing these discomforts, you become aware of them and the fact that they need to be managed in the future.

Studies have shown that body scanning offers benefits such as stress reduction. Reduced stress can result in decreased inflammation, fatigue and insomnia.

If you’d like to try a body scan meditation, you might want to try this one:

3. Touching

For highly sensitive people, this might be a very powerful way to be more present in the here and now.

Simply put your attention towards touch. What touches your skin and body throughout the day? How does it feel? 

We undertake many daily actions unconsciously. Activities such as washing our hands or taking a shower are done on auto-pilot while our mind happily wanders off into the past and the future.

By bringing your attention towards the sensation of touch, you become more aware of what is happening right here right now. 

So next time it is raining and you are walking outside, focus on the feeling of the rain drops on your skin.

Or when you are walking through the grass, put your attention towards the feeling the grass stalks have on your feet. 

This is a simple yet super effective method to bring your mind back to the present moment.

4. Wait For The Next Thought

A powerful method to bring your mind to the present is to wait for the next thought. I came across this method in Eckhart Tolle’s book ‘The Power of Now’(affiliate link).

Here, Tolle asks you to close your eyes and ask yourself what your next thought is going to be.

Then you will become very aware and wait for the next thought, just like a cat who is watching a mouse hole, waiting for the mouse to come out. 

You can try this method in combination with a breath meditation. Breathe in deeply 4 times and then breathe out 4 times. Then, bring your breathing pattern back to normal and ask yourself the question ‘What will be my next thought?’.

Focus on the things that arise in your mind. Observe them without judgement. Accept their existence. Then ask yourself the same question again and observe what your next thought is.

You will realize that this is an incredibly powerful way to become more conscious of the here and now.

At the end of this meditation, end with 4 conscious breaths in and out again.

5. Listen Closely To The Words Somebody Is Saying

Have you ever found yourself in a conversation where you weren’t really listening? Instead, you were already making up your answer for what the other person was telling you?

Been there done that! It is a very common thing that many of us do. Especially when you struggle from social anxiety, this is a normal coping mechanism.

However, it takes you away from the present moment. In addition, you might want to ask yourself the question if you really are listening, when you already have your answer ready before the person has finished their sentence.

Listening closely to the words the other person is using is a wonderful way to bring our minds back to the present moment. Additionally, it makes us better listeners. Win-win!

Challenge yourself to get out of your mind and to focus on what the person is actually saying. Try to listen without the intention to respond.

You will notice that you will be more present in the conversation. And another benefit: your conversation partner will most likely experience you as a very good listener.

6. Focus On Movement

Similar to the exercise to focus on touch, you might consider to focus on movement to be present in the here and now.

Focus on the way you move your hands while cooking. Put your attention towards your legs while walking. Focus on your chewing during dinner time.

There are hundreds of movements that we do unconsciously throughout the day. Try to acknowledge some of those automated movements during the day to bring your mind and focus back to the here and now.

7. Gratitude

As mentioned earlier in this article, happiness is created in the now. An incredibly powerful way to channel your happiness in the present moment is gratitude.

Gratitude is a mindfulness method where you bring your attention towards the aspects of your life you are grateful for. 

It does not look at what you have lost or what you should gain, but looks at the here and now.

If you have never practiced gratitude before, you might experience this method as challenging the first couple of times.

I remember when I first started with gratitude, I could barely mention 3 nice things that happened throughout my day. Now, I can mention hundreds of things that I am grateful for in a heartbeat! 

Gratitude is a wonderful practice that not only brings your mind back to the present moment, but also makes you look at your life differently.

It will help you to develop a more positive attitude and it also offers health benefits such as experiencing less pains and aches, better sleep, increased mental strength and improved self-esteem. If these aren’t reasons to get started with a gratitude routine today?

If you are planning on getting started with gratitude, you might want to consider this 52-week gratitude guide (affiliate link). 

This wildly popular gratitude journal is straight to the point and helps you to develop a gratitude habit that is manageable in your busy daily life. 

8. Journaling

If you like to write, you might want to consider starting journaling to be more present in the here and now.

Oftentimes, we carry our thoughts with us throughout the day, while it sometimes may be good to unload them somewhere. That somewhere could be your journal.

Journaling is a powerful method not only for letting go of your past and your worries about the future, but also for self-reflection.

It helps you to identify recurring thought patterns and to see things from a different perspective.

If you are struggling to come up with things to journal about, you might want to consider a journal with journal prompts. 

For example, there is this wonderful journal from Monica Sweeney, which helps you to “leave your bulls*** behind and live a happier life’.

I experience journaling as a wonderful way to let go of certain thoughts and be more present. Perhaps, it will work for you, too?

9. The Off-button

A while ago, I came across a simple, yet super powerful method to bring my mind back to the present. As an HSP I overthink a lot, so this method was a true lifesaver for me. 

It is super simple; whenever you catch yourself overthinking or in a negative spiral of thoughts, imagine yourself pushing an off-button.

Just like you turn off the radio in the car when you are tired of the noise, imagine switching off your thought pattern. 

This method is incredibly powerful, as you consciously remind yourself that you don’t want to go down that road right now. You turn it off. 

While I love this method, I recommend you to only do this in combination with an exercise that helps you to tackle your thought patterns and emotions. 

Otherwise you would continuously push away your thoughts, which isn’t healthy for your mind and overall well-being. 

10. Worship Your Rituals

Another method which I find to be incredibly powerful in relation to mindfulness, is to worship your rituals. 

When I say rituals, I mean your daily habits of joy. For me, daily rituals include walking my dog, making a cup of coffee or tea, stretching in bed in the morning, taking a long bath or doing my beauty routine.

Think about the things that you do everyday that are a part of your self-care routine. Next time you do these rituals, do them consciously. 

Consciously pick your tea flavour, appreciate the smell of it and the sound of pouring hot water into your cup. Then, slowly enjoy every sip of that tasty cup of tea.

Apply this mindful way of living to every ritual you have. You can combine it with a moment of gratitude. Whenever I do my beauty routine, I am grateful for having wonderful beauty products that nourish my skin and hair.

Once you start to truly appreciate your little rituals, you will soon notice a mindshift towards positivity and gratitude. This again will help you to feel happier in the present moment.

11. Do A Digital Detox

If none of the methods above seem to help at first sight, I recommend you to do a digital detox.

Many of us spend hours and hours on social media and are informed about everything going on in the world 24/7. Especially for highly sensitive people, this can be tough and overwhelming.

Therefore, if you are so overwhelmed that you feel on the verge of a breakdown, I highly recommend you to do a digital detox. 

In this blog, I explain more about how to do a digital detox and the benefits of it. 

You will notice that once you have ditched your devices and apps for a couple of days, you will feel more relaxed and calm from within.

Whenever I schedule a digital detox, I also make sure to include some of the methods mentioned above to truly bring my mind back to the here and now. 

Also, I schedule many hours of down-time, where nothing is expected from me and I simply can be present in the here and now.

Good Luck With Being More Present!

While it is inevitable and in our nature to think about the past and the future, it is possible to be more present in the here and now as a highly sensitive person.

From breath meditations to digital detoxes; with the tips from this article, you will soon learn to be more present in the now.

I am curious: Which method resonates with you the most and why?

You May Also Enjoy Reading These Articles

• HSP And Out Of Energy? Recharge With These Five Tips
• 10 Powerful Tips To Reduce Anxiety As A Highly Sensitive Person
• 10 Life Changers That Help Me As An HSP To Feel Less Overwhelmed

The post How To Be More Present In The Here And Now As A Highly Sensitive Person appeared first on HiSensitives.

Do you struggle with setting healthy boundaries towards others? Apply this mantra and see how your life and relationships change!

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Do you continuously feel like people don’t respect your opinion?

Are you often being treated badly and in a way that you don’t deserve?

Do you feel that people often neglect your needs and emotions?

You might struggle with setting healthy boundaries. Highly sensitive people and empaths are known to have a kind nature. As a result, when they don’t set healthy boundaries, people will think that they are a push-over. Can you relate to that? Time to regain your power and show people where your boundaries are. In this blog, I’ll share one wisdom with you that helped me to set healthy boundaries.

What Are Healthy Boundaries?

Healthy boundaries are the space between you and another person. This can be both emotionally, physically or psychologically. Healthy boundaries protect your own needs and identity.

These boundaries are essential in order to have a good relationship with yourself, but also with the people around you. Moreover, they create a mutual feeling of trust and safety and protect you from toxic behavior and codependent behavior. 

The Consequences Of Not Setting Healthy Boundaries

If you don’t set healthy boundaries, you might struggle in life. A lack of boundaries can result in multiple negative consequences.

You…

• might do things or agree to do things that you in first instance did not want to do;
• feel exhausted or burned out;
• experience a disconnection from yourself. You do not know anymore who you truly are and what you stand for;
• struggle with resentment towards other people for pushing past your boundaries;
• attract people who know that you are a push-over and abuse your kindness;
• trust people less as a result of continuously being pushed out of your comfort zone.

As you can see, not setting healthy boundaries can result in many negative consequences for yourself. Time to learn how to tell people exactly where that boundary is!

Use This Mantra To Set Your Boundaries

There is one wisdom that helped me tremendously to set healthier boundaries. I discovered it in this podcast from Inner Integration. Write this mantra down and remember it whenever somebody pushes past your boundaries:

No is a complete sentence. – Susan Gregg

Take it in. Reflect on this sentence for a while. Repeat it to yourself day by day. This sentence will become a key player in your journey towards setting healthy boundaries. Whenever you struggle with boundaries, you will remember this sentence. Here’s why:

Shut The Door

When I talked with my sister about the topic healthy boundaries, she told me that she knows what I do wrong: In conversations, I leave the door open. As I don’t want to hurt people when I set my boundaries, I often set my boundary, followed with a ‘why’-explanation. This ‘why’-explanation gives the other person the idea, that my ‘door’ is still open and that they can walk past my boundaries anyways. 

They use my explanation for the ‘why’ as fuel to try to convince me to say yes or maybe. Therefore, the mantra above became a key player in my discovery of setting healthy boundaries for myself. I don’t have to explain people why my no is a no. No is a complete sentence and they have to respect that.

How To Tell People No

It sounds easier said than done, I know. “I can’t just tell people ‘no’ and walk away”, you must be thinking. However, by practice, saying no will be easier. In the process of applying this mantra, I learned that I have two choices; either I let myself down to please somebody else, or I let the other person go and find themselves a better fit for their needs.

An Example; 

A while ago, I met a client who tried to negotiate on my hourly rate for my writing services. He tried to push my rate 17$ under my hourly rate, which is quite much over here in Europe. In this progress, he used all persuasion techniques that you can imagine, to turn my no into a yes. 

In that moment, I had 2 choices; (1) I could agree to working for that rate and feel undervalued and bad about doing this job or (2) I could say no and give him the opportunity to find a better fit for his needs. 

I decided to let that client go. In the end, my low motivation to work on this project would affect his results, which eventually would result in both of us being unhappy in the end. You see what I am trying to say?

By setting your boundary with a clear ‘no’, you allow people to move on and find a better match for their wishes. In addition, you value your own needs and self-worth.

How To Deal With People Who Don’t Respect My Boundaries?

Once you start setting healthy boundaries, you will acknowledge that some people will resist. After all, they are used to you always agreeing with them and doing whatever they wanted you to do. How dare you set healthy boundaries? 😉

When you set boundaries and you see that people resist, you have two options:

• You accept that this boundary of yours is trespassed. Sometimes we don’t want to lose a specific relationship because of one disagreement. Determine for yourself how important it is for you to have your needs met in the specific area where you set the boundary.
• End the relationship. If you feel that your boundary is important to you and your identity, you should consider ending this relationship. It is hard, but sometimes it is for the better. When people cross your boundaries over and over again, you will have to deal with the abovementioned consequences. Don’t let that happen and wave the relationship goodbye!

You May Also Enjoy Reading These Articles

• How To Set Healthy Social Boundaries As An Introvert
• How To Stop People-Pleasing, Speak Authentically And Set Boundaries As An HSP
• How To Be A Healthy Highly Sensitive Person
• The Ultimate Guide To Improve Sleep Quality For Highly Sensitive Empaths

The post Use This Mantra To Set Healthy Boundaries Towards Others appeared first on HiSensitives.

Do you want to implement more rituals into your daily life? Jumpstart your day and feel more energized with these 20 powerful morning rituals!

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

In an earlier blog, we talked about how powerful rituals can transform your life. Not only do they help you to feel more energized, but they also decrease anxiety, increase confidence and bring you back to the here and now. 

Rituals can be applied throughout the whole day. However, powerful morning rituals can truly jumpstart your day. Therefore, we’ll provide you with 20 morning rituals that you can try out!

Why Morning Rituals Are Essential For Highly Sensitive People And Empaths

As highly sensitive people and empaths become overstimulated more easily, it is crucial to take enough time for self-care throughout the day. 

Oftentimes, many of us feel guilty for taking time to recharge. As a result, self-care ends at the bottom of our priority lists. However, this is the worst thing that you could do!

By making time for yourself and getting in the right energy mindset, you will be more productive than you would be with a lack of energy. Therefore, implementing rituals into your daily routine is the most productive thing you actually could do for yourself and others.

Imagine what an impact the right energy can have on your day! Consequently, it is a wise choice to start your day with some me-time.

Don’t Have Time For Morning Rituals?

This is a common excuse many of us make when claiming that morning rituals don’t fit into our schedule. In some way, there is this idea in our minds that morning rituals take a lot of time. That is not the case!

In fact, morning rituals can last as short as 3 minutes. As a result, even the busiest people can make time to implement morning rituals into their day.

Another common excuse that many people use, is that they are not an early riser. It is tough to wake up early in the morning, we know! But just imagine what effect it could have on the rest of your day to set your alarm for 10 minutes earlier, to implement morning rituals? Wouldn’t it be much better to start the day with the right energy, than going to work all tired and exhausted because you just rolled out of bed?

20 Morning Rituals You’ll Want To Try

Convinced? Time to start your mornings off right by implementing one of these 20 morning rituals.

1. Power Affirmations

Duration: 1 minute

One of the most powerful morning rituals is setting a power affirmation and repeating it to yourself. A power affirmation is a sentence that feels empowering to you and your situation. It can be anything that gives you energy. 

How to create a power affirmation?

Think of a situation in your life that you want to improve. Now, create a sentence that supports your goal. For example, if you want to grow your business, you might want to say “I attract good business opportunities and help people with what I do every single day”. Most important is, that your power affirmation feels empowering to you. If it doesn’t feel empowering, rewrite it until it does.

If you want to start your day with a new affirmation each day, you might want to purchase these ‘How to love yourself’-cards, consisting of 64 affirmations to start your day with or try writing down your affirmations in this affirmation journal:

2. Journaling

Duration: 5 minutes

Another wonderful way to start your day, is to write in your journal. Not only is it a wonderful way to get anything off your chest, that you don’t want to carry around with you for the rest of the day, but it is also an incredibly calm activity to start your day with. 

How to journal?

There is not really a recipe for journaling. Some people write whatever enters their mind, while others prefer to answer a preset question. You have to find out what feels right for you. 

If you love to journal with preset questions, you might want to buy the journal ‘Start where you are’, specifically designed for self-exploration. This journal helps you to nurture your creativity, mindfulness and self-motivation.

3. Stretching

Duration: 2 minutes

Many people underestimate the power of stretching. Why do you think that dogs and other animals stretch out when they wake up? It is incredibly beneficial for their health to do it and as a result, it is one of their instincts. Also for human beings, stretching has multiple benefits. Stretching improves your posture, reduces aches and pains, increases blood flows and provides you with more energy. So what are you waiting for? Let’s get started!

How to stretch?

In the video below, you will receive some tips on how to stretch in the morning:

4. Mindful Tea

Duration: 15 minutes

One of the rituals that I love, is the ‘mindful tea’-ritual. This is a very simple ceremony for those who enjoy peace and calm in the morning. It involves drinking tea without too much external stimuli from the outside world.

How to drink tea mindfully?

It begins with preparing your tea. Carefully select a tea that speaks to you, boil the water and pour it gently into your favorite cup. Then, find a calm space in your home or preferably on your front porch and sit down. Just enjoy the surroundings, take a sip of your tea every now and then and be in the here and now. Don’t look at your phone, the newspaper or the tv. This is external input that ruins the effect of mindfulness, as it takes you away from the present.

If you want to discover the world of tea, you might want to try out your mindful tea-ritual with this amazing tea-collection, consisting of delicious Heavenly Tea Leaves samplers.

5. Listen To A Podcast

Duration: 20-30 minutes

If you have more time on your hand in the morning than the average person, listening to podcasts might be an inspiring morning ritual for you. Most podcasts last between 20-30 minutes and offer you inspiring thoughts to start your day with. There are thousands of different podcasts out there! If you are new to the world of podcasts, you will definitely get hooked, once you start. 

How to listen to podcasts?

There are different ways to listen to podcasts and the most podcast shows are available on multiple platforms. You can for example listen to podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts.

6. Take A Walk In Nature

Duration: 15-30 minutes

If you are looking for calm morning rituals, walking in nature might be a nice one to try out. If you are lucky, you can access nature within a few minutes from your home. Some of us, who live in the city, might want to choose to take a walk in the park to get a taste of nature.

This morning ritual is incredibly powerful for highly sensitive people and empaths, as they usually recharge when in nature. If you are a multitasker, you might want to combine walking in nature with listening to podcasts.

7. Express Gratitude

Duration: 5 minutes

If you want to start your day with a positive mindset, one of the morning rituals you might want to try is gratitude. Gratitude is the art of reflecting on everything that you are grateful for. 

This simple practice has multiple benefits: it improves your physical and mental health, opens doors to new relationships, enhances empathy, improves self-esteem and makes you feel mentally stronger. If these aren’t enough reasons to start being grateful?

How to express gratitude?

Gratitude can be performed in your mind, but is even more powerful with writing. By writing down everything you are grateful for, you will think less from a perspective of lack, as you day by day see what you already have. 

You might want to try this beautiful gratitude-journal to start off your gratitude-ritual!

8. Take Time For Your Breakfast

Duration: 30 minutes

How many of us rush to work, grabbing a sandwich on the commute to our job? This is incredibly stressful for your mind and body and you give yourself the worst start of the day. Did you know that the breakfast is the most important meal of the day? It provides you with energy for everything you will do afterwards. Therefore, make breakfast one of your morning rituals! Buy healthy and tasty food to eat in the morning and take your time to prepare and eat it. Your health will thank you for it!

For example, you might want to try these delicious breakfast ideas!

9. Set An Intention For The Day

Duration: 3 minutes

Another incredibly powerful morning routine is to set an intention for the day. By writing down what you intend to achieve that day, chances are much bigger that you will achieve it. In addition, your intention often feels incredibly empowering. In this way, you give yourself the right energy boost before starting your day and activities.

10. Meditate

Duration: 10-15 minutes

If you truly want to change your mindset and feel more positive each day, you should consider to start meditating every morning. Research has shown that people who meditate every day, increase the tissue mass of the anterior cingulate cortex. This is the area of the brain that is responsible for controlling impulses and maintaining attention. In addition, the amygdala shrinks when you meditate regularly. This is the part of your brain responsible for sadness, anxiety and other negative emotions. Especially for highly sensitive people, whose amygdala is more developed, meditation can do wonders! Therefore, consider adding this to your morning routine.

How to meditate?

There are thousands of different meditation practices out there. If you are a beginner, you might want to start with guided meditations. This helps you to learn how to meditate. For more advanced meditators, sitting down and meditating with meditation music in the background might be a good fit. If you want to learn how to meditate, you might want to try this 28-day program!

For example, try this meditation to release anger and resentment.

11. Make A To-do List

Duration: 5-10 minutes

If you have a tendency to feel overwhelmed by everything that you need to do, it is wise to make a to do-list before starting your day. In this way, you can structurize your thoughts and start your day clear and focussed. 

How to make a to do-list?

First, you write down all the tasks that you have to do that day. Then, structurize them from most important to least important. Begin with the most important task and work your way through your list. If you acknowledge new tasks to do along the way, write them down and save them for the next day. This way, you keep your focus on your to do-list for that day.

This notepad is perfect if you want to structurize your to do’s!

12. Try Qi Gong

Duration: 20 minutes

This exercise is an amazing way to boost your energy. Qi Gong is a practice of coordinated body movement, breathing and meditation in one. It originates from China and functions as a way to cultivate and balance your life energy (Qi). By moving your body slowly, while breathing deeply and being in a calm meditative state, you can give yourself a real energy lift.

How to do Qi Gong?

In the video below, you can find an introduction to Qi Gong. This is perfect, if you are new to the practice and still need to learn more about it:

13. Visualize Your Future

Duration: 5 minutes

Many succesful people have a strong vision of what success means to them and how it looks like. By visualizing their dream every single day, they have managed to realize it and you can too! With this simple morning ritual, you give your energy a boost towards your dream!

How to visualize:

Sit down in a calm space and visualize what you want to achieve in life. Think about how it would feel to achieve what you dream about. Visualize where you would be, what you would do each day and truly tap in on the feeling of succes. The feeling you create in this session, will stick with you for the next hours, so use that time wisely!

If you want to read more about visualization and how to use it to create the life of your dreams, you might want to read the book ‘Creative Visualization.

14. Read

Duration: 30 minutes

You never stop learning, so invest in your growth. Take half an hour each morning to read a book that inspires you in some way. By broadening your horizon, you will acknowledge new opportunities, which you would neglect if you didn’t have the knowledge. 

If you are looking for a good read, we highly recommend ‘Super attractor’ from Gabrielle Bernstein, which helps you to practice the law of attraction.

15. Dream Journaling

Duration: 5 minutes

A nice twist of the classic journaling, is dream journaling. Most of us tend to forget most of our dreams, but they often try to tell us something. Therefore, it is wise to keep a dream journal near your bed, so that you can write down everything you remember, once you wake up. 

How to dream journal:

Write down your dream. Then, analyze what your dream might mean and what your subconscious is trying to tell you. If you need help with analyzing your dreams, you might want to buy this dream guide.

16. Drink Lemon Water

Duration: 2 minutes

Lemon water is good for your health, helps in digestion and offers you plenty of vitamins and nutrients. Therefore, start your day healthy with some lemon water. Simply put some lemon juice in your water and drink this mixture once you wake up.

17. Turn On Calm Music

Duration: 10-60 minutes

There is a difference between doing all your morning chores in silence or doing them with a calm beat in the background. Turn on relaxing music and start on your morning chores, such as showering, brushing your teeth or picking your clothes, with joy.

You might want to check out this relaxing music list on Spotify.

18. Do A Random Act Of Kindness

Duration: 5 minutes

Imagine how a small effort from you can make someone’s entire day? Therefore, plan to do one small random act of kindness. For example, you could buy the person behind you in line a coffee, help a mother with carrying her groceries to the car or simply smile at everyone you pass by. Joy can be found in the little things. Best of all, by making other people happy, you will feel a boost in happiness too!

In this book, you’ll find 500+ ideas for random acts of kindness. Let it inspire you to shine your light!

19. Be Creative

Duration: 20-30 minutes

Many highly sensitive people and empaths are creative. Therefore, being creative in the morning can be a fun and calming ritual. In fact, there are many ways to be creative. Find a way that suits you and let your creativity flow freely.

20. Exercise

Duration: 30 minutes

Many of us are not a fan of it, but it is so good for you! Exercising has many health benefits, including increased happiness, weight loss, higher energy levels, better relaxation and sleep quality and longer life expectancy. Pick an exercise that you enjoy. Yoga, for example, is a calm and relaxing exercise method to keep you moving. Definitely a great way to start your day!

The Art Of Maintaining Morning Rituals

After reading this article, you most likely are psyched to get started and already identified a couple of activities that you’d like to try out in the morning. Our advice; only begin with 1 ritual. Once this ritual has become an habit in the morning, introduce more rituals. This way, you are most likely to keep up with your routine. Remember, that morning rituals should feel effortless and be fun! Fun is the best way to get energized, so pick activities that bring you joy!

Good luck with creating your perfect morning!

You May Also Enjoy Reading These Articles

• 6 Powerful Habits To Help You Thrive Daily
• How Powerful Rituals Can Transform Your Life
• Personal Growth Podcasts
• How To Understand And Listen To Your Intuition

The post Jumpstart Your Day With These 20 Morning Rituals appeared first on HiSensitives.