Wake Up Energized! My Morning Ritual for Energy, Positivity & Feeling Freakin’ Awesome!

morning routine energy

Would you love to have more MORE ENERGY every single day.

Would you love to wake up refreshed, energized and instantly jump out of bed? Would you love to live every day as your best self, for every day to be productive and enjoyable? Would you love to feel energised and ready to go, the second your alarm goes off?

It’s easily possible, way easier than you think, and getting to this place takes a lot less time than you probably realise…

Let me ask you a question: how often do you set goals…only at new year?

I hope so. While new year goals are often set a little ‘erratically’, I still love them – having a goal, even if it’s just one goal, and even if it breaks all of the rules in the goal setting rule book (yes, there is one), is still better than having no goals at all.

I’m not going to turn this into a guide on goal setting… that’s for the Tony Robbins goal setting guide from a while ago…but what I am going to say is, if you have set any goals, anything like:

  • Losing weight
  • Making more money
  • Spending more time with the kids or your partner
  • Learning a new skill
  • Attaining a new thing (house, car, boat, holiday, guitar, dress, pair of shoes…)
  • Contributing to a charity
  • Growing your business
  • Or anything else (or all of the above)

…then you’re gonna need ENERGY.

That’s a fact.

Without energy and without feeling health and vitality, every day is harder, your concentration and focus isn’t as good, you lose your zest…and getting to that goal is ten times harder.

My 10-Minute Morning Energy Ritual

Getting more energy is easier than you might think.

And in my experience, a huge part of living with ENERGY is starting the day right.

When you start the day wrong you make everything ten times harder.

….if you skip breakfast or have an acidic breakfast you start a blood sugar spiral that has your energy dipping all over the place.

…when you begin the day in a hurry your stress levels and anxiety levels cause you to make decisions on your work, priorities, actions that have a knock on effect to the rest of your day (and week, and year).

…when you start the day by hitting snooze for the tenth time and drrraaaag yourself out of bed, your slow movement creates a low mood (remember, emotion is created by motion).

….and when you start the day without nourishment you put your body under severe stress to operate and function after an 8 hour fast that all of your energy is taken up by just getting from a to b…

Forming a New Habit: The Power of Doing Something Simple Every Day

Getting to your best every health, energy and body is a lot easier than you’ve been led to believe. One of the most powerful things you can do to make this process easy and effortless is to optimize the things you are already doing daily.

I call this ‘habit-hacking’. Sounds weird but let me explain.

If you want to form a new habit, or behaviour, the easiest way to do this is to link it to an already existing behaviour.

For instance, when I am coaching people who struggle to drink enough water each day, I tell them to link the hydration habit to something they’re already doing each day. If they clean their teeth twice per day, then link hydration to this – so they have a big glass of water before or after each teeth cleaning session.

By optimizing the things we do DAILY already or switching unhealthy daily rituals to healthy ones – we get success on autopilot…it’s almost an overnight success.

And that’s what we’re doing here. We already have a ‘wake up ritual’, but at the moment it’s not optimized. So let’s change that, make it work for us and set ourselves up to WIN!

So Here’s is How to Do it RIGHT: 14 Minutes-a-Day to Energy, Vitality and Positivity!

wake up happy

Morning Ritual #1: Get Straight Up!
Time Taken: 5 seconds

This is super important. You have to (HAVE to) get straight up, as soon as your alarm goes off. This is critical. After a very short amount of time (less than a week) you’ll notice that you start to wake up before your alarm goes off anyway, and this is your chance to push back your wake-up-time even earlier if you want to have more time in your day.

By getting up immediately you’re sending the message to your body that you are ready to start the day, be alert and get moving. This is really important. (note: I have made it my ritual to SMILE as soon as I humanly remember, but I understand if this may feel a little silly for you).

If you wake up before your alarm already, then simply get up as soon as you wake up!

I have written a whole guide on How to Get Up Early here, so you can check that out if you need more help with this.

The best piece of advice I can give you to help you to get up as soon as you wake up is this: get excited the night before. You know how easy it is to get up when you know the second you wake up that you are doing something truly exciting that day (maybe going on a holiday, getting a present or it’s your birthday – you know the kind of thing I mean). The second you wake up you know it in every part of your body and you leap right out of bed – no matter how tired you are.

You can do this whenever you like! You just have to get excited about something the night before that you’re going to do the next day.

And according to Ayurvedic principles, waking up at least 20 minutes before sunrise is optimal for your energy and vitality. Vata energy fills the atmosphere in these pre-dawn hours and since vata is known for movement, this is the best time to be up and active!

super hydrate

Morning Ritual #2: Super-Hydrate, Straight Away
Time Taken: 30 seconds

This is critically important – as soon as you’re up, head for the water.

A glass of warm lemon water is great and ionized, alkaline warm lemon water is even better! This continues the Ayurvedic principles from ritual #1 above.

Your body has been through an eight-hour fast, it is dehydrated. You simply have to get those cells hydrated again before you expect your body to move, get active, process, detoxify, metabolise and give you energy. Running on caffeine from the moment you wake up is insane. This is a rapid move towards having NO energy for the rest of the day.

So as soon as you’re up, get to the water. Drink at least 300ml of water, preferably 500ml. You’ll feel the difference right away.

And here’s how to make lemon water and what ionized water is all about.

I personally LOVE getting onto the ionized water straight away because it’s alkaline, antioxidant rich and microclustered (meaning it hydrates my cells 10x better than tap or bottled water). Gotta love the power of the ionizer.

movement & stretching

Morning Ritual #3: Move Your Body (Emotion Created by Motion)
Time Taken: 3 minutes

Continuing the Ayurvedic theme, the next step in the ritual is to get moving. Remember, the vata energy is all about movement, so this is perfect. The movement you do is totally up to you. It could be a quick walk, some stretches, a quick bounce on the rebounder, or my personal favourite, to practice the Sun Salutation:

This gets me stretched out, feeling alive and incredibly positive within 5 minutes of waking up!

breathing exercises

Morning Ritual #4: Breathing Exercises for Detox, Cleansing and Power
Time Taken: 5 minutes

This is super-cool and super-simple. It cleanses your lymphatic system (one of your body’s main detoxification systems) and gets you centred.

I first learned this from Tony Robbins at UPW in 2003 and have been doing it ever since. It’s as easy as this:

  1. Sit in a comfortable position with good posture, get centred
  2. Breathe in for a count of 4
  3. Hold for a count of 16
  4. Breathe out for a count of 8

This 1-4-2 pattern can be done in any multipliers – you could do in for 10, hold for 40, out for 20 if your lungs are up to it!

I repeat this breathing pattern 10-15 times….and while I do it, I concurrently do ritual number 5 below…

Gratitude and visualisation

Morning Ritual #5: Gratitude, Visualisation & Self-Love
Time Taken: 0 seconds (you do it while you’re doing the breathing exercises)

This is my favourite part of the morning ritual, it centres me, has me feeling focuses and REALLY sets up my day to be a success.

  • Gratitude: I think that this is a massively undervalued state to be in. So little of our time each day is spent feeling gratitude, but if fills you with positivity to do so. All of my stresses disappear when I focus on gratitude. I love it.So for 2 minutes, with my eyes closed, I think about all of the things I’m grateful for in my life. My little boy, my partner, our life together. I picture my family, I picture us having happy times. I picture my friends and happy memories of us hanging out and having fun. I feel gratitude for information, ideas, technologies and comforts I have in my life. I feel grateful for being born into the life I have and how it could have been so different if I was born into a different time or a different country or culture. I feel grateful for the freedoms I have. It could be anything – feeling the emotion is what’s important.
  • Visualisation of What I Want to Create: this is POWERFUL. So for the next 2 minutes I visualise my most important goals as if they’re already done, and in as much detail as possible. You could picture your body looking exactly how you want it to look, or picture yourself seeing some financial result you want to create. Whatever your goals that give you the most juice – picture them as DONE!
  • Self-Love: not as weird as it sounds I promise. Just as simple as, for the final minute of the five, I think about myself in the most positive way. I sometimes focus on the things about myself I like the least and tell myself their great. Just focusing on how much you love yourself and believe in yourself is powerful.

This is what Tony Robbins calls NET time, with NET standing for No Extra Time required. Do this while you’re doing your breathing and you’ll be feeling AMAZING!

nourishment

Morning Ritual #6: Nourish Your Body Right Away
Time Taken: 6 minutes

Finally, I simply HAVE to start the day with a healthy meal. It is an investment in myself and sets the tone for the rest of the day.

I will almost always have an alkaline green juice (see recipe here for my big-bad alkaline green drink) or an alkaline smoothie (smoothie recipe here) before breakfast (and often some alkaline mineral salts too, it’s part of my 5-Minute-Acid-Crusher routine, more on this soon…), and then make sure breakfast is nutrient-rich, alkaline and delicious.

A lot of people when they’re first starting the alkaline diet have a difficulty with knowing what to eat at breakfast, so here’s my “Alkaline Breakfast Recipes” post to get you started.

My breakfasts can include anything from ‘alkaline’ oats on the traditional side, through to a full veggie breakfast on the more ‘advanced’ end of the alkaline scale. But whatever I choose, I know it is nourishing, energy giving, alkalising and revitalising.

Starting the day with a typical ‘Western’ breakfast is a horror show, from an energy point of view. Eggs, bacon, toast, coffee, milk, cereals, cheese, jam, breads, pastries….all acid-forming, energy-robbing, blood-sugar-spiking mayhem.

PLUS, I know that by having an alkaline vegetable juice, I’ve already had over 7.35 serves of fresh vegetables before I’ve left the house! It makes the rest of the day’s nutrient intake a bonus!

 

That’s My Morning Ritual to Get me Energised, Nourished and Feeling Sensational…Before 6:30am!

  1. Get straight up and smile
  2. Hydrate
  3. Move
  4. Breathe
  5. Get grateful and visialise success
  6. Nourish

That’s It!

This will have you feeling absolutely amazing – even if you only cherry pick your favourite three parts of this ritual and build up to the rest, you’ll LOVE IT!

Ross Bridgeford Signiture


order the alkaline life

Ask Me a Question or Leave a Comment Here - I'd Love to Hear from You

*

  1. K BABY Reply

    HOW TO TO MAKE A HOME ALKALINE WATER ?

  2. umar mushtaq Reply

    i like all of your’s information

  3. Chloe Reply

    Hi Ross,

    I already do steps 2, 3 and 5 but when I am being grateful, I do not necessarily experience the feeling of gratefulness. This has really got me down, so I have stopped doing it. Do you have any suggestions on how I can make this more meaningful to me?

    Thanks,

    • Energise Ross Reply

      Hi Chloe

      You can skip the gratitude part of it if you like and just fit in a few minutes of happy memories. I like to picture scenes where I’m greeting my favourite friends and we’re all laughing and smiling (it can be a fictional scene or me remembering a time from the past), picturing a truly happy time from my past – in fact, I sometimes do this during the gratitude as a way of being grateful for having those people in my life.

      It doesn’t have to be strict, it’s just a time of being happy and positive.

      You could even use that time to picture yourself at the end of today (or the day you’re doing it!) having achieved everything you wanted to that day, happily, successfully, stress-free, and having done a 10 out of 10 job.

      It’s all about setting up your mental side to be a success for the next 24 hours

      I hope this helps
      Ross

  4. Anya :) Reply

    Wow this all sounds so great, I’m just about to start a juice detox for 7 days and want to continue afterwards juicing and living a healthy life. I have zero energy at the moment so that’s my big motivation to change how I start (and continue with) my day. Ill deffinately be doing all the things you’ve suggested starting tomorrow morning 🙂 can I ask what time you get up? I’m going to set an alarm for 6:45 but am going to get up as soon as I wake up as you suggested however sometimes I wake up as early as 4 o’clock and dont feel ready to get up. If you awake this early I take it you wouldn’t get straight out of bed? Or maybe you would. Advice would be great as i don’t want to lack sleep 🙂 thanks!

    • Energise Ross Reply

      Hey Anya

      Ha, it’s been varied for the past 2-3 years since Leo was born, but now it’s usually about 5:30am which gives me a good hour before he wakes up (sometimes a little less). The first thing I do when he wakes up is take him and the dog for a walk, then into the get him ready, breakfast etc routine, so it’s nice to have at least 45mins to an hour before he wakes up so I can do my thing and get a run in.

      If I wake up super early (like 4am) yep, I go right back to sleep 🙂 I guess the rule would be if it’s past 5am I’ll probably get up.

      Good luck with the detox – I’ll email you some extra info suggestions for this if you like?

      Ross

      • Anya :) Reply

        Brilliant sounds like a good plan. I’ve got a puppy so I’m looking forward to early morning walks. Oh my gosh! I don’t think i’ve ever been up at 5 except to go on holiday! looks like some major changes are coming my way, good changes though. Thanks again for the email 🙂

  5. Josa Reply

    Bless every drop of the 500ml of water before you drink it.
    When doing the yoga and breathing move out of mind and into your true consciousness.

    • Energise Ross Reply

      Thanks Josa – nice add’s. 🙂

  6. jigneshjani Reply

    dear friend,

    i really appreciate your work…

    i already perform some of these.
    it works..
    keep up the nice work.

    jani

    • Energise Ross Reply

      Thanks Jigneshjani – appreciate it and good on you!

  7. Josa Reply

    I also consciously release all the blocked energy from my body and visualise it healed and healthy and held in light.

  8. PD Reply

    Ross, your morning ritual looks great.

    You said:
    Morning Ritual #2: Super-Hydrate, Straight Away
    and
    Morning Ritual #3: Move Your Body (Emotion Created by Motion)

    Don’t you find it hard to move body, like Sun Salutation just after hydrarting your body? As per Ayurvedic principles, movements like sun salutation should be performed empty stomach, no?

    • Energise Ross Reply

      Hey PD

      Personally, I don’t have a problem with it. I’m always well hydrated so I don’t get the bloating or feel full after this. For others that do – just having a few mouthfuls before the movement and then the rest after would be a good idea.

      The more hydrated you get over time, the more you’ll feel fine with it 🙂

      Ross

  9. Mrs M Reply

    Ha Ha Ha Ha! I would like to offer to lend you my kids for a fortnight Ross…they will get you up at least 2 hours before sunrise (and will have most likely have disturbed your sleep in the middle of the night too by sneaking into your bed for a cuddle). There is no choice but to get up (believe me). Head straight for the water if you like…but you will be distracted for at least an hour by seeing to the more important and urgent needs of everyone else. Move your body: yep, there will be plenty of this going on – lots of chasing around, bending down and picking up toys, stretching up to put things out of reach,general multi-tasking, and a quick jog as you near the school gate and hear the bell ringing. This is when your breathing exercises kick in – mainly panic related as one of the children informs you of something very important that they have left in the car. A quick bit of cardio-vascular exercise as you dash back to the car and finally make it to class just before the door closes. Well, at least you have something you can express gratitude for at this point. But just as you are about to practice some visualisations and self-love, a certain aroma alerts you that one of your other children needs their nappy changing (more rapid breathing as you realise you have brought none with you – you can, however, visualise the mess and amount of washing which needs to be done after that lot has been subjected to a 5-point harness in the car-seat during the journey home). So another quick dash back to the car and then home. Maybe after an hour or so, you can squeeze in that nourishment you have been wanting since 5am (you will probably need to share it with a little mouth too, of course). Love your posts – hope you don’t mind the touch of realism 😉

    • Energise Ross Reply

      Hey Mrs M

      Heh, Leo is up pretty early (just turned 2.5 years) but I can still get up before him 🙂

      YOU can make the decision to wake up before them if you really want to – it may take time and Leo Babauta has a good blog on this: http://zenhabits.net/how-i-became-early-riser/ – it is a choice you can make.

      Love the realism, but its real that you can change this too. No matter how early they wake – you can wake 15 minutes earlier. Go for it 🙂

      Ross

    • Amanda Reply

      Love it. Sounds like my home. With four children I get up at 5.30 to get a head start. They are all at school now. So it does get easier. I don’t think most men can comprehend getting up and giving to everyone else before themselves all day and night. Good luck

      • Energise Ross Reply

        Speaking for myself as a father, I take care of the morning routine and I have shifted my wake up time from 6:30 pre having kids to 5:30 since having Leo to give myself this extra time in the morning.

        We are all consciously in complete control over when we set our alarm and wake up. Setting it 15-minutes early to give yourself this time to wake up the right way is a smart move in my opinion.

        Ross

  10. Amanda Reply

    This is amazing, I am on the Daniel Fast at the moment and will incorporate this for bigger and results. Thank You, your website is such a great source and wonderfully put together.

    • Energise Ross Reply

      Thanks!

  11. sandeep Reply

    point no.5 is easy , ill think of you and will become full of gratitude.
    thanks
    sandeep-ritu

    • Energise Ross Reply

      Thank you Sandeep. And in this moment I am feeling the gratitude for you too.

«