While some are sipping their first coffee of the day with half-closed eyes, others have already drunk half a liter of lemon water, made their bed, jogged for several kilometers, meditated, sliced fresh fruit into their muesli and smiled Work started.
If you start the day right, you can do more and are happier - or so it seems.
Google spits out almost two million results for the search term »morning routine«, and it is at the top of the list of New Year's resolutions for many people.
But how do you manage to train yourself to a morning routine instead of pressing the snooze button on the alarm clock three times in a row?
"The biggest mistake is wanting too much at once"
Nathalie Blome, 28, is a psychologist, works in the student advisory service at the University of Heidelberg, where she teaches courses on the subject of habits.
"When you do something for the very first time, the prefrontal cortex is activated in the brain," she says.
“If you do something every morning, a different part of the brain is active;
the basal ganglia, in which movement sequences are stored.
Once a habit has been established, it has, so to speak, slipped into this region of the brain. "
In other words, once you get used to a morning routine, you have to use less and less willpower over time.
But how long does it take?
That depends on many factors, says Blome.
"The biggest mistake is wanting too much at once." Get up at 5 o'clock, meditate, prepare porridge, then study in a disciplined manner - such resolutions are too ambitious.
»The crucial question should be: How am I personally fine?
I've never seen anyone proudly proclaim on social media: I first watch TV for a quarter of an hour in the morning or look at reels on Instagram.
But that could be exactly what is good for you.
The most important thing is not to be so strict with yourself. "
Blome recommends the so-called WOOP method if you come to the conclusion that morning exercise or another routine that requires more willpower than watching TV is the right thing to do.
In the podcast she explains how exactly it works, how useful 30-day plans are and what is behind the concept of "reverse snoozing".
You can hear the current episode here:
