CHAPTER
10

Setting Up Your Morning Routine

In This Chapter

Every day you rise, you are given a new chance to create your ideal day. In Ayurveda, it is believed that the way you start your day is how you will feel for its duration. If you start your day stressed and rushed, you’ll subconsciously feel hurried and agitated for the rest of the day. If you begin your day with inner peace and tranquility, you will take on that mindfulness for the day’s duration.

In this chapter, I share ways you can set up your morning routine to maintain that blissed-out feeling all day. With some simple practices, you can cultivate balance, detoxify your body, increase your energy levels, stimulate your metabolism, enhance your digestion, and prevent cravings so you can go through your day with awareness and presence. All it takes is adding 30 minutes to your morning to reap these benefits and have a more productive and centered day.

The Importance of Your Morning Routine

Your daily routine is called dinacharya in Sanskrit. Din means “day,” and acharya means “to follow” or “close to.” As mentioned in Chapter 9, you should follow the rhythm of the sun to best support your body’s natural functions. The early morning hours are most essential for setting the tone for the rest of the day.

After a long night’s rest, you must awaken, open, and activate each channel of your body so you can begin your day on the right foot. If you do not take the time to stimulate your senses and detoxify your body in the morning, you will carry heaviness and toxicity for the rest of the day.

Definition

Dinacharya means “to follow or be close to the day.” By establishing a routine in line with the natural rhythm of the day, you can accentuate your digestion, sleep, and other functions. Ayurveda believes that your daily routine is of utmost importance. Establishing a healing morning routine cleanses the body of toxins that have accumulated overnight and prepares your mind and body to take on the day.

How Your Mornings Set Your Day

Have you ever woken up to the sound of your alarm, looked at your clock, and realized you’d overslept? You jumped out of bed, hurriedly got dressed, and ran out of the door, maybe grabbing a granola bar for some kind of nourishment for the day.

You may have noticed things just felt off for the rest of that day. You ended up stuck in a traffic jam on your way to work, spilled coffee on your shirt right before an important meeting, and got a task list from your boss that may take you another lifetime to complete. Nothing seemed to be going your way.

You came home from the stressful day and decided to eat something delicious (and naughty) to ease the tension. Before you knew it, you were knee-deep in the peanut butter jar and were binging on things you know you weren’t supposed to touch. However, you continued eating—anything sweet or salty to get your mind off the stress you were feeling. Only when you finished, you felt even worse than when you began.

This is what emotional eating looks like, caused by only a rushed morning.

Now, have you ever woken up with ample time before your first commitment and given yourself the opportunity to begin the day in mindfulness? Before even opening your eyes, you connected with your dreams and said your gratitude, cultivating peace in your mind. You slowly arose from bed and stretched out your body like a cat waking from a nap. You headed to the bathroom to eliminate, brush your teeth, scrape your tongue, and wash your face without the pressure of the clock. Before looking through your phone and answering emails, you sat yourself down for meditation to silence your mind and give yourself the gift of a few tranquil minutes before the day began. You then headed to the kitchen to make a hot glass of herbal tea and wrote down your intentions for the day.

For the rest of the day, you felt disciplined, peaceful, patient, loving, and grateful. This is all because you took the time to cultivate these emotions in your morning ritual.

If your mornings sound more like the former rather than the latter, have no fear. In this chapter, I explain how you can set up your morning routine so you are better equipped to cope with the day’s pressures with ease and graciousness. By practicing this morning routine, you can undergo your day with awareness, without becoming anxious about the future or longing to change the past. You’ll digest your food better and no longer need to self-medicate your stress with emotional eating. You’ll feel much more in control of your thoughts, and your energy levels will skyrocket. Let me teach you how.

The Benefits of a Morning Routine

Morning routines have countless mental and physical benefits. The benefits of a morning routine include increased energy, enhanced digestion, improved mood, a detoxified body, increased productivity, a more centered mind, enhanced awareness, an ability to focus, less mental fog, and decreased stress levels.

Many successful people, in all industries, credit their success to a morning practice. You can, too. No matter how busy you are, carve out some time in your schedule for a morning practice.

Wisdom of the Ages

Try to have the first hour of your day vary as little as possible with a set routine you practice no matter where you are of how busy life gets. The secret of success is found in your morning routine.

What If You Don’t Have Time?

Don’t say you don’t have time to meditate or take care of your body in the morning. By taking the time to center your mind in the morning, you actually create more time in the rest of your day because you will be more effective.

You’ll be able to jump into your tasks more quickly without first needing to clear away any mental fog. You will have a renewed sense of productivity when, by 8 A.M., you’ll have accomplished more than most people do their entire day. You won’t walk into work tired and grumpy but rather refreshed and energized because you’ve taken that time to awaken your senses. You’ll be that person smiling at everyone in the office at 9 A.M. when most people are still struggling to open their eyes.

Most importantly, you’ll have that much-needed “me time” before emails pile up, responsibilities must be met, children need taking care of, and tasks must be accomplished. The morning is the perfect time to watch the sun rise and really give gratitude for the beauty of the day. You’ll take on a sense of joy and appreciation no matter what is asked of you throughout the day because you’ve carved out that time in the morning for yourself.

What If You’re Not a Morning Person?

It’s not difficult to become an early riser, even if you’ve always been a “night owl.” All it takes is practice. The number-one thing is to get to sleep earlier. No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be a morning person if you’re going to sleep late at night. Prioritize your morning versus your night activities. Was it really worth staying up until midnight to watch that TV show? Did you use your time productively before heading to bed? How many hours did you spend on social media the day before?

There can be enough time in the day to do the things you want to do. You just need to cut back on the things that are keeping you from having time for those tasks.

Ask yourself:

  • What things am I doing that I could cut back on?
  • How much time do I spend on social media or other distractions?
  • How many hours do I devote each week to watching TV or movies?
  • What can I shorten or get rid of in my nighttime ritual so I can make time for my morning ritual?

When you’ve pinpointed your time-wasters, choose one that you will shorten by 15 minutes. Then, go to sleep 15 minutes earlier and wake up 15 minutes earlier. The following week, take another 15 minutes away so you can go to sleep and wake up another 15 minutes earlier. Continue doing this each week until you’re getting to sleep by 10 P.M. and waking by 6 A.M. By following this gradual process, you can become a morning person easily and without any drastic changes or force. You first must create space to add the things you need. By removing 15 minutes of activities that aren’t serving you well, you can add 15 minutes of things that are.

By following this simple 15-minute plan, in a matter of weeks, you’ll naturally become a morning person and much more efficient with your time!

Scheduling Your Morning Routine

Everyone’s morning routine will look a little different, but here are some general Ayurvedic guidelines to help you establish yours:

Rise before the sun.

Take a few moments to recall your dreams and express your gratitude.

Rise from bed and gently stretch your body.

Go to the bathroom to evacuate.

Splash your face with warm water six times.

Brush your teeth and scrape your tongue.

Swish oil in your mouth while you’re getting ready and boiling water for tea.

Spit out the oil, and rinse your mouth with warm water.

Drink your tea and meditate.

Practice yoga.

Eat a warming breakfast.

Keep in mind you do not exactly have to follow this order, but this gives you an overview of what your morning should look like. Mornings are a time to release toxins through evacuation, tongue scraping, and oil pulling, as well as rev up your agni with hot tea, yoga, and a warming breakfast.

You could add other practices to your morning routine such as nasya nasal drops, which is applying oil to your nasal passages, as well as abhyanga, or self-oil massage, which I have included in the upcoming nightly ritual chapter.

Tongue Scraping

If you’ve ever woken up with bad breath in the morning or seen a white coating on your tongue, you already know how the tongue can be a breeding ground for bad bacteria. Yet most of us quickly brush over our tongue with our toothbrush without paying much attention to this area.

Scraping your tongue is just as important as brushing your teeth. According to Ayurveda, all toxins begin in the mouth. When you let tongue bacteria accumulate, the toxicity spreads down your gastrointestinal tract to the rest of your body. This toxicity, ama, is seen as a white, mucous coating. You can see the coating on your tongue, but you can’t see what’s spreading within your body.

Mouth and Tongue Toxins

Scraping your tongue is just as essential as brushing your teeth. When you sleep overnight, the bacteria, food debris, fungi, dead cells, and toxins on the surface of your tongue builds. This is why you get morning breath.

If you do not scrape off these toxins every morning, your tongue reabsorbs them and they enter your gastrointestinal tract. This toxicity causes a weakened digestive fire, lowered immune system, and decreased ability to assimilate nutrients, which leads to weight gain, acne, illness, bloating, gas, constipation, and other imbalances, depending on your Dosha.

Tongue scraping improves your dental health, prevents gum infections and recessions, increases immunity, enhances saliva production to break down food, enhances your taste buds, improves digestion, and promotes elimination, making it a great way to start your day.

Wisdom of the Ages

Recent dental research has agreed with Ayurveda’s ancient findings. Clinical trials have shown that approximately 85 percent of all cases of halitosis (chronically bad breath) have their origin in the mouth, and 50 percent of these are caused by tongue residues. Tongue scraping significantly reduces oral bacteria in the crevices of the tongue and was found to be very important for halitosis management. But do you really need a tongue scraper? Doesn’t your toothbrush do a good-enough job? In the study, participants were split between using a tongue scraper or toothbrush to clean their tongues. The tongue scraper performed better in reducing the production of volatile sulfur compounds than the toothbrush.

Digestion Begins on the Tongue

Ayurveda states that you begin digesting the moment you taste your food. Your saliva begins breaking down the specific enzymes in your meal and signals to the rest of your body to prepare for food. Your body intuitively knows what enzymes it needs for starches versus proteins. However, when your tongue is coated, your body has no idea what’s going on. This disrupts your digestion and prevents it from functioning properly.

According to Ayurvedic expert Dr. Douillard, taste bud activation from tongue scraping also engages the lower intestines to initiate a complete bowel elimination first thing in the morning. This is extremely important for detoxification so you can release stored-up waste in your bowels and get your digestive fires going in the morning.

Scrape More; Eat Less

Studies have shown that tongue scraping lowers the tongue’s microbial load, which makes you more sensitive to tastes. In the study, taste sensation improved after 2 weeks of tongue cleaning, especially with a scraper.

The less tongue coating, the more you can taste your food. Tongue scraping helps you become fuller with less amount of food because you taste the flavors more. Oftentimes people overeat simply because they want more flavor from their food. It’s not that they’re hungry necessarily but just want more sweet, sour, or salty. By scraping your tongue, you become more sensitive to flavors and don’t need to overeat just for taste. You become more satisfied with less food, helping you lose weight as well as promote digestion.

Wisdom of the Ages

Want to be able to taste your food better? Then scrape your tongue. By removing the toxic coating of your tongue, your tastebuds become more sensitive, allowing you to be more satisfied with less food.

Types of Tongue Scrapers

Now that you’re convinced you need a tongue scraper, let me help you find the best one. I recommend purchasing a tongue scraper made out of stainless steel, though it is not traditionally Ayurvedic. The original Ayurvedic text Charaka Samhita recommends a tongue scraper made of either copper, gold, silver, tin, or brass. However, a pure gold or silver tongue scraper is expensive and tin and brass aren’t very appetizing, making copper the most popular option. Copper also has great antibacterial benefits and has been used on the bottom of ships to keep the water surfaces sanitary for years.

However, I recommend a stainless steel tongue scraper because unlike copper, it is not a heavy-metal. Heavy metals build up in the tissues, causing heavy metal toxicity. Symptoms include fatigue, mental racing, emotional highs and lows, anxiety and reproductive problems. Women are more prone to copper accumulation because estrogen increase copper retention. You can test for heavy metal toxicity through a hair mineral test, though they don’t always detect it. I recommend minimizing your exposure to copper to prevent a potential build-up.

How to Scrape Your Tongue

It isn’t difficult to tongue scrape. In fact, I think it’s much easier than flossing (although it in no way replaces it):

 1. Hold the scraper with one hand on each end.

 2. Look in a mirror, and stick out your tongue. Place the scraper on the back of your tongue, being careful not to gag yourself.

 3. Gently scrape the surface of your tongue in a long stroke from back to front. You’ll notice ama, the white mucus, accumulate on the scraper.

 4. Repeat 10 times. You see that even the pink spots on your tongue have ama stored in the deep crevices.

 5. Rinse the scraper with water, and store in a clean place.

Practice every morning before or after brushing your teeth. Ideally, follow it with oil pulling.

Oil Pulling

Oil pulling is the practice of swishing oil in your mouth to remove toxins, sort of like an ancient mouthwash. Oil pulling has a number of benefits, both in your mouth and in the rest of your body.

On the oral side, oil pulling helps cure tooth decay, improves breath, prevents cavities, whitens teeth, removes stains, heals bleeding gums, and strengthens your gums and jaw. On the digestive side, it helps remove oil-soluble toxins from your system, improves digestion, prevents inflammation, and enhances your immune system.

Types of Oil to Use

What type of oil should you use for oil pulling? That depends on your Dosha:

Vatas: Go for sesame oil, which is especially warming and grounding.

Pittas: Use coconut oil, which is cooling and counterbalances Pitta’s fieriness.

Kaphas: Choose sesame oil, which revs up your cool digestive fire.

You can change the oil according to the Dosha of the season if you like. Use sesame oil in the colder months and coconut oil in the warmer months.

How to Oil Pull

Oil pulling might seem like a very foreign concept, but it’s actually quite simple. Here’s how to do it:

 1. Place 1 tablespoon oil in your mouth, and swish it around your mouth for as long as possible. Start with just 2 or 3 minutes, and work your way up to 20 minutes, which is what the Ayurvedic texts recommend.

 2. Spit out the oil into the trash. Do not swallow the oil because it’s full of your toxins, bacteria, and plaque. Do not spit the oil in the sink if you have a septic system because it can clog your drains.

 3. Rinse your mouth with warm water or brush your teeth afterward.

There’s no need to stand still while you’re oil pulling. You can walk around, get dressed, and perform your regular morning tasks while you’re swishing the oil in your mouth. Spit it out when you’re ready to drink your morning tea.

Wisdom of the Ages

Oil pulling is essentially Ayurvedic mouthwash, replacing chemical-filled mouthwash with soothing oil to refresh your breath for the entire day Unlike commercial mouthwashes, oil only removes the bad bacteria while keeping the good, keeping your mouth balanced.

Drink Something Hot

After you’ve woken up, brushed your teeth, scraped your tongue, and swished oil around your mouth, it’s time to drink something nice and steamy. Ayurveda recommends starting your day with a hot drink because it is more hydrating and healing than something cold. Warm beverages like tea or hot water with lemon cleanse your body, dissolve ama from your system, stimulate your digestive fire, and enhance your metabolism.

Hot Is Hydrating

You may have noticed when you are washing dishes that hot water is much more effective at dislodging debris than cold water. This also holds true in your body. Your body more easily absorbs hot water, making it more accessible and hydrating. Your body does not have to exert any extra energy to warm the water, leaving more energy for healing. Drinking hot, boiled water flushes out your lymphatic system; softens hardened tissues; and dilates, cleanses, and hydrates deep tissues. It also heals and repairs your digestive system and flushes the gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT), the lymph on the outside of the intestinal wall.

When you sleep overnight, your body becomes dehydrated. Morning is the time it needs hot water the most. Hot water prevents and treats constipation by hydrating your internal organs, especially important for Vata types. It also hydrates chronically dry skin from within, giving you a vibrant glow.

Hot Stimulates the Digestive Fire

Drinking hot water enhances your digestive fire, the internal flame within you related to metabolism, digestion, and assimilation. When you put cold water on this fire, you essentially put out the flames. On the other hand, when you kindle this fire with hot water, it burns much more brightly for the rest of the day. Subsequently, you are better able to digest, break down, and assimilate your meals, allowing your body to make the most of the energy (calories) you consume and store less as fat. Modern science has found similar research. According to a study by The Journal of Physiology, cold water has a negative impact on meal digestion.

Ever noticed that restaurants bring you a glass of ice water before a meal? Say no and instead ask for hot water with lemon. Cold water causes the stomach to contract and become too tight to process food effectively. This inhibits the digestive process, making you feel overly full and bloated after eating. The reason this practice even began was because restaurants wanted clients to feel overly full and satisfied after a meal so they’d feel like they got their money’s worth, even if their digestive system is overwhelmed. They don’t want you to walk out still feeling like you could eat more, but that’s exactly what you should want.

Hot water also allows you to slow down your drinking pace. Many of us drink water far too quickly. Drinking excess water while eating dilutes your stomach acid, making it too weak to break down your meal. Instead of chugging down a big glass of water, take slow sips of hot water throughout the day to maintain hydration.

Hot Aids Cleansing

Drinking hot water or herbal tea aids cleansing because it softens the food debris in your system and allows your body to flush fat. When you consume ice-cold water, the food it comes in contact with solidifies and hardens, making the intestines contract tightly. This leads to constipation, bloating, and other gastrointestinal pains.

Similarly, the oils you consume from your food solidify in your body when you drink cold water, turning it into mucus, or ama. This mucus lines the intestines, causing toxicity. Frequent sips of hot water throughout the day help extricate these fat cells and cleanse your system.

Overall, drinking a hot beverage helps your body digest, assimilate, and cleanse better for the rest of the day. Instead of reaching for an iced coffee, tea, or frozen smoothie for breakfast, start your day with something hot for its myriad health benefits.

The Least You Need to Know

  • The way you start your day is the way you’ll feel for the rest of it.
  • Tongue scraping is the ancient Ayurvedic practice of scraping the white toxicity off your tongue in the morning and can be conducted with a copper or stainless steel U-shaped tongue scraper.
  • Oil pulling is the ancient Ayurvedic method of mouth-washing, consisting of swishing and gargling sesame or coconut oil in your mouth for up to 20 minutes to dislodge toxins.
  • Drinking hot water is more hydrating, stimulating for the digestive fire, and cleansing than cold water, especially before meals.