TEMPLE, Texas — All month long in Your Best Life, we've focused on self-care because September is National Self-care Awareness Month.
In this week's Your Best Life, 6 New Anchor Leslie Draffin talks about morning rituals, why they're so important and the wide range of activities you can do to start your day off right.
Morning rituals are anything you do to start your day. Johann Urb and Rachel Pringle Urb are relationship coaches and breathwork teachers. They said morning routines can vary, but at their core, they help you connect with yourself.
"It's a habit, it's a pattern that you're creating in your life. Whatever makes you feel positive, happy empowered, those would be the things to do," Johann said.
According to Rachel, morning rituals are about connecting with yourself and starting the day on a positive note.
"What I really always come back to is, it's an opportunity to be intimate with just you. And we're always focused on external things, outside things and we lose that connection to ourselves. And when we lose a connection to ourselves, that is the first sign of depression. When we're not connected, we start to feel sad and isolated and lonely and so the morning practice is a way to reconnect to ourselves to our values to our beliefs to our heart and our soul, every single day, and then you build the whole day off of that foundation," Rachel said.
Johann and Rachel's morning rituals are pretty different. Johann starts his days with burpees.
"Every morning, like first thing before I get my coffee, I have to do burpees. Do I want them every morning? No, but I do them anyway and so it's your anchor, your point of steadiness,” Johann said.
Rachel likes to start her morning by drinking water then moving her body.
"As soon as I move my body in whatever manner if it's a short, you know, seven-minute workout or if I dance or if I take a walk. It literally shifts my state and it gets my energy moving and I think the most important thing in the morning is for me to move my energy," Rachel said.
Rachel and Johann said to remember that morning rituals don't have to be long or feel like a routine. Simply spend a few minutes doing something that makes you feel good and you'll see a positive impact on your whole day.