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I'm a night owl. I have been for years. I viewed mornings as a necessary evil. I wanted to be able to work and earn money to support my family, and I wanted my evenings free. That required learning to get up in the morning.

If you do have to deal with mornings, it doesn't make sense for every morning to be a time of stress. How you handle the mornings will affect at least the first several hours of the day, if not the whole day. What can you do? How can you make your mornings less stressful, and a better beginning for the rest of your day?

For me it started with getting to bed at a decent time the night before. A "decent time" really depends on you. How much sleep do you need? For me it's 7 to 7.5 hours. My wife needs at least 8 hours. Figure out what the optimal number of hours of sleep your body needs, then make sure you get that.

The second thing is to make sure you have plenty of time to accomplish what you need to get done in the morning without rushing. The idea is stress-reduction. That's not going to happen if you are spending your morning scurrying to get everything completed and be out the door on time.

Make sure you leave time to eat breakfast. Experts believe breakfast is the most important meal of the day. A good breakfast will help you start the day feeling more satisfied physically, and will give you a brighter outlook. your mental attitude is vitally important to your stress levels, so anything you can do to improve that outlook will help reduce the stress.

You can also do an early morning workout. Physical exercise is a great stress reducer. A good work will also improve how you feel about yourself. Like I mentioned before, your stress levels are tied to your mental outlook. As the outlook improves, the levels of stress decrease.

The final thing that I do is sit for about 15 minutes with my wife after the kids leave for school and do a small personal devotion. It pulls my focus away from negative things, and turns me in a more positive direction. By spending time thinking about things that are important to you in a positive way, you start your day more relaxed,a nd at the same time, more energized.

You can start the day better. You may have to make some changes to make it work, but it is possible. So go seize the day.

Learn more about this author, Jim Smoot.
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