We Tried: Miracle Morning Routine by Hal Elrod
31 March 2022
To round up Sleep Month, we’re testing Hal Elrod’s: The Miracle Morning, read on for our experience.
Our passion at Vispring has always been creating the perfect surface for a great night’s sleep, with our lives evolving beyond our imagination over the past few years, we, like many, are too familiar with waking up “on the wrong side of the bed”. No matter how comfortable your sleep was or how you decide to fill your days, your morning routine (or lack thereof) has a dramatic impact on setting the tone for the rest of the day – whether that’s running around your home getting ready or having a slow, relaxing morning.
A great night’s sleep has many benefits, some of which we have listed here, but we rarely discuss what happens after your great night’s sleep and how some of that feels ruined by a stressful morning spent rushing to leave your house. Naturally, our cortisol levels (hormones responsible for stress) begin to rise the moment we wake up, so structuring some activities that bring you calm and joy when you first wake up can be a great way of starting a productive and stress-free day.
Our passion at Vispring has always been creating the perfect surface for a great night’s sleep, with our lives evolving beyond our imagination over the past few years, we, like many, are too familiar with waking up “on the wrong side of the bed”. No matter how comfortable your sleep was or how you decide to fill your days, your morning routine (or lack thereof) has a dramatic impact on setting the tone for the rest of the day – whether that’s running around your home getting ready or having a slow, relaxing morning.
A great night’s sleep has many benefits, some of which we have listed here, but we rarely discuss what happens after your great night’s sleep and how some of that feels ruined by a stressful morning spent rushing to leave your house. Naturally, our cortisol levels (hormones responsible for stress) begin to rise the moment we wake up, so structuring some activities that bring you calm and joy when you first wake up can be a great way of starting a productive and stress-free day.
We set about implementing Hal Elrod’s The Miracle Morning Routine, using what is called Life S.A.V.E.R.S: silence, affirmations, visualisation, exercise, reading, and scribing (writing). Elrod writes that to create the levels of personal, professional, and financial success you desire, you must first dedicate time each day to becoming the person you need to be, one who is qualified and capable of consistently attracting, creating, and sustaining the levels of success you want. Incorporating these self-development habits creates an intentional morning ritual, allowing you to welcome the day in a sustainable way that suits you.
Being in tune with your interests and expectations is a crucial first step to successfully incorporating the Life S.A.V.E.R.S into your life, as such, we tailored our routine to match our lifestyles and mixed up how long our Miracle Morning lasted for each day – meaning our ritual lasted around 30 minutes each day.
Let’s start off with some of the top tips that we aimed to follow:
Our morning routines do not start in the morning, by making small adjustments the night before you can make your mornings run smoothly, by creating genuine excitement for the next day every night before bed. If you plan to exercise first thing, make sure you have your workout clothing and equipment ready to go, this small task the night before can be the difference between going for that run and deciding to give it a miss. Likewise, with your clothing and lunch for the next day, we made sure we had these ready the night before, our future self was very grateful. Elrod writes that you should trust that the amount of sleep you will get, is enough to ensure you wake up feeling refreshed, and the more you worry about not getting enough sleep, the more it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Aim to not snooze your alarm as the broken 15 minutes of sleep you may get after, will not be particularly good quality sleep and may start your sleep cycle off again, leaving you feeling more tired when you do eventually get up. Moving your alarm clock to the other side of the room forces you to get out of bed and engage your body in movement. Motion creates energy, so when you get out of bed it naturally helps you wake up.
We are firm believers that your phone should not enter your bedroom while you are trying to sleep, this removes the temptations of checking your emails and increasing your stress levels when you are supposed to be winding down.
Having a large amount of water before bed can disrupt your sleep, forcing you to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, so while drinking before bed is beneficial, keep a large glass of water beside your bed so that you can rehydrate first thing in the morning. This will help you to feel fresh and awake.
Being in tune with your interests and expectations is a crucial first step to successfully incorporating the Life S.A.V.E.R.S into your life, as such, we tailored our routine to match our lifestyles and mixed up how long our Miracle Morning lasted for each day – meaning our ritual lasted around 30 minutes each day.
Let’s start off with some of the top tips that we aimed to follow:
THINK ABOUT YOUR FUTURE SELF
SET YOUR INTENTIONS
Our morning routines do not start in the morning, by making small adjustments the night before you can make your mornings run smoothly, by creating genuine excitement for the next day every night before bed. If you plan to exercise first thing, make sure you have your workout clothing and equipment ready to go, this small task the night before can be the difference between going for that run and deciding to give it a miss. Likewise, with your clothing and lunch for the next day, we made sure we had these ready the night before, our future self was very grateful. Elrod writes that you should trust that the amount of sleep you will get, is enough to ensure you wake up feeling refreshed, and the more you worry about not getting enough sleep, the more it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
DON’T SNOOZE
Aim to not snooze your alarm as the broken 15 minutes of sleep you may get after, will not be particularly good quality sleep and may start your sleep cycle off again, leaving you feeling more tired when you do eventually get up. Moving your alarm clock to the other side of the room forces you to get out of bed and engage your body in movement. Motion creates energy, so when you get out of bed it naturally helps you wake up.
NO TECH TEMPTATIONS
We are firm believers that your phone should not enter your bedroom while you are trying to sleep, this removes the temptations of checking your emails and increasing your stress levels when you are supposed to be winding down.
HYDRATION IS KEY
Having a large amount of water before bed can disrupt your sleep, forcing you to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, so while drinking before bed is beneficial, keep a large glass of water beside your bed so that you can rehydrate first thing in the morning. This will help you to feel fresh and awake.
With our top tips out of the way, let’s get into our routine and experience. As we are just introducing this to our lives, we didn’t want to make it too intense or time-consuming, so we reduced each Life S.A.V.E.R.S into manageable time slots.
We started each morning sitting quietly in purposeful silence, being used to starting the morning by grabbing for our phones and scrolling through social media, this was a much-welcomed change and we felt that sitting silently for 5 minutes was perfect for us before we got out of bed.
While we sat in silence, we clarified in our minds what we really want, and began to visualise what it would look and feel like when we eventually reached these goals.
We felt it particularly important to move our bodies first thing in the morning and we did this through a short morning stretch routine, this lasted no longer than 15 minutes and was a great way to start our day.
Our current favourite self-help book is The Power of Fun by Catherine Price, you can find our top 10 Self-Care books of 2022 here. We sat and read this for a few minutes.
Finally, our routine was wrapped up by writing down our affirmations and reading them out loud from top to bottom. We then wrote down 5 things that we are grateful for, 5 things we’re proud of, and 3 results that we‘re committed to creating for the day ahead.
Initially, skeptically we felt like the additional 30 minutes in bed would be more beneficial than our new and improved morning routine, but after seven days we can see the positive impacts of our small rituals. Our mornings have become much more peaceful, calm, and an integral part of our day. As our purpose and plans can change from day to day having a consistent and reliable routine each morning, added intentional structure to our week. Replacing our previously unfulfilling activities such as social media scrolling has meant that we start the day with a clear and focused mind, resulting in us being much more productive during the day.
While you do not need to stick to The Miracle Morning Routine down to the second, adapting it to suit your lifestyle in small ways such as stretching for 10 minutes when you first get out of bed and sitting in silence for 5 minutes can be a simple solution.
Any activity that brings you calm and joy first thing, we certainly recommend, and we’ll be continuing our adapted routine moving forwards.
SILENCE
We started each morning sitting quietly in purposeful silence, being used to starting the morning by grabbing for our phones and scrolling through social media, this was a much-welcomed change and we felt that sitting silently for 5 minutes was perfect for us before we got out of bed.
AFFIRMATIONS & VISUALISATION
While we sat in silence, we clarified in our minds what we really want, and began to visualise what it would look and feel like when we eventually reached these goals.
EXERCISE
We felt it particularly important to move our bodies first thing in the morning and we did this through a short morning stretch routine, this lasted no longer than 15 minutes and was a great way to start our day.
READING
Our current favourite self-help book is The Power of Fun by Catherine Price, you can find our top 10 Self-Care books of 2022 here. We sat and read this for a few minutes.
SCRIBING
Finally, our routine was wrapped up by writing down our affirmations and reading them out loud from top to bottom. We then wrote down 5 things that we are grateful for, 5 things we’re proud of, and 3 results that we‘re committed to creating for the day ahead.
So, how did it go?
Initially, skeptically we felt like the additional 30 minutes in bed would be more beneficial than our new and improved morning routine, but after seven days we can see the positive impacts of our small rituals. Our mornings have become much more peaceful, calm, and an integral part of our day. As our purpose and plans can change from day to day having a consistent and reliable routine each morning, added intentional structure to our week. Replacing our previously unfulfilling activities such as social media scrolling has meant that we start the day with a clear and focused mind, resulting in us being much more productive during the day.
Should you try it?
While you do not need to stick to The Miracle Morning Routine down to the second, adapting it to suit your lifestyle in small ways such as stretching for 10 minutes when you first get out of bed and sitting in silence for 5 minutes can be a simple solution.
Any activity that brings you calm and joy first thing, we certainly recommend, and we’ll be continuing our adapted routine moving forwards.