How to Elevate Your Mornings: Energizing Routines to Start Each Day Right

SI Swimsuit rookie and certified holistic health coach Penny Lane offers her tips.

Penny Lane.Courtesy of Penny Lane

Kickstart your New Year with SI Swimsuit’s 31 Days of Wellness! This January, SI Swimsuit will unlock exclusive offerings with brand models, wellness experts, fitness gurus and more, who will guide you through 31 days of rejuvenating workouts, recipes and self-care rituals.

Certified holistic health coach Penny Lane knows a thing or two about self-improvement. The 2023 Swim Search co-winner and ’24 rookie helps clients create a healthy and sustainable lifestyle, so it comes as no surprise that maintaining her own well-being is incredibly important to the Cheshire, England native. 

One wellness practice that Lane is adamant about is maintaining a morning routine. And since many of us are looking to incorporate healthy tidbits into our own daily practices after welcoming the New Year, we sat down with Lane to learn a few of her own morning must-haves.

Here, she also provides suggestions for revamping your own a.m. routine to create sustainable and healthy habits in 2024.

Set yourself up for success the night before

A fruitful morning routine actually begins with a streamlined evening beforehand, according to Lane. For her, that means cleaning up her space at home and sticking with her p.m. skincare routine, no matter how tired she is or how late she needs to stay up to accomplish those steps.

“If I have an early start with work or a morning workout, I will prepare what I’m wearing the night before,” she says of morning commitments. “This makes me feel super prepared and I can feel fully rested without having to worry through the night, ‘I must remember to bring this!’”

And if Lane has somewhere to be bright and early, she makes a to-do list for the day ahead before setting three different alarms to put her mind at ease before bed.

“Getting a full night’s rest is important for me to feel my best for the day ahead,” she says.

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When you wake up, make your bed first thing

Lane says that without fail, she makes her bed first thing once she’s up for the day.

“I believe that’s a good indicator of how your mindset is going to be for the rest of the day,” she explains of her ritual. “I don’t want to invite any procrastination.”

She then heads to the kitchen to boil water for her morning cup of tea. Lane makes her first beverage of the day using glass bottled spring water, which she enjoys for its essential mineral benefits.

“I love this morning ritual,” Lane says of crafting her beverage of choice. “Just going through the steps of filling the kettle to pouring the water of the tea and smelling the tea fragrance is such a blissful way to start the day.”

Lane then takes her daily supplements, including vitamins D, K2 and C, as well as biotin, probiotics, prebiotics and tremella.

Then get your body moving

As a Los Angeles resident, Lane is able to take advantage of California’s mild year-round climate by going for a walk each morning. She also multitasks by using the time to touch base with loved ones from afar.

“This is the time I like to take for myself to catch up with family and close friends across the globe,” she explains. “As I live in LA, most of my European friends and family are awake still in the morning here. I love this morning routine as I am nurturing important relationships to me and making my body move outside.”

When it comes to daily walks and workouts, Lane says she prefers to exercise in the morning, so she can “get it done and feel the benefits throughout the day.”

How to create (and stick to) your own morning routine

Knowing your “why” is the most important part of creating a morning routine that sticks, says Lane.

“Once you know the why, you then have the motivation to hold yourself accountable,” she says. “For example, you might say, ‘I want to start the day off with a green juice every morning.’ You must then look at why you want to incorporate this. [One] might say, ‘I want to have a stronger immune system,’ or ‘for my skin to glow.’ So once you get clear about the why, then hopefully it’s a strong enough motivation for you to make this a habit.”

Being realistic about the healthy habits you hope to incorporate is also key. To start, Lane suggests trying out something that fits seamlessly into your current lifestyle.

“[For example], if you have a job where you travel to different time zones and are not in your home environment, I wouldn’t suggest having a habit goal such as making your healthy smoothie every morning, as you probably won’t have the equipment available to you, therefore setting yourself up for failure,” she notes. “But you could say to yourself, ‘I want to journal every day.’”

Lane also suggests writing your morning routine habits down, as you’re much more likely to stick with them and hold yourself accountable that way.

Tune in next Wednesday, Jan. 10, for the next installment of Lane’s wellness series, in which she shares 10 recommended superfoods to add to your diet.

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