Over the past couple years, I think that my morning runs have had possibly the greatest impact on my life compared to any routine I have implemented. Although the thought of putting on running shoes and heading out the door first thing in the morning might be enough to make you throw up, I have never gotten back home and regretted it. Instead of starting your day looking at what everyone else is doing on social media or going into an immediately reactive state by checking emails, you are focused primarily on yourself, your health, and what you would like to get done that day. This time can be yours and yours alone. There is power and freedom in those moments that no one can take from you. Although it’s easy to think that you don’t have time for this or you’re too busy, this can be completed in 30 minutes and might push you towards completing more tasks than set out for that day.
Nike agrees with this in a recent blog backed by well-documented research. The main benefits they noted were race preparation, self-care encouragement, consistency, productivity, sleep quality, blood pressure, and weight management. The benefits of self-care encouragement, consistency, productivity, and sleep quality improvement resonated with me. I think that the act of starting the day off being bigger than your excuses puts you in a proactive state and encourages further beneficial actions that benefit all areas of your life, whether it be personal, work-related, or family related, and although it may be small actions the difference acts as a sort of fork in the road that really determines the outcome of your day.
One way I think about it is that no one has solved their problems for the day before 8 AM anyways, so why not start my day this way and leave room for the necessary tasks afterward and hopefully from this routine, I will have a more productive day.
To summarize…
- Morning runs are a great way to start your day proactively rather than reactive.
- The benefits of a morning run can be self-care encouragement, consistency, productivity, sleep quality, and health improvements.
- How you take charge of your mornings can determine the outcome of your entire day.
To learn more from Nike’s blog or the research, visit https://www.nike.com/a/running-in-the-morning-benefits or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4131752/.
For some music motivation, visit https://soundcloud.com/rye-overly.
