A 6-hour morning routine? First, try a few simple habits to start your day

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A 6-hour morning routine? First, try a few simple habits to start your day

2025-04-21 21:03 Last Updated At：21:21

Starting with brushing his teeth before 4 a.m., influencer Ashton Hall says he also swims, meditates, journals, rubs his face with banana peel, lifts weights, submerges his face in ice water and accomplishes much more every day before breakfast around 9:30.

A video of his morning routine has racked up millions of views on social media, while sparking reactions that range from disbelief to awe. It also jumpstarted the conversation online about how best to start the day, even if a six-hour regimen is ambitious to say the least.

Don’t worry, said Kamalyn Kaur, a psychotherapist in Cheshire, England. You don’t need to start your day with dozens of activities to improve it. But she said it is a good idea to reevaluate how you get going because setting up a relaxed, structured morning will pay dividends for your energy and mood.

“It just sets the tone for the rest of your day,” said Kaur, an anxiety expert who advises new clients to start by reevaluating how they spend the morning. “If you set yourself up and you start your day properly, you start off feeling good, you feel organized.”

As a professor of workplace psychology at The University of Oklahoma, Shawn McClean has spent years studying how work life is influenced by the rest of your life.

He said accomplishing tasks in the same order every morning is helpful because people have limited mental bandwidth before they have to recharge. The brain subconsciously reserves resources for tasks that require higher-level thinking, so routines are a type of mental shortcut.

“We’re cognitive misers,” McClean said. “We don’t like to use our mental energy on things that aren’t important.”

His research has found that employees perform better and are more calm throughout the day when they complete their morning regimen uninterrupted. Conversely, employees with disruptive mornings report higher levels of mental depletion late in the day.

“When it comes to routine disruptions, it throws off your whole day,” he said on a day when he was playing catch-up after having forgotten about his daughter’s show-and-tell. “You get to work and you realize you didn’t brush your teeth.”

Most people already have some kind of routine in place, but few consciously decided on it before it became automatic, McLean said.

It’s hard to define what a good routine is, and there is no formula that is best for everyone.

“It’s going to be idiosyncratic to each person,” McLean said. “It’s what helps them function. Now, can we have destructive routines? Yes.”

Rushing around in the morning to shower, eat and get out the door just on time is an example of a destructive morning routine, Kaur said. The stress of a rushed morning produces extra cortisol, which is a necessary hormone that helps regulate the circadian rhythm, she said. It’s what naturally wakes you up and makes you alert in the morning.

Too much cortisol in the bloodstream, however, creates a feeling of restlessness and anxiety that can be similar to drinking coffee on an empty stomach, Kaur said.

People who often have hectic mornings should consider setting their alarm 30 minutes earlier — and resist the urge to hit the snooze button, Kaur said. For many people, snoozed sleep is disrupted sleep that might leave you more groggy.

Kaur recommends adding at least two or three quick activities to your morning that have been shown to improve mood — starting with making your bed. Research shows that clutter foments anxiety, and completing a task first thing in the morning promotes the secretion of the feel-good hormone dopamine, she said.

Next, have a glass of water. If you’ve gotten a full night's sleep, you’ll likely be slightly dehydrated after not consuming liquids for eight hours. And try delaying caffeine until after eating to avoid being jittery.

At some point within the first hour of waking up, expose yourself to natural light, preferably by taking a quick walk, Kaur said. Even if it’s cloudy, daylight is another trigger for the circadian rhythm that promotes alertness first thing in the morning.

“These habits are important,” she said. “It gives you the optimum chance and the optimum conditions to function better throughout the rest of your day.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Albert Stumm writes about wellness, food and travel. Find his work at https://www.albertstumm.com

Skeptical Democrats confront Hegseth for the first time since start of Iran war

WASHINGTON (AP) — Skeptical Democrats confronted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Wednesday for the first time since the Trump administration went to war with Iran, touching off tense exchanges over a costly conflict with unclear objectives that has been waged without congressional approval.

The hearing before the House Armed Services Committee was focused on the administration's 2027 military budget proposal, which would boost defense spending to a historic $1.5 trillion. Hegseth and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, stressed the need for more drones, missile defense systems and warships.

Democrats quickly pivoted to the ballooning costs of the war, the huge drawdown of critical U.S. munitions and the bombing of a school that killed children. Some lawmakers also questioned Trump's dealings with allies and President Donald Trump's shifting justification for the conflict.

The war has cost $25 billion so far, the chief financial official for the Pentagon told lawmakers. Jules Hurst III, the acting undersecretary of war for finances, said most of that money was spent on munitions. The military has also spent money on running the operations and replacing equipment.

Hegseth dismissed criticism of the war as political and said lawmakers who have raised questions about it are one of the greatest challenges facing the U.S. military.

“The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans,” Hegseth said.

In one tense exchange, Hegseth told Democratic Rep. Adam Smith that Iran’s nuclear facilities were obliterated in a 2025 attack by the U.S., prompting Smith to question the Trump administration’s reasoning for starting the Iran war less than a year later.

“We had to start this war, you just said 60 days ago, because the nuclear weapon was an imminent threat,” said Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. “Now you’re saying that it was completely obliterated?”

Hegseth responded by saying that Iran “had not given up their nuclear ambitions” and still had thousands of missiles.

Smith said the war “left us at exactly the same place we were before.”

Democrats accused Hegseth of mismanaging the war and lying to Americans about the reasons for the conflict and said rising gas prices are now threatening the pocketbooks of millions of people in the U.S.

“Secretary Hegseth, you have been lying to the American public about this war from day one and so has the president,” said Rep. John Garamendi of California, who called the war “a geopolitical calamity," a “strategic blunder" and a ”self-inflicted wound to America."

Hegseth blasted Garamandi's remarks.

“Who are you cheering for here?” he asked the lawmaker. ”Your hatred for President Trump blinds you” to the success of the war.

While a fragile ceasefire is now in place, the U.S. and Israel launched the war Feb. 28 without congressional oversight. House and Senate Democrats have failed to pass multiple war power resolutions that would have required President Donald Trump to halt the conflict until Congress authorizes further action.

Republicans say they will keep faith in Trump’s wartime leadership, for now, citing Iran’s nuclear program, the potential for talks to resume and the high stakes of withdrawal. Still, GOP lawmakers are eager for the conflict to end, and some are eyeing future votes that could become an important test for the president if the war drags on.

While Democrats pressed Hegseth and Caine over Iran, Republicans focused their questions on the Department of Defense's budget proposal, not the management of the war.

Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the committee, opened the hearing by noting Trump's call to increase military spending. He pointed to recent increases in defense spending by China, Russia and Iran.

“We don’t have enough munitions, ships, aircraft or autonomous systems to ensure dominance against every adversary," Rogers said. “They are spending more of their GDP on defense than we are.”

Iran's closing of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping corridor for the world's oil, has sent fuel prices skyrocketing and posed problems for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections. The U.S. has responded with a Navy blockade of Iranian shipping and further built up its military forces in the region. Three American aircraft carriers are in the Middle East for the first time in more than 20 years.

The countries appear locked in a stalemate, with Trump unlikely to accept Tehran's latest offer to reopen the strait if the U.S. ends the war, lifts its sea blockade and postpones nuclear talks.

Hegseth has avoided public questioning from lawmakers about the war, although he and Caine have held televised Pentagon briefings. Hegseth has mostly taken questions from conservative journalists, while citing Bible passages to castigate mainstream outlets.