4 Steps to Starting Your Morning Off Right

Mornings can be awful and starting the day off right can be a total game changer. It has a huge impact on your mood, which directly influences how the rest of your day goes. Do you want to spend the entire day on edge and rushing around just because you got up late this morning? What about having to drag yourself through the day half asleep when you had to skip breakfast?

Even if your classes start at 8am, but you spend every night up late studying you can still start the day right. Here's how:

1) Set your alarm for at least one hour before your first class.

Sure you could roll out of bed ten minutes before class, pull on whatever clothes are lying on the floor (even if they are from yesterday), and run to class, but do you really want to? Getting up an hour before your class (unless you have to shower, which if you're like me that's another half hour at least. Long hair takes forever to dry!), ensures that you have plenty of time to really wake up before you start your day.

2) 10-15 minutes to check emails and social media.

Avoid tripping over your own feet on your way to class by catching up on everything you missed while you were sleeping before you leave for class rather than while you're rushing there. Waking up early ensures a few extra minutes to lay in bed and check your phone.

**Be careful not to get lost on twitter or Facebook 5 minutes could easily turn into 20. Set a timer on your phone to remind yourself to put it down and get ready for class. Then, you can spend your leftover time scrolling through the rest of your newsfeed.

3) Read (for fun). 

I like to leave a few minutes in the morning to read before I have to go to class. On a good day that means reading whatever book I left off with last night (what I'm currently reading), but on a crazy day I'll finish up whatever reading I have to do for class (ugh). Before I read an actual book, I'll open up my email and read whichever emails/ articles stick out. Morning after morning, without fail, I read The Skimm.  It's the perfect way to catch up on what's happening in the news without actually reading a bunch of articles or watching the news. It's so easy to read and digest in under five minutes, so later on when someone starts talking about what's going on halfway across the world I actually know what they're talking about. All you have to do is enter your email and you're on your way to being caught up on current events before you even leave for class!

4) Eat a real breakfast.

If waking up early enough for breakfast is usually a problem for you, you probably won't make it all the way to the dining hall before class. Keeping a box of granola bars, cereal, or microwavable oatmeal in your room is a great alternative. This way you can multitask in the morning. Wait for your hair to dry, check emails, read, study for class while you eat.

Though, if you can get yourself up earlier grabbing a book (leisure or for class) and heading to your school's dining hall or coffee shop for a bit of down time with coffee or tea before class is a great way to ease into the day. Leave yourself 20-30 minutes to hang out and read a bit, and you'll be much calmer when you get to your first class.

What's your pre-class routine?