Lifestyle
The Morning Show: 9 Apps & Podcasts To Get Your Day Off To A Good Start
Streamline and organise your morning routine with these motivating resources.
Those precious hours between waking up and logging on at work can make or break your mood and productivity for the day ahead. Using some smart apps and motivating podcasts, you can transform those first moments of your day to create healthy habits, inspire mindfulness and improve your health. Try these.
A meditation podcast from Lilly Balch, each 10-minute episode guides you through a mindful breathing or visualisation practice to start your day with ‘joy, ease and balance’. Download it.
If you have the Amazon smart device in your home, set up a morning routine and ask Alexa to ‘start my day’ for her to read you the weather you can expect, the key events in your diary for the day, the morning news bulletins and an update on traffic for your morning commute. Download it.
Set the time you definitely need to be out of bed by and Sleep Cycle app will calculate the best wake-up time for you within a half hour of your set time. The idea is to ensure you are woken up at the natural time in your sleep cycle to avoid a groggy start. Download it.
As the name suggests, this snappy app gets you up-and-at-‘em with fast, effective workouts that anyone can squeeze in to their morning routine and are scientifically proven to improve overall health. You can almost fit in a workout while the kettle boils for your morning brew – what are you waiting for? Download it.
Twenty minutes a day, five days a week, The Daily dives into current news stories read at 6am by leading journalists for a morning debrief that will get you up to speed on world events, fast. Download it.
This clever calculator works out, based on your current location and your destination, the new daily sleep/wake cycle you need to adjust to that will help reduce your jet lag before you even travel. Brilliant for those commuting across time zones regularly for work, and who need to land and get straight to it. Download it.
Use the tide app to guide your morning meditation for a mindful start to your day or use its ‘focus timer’ to help you stay on task - scheduling in breaks to ensure your productivity stays on top form throughout the day. There’s also a great white noise library to help you zone out of background office noise when you really need to deep dive into a project. Download it.
From the people who bought you Moleskine, the original analogue notebook, Actions allows you to track tasks, appointments and reminders, create micro to-do lists and set reminders to nudge you and keep your day on track. Download it.
The 21st-century version of reading the morning papers over breakfast, Readly allows you digital access to your favourite daily, weekly and monthly print media – from the tabloids to high-brow journals – all via your monthly subscription. A great way to get up to speed with current affairs on your morning commute. Visit Readly.
By Lydia Mansi
March 2023
The Morning Ritual
A meditation podcast from Lilly Balch, each 10-minute episode guides you through a mindful breathing or visualisation practice to start your day with ‘joy, ease and balance’. Download it.
Alexa App
If you have the Amazon smart device in your home, set up a morning routine and ask Alexa to ‘start my day’ for her to read you the weather you can expect, the key events in your diary for the day, the morning news bulletins and an update on traffic for your morning commute. Download it.
Sleep Cycle App
Set the time you definitely need to be out of bed by and Sleep Cycle app will calculate the best wake-up time for you within a half hour of your set time. The idea is to ensure you are woken up at the natural time in your sleep cycle to avoid a groggy start. Download it.
7-Minute Workouts
As the name suggests, this snappy app gets you up-and-at-‘em with fast, effective workouts that anyone can squeeze in to their morning routine and are scientifically proven to improve overall health. You can almost fit in a workout while the kettle boils for your morning brew – what are you waiting for? Download it.
The Daily
Twenty minutes a day, five days a week, The Daily dives into current news stories read at 6am by leading journalists for a morning debrief that will get you up to speed on world events, fast. Download it.
Jet Lag Rooster
This clever calculator works out, based on your current location and your destination, the new daily sleep/wake cycle you need to adjust to that will help reduce your jet lag before you even travel. Brilliant for those commuting across time zones regularly for work, and who need to land and get straight to it. Download it.
Tide
Use the tide app to guide your morning meditation for a mindful start to your day or use its ‘focus timer’ to help you stay on task - scheduling in breaks to ensure your productivity stays on top form throughout the day. There’s also a great white noise library to help you zone out of background office noise when you really need to deep dive into a project. Download it.
Actions
From the people who bought you Moleskine, the original analogue notebook, Actions allows you to track tasks, appointments and reminders, create micro to-do lists and set reminders to nudge you and keep your day on track. Download it.
Readly
The 21st-century version of reading the morning papers over breakfast, Readly allows you digital access to your favourite daily, weekly and monthly print media – from the tabloids to high-brow journals – all via your monthly subscription. A great way to get up to speed with current affairs on your morning commute. Visit Readly.
By Lydia Mansi
March 2023
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Lydia Mansi
Lifestyle Editor
Lydia is an all-round lifestyle guru, tireless champion of women in business and our resident expert on beauty.
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