Most of us wake up in the morning and don’t want to get out of bed. Maybe we stayed up too late, maybe we partied too hard, maybe we lay in bed all night stressing over ever detail in our lives from birth to now.

By the time morning rolls around you might not feel much like getting out of bed at all. But unless you’re independently wealthy and have accomplished every dream in your life, you’ve gotta get up and make things happen.

I’m going to share how I am making my morning’s better with a simple playlist of songs.

Making Changes

After my recent move from the city to the woods I started trying many different ways to make myself feel better. One thing I did was play around with my morning routine.

I remember reading somewhere that a good way to wake yourself up is to go outside first thing in the morning, wearing as little clothing as possible and move around while soaking up some sun.

Another recommendation was not looking at your phone, staying out of your email, not checking social media or reading the news.

So I put the two together.

Each morning I waited for the sun to shine on my patio. Next, I’d grab a cup of coffee, go outside and stand in the sun and do some moving/stretching for ten minutes to wake myself up.

As it turns out – ten minutes is a long time to stand outside and do nothing. So one morning I decided to put on some music while I was out there to make it more fun.

It definitely helped, but some of the songs weren’t quite what you want to hear first thing in the morning. Don’t get me wrong, I love Elliot Smith and The Cure but melancholy music first thing in the morning isn’t really going to get me pumped up for the day.

So I thought, “what are some happy songs that make me feel good?”

And the Malan D Morning Music Playlist 2018 was born.

First Version

The first version of my morning music playlist only had three songs on it. They were about three minutes each and I used it to track my ten minutes outside every day.

But over time – the list has grown and now I spend somewhere between 15–30 minutes outside every morning and it’s f#cking beautiful.

Instead of reading the horrible news of the day and getting sucked into Facebook drama I’m outside in as little clothing as possible, soaking up some vitamin D, looking at the sky, watching birds fly by and doing my best to get myself primed for a great day.

For a maniac like me – it’s a great way to start the day.

I’ve rarely missed a morning since I started and when I do, I realize it, put on the playlist and run outside to feel great.

If you’ve never tried something like this, you should.

Here is the track listing, in order.

My Morning Music Playlist

I’m using Amazon Music. But you can make yours on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify or whatever you use for music.

Should you give this a try? If you’re anything like me and your default feeling is “miserable” then the answer is hell yes.

Start with my playlist and see how it goes. If you need to, edit the playlist and make it your own using songs that make you feel happy and good. Then, play every. damn. morning.

It’s a stupid little thing that helps me a lot.

And I hope it helps you too.

#SYITF