7 things to do today before you look at your phone

To start your day properly, stay offline — or at least until you’ve played a board game and walked the dog.

This is the advice of a top head teacher who has suggested that children should do seven activities every morning before switching on their iPads or mobile phones this summer.

According to Shaun Fenton, headmaster of Reigate Grammar School in Surrey, “games console[s] can act like the dementors in Harry Potter sucking out children’s minds and souls”. To combat this, they should complete a series of tasks before going online. But it’s not just kids who need a break from screen time. Here’s an adult guide to the Super Seven.

1. Wake naturally

You’re a slave to your phone alarm for nine gloomy months of the year so summer is a chance to make a change. A recent study by neuroscientists at Oxford showed that relying on an alarm clock depletes your sleep and wakes you up at the wrong point in your cycle — it shocks the system and triggers a stress response in your body. Boosting your heart rate and blood pressure gets you off to the wrong start, so harness summer’s natural advantage: as it gets light early you’re unlikely to sleep long past daybreak unless you’ve had a big one the night before. Invest in Lumie’s Bodyclock Spark 100 alarm clock for a double sunrise — it wakes you up by mimicking the light change when the sun rises, so you don’t have to touch your phone and be distracted by Whatsapp.

2. Edge your breakfast

Don’t skip breakfast, just postpone it. Doctor and author Michael Mosley recommends intermittent fasting to stay healthy and says a late breakfast keeps cravings at bay. When you do eat, go Mediterranean, he says. Farmer J serves Med-inspired breakfast “Field trays” for early risers in the City — try shakshuka of poached egg on spiced tomato and red pepper with crumbled feta, chopped salad and zatar sourdough toast, or for a sweet riff, head to Bompass & Parr’s SCOOP: A Wonderful Ice Cream World near King’s Cross, which has a marmalade and burnt toast breakfast ice cream to keep you cool.

3. Walk it off

Before switching on a device, take the dog for a walk, whether it’s your own or a neighbour’s. Website and app Borrow My Doggy lets you look after someone else’s mutt if you don’t have your own and Mercato Metropolitano and Bellanger restaurants let dogs in if you fancy breakfast en route (once you’ve waited as long as Mosley stipulates). M Victoria Street provides your four-legged friend with its own brunch menu: for a £5 donation to Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, your dog will get a choice of bacon and peanut butter cookies or dried chicken livers.Your canine companion might even meet resident hound Hudson the labradoodle.

4. Find a power hour

A recent study in the Journal of Physiology found exercising before breakfast energises the body and supports a better all-day metabolism. At Chroma Yoga in Shoreditch, instructors combine blue-light therapy with awakening sound frequencies to set you up for the day, while Ride Republic’s early-morning spin sessions will enhance your body’s level of endorphins. For an all-round high, head to the roof: Aviary rooftop in the City hosts RooFIT classes every Thursday and Friday morning and Summer of Sound on the Roof at John Lewis on Oxford Street holds sunrise sessions, from Paola’s BodyBarre to dynamic Pilates.

5. Get your game on

Fenton suggests playing a board game before going online: London’s first board game-themed café, Draughts in Shoreditch, offers more than 500 games, from Monopoly to Cluedo, while Scootercaffe in Lambeth offers a variety of board games and coffee made from a retro 1957 Faeme espresso machine. It will make a nice break from Fortnite.

6. Hack your chores

Take a tip out of Love Island and do chores instead of being on your phone: former contestant Amber Davies recently revealed the islanders have to do the washing up as payback for having their food cooked for them. If you outsource smartly it’s more a case of project management: Dyson’s 360 Eye will clean your carpet, Amazon’s Dash Button orders your groceries and Laundrapp will do your laundry for you. Amazon sells a pair of dusting slippers that will wipe your floors as you get out of bed.

7. Entertain yourself

Before you read your Twitter feed, read a book. My Year of Rest and Relaxation, by Ottessa Moshfegh, explores a woman’s decision to hibernate her way to happiness — sealing her phone in a Tupperware and hiding her laptop — while Clock Dance by Ann Tyler is a bittersweet novel about altruism and seeking fulfilment. Meanwhile, Maya Jama, pictured left, has a celeb-studded podcast, When Life Gives You Melons,, which talks pay rises, love stories and the quarter-life crisis .