My Secret for a Bulletproof Morning

 My Secret for a Bulletproof Morning

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” —Marcus Aurelius

Like I said, the purpose of a powerful morning routine is the joy that it brings. You unlock that feeling by investing in four areas of your life, all before 9 a.m.—the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual realms.

The results of my seven-year experiment with tending to these areas are yours to enjoy:

1. Physical Activity

I’ve always loved exercise but until recently never enjoyed doing it in the morning. When I read Robin Sharma’s book The 5 AM Club, all that changed. He suggests spending the first 20 minutes of your day sweating.

Through his characters,Robin Sharma explains that exercising for just 20 minutes first thing will “significantly lower your cortisol” (which is highest in the morning), the hormone of fear that hurts your cognitive performance. It will also release brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which supercharges your brain. As if that wasn’t enough, it also releases dopamine and serotonin, the neurotransmitters of drive and happiness. Ready to sweat yet?

2. Emotional Work

• Meditation – After working out, I open my heart; I meditate for 10 to 20 minutes. I list this under emotional work, but it has positive effects on your physical and mental health, and deepens your spiritual connection to, well, everything. I’ve shown elsewhere that over 3,000 scientific studies have hammered home the benefits of this powerful practice. In my experience, regular meditation improves all the feels, giving you more happiness and joy, and washes away anxiety and depression.

• Gratitude – Like most people, I’ve spent a whole lot of my life focusing on what’s missing. “The human brain isn’t designed to make us happy and fulfilled. It’s designed to make us survive,” says Tony Robbins. It takes conscious effort to appreciate what you have, and that’s why I spend five minutes after my meditation thinking about and feeling what I’m grateful for. Feeling gratitude stimulates the hypothalamus and ventral tegmental areas in our brains, which reduce stress and produce pleasure.

3. Mental Exercise

• Journaling – One of the perks of having a human brain is our nifty cerebral cortex that gives us the unique ability among species to reflect and plan. After I meditate, I write. I once spent two years writing three pages every morning, and it unlocked new levels of creativity and productivity, and improved my relationships. Science has my back on this one, too—studies show that daily writing helps fight depression, makes people sick less often, and the unemployed find jobs faster. Many great people made journaling one of their morning habits. You could start today.

• Goal Setting – This isn’t just a once a year activity; like showering, it’s most effective when done daily. How else will you know what you want out of your day? When you write down your goals and action items, even if they are the same as yesterday’s, you prime your brain to look out for opportunities to achieve them. Inside that ball of grey matter is a bundle of nerves called the Reticular Activating System (RAS), which homes in on important information and blocks out the irrelevant. Writing your goals every morning sends a clear signal to your RAS to watch for opportunities to get after them.

4. Spiritual Practice

• Walking – For me, the practice of walking.Aristotle said, “Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.”Get up early, and get out there. It’s a practice I lean on when I feel my spirit waning.

• Inspiring Reading – Pick up something that lifts up your soul and read.

Most days I do all of this between 6 and 9 a.m. Some days I do most.

Thank you for support 

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