The Morning Routine That Will Change Your Life

People ask me a lot about my morning routine, because I'm always saying how much it changed my life.

A decade ago I read an article about how the first 90 minutes of your day will change your life. That article shifted my whole perspective. I realized I wasn't doing a single active thing in the morning to create the day I actually wanted.

In other words, most of my life I'd been reactive. I responded to external information coming at me, and I started my day around it. Whether it was the demands of work, the news, social media, or friends.

The worst thing you can do for yourself is start the day without a plan. That doesn't mean you have to change the world. It means you decide what you'll do in the morning. And what are the odds, even on vacation, that there's nothing at all you want to do in the morning? Whether that's making breakfast or going out to eat.

Do you have a morning routine? Because in my eyes it's the most effective way to change your own life.

Every morning when we wake up, our brain waves move through several levels.

Starting with delta (sleep), then theta, alpha, and finally beta (alertness).

The transition process is significant and necessary in order for us to wake up properly.

The waves worth remembering are alpha and beta.

Alpha is the subconscious — what's also called the malleable brain. We reach it through deep meditation.

Beta is consciousness, alertness, everything I know, all my past experiences. In other words: the personality.

If the moment we wake up we open our phone, the brain quickly shifts into high beta waves, and we start the day in a state of high stress.

If I check social media first thing in the morning, I spike my dopamine levels and lower my dopamine baseline, which means I'll constantly be chasing a higher dopamine hit through exposure to more content, making it harder to put the phone down all day long.

This is exactly what creates social media addiction — and a feeling of unease, even depression, when I'm not on my phone.

It's a vicious cycle.

So as long as I'm in bed and haven't been distracted yet, I have an opportunity to create something with myself.

I can ask myself: Who do I want to be today? What do I love about myself? What matters to me? I can remind myself how many beautiful things exist in the world.

What I usually do in bed, before I'm fully awake, is positive affirmations, or I think about the things I'm grateful for.

When we're still in alpha waves, our brain is in a flexible state.

During this time we have a greater capacity to remember and learn things easily, and to program our brain.

In other words, alpha waves are the ideal state to be in if I want to change something about my personality.

The second thing I'll do is some kind of movement. It doesn't have to be intense exercise, because there isn't always time, but stretches, push-ups, squats.

Movement produces noradrenaline, dopamine, and endocannabinoids,

which give us access to energy, focus, motivation, plus a tremendous lift in mood.

Physical activity boosts blood and oxygen flow to the brain — so what more could you ask for than to start your day with movement?

Another critical thing is exposure to natural daylight — a little sun on your eyes and face (without glasses!) to balance your biological clock. It won't only improve how you feel and how your body functions, it'll also improve your sleep at night.

The most important one in my eyes — my superpower, the thing that changed my life, is meditation. Meditation is a superpower. It's not a privilege or a luxury, it's a basic existential need.

Stress makes you stupid, slow, and sick. All the body's functions fail when we're under constant, unmanaged stress.

Don't get me wrong, stress can be a wonderful thing. There's what's called eustress, or positive stress — the kind that comes from exercise or a challenge you push through.

But the everyday stress we all experience harms every function in the body. From disease to hair loss.

Meditation has existed for 6,000 years, and there's no end to the amount of research showing its ability to improve every function in the body, every emotional state, every health problem, and of course brain function.

This is something everyone should do, and there's no excuse that could justify not doing it.

And what does it actually require? Ten minutes without a phone?

Ten minutes in which I'm not doing one more of the dozens of actions every person does in a day that don't serve our real needs and are, by definition, a distraction.

Practice meditation, and you'll change your own life.

My change course is a tremendous way to dive into new depths, where you'll learn how to start practicing all kinds of meditation on your own, and choose what fits you most precisely.