Building a Solid Morning Routine.
“I am not a morning person at all”, that is what i used to tell myself all the time and of course my subconscious mind made sure that the same thought manifested as the truth. I was using that statement as an excuse to avoid the discomfort and pain of waking up early everyday, if i could just blame it on the way i am, then i couldn’t be held responsible for it anymore, that was exactly what i was doing. I have been reading a lot of stuff on the internet that advocate waking up early and how it can make your life better and happier which really intrigued me. The most successful people apparently wake up early, like very early, even before the sun does.
Morning is the most pivotal part of the day, the way you start your mornings has a ripple affect on your entire day. You carry around through out the day the frame of mind you build up in the morning. You know how some times, one bad thing in the morning leads to another and then of course another and soon your entire day becomes a hellish nightmare.
Having a Solid Morning Routine that empowers you and energizes you is a beautiful thing to wake up to everyday. Once you are done with your routine, it gives you a sense of accomplishment and a sense of discipline that will help you take on all the challenges the world throws at you through out the day.
The first thing is to wake up early, waking up early gives you that extra time to execute your morning routine without pushing your whole day further down. In the beginning i really struggled with this, one thing that definitely worked for me is to repeat to myself every night before going to sleep the following statement or you can call it an affirmation “I am going to wake up tomorrow at 7 AM” (or whatever time works for you). Your subconscious mind is the most powerful alarm clock in the world. Most of you have probably experienced this, on the days when you have an important meeting or an appointment, you wake up ahead of time automatically even without an alarm, well, that is your subconscious waking you up. You could further add a number of other positive affirmations to that previous one, whichever works for you. Here are some other ones i use: “I get to wake up tomorrow at 7 AM”. “I get to see the beautiful sunrise tomorrow”. “6/7/8 Hours of sleep is sufficient for me to become completely energized and refreshed.”
When you start to associate positive thoughts, imagery and feelings with waking up early, it becomes that much easier. You don’t have to wake up at 4:30 or 5, what’s more important is to stick to the same amount of sleep everyday and make sure that you go to bed and wake up at the same time everyday. This helps establish a synchronous rhythm in your biological circadian clock which will keep your body and mind at peak performance everyday.
Phew…, Now that we are over the hard part, the rest is as simple as having a to- do list of things to do within the first hour or two of waking up.
1.Make your bed — What is your goal everyday you wake up, you want to get Shit Done, right. What better way to start the ball rolling than doing the easiest thing you can, make your bed. It hardly takes 10 seconds and it gives you a sense of accomplishment, you can check off that first task on your to-do list and keep the momentum going.
2.Wim Hof Method — You have probably already heard of this if you haven’t been living under a rock or maybe it’s just me who’s on the internet 24/7, so anyways it is an eponymous breathing technique developed by a Dutch Extreme athlete, that has a long list of benefits including, an improved immune system, increased energy, increased Oxygen efficiency, Reduced stress levels, etc. I’m not going into more details but you can look up the links at the bottom for more information.
Some of these benefits have been scientifically proven, “research and investigations were able to show that through specific training techniques just like the ones that Wim Hof advocates,a person is potentially able to change their autonomic nervous system and the immune system to withstand certain levels of inflammatory proteins.” [1], but of course there have are some skeptics too, but hey, try it out for yourself, and if it makes you feel good, then that is all that matters.
From my personal experience, this is the first thing i do after waking up and it definitely helps getting rid of all the grogginess and sleep inertia. I feel energized and it clears my mind. It also acts as a nice segue into my meditation routine. I noticed that at times when i don’t do the Wim Hof first, i tend to fall asleep during the meditation, you don’t want that happening do you.
[1] http://placeofpersistence.com/wim-hof-method-explained-benefits-of-cold-exposure/
[2] https://www.wimhofmethod.com/practice-the-method
[3] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2017/07/06/wim-hof-breathing-science-of-breath/#.W-2TU-hKhPY
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLj9s7xQk4I — Tutorial — Wim Hof Technique
3.Meditate — Meditation is the only way to tackle that irrational and incessant mind chatter a.k.a “The monkey mind” that drives you nuts every single minute of the day. Thoughts are a good thing when you need to think, to solve problems or to tackle complex challenges, but otherwise you have to control them, give them an inch and they will take over your entire mind and drive you insane. Most of the thoughts that arise when you don’t need them are negative, these thoughts are either associated with the past or the future and take you far away from the present moment, which is the root of all suffering and unhappiness.
What you do in meditation is actually not controlling the thoughts from arising, that is a very difficult thing to master, but instead notice the thoughts as they arise, you don’t ignore or neglect them, you acknowledge that they are there, you don’t identify with them, you just observe them and watch them float away into nothingness.
4.Affirmations — Meditation helps you quiet your mind and makes you more aware of the negative and harmful thoughts that arise in your mind. Why not substitute these thoughts with positive ones. The words that you use on a daily basis have a greater impact on your life than you would ever expect.Affirmations not only help you consciously choose positive thoughts but doing this long enough has a remarkable change in the thought patterns of your subconscious, when we practice affirmations, the negative thought patterns start to weaken and we build new positive thought patterns that are more conducive of a healthier and happier way of living.
5.Cold Shower — Combining this with the Wim Hof breathing technique will give you the best results. I used to be that guy who showers with scalding hot water but after taking a cold shower every day for a month, i noticed a huge difference in the way i feel and i’m definitely never going back.
Taking cold showers has been proven to improve you immunity, increase blood circulation, increased testosterone levels, there is also research out there which shows that cold showers can stimulate the area in your brain that produces noradrenaline, which is a key chemical in resisting depression.
We might think that most of the decisions we make on a daily basis are the ones that give us the maximum pleasure but this is seldom true, most of our decisions are based on avoidance of near term pain rather than the pursuit of long-term pleasure. You know that you need to workout and hit the gym to lose weight and that will bring you immense pleasure but the more near term obstacle in front of you is the pain of actually going to the gym and putting in effort. This avoidance of pain tends to keep us sheltered in our own little comfort zones and doesn’t allow us to try anything new.
One way to build your will power is to force yourself into doing something you don’t want to do every single day for the rest of your life? The easiest thing that you can do is take that cold fucking shower every morning and show your mind who’s boss. It is actually not that daunting a task as it appears to be, a lot of the fear and apprehension is just in your mind, once the first drops of freezing water hit your body, all that worry disappears, you feel ecstatic and pumped. Hey, nobody died from taking a cold shower at least as far as i know, why not try it out.
6.Drink Water — Who doesn’t love water, there’s something definitely wrong with you if you don’t. Most of us don’t have the faintest idea of how much water we drink everyday, if we don’t even know that we have a problem how are we going to fix it. So for the next couple of days just make a mental note of how much water you drink, there a number of apps for tracking this. Your body is dehydrated after a 7–8 hours of sleep, a fresh glass of water will not only re-hydrate you but also increases your metabolism. A lot of weight loss diets also incorporate drinking water as it keeps your stomach full, thereby making you eat less than you would usually do.
7.Plan your Day — Life by definition is quite chaotic, the only way to tackle the curve balls life throws at you is to embrace the chaos, but we definitely do not want to make it any more disorganized. You need not plan out every single thing that you need to do, but take 5 minutes to write down or at least make a mental note of the three most important things you need to accomplish. This helps you get your priorities straight for the day and also makes you more focused and determined.
8.Write — Whether you are trying to get your creative juices flowing or just looking for a channel to express your feelings and emotions, Writing can be a really beneficial and cathartic experience. You don’t need to come up with a Pulitzer winning novel, just write whatever comes to your mind automatically, there is an endless stream of thoughts surfacing every second, write them down, this will actually also help you notice and examine your thoughts and feelings on a deeper level. If you find it difficult to do this, try free-writing. This is a technique where you set a timer for a certain amount of time and write non-stop, If nothing is coming to your mind, you should write: “Nothing is coming to my mind. I don’t know what to write.” There is no need of grammar, or punctuation or even a point, your just jotting down everything that comes to you without filtering and without judging.
Again, this is not something set in stone and you don’t have to do all of these things, although i recommend doing them all, but try experimenting with these and keep whatever works for you and discard the rest.
Published November 17, 2018November 17, 2018
Originally published at unravelingexistence.wordpress.com on November 17, 2018.
