Morning Routines Drive Your Day

Do you have a morning routine? Would you like a morning routine? If the answer is "no" to either of these, I suggest you give it a second thought. Morning routines can actually make your day more efficient, more productive, and more enjoyable.

SCIENCE BEHIND THE MORNING ROUTINE:

Rememeber how we've said, don't do anything just for the dopamine dump that your brain will give you when you accomplish a task. This is still true, you don't want to be addicted to just doing the small things to get that Dopamine dump, but in the morning, it is a motivator to get things done and propell you into the day. Here is the medical description of dopamine from www.Medlicker.com

"Dopamine acts as a neurotransmitter. Nerve cells release it in the form of a chemical to transmit signals to other nerve cells. The Brain has many distinguished Dopamine systems. Its major role is in Reward Motivated Behavior. Dopamine level is increased due to some of reward motivated behaviors."

When you sleep, your dopamine decreases, which keeps you in bed during the night and while you sleep. In the morning, because of the low dopamine levels, it is hard to get out of bed. Find your motivator. Find what gets you pumped and excited to do. Then when you are struggling to get out of bed, use that thought to get you excited to leave the comfort of the bed and get moving. Once you get out of bed, then get moving. You will always be more efficient if you list the items you need to get done, so you don't waste time or get distracted by other things that may come up.

Your morning routine should follow the same path every day. Each morning you wake up and you do the same routine because after 7-10 days of doing it you won't need a list to know what to do. With the accomplishment of each item on your list, you are actually replentishing the dopamine back to its normal level in your system, which will motivate you to get more done throughtout the day.

IDEAS FOR THE MORNING ROUTINE:

Allow me to explain my morning routine and the motivators to get it done.

1) MUSIC - First thing I do is get up and turn on energy pumping music. When you listen to the music you most enjoy, the type that would make you dance, that releases large amounts of dopamine into your system. This is why we are so drawn to music. So listening to it in the morning allows us to start replentishing those levels of dopamine we lost over a long night.

2) WALK - Every day I wake up and I automatically get out of bed, no questions. I do this because of my motivator, my dog Molly. Molly has a small bladder and I know that if I don't bring her on a walk, she wil pee in my office where she spends her nights. So I get up and bring her out for a walk.

3) FEED ANIMALS - This is a small task but it gives me small accomplishments and the animals need their food replentish. This gives me small dopamine dumps because I acomplished another task.

4) BLOG/JOURNAL - Get your mind moving. Sleep inertia is what occurs when you first wake up and its hard to wake up your brain. Start writing. Anything and everythings you can think. You are forcing your brain to wake up and become creative earlier. When journalling remember your 1-2 minutes of words of affirmation. These words will also produce a dump of dopamine ecuase you are promoting your strengths and accomplishments and the nerve endings release dopamine when there is that sense of accomplishment.

5) WORKOUT - Wake up your heart and muscles. Over the night, you body has solidified and tensed up into a certain position (how you lay in bed). Exercises will help you stretch out these positions and make you more flexible throughout the day. This will help recover from any accidents or incidences you may have during the day.

6) SHOWER - Then, when you body is to its normal dopamine level, you are pumped and ready to go and your mind is going in all different directions, now it is time to shower and meditate. Showering wil help you slow down your thoughts and relax the nervous energy in your system. When you leave the shower, you are normally calmer and more relaxed, remember, you did just get off your hard workout and you need to relax those muscles.

7) MEDITATE/SCRIPTURES - Now it's time to relax your scattered brain energy. Meditation will not take away your energy but instead redireect it in a more focused manner. You will become more focused by giving your brain time to slow and relax. Tappers are highly recommended when meditating. This little device allows your right brain to communicate with your left brain and vice versa. To do this you put one paddle in each hand and it sends a signal from one paddle to the other. This signals a communication between the two hemispheres of your brain. Those that are normally right brain, will become more left brained and left brainers will become more right, as the brain was supposed to work, balanced. This redirects your brain energy and concentration to a normal position.

8) LIST MY PRIORITIES - To end your morning routine, write down you top 7 priorities. Label them 1-7, 1 being your highest priority, and prepare the day to accomplish the top 4. The other three can wait for tomorrow.

9) EAT - While making your list, its a good time to finally eat something. Breakfast is the morst important meal of the day but it's not the most important item to do first thing. If you are worried about your weight and you have a solid morning routine, don't be. The exercise and the morning walk, will counteract the meal you are about to eat. For more dopamine in your breakfast, eat more eggs. These will help stimulate your nerve cells to release dopamine as well. And always, before eating, drink a tall glass of water. This fills space in your stomach, increases your metabolism and cleans out your system of leftover junk that was sitting there since the last meal.

Set up your routine to motivate you and get your mind and body ready for the day ahead.

ACTION ITEMS:

1) Figure out what gets you motivated each morning to get out of bed? If you need a dog, go get one from the local pound. Though they are a good motivator, that was a joke.

2) Make a list of your morning routine and start doing them each morning. After about 7-10 days, you should have them memorized. By day 20, they should be intrentched in your system and motivation to accomplish those tasks will be much easier after that point.