Set Yourself Up, When You Get Yourself Up, My First 40 Minutes

Have you ever noticed that when you have a really good first hour of the day it seems like the rest of the day just flows so easily?

In Tim Ferriss‘s four hour work week he writes “win the morning, win the day “

While there have probably been thousands of blogs on this topic I hope I will add something a little bit new and refreshing. I am not yet a 5 AM club kind of person. That said while I may not get up that early I do have a few of the habits identified as best practices. First, when I wake up I allow myself only to hit the snooze one time, I am working toward never hitting the snooze and the days when I don’t hit the snooze is because I’ve moved my phone to the bathroom. The next step in this evolution is to simply get an old style analog alarm clock and leave it far away so when I get up I will have walked 10 to 15 steps to get to it.

After waking I need to hydrate, I am willing to bet we lose about two to three cups of water from our bodies while we sleep, so I will drink 16 ounces or more. After that I will start making coffee and as the coffee brews I will set up for my morning meditation.

When I first got into meditation I found myself having my legs fall asleep because I was sitting on them so I had found this little meditation bench from a video that I watched of an older guy doing his own meditation. This bench allows me to still sit in a comfortable position with my back straight however I’m not putting pressure on my legs. It allows me to sit for much longer than I used to sit and I’m not in anywhere as much pain. I used to just use apps like Headspace or Insight Timer. Then I started using the various positive intelligence exercises from the PQ program. Those mindfulness exercises can be done anywhere but I enjoyed the guided meditative side of it. They range everything from tense and release, to focusing on breath, to labeling with an anchor of your breath and many more. I currently use this program in my coaching practice as a foundation. It's akin to going to the gym for the mind.

Last month I evolved my practice one level further by using the Muse 2, this tool is essentially a very low cost electroencephalograph that can measure the level of calmness of your brain during meditation. I will meditate for twenty minutes.

During which, I really focus on three things in different sections of the meditation time:

1. Breathing exercises, focusing on my breath as I breath in deep inhalations through my nose, filling up my belly and exhaling through my mouth slowly.
2. Prayer, these are directed at people in my life that I love and care for. If I do pray for myself, it will only be in the context of being given the power to help others.
3. Affirmations or a mantra, I will pick some phrase and say half of it on the inhale and the other half on the exhale.

From the meditation I will then go in to journaling in which I’ll write out my goals for the day, my three great things or gratitude for the day and finally I will free-write into my journal whatever is on my mind.

This practice will take me approximately 40 minutes total. Depending on the day, I may then go outside to walk or do some readings.

The odd thing is, if I don't do the meditation (at the very minimum) - I notice myself feeling scattered for the day. I am glad I started this work, it is a very gentle and non-judgmental practice (I know that if I make it a chore or am keeping too much of a score, I will find it a bore.) What do you do as a morning practice? Let me know in the comments what works for you as a morning routine.

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