Today’s most successful people may start their mornings a little differently than you do. They follow a specific regimen that gives them a leg up soon after they wake up. Here are six simple steps they take to make them more successful after their alarm goes off in the morning:
- Rise Early, Drink a Tall Glass of Water
Get up early— half an hour before you normally do—and drink a tall glass of water to re-hydrate your brain and flush out your body. Your brain slows down when you’re dehydrated. Avoid coffee to “wake you up.” Drinking coffee this early negates the effect of the energy-boosting effects of caffeine. So save the coffee when you need it most—during your mid morning coffee break at work. Avoid orange juice or other fruit drinks in the morning. Most of these drinks are loaded with sugar and you’ll sugar crash by the time you get to work.
- Don’t Skip Breakfast
Many of us get so busy in the morning that we skip the most important meal of the day—breakfast. If you skip breakfast, you’re running on yesterday’s fuel, which in most cases has pretty much run out. Your body and mind need all the nutrients in a healthy breakfast to perform at optimum levels at work. Your muscles will be starving for glycogen (the energy fuel) by the time lunch rolls around. Eat a healthy breakfast and you’ll be mentally sharper with more physical energy and a heightened sense of awareness and clarity. Many people who skip breakfast fail to make up for the nutrients they missed during that all-important meal.
- Start With the Right Brain Fuel
After a night of rest, your brain needs fuel to power through the morning. Glucose is that fuel, but how we deliver it to the brain is key. Researchers like Leigh Gibson (see BufferSocial article) have found that brain performance is optimized with about 25 grams of glucose in the blood stream—what you typically get by eating a banana, small bowl of oats or a donut. A donut will release glucose like the downhill slide of a roller coaster—fast. Your brain will be alert for 20 minutes. After you’ve run through all your glucose, your brain will become unfocused and easily distracted. A banana or bowl of oats releases glucose much slower. So your focus and attention level will remain higher, longer. The foods mentioned above also control Leptin, a hormone that tells your brain when to eat. Soon after eating a donut, Leptin will tell your brain that you’re still hungry, causing you to reach for another donut. Just the opposite is true after eating a bowl of oats—you’ll feel full longer.
- Mediate, Then Focus
You don’t have to meditate like a shaman for an hour in the lotus position to get the most out of this practice. Six to seven minutes first thing in the morning is enough to start off the day with a calm, clear head. There are free apps your can get—like Headspace to guide you, or you can simply sit quietly in a dimly lit room and practice breathing. Next, focus for five minutes. Like an Olympic gymnast, before she begins her routine, she will mentally go through the moves before performing them. Close your eyes and “walk through” the actions and tasks you’ll be facing that day.
- Stretch, then Exercise
This is particularly important for middle-aged and older people who become less flexible as they age. We work in a stress-packed, fast-paced world. The last thing you need at work is a pulled muscle or back torqued out before a big meeting or presentation. So take two minutes to stretch every morning to improve the flexibility of body and mind. After you’re stretched and loose, perform a five-to-seven minute exercise to fully wake your body up.
- Tackle Toughest Jobs Early
Your first task of the day should be a big one, something that takes a lot of focus, willpower and determination to complete. Our self-control is quickly depleted as the day goes on. Studies show that much like muscle fatigue, our egos and self-control wanes quickly in the morning hours after breakfast. This has a psychological as well as a physiological effect on our ability to accomplish tasks. So get those challenging reports done early.
