Transcription
What is the best brain maxing routine according to neuroscience? Imagine that from 20 to 30 minutes after waking up, you can already enjoy full ability of your cognitive skills without any brain fog, without low motivation, and without the low attention span. It's all possible because of this easy morning routine.
But firstly, let me tell you a few very important things about the morning routine. The first one, it is that it should be as simple and as short as it's only possible. Because imagine that your morning routine can last for an hour and have like 30 steps. You will really quick lose motivation to continue and do this morning routine every day. Your priority should be sleep, not morning routine, which starts already at 5:00 a.m. after maybe 5-6 hours of sleep, which is absolutely not sufficient for literally anyone. That's why my morning routine is short. It's maximum 20-30 minutes and it has just a few easy steps, which also will allow you to immediately implement that in your life without any bigger complications.
So let's start from the first point. The first point is to not set like 10 alarms in the morning. You should already wake up with the first alarm. Why it is like this? Because those short cycles of sleep, when you fall into a shallow cycle of sleep which lasts for 5-10 minutes, is completely ruining your circadian rhythm. When you do just a few of those mini naps in the morning, you can already destroy your falling asleep process in the evening and also experience sleepiness during literally the entire day. That's why the most optimal thing is a 3:1 method. It is the method when you hear an alarm, or perfectly, it would be really perfect to wake up alone without any clock alarm, anything like this, and count from 3 to zero: 3, 2, 1, and you wake up, no matter what. It might sound really simple, but I would estimate that less than 10% of people really do that. Less than 10% of people do not do any naps in the morning and just wake up straightly after hearing an alarm or after opening their eyes.
Another trick is to set your phone, set your alarm in another room, which literally forces you to stand up and shut it up manually. But that's also a moment when you can use the 3:1 method. In the morning, when you wake up, your body secretes a few very important neurotransmitters which actually wake up your entire brain because you have to know that all parts of your brain do not wake up at once. You can be technically awake, but your prefrontal cortex might be still asleep. That's why some people, including unfortunately me, tend to be much more aggressive in the morning because their prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for emotional control or for seeing consequences of their actions, is still asleep. To wake up your entire brain, you need, of course, a lot of neurotransmitters, but a few of the most important are dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline, and cortisol. And cortisol is probably the most important, and its spike is the highest from all these previously mentioned neurotransmitters. That's why the first thing which you do in the morning shouldn't be obviously drinking coffee, which is spiking your cortisol even more because it's already the highest from the entire day in the morning. So do not make it even higher, as it has a lot of negative effects for your testosterone, immune system, or energy levels.
But what you can do is to implement some extra tasks which will, for example, boost your adrenaline or adrenaline, which will help you to wake up different parts of your brain faster and also put you in an alerted, working mood much sooner. And here I recommend a quick session of workout. It shouldn't be something hard. It shouldn't be something long. Literally, a few minutes is enough. We don't train now for hypertrophy. We do not train now for training for a marathon or something like this. No, it's just a quick training to boost your most important neurotransmitters. Also, another high-end profit of a quick training in the morning is the fact that it will temporarily lower your level of dopamine, which will then return, probably to a higher level which you had before those activities, and this simplifying very much, obviously, increases your motivation. It's also one of the habits of most powerful people on this planet. Like, for example, Pavel Durov, creator of Telegram, Russian billionaire, used to everyday do hundreds of push-ups just after waking up. So, yeah, it's just powerful.
Did you ever hear about the neurochiasmatic nucleus? It is literally the part of our brain which detects which hour it is outside and then starts important biological processes which are meant to prepare your body for the certain hour, for the certain time during the day. This work, it's really simple because whenever it gets some light, it is informed which is the length of the sun ray and through this, just starts needed by this reactions. The problem is that when you are inside, even though you might have huge windows which let a lot of sun rays to come inside, the windows are just blockers of the correct sun rays. They work like a shield which prevents some sun rays to come inside and change anything and through this, inform that nucleus which hour it is. That's why it's super important to just go outside, simply 15-20 minutes outside, mostly when you will connect that with a quick training, can do miracles for you. Your body is taught through evolution that in the morning, it needs to be more active. It's the time when the hunting should start. It's the time when the searching for food should actually begin. That's why getting direct sunlight, even during cloudy days, because it can go through clouds, is especially such important in the mornings. And yes, even if you live in cloudy countries like me, you should go outside. Of course, then the sun rays will be probably much weaker. So, you should spend more like 30 minutes than 20 outside. But do not worry, you can connect that with trainings, and that's how you should start a day.
Some of the important benefits are higher levels of dopamine, which of course is a neurotransmitter of motivation, will drive to work, higher level of serotonin, which of course improves our mood, and then you should just start to work. First session, according to neuroscience and according to your brain cycles, it should be, of course, 90 minutes because that's how much time your natural one cycle of brain lasts, and after this time, you will probably burn out a lot of neurotransmitters which are absolutely needed for an efficient work and studying.
Should the first session of studying or working be hard? And I would say yes and no because basically, I believe in the frog-eating method, which consists of doing the hardest task of the day already in the morning, like the first thing which you do. But seeing straightly from a neurobiological point of view, we are not the most productive in the morning, but in the later part of the day, already at around 12:00 p.m. So the choice is yours. You can use those 90 minutes for the hardest task of the day without a guarantee that you will be the most productive at this time. Of course, the difference won't be crazy. It's like just maybe maximum 10% of more productivity around the midday than during the morning. But 10% of course might be sometimes a lot. Or you can do some easier activities, but you will have this psychological burden that you still need to complete that the hardest task of the day.
And the last thing, what is the top number one stuff which you shouldn't absolutely do in the morning? And it is using the phone, minimum, and I say really minimum, 1 hour, and optimally 2 hours from waking up. You shouldn't scroll. You shouldn't even look at your phone. It's really one of the worst things which you can do, which will really mess up with your dopamine, mess up with your attention span, and can turn even the most ambitious plan into useless garbage. And I understand all of you, we live among the most addictive products ever in the history of humanity. So what I recommend to do is to download some apps which will block those social media, those dumb scrolling apps from your phone for the first two hours of the day. I personally use Freedom, and with its free mode, it lets me just put a blockade for the first two hours of the day. And even if I forgot about this important rule, I am still not able to open those apps and start doom scrolling. So, yes, do something to reject access to your phone.
Thank you very much for watching this video. By the way, I just had a few interesting conversations with my viewers. You are really, really smart people, and I do not really want that you are only uh numbers on my screen. So if you want to talk with me now, it's the really right time to do that because my channel is only like 5,000 of us. So I'm giving you here now my private Instagram, and I will make sure to accept all of you and talk with really all of you. I want to know better what are your problems, how to solve them, and what videos should I record next. So, yes, here is that I will accept and talk with literally everyone who will text me. Thank you very much for watching this video. See you later. Thanks that you are here. Subscribe, like, comment. See you. Ciao, ciao.