Issue No. 37: Morning Habits
The turn of a new year is always a powerful time to establish resolutions and incorporate new habits into one’s life.
Over the past two years I have established a set of guidelines for the first 60-90 minutes of my day that has had an undeniable and positive impact on my physical, emotional, and spiritual health.
Those of us who do creative work need as many advantages as we can get concerning our energy and time, which is why in this issue of The Theisen Journal I am going to share these personal morning habits with you.
As always, take ‘em or leave ‘em. I’m not a medical doctor or therapist or nutritionist or life coach.
But what I can tell you is that these guidelines have favorably recalibrated how I go about my days.
1) Don’t Sleep with Your Phone
My top bit of advice actually starts the night before: do not sleep in the same room as your phone. Stop the damn scrolling, charge your mobile device in a different room, then go to bed. Charge it in the bathroom if you must. If you live in a one-room space (such as a dorm), make your phone a little more difficult to access by storing it in a drawer or closet.
“But I use my phone for my alarm!” Not now ya don’t. Acquire a cheap single-function alarm clock and use it (I got mine online for ten bucks). “This doesn’t let me snooze or set multiple alarms!” Good. You shouldn’t be doing that anyway. You’re not really getting more restful sleep with all those alarms spread out every eight minutes.
Your phone is a massive distraction when you’re trying to wind down for a good night’s rest, is a temptation for exacerbated insomnia if you do find yourself restless in the middle of the night, and is sitting there in the morning just waiting to fuck your day up with a blast of irrelevant notifications, bad news, and guilt-tripping emails.
Oh yeah. About that. Here’s part two of this top nugget of wisdom:
Do not pick up your phone for the first sixty minutes you’re conscious in the morning.
Just don’t do it. You don’t need to.
The first hour you’re awake you should be focused solely on the well-being of yourself and the people under your roof. Your phone is a device that’s excellent at constantly convincing you that your primary task in life is accountability to the entire world’s wants before you tend to your needs. Don’t give it the chance. By looking at notifications, answering emails, scrolling social media, responding to comments, reading news of disasters halfway around the globe and so forth, you’re establishing your mindset for the rest of your day as one of reaction rather than action.
Sixty minutes after you wake. No phone.
You can do it.
Better yet, make it ninety.
2) Breathe and Be Grateful
So you wake up. Great! You’re alive!
No. Read it again. I mean it.
GREAT! YOU ARE ALIVE!
Open your eyes, stare at the ceiling or a wall, take a few slow deep breaths in and out, then remind yourself that you’ve been granted another day above ground and that absolutely rules. A whole new day and night you can make your life and the lives of others a better place, a new cycle of time and opportunities. Express gratitude to be alive. Peace begins with being thankful.
Yeah, I know. Sometimes life is really damn hard. Some of us have privileges that others don’t. Severe mental illness can be a burden on our ability to embrace joy.
Okay. Well what are we going to do about that?
Take some deep breaths and don’t move until you think of at least one thing that you’re grateful for. Even if it’s just one. Do this every morning until you can increase that number.
3) The “Most Important Meal of the Day”
I grew up hearing that breakfast was the “most important meal of the day.” In some ways it is, but not in the “hey let’s tank up at Waffle House and shovel two billion calories down our throat before sitting down all day” sense.
Have a modest breakfast of 200-350 calories. Emphasize protein (eggs, peanut butter, vegan breakfast burritos, protein powders/shakes) and complex carbohydrates (plain oatmeal, raspberries, blueberries, etc.). Drink a couple of glasses of water.
Avoid refined/added sugars! This means getting rid of the evil white sweetener in your coffee but it also means purging it from all the sneaky ways it can enter your favorite breakfast foods. That cup of “super healthy” Greek yogurt you eat each morning or that “nutritious” store-bought smoothie or those energy bars you love? Yeah… you might wanna check those. They’re often sneaky sugar bombs. Sorry. I don’t make the facts I just report ‘em.
4) Move Your Body
Spend fifteen minutes moving your body in a joyful manner. This isn’t punishment - it’s a celebration of what your body can accomplish.
This will be different for everyone and that’s okay!
Do a little cardio. Lift some weights. Do a round on an exercise app. Stretch. Yoga. Nod your head up and down with music. ANYTHING.
Prepare your body for the physical tasks you have in store for it during the day.
5) Read Something Constructive
Oh boy. You’re maybe halfway through the sixty minutes I told you to not pick up your phone and your skin is practically itching with the desire to check all those glorious social media accounts.
That’s fine. Now’s the time to read something constructive!
It can be a self-help book. A religious or spiritual text from your faith tradition. A few essays about personal finance. (Are you as literate as you should be regarding money? Now’s a great time to find out.) Read a political perspective you don’t agree with. Read some poems and reflect. Tear through a couple of chapters from some beach fiction you didn’t finish over summer.
Give your brain something to do other than process the million flashes of rage and advertising you’d encounter online.
Have I been great about doing all five of these points of advice every single day? Absolutely not.
But I have incorporated all of them frequently enough that I’ve noticed a massive shift in how my brain/body/spirit operates as I go about my business.
Try them! Seriously. Try these five habits for thirty days and in February shoot me a DM/email and let me know what you’re experiencing. I’d love to hear from you as we all continue our journeys together.