The Best Morning Ever: A Science-Backed Morning Routine

How can you set yourself up for a calmer, more energised day? Zara Dureno, an occupational therapist with a background in psychology and neuroscience, shares simple science-backed habits for your morning, from getting natural light early to what you eat for breakfast, and explains why each one helps your body and mind. This content is educational and is not a substitute for one to one professional care.

Transcript

In this video, I am going to teach you how to have the best morning and day ever. These are science-backed tools that you can use starting tomorrow to give you more energy throughout your day. My name is Zara. I am a occupational therapist and I have an undergrad in psychology and neuroscience, And I am a total nerd about giving people tools that enhance their lives. So the first thing that I want to talk about is that when you wake up, You're in an alpha state. So an alpha state is a bit more neuroplastic, Meaning that your brain is a bit more moldable in that state. You're kind of moving between delta, Which is a slow brain wave, Into theta, Which is a little bit faster, And then into alpha. And in these theta and alpha states, You have more ability to, Your brain is more malleable, So you can start to change it. So within the first five minutes of waking up is an excellent time to do some affirmations or meditation. So five to 10 minutes of affirmations and meditations is perfect way to start your day. Then soon after that, You want to get natural sunlight if it's possible. If the natural sunlight is not possible, Then you want to get either infrared light or a sunlamp or something like that. But natural sunlight is always going to be the best. What this does is the light coming in from the top of your eye starts to stimulate your body to produce the sort of chemicals and hormones that you need for your day. And it even sort of sets up the rhythm for the rest of the day so that your body knows when it needs to produce chemicals for sleep. So it's a really good way of telling your body, Hey, It's daytime, We're getting up, We're starting to go through the day. If you think about it evolutionarily, We used to live mostly where we would go directly outside after waking up and get that sunlight right away. And that's part of what we're doing here. The next thing that we're going to talk about is waiting one and a half hours to drink your coffee or caffeine, Tea, Whatever you're drinking. And I know that sucks, Because we all want our coffee first thing in the morning. But if you wait to drink your coffee, You're following the natural curve of cortisol. So what happens is that when we wake up, Our body starts to produce cortisol, But it doesn't reach its peak until about an hour and a half after we wake up. So what you want to do is match that coffee because it's going to give you a big spike of cortisol with your own natural cortisol spike because if you artificially increase your cortisol before it actually spikes itself, That's going to make you feel a little bit more tired because it's going to wear off quicker in the day. So you're going to have that like 3 or 4 p. M. Coffee crash that people are used to and it's not going to support your energy throughout the day. But if you wait an hour and a half, That will actually support your energy. We also want to consider a huge mistake people make, And this is such a key for you to have lots of energy through your day. So many people take a hot or warm shower first thing in the morning. That is ruining your energy for the day. Because your body works a lot with temperature gauges. When you go to sleep, Your body's temperature starts to decrease. Right? And that is a cue to your body that it's time for sleep. So what happens after a shower, Because your body works a bit like a thermostat, Is that if you heat yourself up, Your temperature in your body starts to decrease. The same way that if I held up a hairdryer to a thermostat, That thermostat is going to detect more heat, So it's going to cool the house down. When you heat your body in the shower, It detects more heat, Your body starts to cool down, And if your body's cooling down, Your body goes, Oh, It's time for sleep. Right? So we actually want to cool the body in the morning. So if you're doing cold exposure, Like a lake dip or an ocean dip or cold shower, Do that in the morning. And if you have to take a hot shower, Take it later at night, Or if you take it in the morning, End it with cold. And that will help give you an energy boost for your morning. It's also really helpful to have a high protein breakfast. So a lot of us are having carbs for breakfast. We're having cereals. We're having bread. But that will sort of not support your energy throughout the day. Having a high protein breakfast will help support your cortisol levels and energy throughout the day.