Ashish KothariMake flourishing your competitive edge

The First 5 Minutes of Your Day #shorts

9 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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In this short monologue, the speaker advises against reaching for a phone immediately after the alarm, arguing that the sudden influx of emails or news triggers a fight‑or‑flight response and sets a negative tone for the day. Instead, they recommend allocating the first five minutes after waking to a mindful activity. For those who can’t commit to formal meditation, the speaker suggests a minimal viable practice: brushing your teeth while fully attending to the sensations of the act. The underlying rationale is that overnight the brain consolidates short‑term memories into long‑term storage, and a brief period of present‑moment awareness can support that process and improve mental clarity for the day ahead.

Chapters

I always ask people when they start their day, I'm like, don't start with the film first. Leave your phone out because it literally puts your brain and your system into a fight. Flight freeze from the moment you the alarm goes off and the first thing you see is the number of emails or a news flash, right? Because most of the news flashes are negative, not positive, right? And I say, you know, choose five minutes before you wake up, five minutes after you wake up, do something mindful. And the MVP version, which I love your mvp, right Analogy. I'm like if you can't, if you can meditate, amazing. But if you can't, you have young kids, you have too busy of a schedule. Here's what you can do. Do you brush your teeth? Just brush your teeth. Being present with the sensation of brushing teeth. The reason it works, Mary, is because overnight we transfer what's in our short term to the long term.