Morning Routine to Activate Your Brain with Jim Kwik

If I could grant one wish, what would you wish for? Learning how to learn. Because if you could learn how to learn faster, you could learn anything faster and you could apply it towards everything else. I really think habits are important because first you create your habits and then your habits create you. Now everybody has their morning routine, right? But mine are really focused on activating my brainpower. Every single one of my habits, my routines in the morning are meant to really jumpstart my brain so I could jumpstart the day. And so here are some of the things I do every single morning. I wake up in the morning, the very first thing I do is I remember my dreams. The reason why you want to remember your dreams is because some of the most incredible inventions and works of art and literature came from the dream state. Mary Shelley created Frankenstein in her dream. It's alive! The periodic table came in a chemist's dream. So what are you dreaming about late at night that you're forgetting in the morning? That could be solving your biggest challenges in your life or in your business or things that you want to be able to learn. The second thing I do is I make my bed. The reason why I make my bed and why is that good for your brain is because you want to start your day with excellence, because how you do anything is how you do everything, as you know. And so you want to start with a win because it's the science momentum, because your brain likes to build on success. And it's also good because when you come back at the end of the day, you come back to your bed ready-made, which is coming back to success. The third thing I do is I brush my teeth. You're like, so what, Jim? Everyone brushes their teeth. But I actually brush my teeth using my opposite hand. By using my opposite hand, it actually activates different parts of my brain because as your body moves, your brain grooves. The next thing I do is I take a tall glass of water. Why do I do that? It's because your brain and your body is 70% water. So I want to super hydrate because you lose a lot of water while you sleep. Next thing I do is I take a shower and I take a cold shower. I mean, it is ice cold, as cold as it gets. You're like, Jim, I loved you up to this point. But the reason why you take a cold shower is to lower inflammation. It like resets your nervous system, resets your brain, because driving energy, mental energy to clearing brain fog is to lower inflammation. And one of the best ways of doing that is by taking cold showers. From there, what I do is I make a brain tea. And what's in my brain tea? I make it with gotu kola, ginkgo, I put some lion's mane, I like honey, I feel like that's good for me. And I also put some MCT coconut oil to help me to absorb it better. And while I'm drinking that brain tea, I journal. And what am I journaling that's activating my brain? I start with gratitude. Gratitude rewires your brain and it helps you to activate more of those flow states. Flow states is a state of optimal performance where you feel your best and you act your best. And what puts you into that alpha state, that relaxed state of awareness, that theta state where you're most creative, a lot of it, what keeps you out of it is these negative emotions, you know, so forgiveness and gratitude go a long way. Self-love and self-care is not selfish. After that, I do some exercise because there was a study done at Appalachian State University saying exercise obviously is good for you, but what time do you exercise? They tested people at 7 AM, at 1 PM, and 7 PM. They found that by far those who exercise at 7 AM had better sleep, so they have better performance by exercising in the morning. And you don't have to do your full workout, but you need to exercise for a few minutes, because anything that's good for your heart is going to be good for your head, meaning your brain, because it's more blood flow. And that blood flow is carrying oxygen. And so after that, what I do is some deep breathing, right? I do some fire breathing, my fire breath breathing, my box breathing, my alpha breathing, my Wim Hof breathing, whatever breathing method you do. But it's really important that it's deep, because the lower 1/3 of your lungs absorbs 2/3 of the oxygen. And that's a brain tip for a lot of people. When they're working on their computers and they're slumped down, they're collapsing their diaphragm and their lungs, so they're not getting the oxygen. I make a brain power smoothie. I put my favorite brain foods in there. And some of my top 10 favorite brain foods are things like avocados, things like blueberries— I call them brain berries, they're very neuroprotective— green leafy vegetables, coconut oil, dark chocolate— great for your brain. Because anything that's good for your mood generally is going to be good for your mind. I put them all into a smoothie, I mix it up. And then I do some reading. That's where my work time comes in, because leaders are readers. That's one of my success habits. Everybody has to read for about 30 minutes a day. Do something physical and do something mental every single day. Care for your brain, because you could change your brain, you could change your life.