Morning Routines for Better Focus and Concentration 🧠

So you're a brain coach. You're a world-renowned brain coach. So to you, what does an ideal morning look like if we're thinking about the health of our brains?

And specifically towards things like focus, to have better focus throughout the day. Yeah, I'm very intentional. And when I go through some of the things I talk about in my morning routine, I'm not suggesting it's for everybody. I don't think necessarily everything is for everybody or everybody's for everything. Ask people to maybe experiment. I think ultimately we are our best coach, and it's nice to have mentors and others and get their feedback, but to test it on themselves. And then everyone's situation is a little bit different, right? Some people work at night, they're night workers, they have lots of kids and such. For me, when I wake up, my goal is while I do some of the biohacking people see on social media, the cryotherapy and the saunas and all that. Most of that I like to get nowadays from nature because it's free. I feel like it's very natural. It's very duplicatable for all of us.

Is that when you spoke about recently, you like to get the 4 elements first thing in the morning?

Yeah, I do.

That was beautiful.

Could you elaborate on that? When I was researching another book, I was reading about the elements and how, you know, ancient cultures, like from Babylonian times, they used to believe— and ancient Greeks, they used to believe everything was made up of these 4 elements: air, fire, water, and earth. And I thought, wow, that's very beautiful. It sounds very natural and organic for me. And so for me, I like to infuse my day with those elements. Maybe first thing in the morning, you could do it by going out and getting grounded. I love taking off my shoes and being barefoot.

You're barefoot now in the studio?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And walking around your beautiful yard, and it's very peaceful. peaceful, you get grounded. And, you know, some people use biohacking like PEMF mats, you know, at certain frequencies. But, you know, I feel like all of those are meant to kind of imitate nature, like the infrared, you know, the red lights imitate the sun and so on. So I'm going out there, I'm getting the direct sunlight, which is very important. You know, we know many people talk about getting direct sunlight first thing in the morning to reset your circadian rhythm to help you sleep better at night. So that's the fire for me. And I have the earth. I hydrate because we could lose a We lose a good amount of water through when we sleep, through respiration and perspiration. And just staying hydrated could boost your reaction time, your thinking speed upwards of 30%. I mean, it's a huge, not a small boost, but a huge lift.

So how much do you drink each morning?

Yeah, for me, it's a little different. I always go by how I feel. And also that's dictated by the night before, just like getting a good night's sleep is dictated by how you start the day also as well. I do some electrolytes that really works well for me, the salts and the minerals. You know, a nice tall glass works for me, usually room temperature. It just kind of like, that's my personal thing. And then the last one is air, and that's just doing some breathing exercises. Yeah. You know, sometimes people feel sedated or they, when they're reading, they fall asleep or they feel like they have that mental fatigue. And I feel like a lot of times it's just 'cause we're not getting enough air. I mean, sometimes we have to just even check our posture when we're at our desk because sometimes when you collapse your diaphragm, the lower 1/3 of your lungs could absorb 2/3 of the oxygen. So, you know, it's really important to get that blood flowing flow in that oxygen to where it really matters. So those are the kind of things I do. But intentionally, what I'm thinking about in the morning is I do this, and I've done this for the longest time. I do these thought experiments where I just imagine myself at the end of the day. I could do this in bed, or I could do this outside. I can imagine a family member asking at the end of the day, how was your day? And I was like, today was really great. I'm very blessed. I crushed it today. Something like that. And then I ask myself, if that's what I say, then what had to happen in order for me to feel that way? And I work backwards. I kind of reverse engineer it, meaning I think about 3 things personally and 3 things maybe professionally that happened. And they don't have to be huge, big things, but that's where I kind of put my focus and my intention. I kind of work backwards. I was like, okay, if I do this, if I have this conversation with you, that's a big checkmark for me, and that would make me happy. If I walk the dogs or play with my son or I do specific activities, that's a win. So I work backwards from that. Okay, so focus, as we're talking about morning routines and touching your phone and doing those things, I think focus is a muscle, right? And I don't think it's something you have. It's something that you do, and you could flex that muscle. And that's one of the reasons why I personally choose not to touch my phone the first half an hour, hour of the day. Because when you wake up in the morning, you're in this relaxed state of awareness. You're very suggestible. The first thing you do is pick up your phone, which has access to the world's information, and you're just context switching for thousands and thousands of times in a very short period of time, you're rewiring your brain, number one, for distraction. Right. We talked about that. But you're also rewiring your brain for reaction. Right. Because every, I don't know, voicemail, text message, email, whatever, could put you in a mood that could hijack your mood. But in the beginning, when you say you want to practice mindfulness in the morning, that's not very mindful, right? Just sharing, switching from content to content.

You mean mindfully reading Instagram posts is not that mindful?

Well, even when I said people brush their teeth trying to do it with the opposite hand, it's not just about the cross-lateral and potentially engaging a different part of their brain. Yes, but it's also a gateway habit that allows, wow, if I could brush my teeth with opposite hand, what else can I add in terms of stack my habits? But also, you're not going to be good at it at the beginning, so it forces you to be mindful. So mindfulness doesn't have to be regulated just to meditation. We could bring mindfulness to when we eat, right? We could do it to everything. And then if you're eating with the opposite hand, as an example, right, then it forces you to be present, right? And for me, I like that feeling as opposed to— you're right, it's not just what you eat, it's how you eat. Right. And a lot of people are working while they're eating, so they're not in that parasympathetic rest and digest place. And so they're probably not even getting a lot of what they could get out of consuming. And I'll go into the reading in a moment. Just on the consumption part in the morning, like, another framework I use for my day, and it's not perfect, right? All these are like little filters. Generally, I like to keep the morning free. And of course, there's other things, doctor appointments. I have to do this for my child. I have to have this other podcast interview. But generally, in the In the mornings, I like to create. I found for me, my brain mode in the morning is to be creative. So I want to output. In the afternoon, I tend to consume, and that's where I tend to do some study, read for a podcast, listen to a podcast, have conversations with people. I tend to consume information. So I'm putting information in. And then the last, where I create, consume in the evening, I want to clear. And that's what I'm trying to do. So I want to clear my mind, meaning I want to write down the things I have to do the next day, maybe so I could get it out of my mind so I don't have to ruminate about it. Or maybe I'll use some yoga nidra and just do some breathing meditation to clear my mind. Or maybe I'll journal and I'll just write it, or I'll talk to my wife and talk about what I did that day to clear my mind.

Fan of journaling?

What's that?

Are you a fan of journaling?

I am.

Why is it good for our brain?

So for me, I journal at 2 different I tend to journal in the morning and in the evening. That's my personal preference. And again, people could find their own way and figure out what works. In the morning, I have this gratitude practice. I really think it's important. So many people actually will tell me that I'll do a gratitude practice when I have something to be grateful for and something to that nature. And I was like, okay, that's interesting because I don't think you have to. And that's what I told this specific person, I was like, maybe you don't have to wait for a greater life to feel grateful. Maybe if you feel grateful, you'll have a greater life. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Because I'm always like, just like the responsibility and power and reversing it. I just find that's kind of my thinking style. Because I think that for people to feel, how are you going to have more if you don't appreciate what you have? I know so many people, even clients that have a lot, that they're just not very happy people. Some of them are miserable because they don't even appreciate the things. And I think if people want to feel truly wealthy, a mental exercise I do is Write down all the things you have in your life that money can't buy. If you could hear this right now, what are you willing to— would you give up your hearing for a certain amount of money or whatever? Right. Or a thought experiment like, what if the only things you had in your life tomorrow were the things you expressed gratitude for today? Not wrote it down, but actually expressed gratitude for the people or the things. And I just feel like gratitude is just such a healing emotion.

Yeah.

It's just like it trains my nervous system that there's enough. And I think, honestly, my experience has been what you appreciate appreciates, meaning what you appreciate in your life tends to appreciate, meaning it enhances or gets or grows.

Yeah.

And so that's what I want to have. That makes me feel good. And it also puts me in that kind of parasympathetic. So I tend to do gratitude in the morning and night, and it helps me for me to journal because everybody has a different process than somebody else you can imagine. But I like writing it down.

I mean, I very much echo those views about journaling. For me also, it's a morning and evening practice.

Mm-hmm.

In the morning, it's about gratitude. It's about setting an intention for the day, you know, similar practices, maybe worded slightly differently, about trying to frame the day you want to have.