Do These 3 Things as Soon as You Wake Up for Peak Energy All Day

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I'm JJ Virgin, PhD dropout. Sorry, mom turned four time New York Times bestselling author. Yes, I'm a Certified Nutrition Specialist, Fitness hall of Famer, and I speak at health conferences and trainings around the globe. But I'm driven by my insatiable curiosity and love of science to keep asking questions, digging for answers, and sharing the information I uncover with as many people as I can. And that's why I created the well Beyond 40 podcast to synthesize and simplify.

The science of health into actionable strategies to help you thrive.

In each episode, we'll talk about what's working in the world of wellness, from personalized nutrition and healing your metabolism to healthy aging and prescriptive fitness. Join me on the journey to better.

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Look and feel right now and have the energy to play full out at 100. Hey JJ, virgin here. Okay, real talk. So often the holidays sneak up on me. Travel, gifts, hosting, you know, all the things and suddenly it's like, wait, who spent what and where? And I know I'm not the only one who's looked at a bill in January and thought, wow, that escalated quickly. If you want to keep your finances under control this holiday season, you need to be using Monarch. It's rated the Wall Street Journal's best budgeting app of 2025. Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean on your laptop or on your phone. Monarch lets you link everything and gives you real time visibility so you're not shocked later. Right now, I've been checking the holiday spending category so I don't accidentally start the new year with that dreaded debt hangover. And honestly, just seeing everything laid out is already helping me stay more aware. This season, Monarch does the heavy lifting. It links your accounts in minutes, gives you smart categorization and super clear visuals. Yes, that end of year reset could be a real goal. This time, don't let financial opportunity slip through the cracks. Use the code virgin@monarch.com in your browser for half off your first year that's 50% off your first year@monarch.com with the code Virgin.

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All right, fess up. How many times did you hit the snooze button this morning? Or did you scroll on your phone in bed? Like you wake up, you pull out your phone, here it is, and you're like, until you have to get up. Now here's the deal. What you do when you wake up matters. You could be sabotaging your day and worse yet, your energy levels before you even get out of bed in the morning. So open up those blackout curtains and let me shed some light on the three easy things you should do as soon as you wake up. So you have amazing energy all day long. So what is the first thing you should do when you wake up? First hint, it shouldn't be. Hit the snooze button. I want you to break that habit and instead immediately open the curtains and look at the sunlight. Now I was fortunate to get speak at an event a few years back with the amazing Dr. Andrew Huberman, who's a neuroscientist at Stanford and he is an expert in optimizing the brain and body for peak performance. He recommends getting outside and exposing your eyes to natural sunlight for at least 2 to 10 minutes within the first 30 minutes of waking up. Why is this so important? So here's the deal. Sunlight helps regulate your circadian rhythm and your circadian rhythm is your body's internal clock. Your circadian rhythm controls various processes in your body like sleep, digestion, hormone production, you know, just a couple small things. When you expose yourself to sunlight, you're signaling to your brain that it is wake up time, right? So time to be awake. It's time to be alert. It's time to be energized. And by the way, this is super duper important because you're bringing your cortisol up, you're waking up your bodily functions and you're shutting back down. Melatonin. Super important. By exposing yourself to sunlight, you're signaling to your brain that it's time to be awake again. We want to do this, this little simple step that can help you feel more focused and alert during the day and sleep better night. Just that little thing. In fact, there was a study done in 2017 that showed that people who spent more time in the morning light took less time to fall asleep at night and had fewer sleep disruptions. Isn't that wild that what you do first thing in the morning is going to impact your next night's sleep? And by the way, this is even more important if you are in that perimenopause stage where everything has gone sideways and your whole sleep wake cycle is completely out of whack. So just try this little thing first thing in the morning. Bright light. And again, the other thing, what is it doing? It's shutting back down that melatonin production. You don't want melatonin hanging out during the day. That's going to make you tired. So again, shutting down the melatonin, looking at the light is going to make it easier to wake up. You're going to feel more alert throughout the day. And when your sleep quality gets better, guess what else gets better? Your mood. Yep. And energy also gets a big boost. Plus, sunlight increases the production of serotonin. We call serotonin the feel good hormone. You know, we underestimate how much energy plays a role in our moods. Let's be honest. I mean, who doesn't want to start their day feeling happy and energized? Plus, sunlight is essential for the production of vitamin D, which of course plays a vital role in maintaining strong bones and a healthy immune system. And good insulin sensitivity, which becomes even more important as you age. So, yes, grab your sunglasses, but don't put them on just yet. Go out there, let your eyes soak up the morning sun to get your day started. Right. And by the way, if you live somewhere where it's cloudy, it's fine, it doesn't matter. Even on an overcast day, there's still enough light to help regulate your circadian rhythm. Now, what do you do if you're waking up before the sun comes up? Well, you can still improve your sweet quality by using indoor lighting that pretends to be natural sunlight. And, and here's the way that you do it. There's actually these light therapy lamps can be called happy lights, right? I've heard them as sunlights, but they're designed to mimic sunlight by producing bright full spectrum light. So what you're going to look for here are lamps with 10,000 lux output for the maximum effectiveness. Okay, now here's another one. This This, I learned about this from my buddy, Dr. Alan Christensen. These wake up lights. There is this really cool alarm called a Phillips alarm clock. It looks kind of like a small moon. And you can do one of two things. You can have it just with the light, or you can have it with birdies, too, which is even better. Basically, it will start to glow to wake you up, just like normal sunrise sunshine would do, right? So it gradually increases the light intensity so it gently wakes you up. There's no, like, jarring, right? And then there's some little, like, twerpy birdies, too, if you want a little chirpy twerpy birdie. You can also use full spectrum light bulbs. So you can replace your radar light bulbs with full spectrum light bulbs that mimic natural sunlight, which you want to do wherever you're spending time in the morning. So you can use these bulbs, like if you're wake up, you stay in your bedroom in the morning and you're going to meditate and then read or do some journaling or something. Use those full spectrum light bulbs in your night lamps, right? There's another hack for this too, by the way, I'll tell you about in a minute. So we're going to use those. But here's the thing. You don't want those lights going on at night, because guess what? If you use those at night, then your body's going, oh, wait, oh, the sun's out. So don't do that. Okay, so here's the other hack. And it's a little bit of a pain. It will take you 30 seconds, but you can keep the other light bulb in your little nightstand table. And so at night, you don't want your body to go, oh, sunlight. So you take out those full spectrum light bulbs and you put in red bulbs at night. Now you of course too can also wear the blue blocker glasses. Those you should be doing too. But the red bulbs at night can help as well. And plus, it's really kind of sexy. There you go. All right, so that's the first one easy to do, right? And what I love about these is that's not really going to take any time and it's going to make a massive difference in your energy throughout the day. Now the next one is meditation. So you got up, you went to the bathroom, you saw the sun, and now you're going to get into your meditation. And I really think the best thing to do is get up and meditate so that it gets done. I have found that adding meditation in has bought me back. So much time. I'm so much more effective. And it's basically I'm going to take my nervous system to the gym. So you've gotten your morning dose of sunshine. Now you're going to calm your mind and train your nervous system and really set the tone for the day. This could be breath work, it could be mindfulness meditation, it could be tapping. Whatever works for you, find the one that works for you and just commit to doing all of it. And let me just tell you a little bit about if you're like, not convinced, because I, I will tell you that meditation took me a long time to get into. I kept trying and it wasn't working and I, I didn't. Instead of saying, hey, how can I make this work for me? I was just being a big baby about it, I'll be honest. And then during the pandemic, I was like, okay, I'm going to do this. Like, what else am I going to do? I'm going to commit to this. I went to four Dr. Joe Dispenza meditation retreats in like the course of six months. And I did it every single day. And I decided to give myself six months because this is something that takes time, right? Just like going to the gym. You wouldn't go to the gym for a week and go, cool, I'm done. That's all I need to do. The reason I want you to make this a part of your morning routine is the benefits are insane. They're incredible. And I think as we get older, this is even more important. So here's what it does and then I'll share what my team told me. First of all, lower stress, which is really, really important. One of the things that happens as we go through menopause is cortisol goes up. It's like the only one that does that's really sucky. You don't want cortisol up. It's breaking down muscle, it's breaking down bone, it's making you have leaky gut, it's raising your blood sugar. This is not a good thing. So meditation can help lower cortisol, it can help increase focus. That's good because you know you're going through menopause. One things that can happen is you can't remember anything and improves your overall well being. It calms your mind, it helps reduce stress levels because it's promoting the release of feel good neurotransmitters, right? Serotonin and dopamine. And it's also helping you create this emotional awareness and helping you with Regulation. This is what I got to tell you. What my team said. You can tell this, it takes time. But all of a sudden I was like, oh, I'm not as reactive as I used to be. I've got this really smooth emotional energy all throughout the day. So my team was like, you know, we've been tracking you since when you started meditation and what shifted? Because now it's been a year and a half, and they're like, we want you to make sure that you keep this up. I'm like, okay, so the difference has been profound. And I remember thinking, you want me to add how much time into my day? And some days I'll do 15 minutes, some days I'll do 45 minutes. But I make sure that I get it in and I get it in 90% of time. Not 100%, but 90% of the time. But I'll tell you, you know, when you start the day this way, you are just calmer. You aren't as stressed, you aren't anxious. Your energy is better. And it can just help in so many different places. Your focus, your concentration, and just being more present, being more aware, and just this mental clarity, you know, it's going to help you be more productive, more efficient, and you have a more sustained level of energy. Like, I mean, like, everything is good here. Again, the only thing you could say negative is, oh, my gosh, the time. But I will tell you get more than that time back. You totally do. Plus, it can actually change the structure of your brain. It can increase the density of gray matter in areas associated with learning and memory and emotional regulation. Unbelievable. Like, incredible. So again, I had done my own little journey here. I will have some information about Dr. Joe Dispenza's meditations, but I would highly recommend starting with his morning and evening meditations. At least start with the morning. So easy. And just give yourself a challenge. Even a 30 day challenge. I double triple dare you. But remember, there's also a lot of different ways to meditate. You could do Ziva meditation with my girlfriend, Emily Fletcher, who's amazing and will do a mantra. Works great. You can do tapping with my buddy Nick Ortner. Amazing. You can do walking meditations. Right. Then these walking meditations that Dr. Joe has are fantastic. So you can do it seated, you can do it lying down. There's all sorts of different ways. And again, I'm just loving Dr. Joe's guidance. And then the ones that he does with Barry Goldstein's music. Incredible. Try the 30 day challenge. I double triple dare you and the third and final step in your morning routine.

Ready?

You knew I was going to say this. You got to move now. At the very least, you're going to want to incorporate some light exercise or stretching into your morning because you want to get your blood flowing, wake up your muscles in your body. But for the most bang for your fitness buck, you're going to want to actually plan your workout for the morning. And the research shows that exercise in the morning can be particularly beneficial for fat loss. So let's talk about why that would be and more importantly, how to make morning exercise work for you. Because you might go, I don't like to work out in the morning. The first thing I'm going to tell you is the best time to work out is when you will, but the second one is in the morning because you're much less likely to blow it off. So there was a recent animal study that showed that the time of day does actually matter for 4 fat loss when it comes to exercise. Researchers tested mice after they did no exercise and then a lot of exercise at two different times during the day. And what they found was that morning exercise made their fat cells better at burning fat and making energy.

Hello.

Another reason not to hit the snooze button. Morning exercise can also help regulate your appetite throughout the day. Because you know when you work out in the morning, your body produces hormones that help suppress hunger and keep those cravings at bay. This means that you are less likely to go off on a ultra processed food rampage, right? And you'll be more likely to make healthier food choices and not overeat later in the day. Also, when you work out in the morning, you boost your metabolism, right? So you're burning more calories. Of course. Now how much that's going to happen really depends on the workout. If you're doing a walk, that's not going to happen. If you do some high intensity interval training or some big resistance training, that's going to have a greater post exercise metabolic effect, which is why I like them so much. Plus, when you exercise intensely in the morning, you kickstart your metabolism early, allowing your body to burn more calories even when you are just hanging out at rest. Another reason morning exercise is beneficial for fat loss is that it can improve your insulin sensitivity. So insulin is a hormone that helps regulate your blood sugar levels.

Right.

And when you're more insulin sensitive. Sensitive, your body is better at using sugar for energy and that means less sugar is stored as fat. Also, when your insulin's low, you're Able to use more stored fat for fuel. When you exercise in the morning, you're training your body to use sugar more efficiently. And you're also, because you're working out and you've gotten rid of a lot of your carbs, you're able to use some fat. All of this, of course, depends on how intense the exercise you're going for. A walk, easy, burning more fat, you're doing intense exercise. You're going to be using some of that stored carbohydrate, that glycogen. It's all perfect now. Biggest reason probably to exercise in the morning is because you'll actually do it. And this happens all the time. For me, this is why I don't do this anymore. If you leave it to later in the day and something comes up, guess what? Something didn't happen and it was your exercise. Or, or maybe I'll go, oh, you know, I'm gonna exercise at the end of the day. Like, I'll exercise at 5. And at 5, I'm like, oh, I'm not doing that. I am so not interested in it this way. And when I do it in the morning, it's like, it just sets the tone for the day. It's such a great mood booster. It gets me inspired, gets me fired up. I feel good about myself. Cause I did it. So create a plan. And ideally, your plan varies between resistance training one day, high intensity interval training the next. Let's get in at least three days of resistance training. So. So resistance training one day, high intensity interval training the next, and get a pal to do it with or go to a class or join a challenge. So you have some accountability. Now those days, you wake up and you're like, I just don't have that much time. You know what? Every single thing counts. So even if it's 10 minutes, just like with the meditation, we have short amount of time in the morning, we'll do 15 minutes of meditation. We got more time, we'll do 30 or 45. With a workout, you don't have a whole lot of time. 10 minutes, blast it out. It's amazing what you can do when you have 10 minutes. Because you know what happens when you have less time? You kick that intensity way up. Now I want you to teach your body to crave that, right? To get up in the morning, go, all right, when are we going out? Just like, you know, my little puppies.

They'Re like, when are we going out?

When are we going out? That's what I want your body to feel. And I Want you to be consistent. Because that regular morning exercise routine is going to be essential. Essential for reaping the benefits of fat loss and peak energy all day long. Hugely important. All right, so I'm going to talk about my specific morning routine. Little smidge different because I shift things a little bit. First thing I do when I wake up is get up, go to the bathroom, step on my bioimpedance scale, I always do that. That's what I do. Then I come back into the bedroom, I take my thyroid and I. My husband starts the coffee, I look at the light, then I come back, sit down, we open up all the windows and we meditate. After meditating, we've got the lights on, we've got the windows open. We are reading and journaling. It's my reading and journaling and creative time. It's my coffee time and my hanging out with the dogs time. That's usually about 90 minutes to two hours. At somewhere around 90 minutes, I don't think about it. I go get in the cold plunge. If I think about it, I'm not going to do it. So I just go do it. And I always tell myself, you can get right out. You just have to get in there. Because our cold plunge now is at like 46 degrees. Every degree matters. And I hang in there for about four minutes and then I do not take a shower. I let myself shiver. And then I go eat breakfast and then I put on slippers, literally, and a sweatshirt, etc. Yes, I'm in Florida, freezing, and I let myself shivers for 30 minutes. And then we go to the gym. So I let myself shiver. Then we get ourselves warmed up and we go to the gym and we work out, or I work out at home. But that's basically my morning routine. Every morning is to do all of that. See how easy that is? So there you go. That's what you're going to do. Build your morning routine. Make sure you hit at least those three things I just talked about. Bonus points for the cold. And by the way, if you don't happen to have a cold plunge, that was a new gift to us, which it's like kind of those love hate gifts. But you can totally do this by taking a cold shower. You can also do, my buddy Dave Asprey just told me, like, you can take a bowl of water with ice in it and put your face in it, like, I kid you not. And just hold your breath, obviously, unless you're a fish and put your face in there and that will do it too. You don't have to get your hair wet gals, so any of those things. But just think about how to create your perfect morning routine and then just make it your jam. That's it. Because guess what? You got the morning off on the right foot. And what happens when you get the morning off on the right foot is you want to fuel your day, keep your energy going. And so next video is how to make the perfect loaded protein fueled smoothie breakfast how you break your fast what I do every single morning so that you will have great sustained energy and great focus for hours. And again, it's the exact way that I start my day. So check it out.

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