9 Solcast - Episode Nine: Daily Goals for Success, Morning Routines + the Bodybuilding Golden Ratio

Hello and welcome to episode 9 of the Soulcast. I'm your host, Sol Brah. Hope everyone's doing well. A few interesting topics on the cast today. We're gonna get right into it, I think. Uh, first of all, of course, we'll do a breathing exercise. So we're gonna do the classic 10 breaths in, deep breaths. We're gonna be doing it, uh, it's called box breathing. You breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds, and then hold for 4 seconds before inhaling again. So we're going to do that 10 times. Uh, pretty simple. 4, 4, 4, 4. So we're gonna go to just a bit of music so you guys can do that, and then we'll be back. So I hope everyone enjoyed that. Everyone's feeling a bit more chilled out, a bit more concentrated maybe. Box breathing is a really simple breathwork technique that I recommend, uh, to my— to anyone that wants to get involved with breathwork. It's so easy to remember: 4 seconds in, 4-second hold at the top, 4-second exhalation, and then 4 seconds holding your exhaled breath. Obviously it's called box breathing, equal amount of time on each side, 4 sides. You can kind of visualize as you breathe in going up the side of the square, holding at the top, and then down 4 seconds again. So that's why it's called box breathing, but there are many benefits to this It's— you can literally do it anywhere. All you need is your breath. If you're on the bus and it just pops into your mind, then just go ahead and do that. Uh, benefits throughout the day just popping into that and doing some of that. I like this, this concept that I've kind of built up in my head is with exercises or mental practices that you can that have— that you can do anywhere, it's good to install them in your brain as a— if I remember them or just think about the concept of them, then I will do a round of it. Box breathing is an example of that. Vacuum exercises with your abdominals, you can do that wherever. So if you think about vacuums or it just pops into your head, just do a set. And hopefully you'll, you'll be thinking about this throughout the day. Once you remember it a few times and do it a few times, your brain will start to remember it more, and it'll become a habit of every now— every time you just kind of mind wanders a bit, you go, oh, box breathing, boom, chill out a bit. Vacuums, boom, tighten your waist a bit. Another one is Kegels. The Kegel exercises are exercising the pelvic floor muscles. So if you're going, taking a leak, and the muscle that you would use to cut off that, uh, the stream, so to say, um, holding your, your bladder is, uh, the pelvic floor muscles being engaged. So a simple way to do Kegels is to just tense that muscle, that muscle that you can feel flexing in the, uh, in the pelvic region. And just do a set of 10 of that. So do a set of 10 holds, holding for 5 seconds or so. When you hold it, it'll tense and it will slowly, uh, taper off in the force you apply to that. So you have to really concentrate on holding the muscles down, and over time those can strengthen as well. Uh, so that's another one you can do anywhere. The other one that I like to do is, as one of these little throughout-the-day exercises on the mental side, is just to pay attention to how every extremity of your body is feeling and what sensations you can feel. And moving your awareness to your fingers and your toes and, and just feeling what your, your body is, um, feeling in that moment and the sensations you can feel if You know, if you wiggle your back around, just maybe your shoulder feels a bit tight, so you make a mental note of stretching a bit more on that later. And all of this kind of ties into promoting your life, promoting these little life changes that over time compound to notable health benefits or mental benefits. Breathwork is, is one of them. You don't have to be sitting in a room with the lights off in a lotus position and candles to meditate. I think people sometimes get a bit thrown off by that, or they feel like they don't have time to sit down and set up and meditate properly. But all meditation is, is returning your awareness to the current moment, uh, and not following that train of thoughts that's constantly running through your head at all times. So an easy way to do that is to feel the extra sensations of your body and bring your awareness to the body. Could do that anywhere. Uh, helps if you close your eyes, but, uh, don't need to. Um, so all of these little things, these little lifestyle changes add up and, and help to improve us in the long term. Doesn't have to be some huge deal that, uh, you know, unless you're meditating or breathing like Tibetan monks do, it's not as good. That's— it doesn't matter. It's about the benefit that you personally are getting. Same with yoga. If, if you're worried or intimidated by starting yoga in a class or, or even just by yourself because you think that you're inflexible, so that it would— it will look stupid if you try and do some of the yoga positions. And what I say to that is it's not about how far you can get into the pose, but the benefit that you get for— from holding these stretches and positions, uh, benefits the connective tissue, decreases pain and stiffness, increases mobility. So really, it goes for all things, really. You have to, in quotes, look a bit stupid in order to learn. You have to fail in order to learn. And that goes for any skill or any improvement that you want to— that you want to take place in your life. It doesn't matter. Everyone looks like an idiot, everyone stuffs up, and everyone fails. But you know, the, the guy that you look up to and admire for being successful, he's failed 100 times more than, you know, you would even know because you just keep on trying, reanalyze, uh, see what's working, see what's not, and then try again. Um, and, and owning all, all kind of skills and practices happens this way. So I guess just Get started, that's the main thing. Uh, this episode we're going to be talking about, or starting with, balancing skill and explosive work with aesthetics training. So let's break down what skill and explosive work means. Obviously you're in the gym and you're trying to improve. Maybe you're in athletics or you practice a particular sport. There are some movements which benefit that. Aesthetics training is more focused on the visual aspect of the muscle and trying to figure out what bits you need to improve, what bits need aren't, you know, in the right ratios. Two different styles of training, one of which is looking to get athletic bonuses or athletic benefit from the exercise you're doing in the gym, and the other is more aesthetics-based. Uh, so you're not really worried about your particular athletic movements or how fast you can sprint, or, or as long as you look better. So there is a balance. I don't think you should be, uh, only focused on aesthetics. And I think there are benefits to skill and explosive work to your aesthetics, because a naturally athletic body naturally looks better to the human mind. There are, there are base level skills anyone should train, even if you're only focused on aesthetics. And I, I do these, uh, not as often as weightlifting, but it's always there. And then also some of my weightlifting, sometimes I'll have a functional day where I'll hold, for instance, a kettlebell on one side and then, and then do some step-ups. And that's a very functional movement. Everyone has to hold a weight and move up a flight of stairs. There are lots of core benefits and stabilizer muscles that benefit from these kind of things. And you're going to see a translation through to normal day-to-day life. You won't struggle as much when you're balancing a few things in your hands and carrying them in from the car or something if you've just been shopping. Uh, if you fall over, you're going to be able to balance and catch yourself a lot well because, uh, a lot better because because you've trained those muscles that don't usually get worked in a, in a modern environment. If you're in an office all day, you're sitting a lot. So going out of your way to occasionally train these things is important, even if you are just aesthetics-based. So base level skills anyone should train. Hiking and walking is a very natural human movement. Walking, I think, should be done every day, but occasionally going on a hike across different terrain, rocks and, uh, and trees you have to climb over and things, varying degrees of movement and angles that you don't really hit when you're in a weight room. So it's this kind of natural human movement of traversing terrain, perhaps with a backpack or something. Obviously We were nomadic, nomadic, uh, at some point of our lives. Nomadic tribes, they used to pick everything they earned up, move to the next place, settle down. So that was, you know, training those kind of things. Not even training as such, it's just moving in those natural pathways, uh, is very beneficial to the mind, body, and soul. If you're more focused on the skill and explosive work, analyze what you want to get better at. So if you're training for a particular sport, basketball, maybe you want to increase your vertical jump. So you would, uh, you would do leg exercises focusing on an explosive, um, concentric movement, which is when you're coming out of the hole in a squat you're, you're flexing those glutes and, and hammies and trying to really push up rather than just lifting the weight, but making that, uh, that initial effort very, very strong. And that's going to translate to when you're running and about to jump up to the basket, you know, that's, that's if you're taking off two feet, there's that same kind of bang, that explosive movement. So if you train heavier weights with that focus on the explosive concentric, uh, then that's going to translate to sports performance a lot more. So things like that, if you're training for a particular sport and you want to see an improvement in something, uh, really focus on exercises that are gonna supplement those movements, uh, and even train those movements with weight, uh, is another one. I encourage everyone to do bodyweight exercises like pull-ups. It's a very functional exercise. Think about completely having to pull your body up over a fence, or, you know, if you're on a cliff and you don't want to fall off. I know that's not a common occurrence really, but it is possible that you might, you might be in a position where you need to hold your body up over a ledge, and I Otherwise you're toast. So it's good to have those trained movements and, and be confident in your ability to move your body. And, and, and sprinting, of course, you never know when you're going to need to sprint to get out of a situation. Or even if you don't have to sprint, just knowing that you have the ability, the mobility, and the motor pattern neuron connections to get the fuck out of there, uh, if you need to. So I regularly sprint. I recommend everyone does that. Sprinting as well, you are getting a lot of blood flow to the legs. Uh, you will see muscular development. Don't overdo it. Um, I've pulled a hammy trying to go 100% sprint. Um, since not sprinting for a while, it's, it's pointless. Like, yes, you want to sprint as fast as you can, you want to see how quick you can go, but unless you're competing, going 100% is just a bit overkill, and that's when you lead to injury. So maybe go for 85% and, and just to leave a little bit in the tank so you're not exerting your muscles to the point of where you could injure yourself. Aesthetics training comes down to us, I would say, a specific muscular analysis and knowing what muscles look better if they're bigger compared to other muscles, or you're the same size as another muscle. So in bodybuilding, there's this thing called the, the golden ratio, and this exists in nature, in mathematics, in a whole bunch of stuff. Uh, go look it up. The golden ratio is 1 to 1.618, and there's something about this ratio, there's something about this relationship between measurements that is aesthetically pleasing. And you see it in flowers, you see it in, you know, if it's a visually appealing building, you'll— if you were to analyze it, it would, you know, I'm sure it would have the golden ratio in it. But to bodybuilding, What that means is there's an ideal relationship in size. So even if you're smaller as a whole, you can increase your proportions to be more aesthetically pleasing. And it's not that people consciously see someone with, oh look, he's got 1 to 1.618 biceps to triceps or something, but it's It's— it just seems to naturally appeal to humans as a whole. So you can take your measurements of your arms, calves, shoulders, chest, legs. I, I haven't ever really gone down the rabbit hole of measuring, uh, but it's good for tracking progress and things. But ideal arm size in relation to the golden ratio Your arms, when flexed, should be 150% bigger than your non-dominant wrist circumference. So when flexed, the measurement around your bicep and tricep should be 1.5 times, uh, the measurement around your non-dominant wrist. So what does this mean? This means if your forearms grow for whatever reason, maybe you've packed on a deadlift or started training your forearms more directly, in order to achieve the most aesthetic ratio, your arms have to increase as well. Your, your upper arms, your bicep and your tricep. Um, so it's, it's good to have this in mind when improving certain body parts, is that if you bring one thing up, you have to bring the rest up for it to look proportionate. Ideal calf size: your flexed calves should match the size of your flexed arms. Um, that's a pretty, pretty no-brainer one. If your calves are lacking, then, uh, do some Smith machine raises. Really slow, uh, lowering of the weight and then explosive movement up. 5 sets of 10 doing that with a decently heavy weight, I found. And doing that 3 times a week, superset with a calf raise machine or something. Uh, that really packs on a bit of size to my calves, but your calves should match the size of your flexed arms. Ideal shoulder size: your shoulder circumference should measure 1.618 times the Golden Ratio larger than your waist. Of course, this is the classic— the V-taper. Your waist should be skinnier than the circumference of your shoulders, uh, creating that nice V-shape that we all know and love. Uh, that's probably one of the biggest ones to— if you want to improve your frame as such, uh, if you pack on muscle on your lateral deltoid, that's gonna improve the top width of that, of that V, uh, and, and make your waist look smaller as well. Ideal chest size: your chest circumference should be 550% larger than the circumference of your non-dominant wrist. So 5.5 times the circumference of your wrist should be the circumference of your chest. Ideal leg size: circumference of your upper thigh should be 75% bigger than the circumference of your knee. Um, so yeah, that one as well, it's kind of making sure that there's a nice relationship between the knee and the thigh so that everything kind of flows upwards. And when it, when you, when it starts to get more than that, in what we see in, you know, professional bodybuilders, uh, today where they kind of just go for size over aesthetics, that's when the human brain kind of interprets it as a bit more freaky and a bit more like or something's not as aesthetically pleasing, uh, you don't necessarily put, put a name to it. But these ratios, uh, in bodies, uh, is a big reason for why some physiques are seen as more aesthetic than others. Some examples of prime golden ratio bodybuilding: guys like Steve Reeves, obviously Arnold, Dave Draper, Frank Zane. Frank Zane and Steve Reeves, not the biggest, uh, you know, still huge, still well developed, still, but just so aesthetic. Um, and there's something about their physiques where everything flows and it doesn't seem too out of proportion or, or freakishly huge, uh, that I think is the better way, or at least my personal, um, approach to bodybuilding. Like, I don't want to be the biggest guy, but I'd prefer to be more aesthetic and, and just be more inclined that way. But it depends what your goals are, obviously. Um, so yeah, golden ratio in relation to aesthetics, something to look into. It's an interesting concept and, and found in a lot of a lot of different disciplines. Obviously something about that number that is great. We're gonna go to a quick break, but I'm gonna do a max set of push-ups. Do the same. If you want to support the show, head to gumroad.com/l/soulcast1. You're going to be able to subscribe to the Soulcast there, uh, supporting the show, making sure we can get, get out more content for you guys. Another way to support the show is to head to my merchandise store. There's a link on my Twitter bio. We've got some sick designs up there— Coconut Culture, a bit of a beachwear vibe, and, uh, Glycine Dreams as well. Um, singlets, t-shirts, towels, you name it. So go pick up something from there if you want to support the show. Okay, let's go. That was, that was good. Hope everyone did those push-ups. If not, pause it, please. I'm asking you, just go do it. Boom. Get a bit of blood flowing. Uh, if you've already exercised today, a bit of blood flow is not going to kill you. It's actually going to help with recovery. So I always just try and do as, as much body weight movement throughout the day if I remember. Another one of those things. Osh, could do some push-ups now if you're at home. Just to, uh, smash those out, increase your overall work for the day, and, uh, you're gonna feel, feel better doing that. So I hope you did the push-ups. Let's go into the next, uh, next topic. So breaking down progress and improvement. My take on this is always to break it down into what you need to do daily. It's all well and good having longer-term goals, um, visions as such. But all progress comes down what you do with your waking hours, uh, in the day ahead of you. That's all you can really action. Um, I think daily and weekly goals with, with monthly kind of reviews is, is a way to do it. Daily, what do I need to do today in order to gain progress to whatever my chosen, uh, goal is or, or discipline. If you want to improve your body, you're going to have to meal prep, you're going to have to exercise. So what do I need to do today? Okay, I need a lift and I need to make some healthy food. Boom. On a weekly basis, I want to train 5 out of 7 days. And I want to maybe have eaten out once. Not that that should be a goal as such, kind of an anti-goal, but if you're looking to reduce behaviors, then a goal could be to not eat out as much, or, or, or other kind of anti-goals which still work to progressing in your chosen path. If you want to build some sort of online income What do I need to do today? Okay, I need to write some content and I need to drive traffic to my site and I need to monetize it somehow. Weekly, look at that and say, okay, did I produce 4 pieces of content this week? No. Okay, I need to focus on that on a daily basis more the next week. Reviews of what helps you, what's, what's going right, what's not moving the needle. Focusing on the highest return on interest activities and analyzing and seeing what those are. And then you can attack it from a position of experience and say, okay, it didn't work when I did that. I didn't get any hits on my site when I made this content. It's like the classic someone starting a business and they spend 3 weeks on creating a logo. Yes, and a logo is important to, you know, aesthetics, and, and you want it to be eye-catching and things, but in terms of your time spent doing that, 3 weeks analyzing that, it's, it's your— all you're doing is shying away from the work. The fitness side of that would be lifting, you know, being the highest return on interest activity you can do, but maybe you spend 3 weeks analyzing and researching what the best program is and all that, rather than just getting in there and lifting and starting. Starting and taking that big initial leap, um, with daily repeated tech, uh, tasks is the only thing that's gonna move you closer to your goals. Even if you have these fancy, you know, 6-monthly goals and, and all that, it's the goals aren't gonna get there unless you're doing the work on a daily basis. So if you have a goal, figure out what you need to do on a daily basis to get there. Uh, track your progress on a weekly basis to, to kind of reset for the week and see what you need to attack better and what you need to do less of. Uh, and then monthly also have reviews of how you're going, what's working and what's not. But really, I want to hammer home the idea that if you want progress in something, then don't leave to tomorrow. You're not going to be able to fit everything in a day, of course, so don't beat yourself up if you don't do everything every single day, uh, but something should be done every day, uh, and it's good to know that your long-term goals won't materialize out of nowhere because you've set them Uh, it's more of a long-term vision to have, which you apply your daily processes to. Setting a schedule is also a good tool to do this if you find yourself wasting a lot of time on social media or, or anything else, because you don't— you, you gain momentum when you complete tasks in a certain order, and If you just spend a few minutes, 10 minutes before bed, planning out your next day. If you have something you need to reply to, an email, you wake up, boom, you do the email. Um, you need to work out, okay, I know I need to tick off workout, and you just attack your day through these small incremental tasks. All of that adds up, uh, and it's the only real way to approach, uh, progression improvement in my opinion. So though someone asked me about using Twitter and social media the right way— social media is so prevalent, uh, in today's society, as we all know, and we're seeing a lot of business and social change because of it. It's now a huge advertising market. People consuming most of their content through smartphones rather than your traditional medias like TV. So social media is this huge force in society, and you can either be a victim of it or use it to your best advantage. This goes for all technology. You can be a— you can let it affect you negatively if you don't consciously take part in or, or consciously analyze how you're using social media in general or technology. There are benefits to the technology, and technology has been amazing for so many different reasons, uh, but also negative for so many different reasons. So it's important to have a strategy to make sure you're not being swept up in the negatives but still utilizing the benefits of of social media. So social media, Twitter particularly, you can learn so many amazing things. You can, you can also get dragged into Twitter arguments, um, trying to convince people over the internet of what you think is right when they have an entirely different worldview, uh, and that can infuriate you. That's just the wrong way to use Twitter. There are several things that I've done, particularly with Twitter and other social media networks, that have helped in my trying to minimize the negatives. So the first one is to get rid of all notifications on your phone. Notifications are designed by app developers to keep you engaged and to keep you— keep your attention on that app. The little red bubble contrasting with all the other colors on the screen is meant to draw your eyes to it. And if you have notifications on so that every little thing that's happening on, on social media is popping up on your phone, even a new email from, from someone, just ding, it, it interrupts your headspace, fires the dopamine a little bit, which impacts dopamine sensitivity. So if you're doing that all day, every day on your phone with you all the time, it's going to have mental effects. So get rid of notifications. This will also help in only checking or using social media when you, when you have a purpose, like, okay, 'Let's just check what messages I have from clients or my, my good friends,' reply to those, and then you're out of the app again, rather than opening the app 20 times a day and not really doing anything but scrolling. Check social media with a purpose. Delete any social media that doesn't serve a purpose. These purposes could be— they don't always have to be self-improvement related, but Are you learning? Are you communicating with like-minded people? Are you creating content which could lead to income? Are you sharing information? Uh, does the consumption of content affect your mood? All of these are questions to ask yourself about app use and If they're not serving any of those purposes and it's not really a, a positive use of the app, just delete it. It's, it's as simple as that. Uh, some apps can be used for good things, but ones that aren't, it's just better to have a hard and fast rule as to, um, deleting those. The benefits of social media: communicating with people you never would otherwise. So when you get into a certain sphere online, you're interacting with people that have similar interests and most likely values as you. And if you don't have many people in your social circle with the similar values or similar interests, it can be refreshing and addictive to actually speak with people that do share those values. And I think that's a, a great reason to use social media. If you wouldn't otherwise know these people that enjoy the same things that you do. I think being a part of a community is, is very important. So if, if you don't have access to the right community offline, you know, obviously try and improve the community you have offline, but online can be a good way to speak with people and interact with them and, and talk, uh, even if you're not actually in person, uh, speaking face to face. And this contributes to a kind of a sense of an online tribe. Obviously every human being needs a tribe. We are tribal peoples, and you sometimes people do find tribes online, um, and I don't think that should be negatively viewed all the time because it's social interaction in a way, as long as it's not over the top. Um, and you can develop meaningful relationships through, through using social media like this as long as you're smart about it. Um, and you know, people are— the people that you do interact with are, are similar mind and you all kind of want to improve each other or or share information with each other. Uh, yeah, it kind of leads to networking. Any, any, anyone that you know that you develop a relationship with, um, you never know when that person might be able to help you out, or you, you never know what, when you might be able to help them out if they have a problem. Or you want to start a business relationship because you've, you've heard or read that this person is, is good at a particular thing or has a particular skill that you can use. Knowing people online, I've, I've met a bunch of them, uh, that have advised me in some way, uh, or, or helped me out with something that I never would have— I, you know, the people that I know in person would never have been able to help me with. So It's a, it's a good use of social media in that way. The other side of it is now with all these technological advancements and video recording and broadcasting is that anyone can become their own publisher or TV executive, uh, and you can have your own TV show on YouTube. You can have your own podcast, aka radio show, where back in the day it used to be gated by the ones with the power, the network executives, or the ones with the infrastructure. And social media has dissolved that in a way. Now anyone that has good content and anyone that has the drive and motivation, uh, or, or wants to create, uh, content for people or, or share information has the ability to do so from their smartphone. Has the ability to do so from their home as long as they have access to the internet. And that is phenomenal in, in, in the way that there's, there's so much information and, and good stuff out there that would never have been possible without YouTube, would never have been possible without smartphones. Uh, so there are good things to be had from social media and technology. The issue lies with it if it then affects your life or your, your stress levels, and this is all manageable. Other negatives of social media, obviously you see people's highlight reels, never their failures or mistakes, and that can be a bit demotivating for people. If you don't consciously appreciate that people are only putting their best foot forward on, uh, Instagram or even Twitter. If you're seeing people succeed but you're never seeing the behind-the-scenes angst or the work or the stress or the failures in general, the people that are, are big on, on social media sites they look like they have perfect lives, but it's, it's just not real. And it's always good to take social media with a grain of salt and knowing that it only looks better. You don't know the behind the scenes, uh, you know your failures, uh, and your successes, but you don't know anyone else's. And if you only see someone's success on social media, if you're constantly consuming everyone else's success and then you're looking at your life and you you have vivid knowledge of your failures, then it can be a bit depressing in a way. So make sure that you've got that in your head. To use social media can help frame that a bit better. Definitely don't use social media before bed. I recommend turning off all technology, all blue light before bedtime. Social media particularly, if you check your Twitter just before bed and then see someone's like made a negative comment about you or, or posted some stupid dumb tweet that irks you in a way, you take that feeling with you to bed and that's not a good state to be in. You want to be relaxed, you want your mind to be clear, you don't want to be getting into bed with this, I can't believe what this guy just said to me on Twitter, it's just wrong, like why would he even say that? And then you're, you're kind of circling in these, in these negative thoughts right before bed, which, which stresses you out and arouses your brain when you want to be shutting down and relaxing. So definitely don't look at technology or social media right before bed. Takes away— if you have social media and things on your phone, it can take away from other beneficial activities like reading or stretching. Little things that you could do with the extra 15 minutes or 20 minutes of time that you would otherwise waste on your easily accessible phone with, with any funny videos or whatever, when you could do 10 minutes of stretching, you could do 10 minutes of reading, and they are far more productive uses of your time. Some social media use is it's good to be clued in what's going on along in the world and going on in the world. But if you're checking it 5 times a day, 10 minutes at a time, that's nearly an hour that could be used more productively, uh, if you were to schedule social media time and then not check it the rest of the time. The issue lies in when it, when it breaks into your other activities and takes your brain out of those concentration states because a text pings up or Snapchat pings on your phone. So having dedicated time where you go, okay, I'm going to be on my phone for this, I'm going to check these messages, I'm going to reply all within this half an hour. And then you put it aside, you put your phone in airplane mode and you work from there. Uh, so yeah, just a few things about using Twitter particularly. Um, there is a setting in Twitter where you can mute notifications from people that don't follow you. Uh, one, it decreases your notification count, which is just good in general— less annoying, uh, notifications to check. Less dopamine being fired. But this setting change means that people who are trying to engage with your content but aren't following you, maybe they're not invested or they're not really part of the people you want to interact with on social media. So you end up just not getting notifications for people. Maybe they're trying to dunk on you or something like that, or say something mean to you. If they're not following you, then it's not always going to be with good intentions in mind. So doing that is a really easy way on Twitter to just get rid of annoying stuff. So make sure you make that change. We're going to go to another break, come back to some other topics. Um, Go get a cup of tea, turmeric tea I think we'll go with, and I'll see you in a bit. Welcome back to the final part of episode 9 of the Soulcast. Gonna quickly talk about a couple of things. First is my morning routine. Someone asked me about this, what I do to get started in the day. Uh, pretty simple, nothing too special, but has quite a few benefits in terms of getting your body ready for the day, priming your digestive system, ensuring that you're all limber, you've done a bit of movement, and just ready to— either you need to, if you need to go to work, or you need to sit down and, uh, you know, write some stuff or whatever, or exercise. All of this will make sure that you're prepared and ready for that in the morning, as well as just being one of those things you can get in your routine that, um, promotes discipline. And you know, you get started on the first task of the day. Having a good set morning routine which you don't skimp on is a good way to build confidence in yourself in doing those, uh, self-improvement things. And it's good even at a baseline, uh, if you feel low energy or whatever, this will help a lot. So what do I do? This is basically my process. I'm gonna wake up. Don't wake up to alarm. Uh, I think if you're waking up to alarm, then you're not getting enough sleep. If you're still sleeping to that point, you should naturally wake up at the time that you need to wake up. If you're getting 9 hours sleep before that time, you're naturally going to wake up. Set an alarm if you know you definitely need to be up at a certain time, but if you've got a half-hour window your body will naturally time that once you get your sleep sorted and make sure you're waking up at the same time every day. You can also set a conscious intention, just tell your brain, okay, I need to wake up at 7 AM. And I found doing that, it sounds silly kind of telling that to yourself, but when you have that thought, uh, it seems to go through to your brain somehow and you usually wake up at that time. So I'm waking up, uh, first thing I do is walk to the shower. I think shower is a great way to start your day. I don't try and do— I like this as the first part of the day because first of all it refreshes you, gets rid of, you know, the eye gunk from sleeping and and hydrates your whole body, which is important because you're leaving— you're losing a lot of water during sleep. Hydration is one of the key themes of my morning routine, to make sure that you're getting everything back and topped up. But get in the shower, get clean, um, dress for whatever you have on, uh, and then head to the kitchen and What you're going to do is have two big decent-sized glasses of preferably filtered water if you can, but, but have it warm with lemon juice and a quality sea salt. So what I do is I'll boil the kettle for the, the hot water, and you put that in the base of the glass, add some sea salt, add some freshly squeezed lemon juice, and dissolve that in the hot water because things dissolve a lot better in hot water. So you have like a nice kind of uniform mixture to which you just add room temperature water until you get to a nice— like, it should be warm enough that you can drink it all in one go, but still so that you notice the heat and it's, it's, it's easier for your body to digest and— so not digest, absorb that way when it's warm. So lemon juice acidity is good for your digestive system, and the sea salt is to promote hydration as well. You're getting those minerals and the sodium that your body needs to hold on to water. It's all well and good drinking a lot of water, but if you don't have the salts through your, your diet, then you're not going to be able to hold on to as much water, which is obviously important for muscle building and, and just bodily biological processes in general. So I'll have a decent pinch of sea salt dissolved with the lemon juice in the water, topped up so that it's warm and then 2 of those, like 2 big glasses, and just don't leave the kitchen, don't do anything else until you've just pounded those down. Uh, it can be quite, you know, you get used to that much volume of water straight away in the morning, but once you do it, you'll notice how, how much better hydrated you are, uh, and how much less groggy you feel in the morning once you have that water in. Um, so yeah, that kind of primes your digestive system if you're about to have breakfast or and rehydrates you, uh, with that water combo. So I do that, then I head back to my bedroom and I'll do 10 minutes of breathing and general movement. So a few of my favorite yoga poses, maybe just kind of check in with my body to see what feels stiff or tight, uh, and couple this with long deep breathing It doesn't have to be too structured. I just like to kind of just see what feels good. Obviously, keep it deep, uh, diaphragm, really get into your whole body and expand those intercostal muscles of the ribs. Breathing is the action of creating more volume in your chest cavity. So, so concentrating on that movement, making sure you're getting those full full extensions is going to improve your quality of breath. So this kind of just chill stretch movement after hydration, of course, uh, in the morning is good because it enables you to just get warmed up and, and let's have less chance of hurting yourself just through normal movement because you've, you've kind of worked out the kinks, uh, that might happen when you wake up a bit stiff or, or it just has— you haven't been moving for, for 9 hours, uh, during sleep. So of course there's going to be a bit of bit of stiffness there. So yeah, just do some stretches, some yoga positions, uh, or I like to do just skipping but not with a rope. So you're just pumping up and down with those calf muscles, getting blood, uh, fired back up to the head. People don't know the soleus muscle in the calf is responsible for pumping the blood back up, uh, to the head and the heart. So getting that flexion in the calf through skipping is a good way to just kind of promote blood flow around the body and get the whole body warmed up, ready for the day. Uh, past that, um, breathing and movement, blood flow, hydration— that's, that's basically what I do every morning. And all of that can be done within 20 minutes, so it's not too time intensive, but that'll make sure that you're hydrated, uh, you're limber, you're kind of concentrated, and you have— you're a bit more relaxed, uh, than if you just dove headfirst into, into the work you have for the day and not really giving your body a time to just breathe and, and wake up and, and, and kind of sort some stuff out. So I do that as my morning routine. Pretty achievable, pretty enjoyable. So give that a go if you want to. Maybe if you feel tired in the mornings until mid-morning, or this all will wake you up pretty well. The other topic to talk about: are essential oils bullshit or not? Well, I have a lot of essential oils— not a lot, but I mean a few different fragrances, but I just treat them as, uh, I have a diffuser, an essential oil diffuser. You can buy them off Amazon, and that'll just spray the essential oil mix with some water. And so that particular fragrance fills your room. Quite nice to have just in the background. You can get one with the light as well, so it's just like a nice kind of lampy fixture that you can set in your bedroom as a kind of ambiance contributor. And so there, what do I have? I have lavender oil, it's good for sleep. That one's not bullshit. The bullshit stuff comes into play when, you know, people are gonna say that essential oils affect your— cure cancer or, or completely fix your stress. I don't think they're magic pills or anything. Although some essential oils do, like peppermint for example, you can take a little bit if you have an upset stomach. Peppermint tea as well. So no, I— they're not bullshit. It's just you have to look at the properties of whatever the essential oil has been made out of and make sure it's a proper legit infusion of that herb or whatever into an oil rather than some knockoff fragrance imitation. But lavender for sure helps with sleep. Peppermint, uh, with digestive issues. Uh, ylang-ylang oil is an aphrodisiac, so sometimes I'll put that on in the essential oil diffuser. So as long as you treat them as just kind of a nice fragrance, um, Some of them do have medicinal effects. You have to research them more. I'm not too well-versed in, in all of them, but definitely something to have around. I really enjoy them. The smell is nice, and some of them do have legit properties. So yeah, not bullshit, essential oils. Thank you for listening to episode 9 of the Soulcast. Be sure to subscribe on Gumroad if you're enjoying the show. Support me and help me get out more of these, uh, to you guys. Otherwise, follow me on Twitter. Putting these all up on YouTube as well, so if you want to see shorter clips of the show or interested in watching a video format, then go check that out. Subscribe to me, uh, solbrah.com. You can submit questions to the Soulcast there. You can subscribe to my email list as well. I'm going to be putting out email content specifically for that group, uh, as well as links to my merch store on there. Go check them out. And thanks for listening to episode 9, and see you next time.