“Early to bed, early to rise makes a man health, wealthy and wise.” Ben Franklin

Tim Ferris said “If you win the morning, you win the day”. 

The benefits of a morning routine are no secret. If you pay attention to anyone who has achieved excellence, they without a doubt have a non negotiable daily morning routine. This is a fact across the board from a successful world class professional athlete to very happy, health and successful farmer.

We all have listened to all the podcasts where our heroes talking about their morning routines but why are they so important and how do they work?

Why Morning Routines Work

During sleep our brains are shifting their frequencies from a faster, more active frequency of awake and alert called beta, to a slower and calmer alpha. While we sleep our brainwaves slow down even further to delta and then even slower to theta. During our rest, we are going in and out of alpha, theta and delta brainwaves throughout the night.

These brainwave states are allowing God, the authority of it all, to subconsciously heal our bodies, renew our energy stores and dream our dream.  The power that made the body heals the body. Most of our healing occurs as we sleep. Upon waking from our slumber our brainwaves shift back into the more alert and analytical state of beta, as we reassociate to our environment.

This brainwave state of beta allows our senses to plug us into the material world. Early in the morning, however, before our senses get fully ramped up our brain is still in a slower more suggestible brainwave state that we can take full advantage of.  

Enter in the morning routine.

When the lights are low, the smells are non existent because coffee isn’t brewing, the noise of the city is still quiet, the comfort of sleep is still upon us and breakfast isn’t being tasted yet, our conscious mind has the ability to be very intentional to seize the day and our life. In other words we haven’t allowed our senses to ramp up. This is important to understand because we don’t experience our senses with our mouth, nose, ears, eyes or skin we experience our senses with our brain. 

This means that if our brain is not activated by our senses then it is very plastic, flexible and suggestible. This is because our senses are creating very much action in our brain. We are not yet our birth certificate identity that we think we are. We are able to imagine. 

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”- Einstein 

We can literally hack our system by intentionally priming it towards success and excellence. This works really well because in the morning we can become the master of our internal state through our awareness and intention before the stressors of our current day life kick in. This allows us to be more intentional, masterful and courageous instead of reactive and fearful.

What if we sat in the drivers seat of our life and took the wheel? What if we became super vigilant and intentional about what we wanted in our life? What if we practiced feeling grateful for being alive? What if we started reading books that inspired us to be the greatest versions of ourselves? What if we started writing down our goals and inspirations? What if we got very, very clear on our purpose that God provides us?

And what if we did this every morning? 

Well I’ll tell you. We would start to be happier. We would become more inspired. We would say yes to our yes. And we would dang sure say no to the things that do not serve us. We would make better decisions regarding our health. We would prioritize our family because we realized they are everything. We would help the stranger in need because we wouldn’t care about looking stupid and being judged.

What if we don’t?

If we don’t have a morning routine, and we plug our senses directly into the narrative that the world gives us then we are simply a product of whatever our phone, media, school, degree, job, etc. tells us we are. Right now our mainstream narrative is not something I would call a dream life. At some point we have to check into our own internal wisdom. I say it might as well be now, instead of on our death bed. 

The world is going to do what the world is going to do. This is out of our control. However, how we react to what happens in our world is up to us. Our reaction to the outer world is our responsibility. This is what the morning routine gives us. A choice. A morning routine gives us purpose that we can fall in love with. When we are in love with our purpose then we fear less. If we can shift our focus to our God given purpose and away from a judgmental reactive nature that the world promotes then we are free.

This is what the morning routine is for. To find God through our purpose and in turn find ourselves.  Or vice versa. Doesn’t matter cuz we’re free either way.

Here’s what I do 

• I wake up at 5:30am so that I have plenty of time to connect with God. 

• I do this through very soft inspirational music. This allows my brain to focus on a steady peaceful sound. 

• I then use diaphragmatic breathing to calm my mind and body down even more. Some days I do more forceful breathing than others. The breath is a very powerful and free way to find God. 

• I bring my focus to my body specifically my heart.

• I reach a peak state through the elevated feelings of my heart

• I embody this feeling through every cell of my body 

• I practice remembering this state as much as I possibly can

• I push myself past my body and habitual mind saying to get up and make coffee

• I thank God for my life and embody this gratitude in my heart 

• Then I write in my journal

• Then I make my coffee 

Here’s my challenge to you

My challenge to you is to simply start a morning routine of 5 minutes. Nothing changes if you don’t change. So first thing is first. Start. Make it intentional and just do it!

Once you begin, do this morning routine for 21 days.

Here are a few suggestions:

• Diaphragmatic Breathing

• Journaling 

• Praying

• Guided meditation 

• Reading some sort of spiritual or inspirational text

• Sitting in nature

• Sitting is silent awareness

• Etc.

Can you see how important the morning routine is? We’d love to hear how this works for you. If you need help drafting your own version, Coach Cason is available for a FREE 15 Minute Consult, call 239-774-5433 to schedule yours!