Did you know that how you spend your morning is crucial to your performance, productivity, and mood for the rest of the day? Andrew Huberman provides the optimal morning routine backed with science to optimize your morning and save the day!
Who is Andrew Huberman?
As a neuroscientist, I am a huge fan of Dr. Andrew Huberman, who is a neurobiologist, and ophthalmologist at Stanford University. Moreover, he is the creator of the Huberman Lab Podcast— a show which discusses how our brain and body affect our daily behaviors and gives insights into science-based tools to improve our daily lives.
So far, he has made invaluable contributions to the areas of brain plasticity, brain development, and neural degeneration. Nowadays, he is well-known for his morning routine that optimizes the autonomic nervous system, leading to an increase in mood, motivation, focus, and memory retention.
Dr. Huberman’s optimal morning routine shows us that when you follow science, becoming the best version of yourself is not as challenging as you might think. It is quite possible to get the best out of your day by following just a few simple steps.
Listen to science to learn how to turn a bad day into a great day!
Andrew Huberman’s Morning Routine
1. Check Whether You Got A Good Night’s Sleep
Andrew Huberman starts his day between 5:30 and 6:30 AM every morning. However, he prefers to sleep around 10.30 PM to get the optimum amount of sleep he needs to upregulate his capacity for the next day. Thus, if you are planning to start your day early, you should be sure to go to bed on time to get 7-8 hours of sleep.
Sleep deprivation can be the first obstacle in your perfect day by disrupting the functions of metabolism and the immune system. Thus, the first thing you should do when you wake up is to check whether you have had a high-quality sleep. You can ask yourself whether you feel:
✓ Rested
✓ Restored
✓ Energized
If you feel rested, it is great! You can start your perfect day right away. However, if you don’t, then it is better to listen to Dr. Huberman, who does a 10 to 30-minute Yoga Nidra passive listening session when he wakes up to a not-well-rested day. Yoga Nidra is a non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) protocol that helps the listener experience a false sleep state which becomes restorative for those who didn’t get enough sleep. He explains its effects as follows:
“…when I started doing this practice and exploring it, I found that I would come out of a 30-minute yoga nidra session feeling like I slept 5, 6 hours or longer.”
After a yoga nidra session, you are ready to start your day!
How Does It Work?
Sleep is the foundation of our mental and physical health, and one of the most important determinants of our performance during the day. It is one of the most important elements of our 24-hour circadian rhythm and any shift in sleep patterns comes with significant negative consequences. This is why an optimal morning requires an optimal sleep pattern followed 80% of the time.
2. Hydrate
What is the best way to start your day off? Absolutely, drinking several glasses of water! Many of you have already heard of it but how many of you are actually doing it? Please be as clear and pure as water!
During sleep your body becomes dehydrated, so it is vital that you drink water when you first wake up in the morning. It is one of our body’s primary needs that we often neglect it. Thus, don’t wait to feel thirsty for your first glass. I always get my glass of water ready somewhere I can see when I first wake up. Coming eye to-eye with my glass gives me no choice but to drink it :))
Indeed, Dr. Huberman drinks water the first day in the morning and prefers adding a little bit of sea salt, pink salt, or element packages to his water to stimulate ionic flow.
How Does It Work?
When we are dehydrated, our metabolism slows down, and our energy output levels drop significantly. It doesn’t sound like the best way to have a productive day, right? Our cognitive function is also reduced, leading to the inability to think properly.
Hydration in the morning acts as an initiator of physical and mental stimulation and helps your body and brain to function properly.
3. Get Natural Light
According to Dr. Huberman, it is highly important to get natural light in your eyes within the first hour after you wake up. “Viewing sunlight in the morning causes ~50% increase in circulating cortisol, epinephrine and dopamine. These leverage healthy increases in energy, immune system function and mood” as said by Dr. Huberman.
He suggests spending some time (5-10 minutes in summer; around 30 minutes in winter) out without sunglasses or sitting closer to the window to have as much as sunlight you can. For sure, never look directly into the sun!
If you happen to wake up before sunrise, you can turn on a bunch of bright lights until the sun comes. It is a fact that many of us go days without seeing the sun, especially in winter.
Don’t worry, cloudy days will not darken your perfect day! Dr. Huberman says “If there’s dense cloud cover, there are still more photons, light energy coming through that cloud cover than there are coming from artificial lights.” In those days, you might prefer staying outside longer to get more light energy.
How Does It Work?
Light plays the most important role when it comes to setting our circadian clocks. Exposure to light is crucial as it modulates the timing of cortisol pulse. A big spike in cortisol levels occurs once every 24 hours, setting your level of alertness, focus, and mood. To maintain a healthy circadian rhythm, you should get this cortisol boost as early as possible during the day.
If the first thing you do when you wake up is lie in bed, get lost on the phone, and deprive yourself of natural light until noon, you should reconsider this choice. Dr. Huberman says “…then you go outside around noon or 1 PM, you’re in what’s called the circadian dead zone which is the time in which light arriving at the eyes can do certain things but it can’t time this pulse that means that cortisol pulse is going to come in the afternoon which means that your temperature rhythm is going to be shifted late and that’s actually a signature of depression, anxiety, and difficulty in falling asleep.”
What happens exactly in your brain when you get the sunlight in the morning? When the melanopsin ganglion cells in the eye are triggered by light, they send a signal to the hypothalamus. As a result, the hypothamus releases a peptide which acts as a wake-up signal and sets a biological clock to initiate melatonin release 16 hours later. Melatonin is the hormone that controls sleep patterns and promotes sleep. A shift occurs in your circadian rhythm when you skip the natural light session early in the morning and this might be the exact reason why you can’t go to bed early.
4. Delay Caffeine Intake and Do Exercise
Are you one of those people who can’t wake up without a coffee or energy drink first thing in the morning? In that case, I have bad news for you. To maximize his energy throughout the day, Dr. Huberman consumes his first coffee 60-90 minutes after waking up.
Also, he recommends to be physically active early in the day.
How Does It Work?
During wakefulness, a chemical called adenosine is built up, making you tired and sleepy. Most of the adenosine is pushed back down during sleep. However, you might wake up and find yourself sleepy, tired, and not well-rested, when you still have a significant amount of adenosine in your system.
On such days you may prefer to reach for your coffee immediately. Indeed, what caffeine does is temporarily block the effect of adenosine by preventing it from binding to its receptors. This is the reason why you desperately want that coffee when you wake up sleepy, to suppress the effects of adenosine and feel more energized. Unfortunately, everything comes with a price. When the caffeine wears off later in the day, adenosine binds its receptor with a higher attraction, causing an afternoon crash.
Thus, delaying your caffeine intake after waking up provides the time for a natural clearance of adenosine accumulation. Don’t you think it’s worth a little patience to save your afternoon?
Another way to clear adenosine buildup naturally is to exercise. You might feel sleepy and unmotivated to move your body, but the easiest solution is what seems to be the hardest. Thus, try to activate your body in the morning. It might be the key to a more alert day.
5. Try Cold Exposure
Have you ever thought about taking a cold shower in the morning or getting into an ice-cold bath? If you are always cold like me, you probably never thought about it, even now the thought of it might be enough to give you goose bumps. Wait until you hear the benefits. I’m sure you’ll change your mind!
You can experience remarkable mood enhancing effects as soon as you complete your ice bath. Also, don’t be surprised when you find that your focus and energy increase.
He recommends using this method for a total of 11 minutes a week. You can benefit from the effects throughout the week by dividing this time into 2-4 sessions lasting 1-5 minutes each. The temperature should be uncomfortably cold but not dangerous to health (see Dr. Huberman’s protocol for more information).
How Does It Work?
Two hours before our natural waking time, our core body temperature is at its lowest. Your core body temperature starts to rise after it hits the lowest temperature in a 24-hour cycle and it is this rise that causes you to wake up. The increase in the body core temperature also triggers the cortisol spike you experience in the morning. After reaching the maximum degree in the afternoon (around 2-3 PM), it starts to drop, and it is this drop that allows you to sleep at night.
The logic is simple. In order to be awake, we need an increase in our body temperature, and the opposite is true to be asleep. And if I offered you a cold shower in the morning to make you more alert, would you think I was crazy? Let’s listen to Dr. Huberman before we jump to conclusions:
“If the surface of your body is made cool, your medial preoptic area will send signals by ways hormones and by way of chemicals that will serve to heat your body up.”
Exposure to cold creates a shock in the brain, triggering the release of epinephrine and dopamine. Thus, deliberate cold exposure can increase your mood, focus and energy levels by causing an increase in dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine levels in your brain and body. Moreover, it induces their levels to remain elevated for some time, ensuring that these positive effects last for a long period of time.
6. Intermittent Fasting
I’m sorry to spoil it for you that this morning routine doesn’t include food. Dr. Huberman has been doing intermittent fasting for quite some time. Thus, he prefers his first meal around noon. Many studies have been showed the benefits of intermittent fasting. So it might be wise to think twice before having a bite to eat first thing in the morning.
How Does It Work?
Intermittent fasting has tremendous benefits directly related to physical health, including decreasing inflammation, blood pressure, oxidative stress, and much more. It also provides increased mental focus throughout the day. Moreover, when you don’t eat in the morning, you don’t have to go through this decision-making process that consumes energy and time, restraining the clarity of your mind. Thus, you get the opportunity to start the day in a more productive way.
Closing Remarks
Following a similar routine every morning is important to maintain your circadian rhythm and help your body release the right chemicals at the right time. Andrew Huberman’s morning routine is one of the best because it incorporates key elements that are scientifically proven to improve mood, focus, and productivity. From sunlight exposure to delaying caffeine intake and fasting, his routine sets the tone for a successful day and helps him to make the most of each morning.
So taking the time to establish a morning routine can help you to improve your productivity and overall well-being.
In order to win the day you must first conquer the morning!
Summary
- Be sure that you are getting a high-quality sleep 80% of the time to have proper functioning mental and physical health. If you wake up and feel sleepy, try yoga nidra for 10-30 minutes.
- Drink water first thing in the morning to have well-functioning metabolism and increased energy levels.
- Get (5-10 minutes) natural light in eyes within 1 hour of waking up. It causes a boost in your cortisol which modulates alertness, focus and mood.
- Delay caffeine intake until 60-90 minutes after waking up to avoid afternoon crush. Also, try to exercise in the morning to clear adenosine buildup in your system and feel more alert during the day.
- Try cold exposure that is cold enough to make you uncomfortable but warm enough not to be dangerous to your health. It has immediate mood enhancing effects as well as increasing your focus and energy.
- Do intermittent fasting and try to postpone your first meal as long as possible (preferably around noon). IF has countless benefits from decreasing inflammation to increasing mental focus.
Featured Photo by Dapo Oni on Unsplash
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