This morning routine will improve your mood
Recently I was asked: ‘what is one thing you would recommend to improve mood’...
It’s never an easy question to answer, ‘what is the one thing…’
These days, the world feels overwhelming with the cavalcades of things we should do to ‘be our best self’ and ‘live our best life’! Every entrepreneur and self help guru has written at least one book filled with things you just must do. I know I certainly find it really hard to navigate the information, and prioritise the right things.
I’ve heard a lot of talk lately about the benefit of delaying your first intake of caffeine - whether that’s tea or coffee - until about 90 minutes after waking. Another one is making sure you get outside, get moving, and get light in your eyes within half an hour of waking… But I’m already starting to feel over-scheduled with all this. Exercise first thing is certainly great when you can do it, and I do often choose to prioritise getting moving outside when I wake up, but it’s not always possible. And the last thing I want is for people to add this as another thing they’re failing at.
Regarding early morning light exposure, my best friend lives in London, where something called ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’ is a thing. Or ‘SAD’. She finds her best time for getting out for a walk is around lunchtime - after eating lunch (to help manage glucose metabolism). She recently purchased a SAD lamp, which she turns on at her desk for an hour each morning, and it’s meant to simulate light in the eyes. Most people in the UK (and indeed any country with long, dark, winters) are deficient in Vitamin D in the winter months - there’s just no way to get enough of it from the sun. So using tools like a SAD lamp and a vitamin D supplement can be an effective solution in lieu of the real thing.
But that’s not an issue for me, here in Australia. Even when we’re having weeks of torrential rain, there’s still enough light in the day to keep us going.
So the thing that I’ve recently adopted that has really transformed my mornings, and in fact my mood for the whole day, is something I heard about on a podcast episide over the new year period: the two minute morning routine. Created by Neil Pasricha, all it involves is pulling out a pen and paper first thing in the day, and answering the following three quick questions:
I will let go of…
I am grateful for…
I will focus on…
And that’s it! It literally takes 2 minutes of your day, but it’s amazing to see the things that pop up, especially in that first one - things you might not have even realised were buzzing around in your head. I’ll write a bit more about gratitude in a later post, but we all know how good it is for us, even if we don’t take the time to do it - pick something small and specific. And if you can manage it, smile as you write it down. Then finally, as Gary Keller would say, pick ‘the one thing’ that will be your focus for today. It doesn’t mean you can’t do anything else, or that you can’t pivot if need be, but for today, for now, that will be the priority.
If you give it a go, let me know what you think! Give it a few days, maybe a week or two before deciding if it’s something that stays in your arsenal of tools for navigating through the world, or if it doesn’t feel right for you (which is also fine!). Maybe it’s a practice that comes and goes - I think all these things tend to fluctuate in and out of our lives as necessary. But it’s a practice that has really helped me to prepare for the day ahead, which gives my mood the boost it needs to tackle whatever is thrown at it.