Dallas Chiropractor;
Best Morning Routine
Shared by Dr. Bryan Stephens
How Do You Start your Morning?
Have you ever woken up and just felt more alive than other days? What makes that one day so much different than the others? How can you replicate that feeling on a regular basis?
Do you have a morning routine that gives you the foundation to build your perfect day?
My mornings are pivotal points in my day. I wake up and then focus on what my needs are and how I can keep myself healthy and give my best to my family, friends, and patients. That means I exercise, read or listen to books, meditate, make green smoothies, and get focused on my day before I invite the chaos of waking up my daughters. One book I have been more focused on recently is The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life by Robin Sharma. He explains it best with one line from the book.
“Take excellent care of the front end of your day, and the rest of your day will pretty much take care of itself. Own your morning. Elevate your life.”
–Robin Sharma
I personally have been following a portion of the book called the 20/20/20 formula. It breaks the morning into 3 parts. 20 minutes exercising, 20 minutes reflecting, and 20 minutes growing. Exercise in the morning helps lower cortisol, increase serotonin, increase dopamine, and increase metabolism. Essentially, it lowers stress and increases happiness, memory, and productivity. Reflection and meditation help boost gratitude and our mental resilience which is incredibly important in our protection against chronic disease and inflammation. The 20 minutes of growth focuses on my plan for the day, my goals, and what I hope to accomplish. This time in the morning is so important to me that my morning starts before 5 because I ensure my full routine before waking my girls at 5:45 for their school day. There are added bonuses that I have found from this twilight time. It is incredibly peaceful, there are few distractions, and the only sounds I hear are a few birds and other occasional sounds of nature.
I challenge you to do 2 things.
- Begin a morning routine that encompasses those 3 things: Move, Reflect, Grow.
- Stick with it for 3 weeks
It takes 18-22 days and can be difficult to build a habit, but once formed it becomes easier. Give it 66 days and the habit becomes automatic. In fact, it is easier to perform your morning routine than it is to go without it. Please reach out and let me know how your morning routine goes and continue to eat better, exercise, and manage your stress to live a healthy life.
References
Robin Sharma, The 5 AM Club. Harper Collins Publisher. Copyright 2018
Cohen S, Janicki-Deverts D, Miller GE. Psychological Stress and Disease. JAMA. 2007;298(14):1685–1687. doi:10.1001/jama.298.14.1685
Gardner, Benjamin et al. “Making health habitual: the psychology of ‘habit-formation’ and general practice.” The British journal of general practice: the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners vol. 62,605 (2012): 664-6. doi:10.3399/bjgp12X659466
Our Message
Our Doctors at our Dallas location, near the corner of Mockingbird Ln. and Abrams Rd., want to help you know how to be healthy by making good choices on diet, movement and mental health. We are here to relieve back pain, neck pain and headaches while also teaching about how our diet and stress effects our over all health. Try these tips to Improve Your Morning Routine!