The 3 Essential Components of Morning Routines | Dean Pohlman | Better Man Podcast Ep. 043

Hey, guys, What’s up? It’s Dean. Welcome to the Better Man podcast. This is a solo episode, and in this episode, I’m going to be talking about the importance of morning routines and whether or not you realize this. Everybody has a morning routine. You have certain behaviors that you just default to in the morning, usually no matter what, as long as you’re in the same environment.

Now, you might not have proactively or consciously chosen these behaviors. They might be things that you’re not proud of, but you probably have a morning routine nonetheless. Now, the irony of me making this podcast right now is that my morning routine is currently shot. I recently had a newborn well, not me, but my wife had a daughter and I guess I’m involved and say we had a daughter, right? And she’s about three weeks old by now and we’re not even three weeks. About two weeks old. I’m losing track of time and I have been waking up multiple times per night and my morning routines are not at all what they used to be because I am prioritizing other things. I’m prioritizing getting enough, getting as much sleep as I can before I need to wake up and get my other toddler ready for going to daycare.

Or I’m prioritizing waking up at night so that I can help my wife with the night feeds. So that’s the irony of this podcast is that I currently my morning routine is not what it was. However, I know that this is a temporary state and that I will get back to my normal morning routine, or maybe not the exact morning routine that I had, but I will get back to some iteration of a morning routine eventually once things settle down and I’m able to have that time in the morning.

Now, despite that, morning routines for me have evolved significantly over time to adapt to the realities of my life. I started doing morning routines and putting a lot of emphasis on them when I was young and single and lived on my own. So the morning routine that I did then differed from the morning routine that I had when I was married and not living where was right downtown. And it’s also changed since having a child.

So morning routines will evolve, but there are certain themes in a morning routine that you’ll want to have no matter what. And that’s what I’m gonna talk about in this video. I’m going to talk about certain themes, certain types of activities that you’re going to want to have in any sort of effective morning routine. And also just start by talking about, you know, why should everyone have a morning routine? And the easiest way for me to describe that is that a morning routine is setting you up to have the best day that you can. It’s an opportunity for you to reaffirm what’s important to you to take care of yourself, to prepare your body and mind so that you are more ready and better able to take care of others and your responsibilities.

So it’s just something that you can proactively do to help and guide the day ahead in the right direction. You are proactively doing activities that put you in a positive state of mind for the day. You’re proactively doing some sort of exercise or movement that encourages your body to feel good and also can anticipate the movements that you’ll be doing later in the day, or rather the lack of movements that you won’t be doing that would otherwise cause pain or discomfort.

And so you’re doing exercise that’s going to help your body feel good and again, kind of anticipate these things. But that big theme of the morning is proactivity, focusing on things that you can control, preparing yourself for the day, engaging in behaviors proactively to help prepare yourself physically, mentally and emotionally for the day. And the big benefit of that is that you are again, you’re setting yourself up to have the best day that you can.

And I believe that there are certain activities that are categories, activities that you’ll want to include in a morning routine no matter what your, you know, no matter what your personality type is or no matter what you know, your goals in life are. I think that there are three essential components to any good morning routine, and those include some sort of mindful movement, solitude and planning and nutrition.

So let’s talk about the first one. And this is mindful movement and this doesn’t have to be yoga. This can be any sort of it could be stretching, it could be going for a walk. It could be something that’s more intense if you have higher energy levels in the morning and you’re someone who likes to, you know, do a really intense thing and work out in the morning, then this is you could do that.

But the bottom line of mindful movement is that we want to get your body moving. We want to be aware of your breathing. We want to be able to kind of immerse yourself in the movement again, being mindful in terms of being present in the movement, and also to anticipate your physical needs of the day. So you know, somebody who’s on their feet all day is going to be a routine that’s different from somebody who’s going to be sitting all day.

And we can also include, you know, specific physical issues or weaknesses that you’ll want to address on a daily basis. So if you have an injury that you’re working through, then it would make sense for you to do some sort of physical rehab or your your rehab exercises in the morning. If you do a lot of sitting, then you’re going to want to do exercises that anticipate and directly address or reduce the severity of aches and pains that are caused by by sitting down throughout the day.

If you have soreness, you’re going to want to do some or you worked out the day before. Then you’re going to want to do exercises that help with reducing that soreness. So, you know, it kind of goes without saying that a movement practice, Man Flow Yoga is a really good way for you to achieve this mindful movement. We’re doing strength, we’re doing flexibility, we’re doing posture, we’re doing restorative, and you can really kind of choose the intensity that you want to do. But what I really like about it is it’s forcing you to be present, you know, walking is great, but if you take your phone with you or if you’re really distracted while you’re walking, then that’s not going to be as helpful. If you if you are lifting weights in the morning, that’s great. But if you’re if you’re checking your phone between sets and you’re not really being mindful, then it’s not as good as it could be.

So what I like about, you know, kind of a Man Flow Yoga routine or just doing a guided stretching routine on your own is that you are you’re constantly involved in that movement. You’re not taking breaks, you’re constantly involved. It’s a really good exercise in mindfulness. And that’s what’s going to, I think, help you, help you for the day the most compared to doing a workout just to get out workout done.

So that’s the first component. And for me that has evolved over time. I used to have time to go for a really long walk. In the mornings I would wake up, I would take my dogs for a walk, I would come back, I’d do some, you know, yoga on my patio or something like that. Every now. And I also used to live right next to a creek so I could wake up, go for a walk and go swimming in the creek. That doesn’t happen for me anymore. I don’t have the time to do that. So, you know, my my morning movement for me now is relaxed, stretching in the living room. Or maybe I’ll take it into the garage, but it’s getting up early enough so that I have some time to do some relaxed stretching in the living room before everybody else gets up.

And then once I do all my other morning stuff, which I’ll talk about later on in in this, in this short solo podcast episode. And then once I have all that stuff done, then maybe I’ll go for a walk or I’ll go back and I’ll do a more intense, not, you know, intense, terribly intense session. I like to do more low to medium intensity exercise in the morning, but then I’ll go back and do you know, a more intensive session later on.

But the point of me saying that is your morning routine, your movement is going to evolve with time. It’s going to change based on your life situation. And the the big thing that we want to focus on with that movement is using movement to help with your focus, just kind of setting you up for the day, setting up your posture for the day, being aware of the different parts of your body, and then addressing any, you know, specific physical exercises that you need to do that are specific to you on that day, whether that soreness, whether you’re currently doing something with an injury, or if there’s just certain aches and pains that you have that you know will pop up if you don’t do the right exercises.

The second part of any good morning routine, in my opinion, is going to be a period of solitude, reflection or planning. And this is when you, you know, you take time to self direct and to think about what’s going to happen that day, to plan out what’s going on, to have some silence to yourself and just to kind of set yourself up for the day mentally.

This is something that for me is incredibly important. I know that if I wake up and I just start, you know, I head into a kitchen, that there’s people there, there’s stuff going on, there’s there’s food being made. It’s just it’s kind of overwhelming for me to start there instead of starting with myself, with being quiet, with being awake, with not hearing anything else. At least for me, that’s just that’s just how you know, how my morning is can be helpful.

So I think that it’s absolutely imperative that your morning routine includes some aspect of this, some some sort of solitude, some sort of planning, some maybe some reflection. If it’s, you know, some some sort of journaling or even if you’re just kind of like mental journaling. But the planning aspect in order to create just a realistic set of expectations and a plan for that day to make sure that you’re going to be spending it doing the things that are important to you. And even if that changes later on, that’s fine, because no amount of planning is going to make things perfect. Life is going to come up. There are going to be other things that get in the way of what you thought were important, and that’s totally fine. But it is extremely helpful to at least have a plan and adapt that plan as you go instead of waiting for, you know, other things to dictate what your plan is.

So have your plan ready before you go into your email inbox for the day, before you have your work meeting for the day, you know, figure out the things that are really important to you. And I’ve found that it’s not. If you write down a list of five things, that’s not going to be helpful. So if you can zero in on one or two things and then maybe go into the, it might be nice to do these other things category later on. But focus on, you know, just a couple of priorities when you’re planning things out. And that’s just going to that’s going to lead you a lot happier than making an unrealistic set of expectations or a large to do list for the day that ultimately you’re not going to get done.

So planning on a couple of things instead of a lot of things. And then the last part of this routine, or I think a good morning routine that I wanted to talk about is nourishment. And this is nutrition. This is eating, this is drinking, and specifically this is drinking a significant amount of fluid in the morning. So getting your water, ideally as soon as you wake up and room temperature water, you want to make sure that you’re eating a breakfast that’s high in protein and fats so that you are setting up, setting yourself up to have balanced energy levels throughout the day and eat well throughout the day.

And you can do this on whatever diet you want to do it on whether that’s paleo or or vegan or whatever else is popular these days. But, you know, the point is that you want to make sure that you’re having protein and fats so that you’re not having a ton of carbs and then your energy spikes and then you have to have more. So what you eat in the morning will set you up for what you eat for the rest of the day.

So personally, for me, my morning, this is the one part of my morning actually that has not changed significantly over time. This is something that has been really consistent for years now, probably at least five years. So the first thing that I do when I wake up every morning is I walk into the kitchen and I will either fill up a glass of water or I will I will already have a water bottle filled.

And I like to have these enormous water bottles. If you’re watching the video version of this right now, I have a 46 ounce yeti rambler that I like to use because it’s it’s it’s large. And that means that my water won’t run out. So I will have a constant source of water until I need to get more than 4 to 6 ounces. But the point is I wake up and I’m going to have at least 24 and maybe upwards of 32 ounces of of room temperature water. I don’t like to have cold water. You can drink it cold if you want. I just I find that it feels better in my stomach when I drink room, temperature, water. And this is important because you do want to be aiming for about 100 ounces of of water throughout the day. If you wait till too late in the day to do that, then it might keep you up at night because you have to go to the bathroom. When you wake up at night. So I find that for front loading that water intake and drinking more in the morning and then in the end, in the early afternoon make helps me get as much water as I need without causing me to wake up and go to the bathroom at night.

So that’s the first part. And then the second part. And by the way, if you want more motivation for drinking water, if you are struggling with weight loss, a lot of times when you eat food, you’re actually just hungry [Note: he meant Thirsty]. So if you think that you don’t need food and you haven’t had water in a while, have a nice big glass of water, have, you know, 12 ounces or 16 ounces of water, wait 10 minutes and then see how you feel. So and it also helps you have more regular bowel movements and that can be potentially life changing if you don’t already have good poops. That’s something that can make your life a whole lot better.

All right. So let’s talk about fluids. Water was the long thing to talk about. Water. Oh, by the way, if you do want to add something to water, you can add some sea salt to water and you can also add lemon to your water. And that can give it a little bit of taste. But that can also just add some some extra benefits to to the water. So aside from drinking water, I also have coffee every day. So I like to have one cup of coffee and I usually have this at the end of everything that I eat. So my coffee is kind of like my dessert, so to speak, and that helps me process everything.

In terms of food I have at eggs every day for breakfast for years and years and years. Now, I don’t know how many years, probably close to eight years, something like that, maybe even longer. So I have three eggs every day. Sometimes I’ll have avocado with that, I’ll usually mix it with salt, pepper and tallulah’s sauce. So a little sauce or some avocado.

And then I will always make my smoothie as long as I have my blender handy. And I have gone to pretty extensive lengths in order to have that blender ready. At some points, I went on a weekend getaway with my wife and my my, my parents and our newborn to a lake house about 30 minutes outside of Austin. And we were packing up all the baby stuff and the car was full because this is our first child. We don’t know, like how much stuff we actually needed. And we just brought everything. And I was like, Well, we’re going to bring all this stuff for packing our car. I am going to put a blender in here. So I put a blender. I packed the blender for that trip just so I could make smoothies. And in the smoothies, I like to just throw in a bunch of stuff that’s going to help me, help me help me throughout the day in terms of nutrition, but also help me make sure that I’m eating well throughout the day.

So and I have a huge smoothie, like literally I’ll have 60 ounces of smoothie. This is you can’t even order a smoothie this big I it takes up the entire 64 ounce blender. So I will have a couple of handfuls of strawberries, one banana and coconut milk kind of as my base. And then I’ll add in. I’ll cram in as much spinach as I can fit into the container. I’ll add in chia seeds, flax seed. Sometimes I’ll also add in hemp seed just depends on, you know, what’s what I have available that day. And then I’ll I’ll top it off with three handfuls of mixed berries and blueberries. So there’s a lot that goes into that smoothie. But it’s all good stuff. It’s all fruits, all veggies. So I can have as much of that and feel good.

I can have as much of that as I want to and feel good. So I’ll usually have about 30 ounces of that, at least 20 ounces that smoothie. And sometimes I’ll have more of that smoothie in the morning and then I’ve got the eggs and then once I finish with that, I’m pretty full and I’ll finish that up with coffee. So. And one cup of coffee and that’s my coffee for the day. I haven’t gotten into a habit of having coffee more than just one cup of coffee per day. I have one in the morning. If I for some reason I, I forget that having caffeine gives me a headache when I have multiple doses throughout the day. Sometimes I’ll have one later on in the day and then inevitably I’ll get a I’ll get a headache that afternoon and I’ll have the I’ll be kind of fighting shadows, as my friend puts it, just because of the caffeine overload.

So I like to have one cup of coffee. Also, if I have more than one cup of coffee, and particularly after 11 a.m., then I’ll have trouble sleeping the night before that night. So if you’re drinking coffee throughout the day and you’re having trouble sleeping, that could be that’s probably a likely cause. And if not, because it is definitely not helping.

And then the last part that I want to mention, this is kind of like a bonus part of a morning routine is this kind of sense of achievement. So for me, I like to finish my morning routines and feel like I’ve done something or feel like I have this, you know, Yeah, I got that done. I’m like, Well, it’s a win, right? So I like looking at those tasks and saying, Hey, like, this is going to make my day easier. This is one less thing that I have to do, you know? And I’ve done something good for myself.

So other things that I’ll do in the morning, in addition to those things are little things that I can do that treat that sense of achievement. So making my bed is one thing I like making my bed, putting the pillows back, flipping the covers over takes about 15 seconds, but it’s just something that helps. And I’ll I’ll pick up the bathroom, I’ll pick up my bedroom. There’s some dirty clothes on the floor. I just throw them. Then in the kitchen, if I wipe something down, there’s some dishes left over from the night before or something just isn’t put away. That’s something that I’ll do that won’t take me more than 5 minutes, but it just gives me that sense of achievement and it allows me to build upon those wins throughout the day.

So I am, however, careful to make sure that I’m not over overextending myself. Right. So I don’t I’m not going to choose something that’s going to be really that’s going to take a lot of time and energy. I’m going to choose something that’s relatively small and easy to do just to give that sense of achievement, but not require a significant amount of energy that can that can take away from the things that are really important that I need to do that day. And for me, my morning, my workday for me, like I’ll work, you know, sometimes I’ll work until four or five or six, you know, like, like a lot of people.

But for me, the most important work that I do happens between 9:00 and about 1 p.m.. And then outside of those hours, I make sure that I’m not doing anything that’s that that’s really intensive. I kind of do more busy work toward the end of the day, and my creative work happens toward the beginning of the day. And so having, you know, a good morning routine in which I’ve, which I’ve fueled my body for the day and my mind is in a good place, I’m feeling good.

And I also don’t have to worry about snacking and. 11,12, 1[pm] but I have that smoothie nearby, right? This giant 64 ounce smoothie that I made so I can have that kind of this as a snack at 11, 1130 or 12. And it doesn’t take any time to make there’s no prep time, there’s no chew time. You just drink a smoothie.

And so that helps me out and that really helps me stay productive in the morning. And those really important hours when I when I am able to get stuff done. So there are some other guidelines for for morning routines and I want to go through those as well. So what should your morning routine absolutely avoid? And you want to make sure that you’re avoiding things that are stressful and this includes things that are outside of your ability to control.

So checking your email, checking social media, the first thing in the morning when you wake up is a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible idea. Looking at work stuff, you know, that’s not from you. So looking at like your own to do list, yes, that’s fine. But if you’re opening up your inbox and seeing all these flood of emails from maybe the weekend or that night before that, that’s that’s something that I would recommend avoiding.

You also want to be avoiding things that are that are stressful or that will take a lot of energy. So booking a flight, one thing that I would not recommend doing in the morning or looking at or, you know, making big financial decisions, think about things that cause stress or anxiety for you in particular. And those are typically things that you’ll want to avoid in the morning in terms of the things that you do want to do. I would choose things in which you do, in which you direct the focus. So we don’t want to do things where it’s like passive consumption. So watching TV or scrolling on social media, these are things that they’re not directed by you.

So you want to do. Like journaling, for example, would be a good idea, would be a good example of something that your directing or going for a walk or doing, you know, seeing some stretching on your own. These are things that that you’re directing the focus, or at least if you’re following along to a workout, then you’re, you know, you’re actively involved in that routine. But if you’re just passively kind of watching the something happen, then, you know, like again, to something that doesn’t take effort, then that’s, that’s, that’s not going to help set you up for the day.

And then my last thing that I’ll mention here is I would make sure that you don’t do too much with your morning routine. So, you know, you could have this amazing morning routine put out where you have you know, where you’re working out, where you’re doing yoga, where you’re doing a cold plunge, where you’re getting in the sauna after that, or you’re making your breakfast where you’re doing meditation.

But then you finish and you’re exhausted and you’re totally drained. So you want to make sure that you’re doing enough in your morning that you get this sense of accomplishment, that you’re preparing your body, that you’re preparing your mind, that you’re setting yourself up for the day, but you don’t want to do so much that you’re burnt out and tired before the day even starts.

You know, I’ve spoken with with guys who have created these amazing morning routines, but at the end of it, they’re ready for another cup of coffee and they’re, you know, they’re tired. And so to me, that is not the goal of a morning routine. Your morning routine should give you energy. It should energize you. It should not drain your energy. It might take a little bit of energy to get that going, but it should not you should not finish that feeling tired.

And then the last thing that I want to discuss in this podcast and morning routines is why it’s okay if your morning routine drops off. So I started off this episode talking about how my morning routine is not what it normally is. And hopefully, you know, me saying, Hey, this is my life is like my morning routine is totally shot right now. Hopefully it makes it feel okay for you as well. But there are some benefits to why it’s okay if your morning routine drops off. So first off, life is going to change. You know, you’re going to have different phases of your life.

And as these new phases happen, your morning routine might not be as helpful as it was in the previous phase. Also, when you change environments, your morning routine gets messed up. Our behaviors in our our repeated actions are strongly tied to environment. So if you go on vacation, for example, you wake up, you’re in a new environment, you might not. You’re probably not. You’re not as likely to do what you normally do when you’re at home.

On the flip side of that, the cool thing about being a new environments is that they’re extremely moldable. So that first day when you find yourself in a new environment, if you can wake up and do something that you want to keep doing on a regular basis, you’re going to make it more likely that you do that again in the future. So if you go on vacation, you want to exercise every morning, then make sure you wake up that first morning and go to the hotel gym or whatever it is that you or open up, you know, your phone, your tablet, your computer, and open up ManFlowYoga.tv and get to work. So that’s just kind of cool.

But anyways your environments will strongly affect your your routines. So just be aware of that and it’s the other reason why morning routines, you know, getting off track can be a good thing is because it can show you how helpful they actually are. If you get off your morning routine for two or three days, it’s probably not going to have a huge effect on your day. There’s enough kind of lingering effects from your morning routines before that that you’re going to be able to get through the first, you know, the first few days without really noticing too much. But over time, after a week or two, you’re really going to notice the effects of not having those habits. Life is going to get harder. It’s going to be harder to focus. It’s going to be you’re going be less organized. Your mood is going to be worse.

So not having your morning routine in place, having that drop off is a good reminder that shows, hey, this was actually doing something for me. So it’s a good reminder for you, you know, to do it.

And then the last part of, you know, morning routine dropping off why this is okay. Sometimes other things are more important. You know, I’m like I mentioned, I’m currently waking up with my newborn 2 to 3 times a night. And for me and as a result of that, I’m I’m waking up at about some maybe wakes up at about right now she’s waking up at about 5:00 to feed so that means that or 4:45 a.m.. So that means that I can wake up and I can feed her and put her back to sleep and it can be like, you know, 530 and I can either go back to sleep, then for 3 hours, for two or 3 hours, or I can wake up right then and go into a very long but tired morning routine.

And for me, I’ve been choosing to sleep. So for me, sleeping is more important than my morning routine. In a lot of these instances over the past couple of weeks. By the way, I’m going to be doing another solo episode on Sleep Next. So be on the lookout for that solo episode on Sleep. Most of us don’t get enough sleep. Most of us don’t actually understand why sleep isn’t as important as it is. Most people only get 6 hours. We really need to be aiming for that seven and a half hours. And I’m also going to talk about why most of us get bad sleep and why it’s important to have sleep healthy practices for sleep leading up to bed. So making sure that we’re setting ourselves up to have a good night of sleep and avoiding things that cause bad sleep. So that’ll be the next episode.

But hopefully this little discussion on morning routines has inspired you to do your own, to create your own morning routine. Again, those three components and and don’t go away. Yeah, some of that. I’m going to go into some tips on how to create your morning routine before we sign off, because I want to give you some actionable steps. So again, those three things, we want to have some sort of mindful movement. We want to have some sort of solitude or planning to the day and we want to have nutrition and then bonus getting that sense of accomplishment.

So the way that you can create a new morning routine. First, we want to look at and this is a really simple thing to do, doesn’t take that long. You just want to look at the things that you do in the morning no matter what. And these don’t have to be things, habits that you’ve consciously created. You know, most of us go to the bathroom in the morning. Most of us walk into the kitchen in the morning. Most of us brush our teeth in the morning. You know, not all of us best your teeth in the morning, but hey, that’s your choice.

Point is, you probably have some things that you already do on a daily basis in the morning. Now, those are called for you. Those are going to be called anchor habits. Those are going to be habits to which you attach your new habits and ideally the new habits that you want to create are somewhat related to or they’re in the same environment as those anchor habits. So, for example, if you want to start drinking water in the mornings, then you’re going to make a note, you’re going to make a plan that says, When I wake up in the morning and walk into the kitchen, after I get into the kitchen, I will pour myself a glass of water and drink 16 ounces of water.

So or if your plan is to start doing morning yoga, then you’re going to make a note to yourself that says, after I have caffeine in the morning or after I have breakfast in the morning or whatever that is, you want to look at a specific behavior. So or maybe it’s after I go for a walk in the morning, then you’re going to say, I’m going to open up my computer or I’m going to open up my phone and do my Man Flow Yoga workout.

So you want to tie those new behaviors to existing behaviors rather than create a new behavior out of nothing. And again, if you can if you can tie it to a an anchor behavior or an anchor habit that is similar to the new habit you want to build and is also in the same room or same environment, then that’s going to make it that much more likely that it will happen.

So that’s what I talk about this week, guys. If you have a solo podcast recommendations, I would love to hear them. So you can email me at [email protected]. I’ve got a whole list of topics that I want to cover, but I’d love to hear what you have to say. If you’re a member of the members area.

You can also post about that in the mental yoga community on Facebook or just leave a comment in the comments section of this podcast. If you’re watching it on the Mansfield Yoga website or the app. Also at this time I am looking to be a guest on other podcasts. So if you have a podcast in mind in which you think I’d be a good fit, please let me know. Or better yet, if you know somebody at that podcast, connect us, please. And I’d love to be on, on, on that show.

So I hope this is helpful for you guys again. Morning Routine is super important. Everybody has them, but whether or not they’re effective or doing what you want them to do is totally up to you. But I think there are three things in particular that every good morning routine should have, and hopefully you finish them feeling great, feeling prepared for the day, feeling good about yourself, about what you’ve done, and it’s something that is sustainable and gives you energy and and you’re something that you’re excited about.

So, guys, thanks for joining me for this episode of The Better Man Podcast. I’m looking forward to seeing you on other episodes soon and let’s have a great week. See you.