My Morning Routine…The Best Part of My Day!
I’ve always been a night owl and have never been able to get up early in the morning, and still never naturally gravitate towards that outcome if I don’t set the right guardrails in place from keeping myself from over-sleeping. The problem with this natural tendency is that if you don’t have the right will-power…you can very easily find yourself sleeping in until 10…11….or even until the AFTERNOON!!! This was too uncommon for me back in the day, but now? Even though my body would LOVE it…my mind would HATE it if I slept in now to any of those hours (and I can’t remember the last time I have!). Eventually though, it just came to a point where it was just inconvenient and depressing to be missing that much of the day...I also felt as though I didn’t really have control of my mornings…and wanted to change that.
So I did! I used to wake up “early”…7-7:30 to get up and go jogging. Maybe I would “run a mile” and then come back, do some shoddy pushups/sit-ups, then feel good about the fact that I actually put on some workout clothes to sweat in and called it a day. I never really felt that great after my workouts, and if I did make it to the gym, I would spend so much time socializing and “prepping” my lifts…it just was a very unproductive way to try and feel productive, I suppose!
I had no “why” as to why I actually wanted to workout…so it was easy not too. That’s a concept that’s no different regardless of what you’re referencing, if you don’t have a genuine “why” as to why you’re doing something, you won’t follow-through. If you’re never really willing to find your “why”…none of what I’m writing after this really matters. In the end, I didn’t really care about getting up early, or having a strong workout…I much more preferred to “enjoy” my morning…that meant being lazy out of bed, NEVER working out on the weekends since those were “my days off.”….really anything I could do to NOT be productive, again, I would gravitate to…and again, that is because I felt no need at the time to actually DO something productive…so I didn’t.
Now that we have that idea drilled into our head, what changed? You can probably imagine…MY “WHY” CHANGED!!! It didn’t really change at first the way you think it probably did.
I didn’t all-of-the-sudden have this huge surge of wanting to get up early and take over the world. Nope…originally, I just wanted to have a six-pack again and be in shape and knew that I needed better direction/discipline, so started working out at a CrossFit gym down the street. At this point, my “why” was strictly for the activity of camaraderie and having something productive and new in my life. It gave me new purpose to get up every day and brag about how I already ran 5 miles, pumped out 100 pull-ups, 200 pushups, 300 sit-ups and 400 air-squats before most New Yorkers were getting out of their beds in the morning…I loved that feeling of being COMPLETELY exhausted at the end of my workout…but knowing that the hardest part of my day was over…nothing would get harder than what I just did…because every other part of my life was just routine and easy at that point. I learned how to stretch and that meditation and mind-support really was something that you needed to do in order to always keep progressing in life…so a true mind-body development began to happen during this period at CrossFit.
Even though it was mainly for the social aspects initially, stumbling across my CrossFit gym was possibly one of the best things that ever happened to me. I found a new kind of cannabis crowd there (healthy-“stoners”!!), and I realized that even though it hurt every day…after ~3-4 years…I really did enjoy getting up and taking on the world before the sun-rose. In the winter when I would walk into a 40-50 degree gym with no heat (that means it was ~20 degrees outside?), it was an even BETTER feeling when we were done with our WODs. This social support to keep my morning routine firing on all cylinders would eventually come to an end. Personally, my family started to grow and we needed to move, and there was no way that I could take a 30 minute subway ride every morning to the earliest class to make it on-time later to work….I had to figure out a new routine ON MY OWN…this was the biggest challenge I had faced yet, but I felt equipped and ready to figure it out…eventually, just not in the immediate aftermath once I left CrossFit!
No longer having a structured morning routine, within about 1.5 years later I found my health deteriorating along with my financials, and I needed a needed to change things around quickly. First however, I find it notable that once my WHY departed (social interactions at CrossFit), I couldn’t really figure out how to get fired up enough to effectively do the same on my own. Eventually after my health deteriorated enough and my work performance took a dip (which also =$$$ lost), I was slapped in the face with NEEDING to turn things around…WANTING to live better every day…so that became my very easy “why”, and the rest was HISTORY!
I describe the next part of the story with better commentary on episode #85 in more detail if you’re interested :)
NIGHT BEFORE:
Your morning starts the night before. Prep everything that you need in order to ensure that you aren’t fumbling around with ANYTHING in the morning except for what you want to do (get motivated/workout/meditate). Get the dishes done, laundry, put clothes out that you want to wear, clean the space that you’ll be using so you don’t have to do it the morning of, etc. You’ll walk into your morning MUCH more clear-headed if you aren’t worrying about chores, etc.
FIRST THING IN THE A.M.- WATER!- I try to wake up at least one-hour before everyone else….2 hours is best though!
-I over-hydrate first thing in the AM…this gets your brain going more than anything IMO. I have a huge beer mug that I only use for this morning purpose nowadays (10 years ago it had it’s more-traditional purpose!). It’s about ~4 full cups of water first thing in the morning. I also add my creatine (basic powder) and my protein powder as well (I use Bulletproof).
MOTIVATION-INFORMATION
-From here, I turn on my morning podcast The Daily Boost (about 7 minutes) and crush the entire mug of water in ~3-4 minutes. This actually use to make me sick (gross!), but now I’m used to it for the most part. Just after I finish hydrating, I will often fire up my Crafy+ vaporizer, grab my favorite High-CBD sativa strain (recently has been a sour diesel CBD strain, mixed with actual high-THC sour diesel), and hang out and under the kitchen vent while listening to my morning motivation.
CAFFEINE
-From here, I’ll fill a glass with ice and add my favorite cold brew, and get started with choosing my workouts if I didn’t do it the night before (I used to try and schedule workouts the night before, but sometimes morning-me is entirely different than nighttime-me…so I usually just wait to see what I’m feeling the morning of. I.e.- sometimes the night before I’ll pick a workout that is light, but once the morning comes, I want something more intense, or vice-versa.
SWEAT
-All parts of my morning routine are critical, but if I don’t sweat a little first thing in the morning, my day ends up being entirely different...and not always for the better. This part is important as it gets my heart pumping and brain-gears going. HIIT workouts are great, as one of my favorite things to do in the morning is really challenge myself (especially when I’m feeling slumber-y and lazy!). If I challenge myself and am successful first thing, I find that I’m better able to push through my other non-workout related issues throughout the day. It’s a great way to set the tone for my day. To further get fired-up for this part of my workout, I will often grab a high-energizing sativa to supplement (I love the Jack Herer strain for this…energy and focus!). I am already hydrated from earlier, so now I am able to sip occasionally on my cold-brew both for energy and refreshment throughout my workout.
STRETCH
-Recovery, whether yoga, stretching, etc, is now something I will make sure I do more religiously than even working out every day…and that was never anything that I would ever consider 10 years ago! Working on your recovery in itself will make you stronger simply by allowing you to workout harder the next time by being more mobile, less sore, etc. I do this in the morning and often again every night, 7-days/week…I don’t know how I ever skipped it when I was younger, but I don’t now! For cannabis use here, I will switch to a hybrid and add some CBD…both help with the inflammation, recovery, but now will start to shift me to a more “zen” mindset, great to get the most out of these types of recovery workouts.
MEDITATE
-For at least 10 minutes in the morning (I try to get in 10 more minutes at least through mindful stretching/yoga, or through another sitting meditation). This is where everything I’ve done in the past ~60 minutes come to fruition, I get to a complete sense of calm, and because I’m doing this after I just crushed myself with a HIIT/Yoga sessions, I’m often very balanced at this point, and my mind is more still opposed to if I were to start with a meditation first thing and start fighting all of those pesky thoughts flying in (“I should check my email” “What did Trump Tweet again?!” “Did my client say in the text they sent me again?”). Everyone is different in this respect, I just find that my meditations are better after I first do some mind-clearing via working out/yoga…also never turning on the news or reading emails until I’m ready to later in the day helps with not adding any riff-raff to your thoughts first thing in the A.M. If you want a good meditation, give yourself a chance and keep your mind clean from news/social media before you meditate.
AFFIRMATION
-This is fairly new for me, but I love ending all of this with just a quick 2 minute affirmation…I usually am doing it in “mountain pose,” as I find that your posture allows you to elicit different emotions, and pulling emotion out of your morning routine is what makes it effective. You are often doing this while in other parts of your workout as well, but I also like dedicating a short piece now to this.
Giving yourself time in the morning will allow you to eventually to be grateful just for getting up and doing something good for yourself first thing. Grateful energy is infectious, and often we find that when we’re filled with this type of energy, our days start in a much better place, and often end that way as well. One good day leads to the next, and before you know it, you’re just much happier and content with your life overall.
My morning routine has been life-changing for me, and although cannabis plays a role, it’s only a small and supporting one. THIS IS HOW CANNABIS WAS MEANT TO BE USED…work to be your best self, and allow cannabis to assist you with getting there if needed/desired.
I hate getting up early in the morning, but look forward to my routine every day once I do, and yes, a revitalizing wake n’ bake is often part of that :)
FIND YOUR ROUTINE AND UPGRADE YOUR LIFE! Thanks for reading, and let me know if you have any questions as always!