‘Good Morning!’ … Wait. What Does That Mean to Me?

Everyone said it, everyone meant it. And sometimes, we didn’t mean it but said it anyway (yup, guilty). ‘Good Morning’ is a greeting so common, that we use it quite mindlessly in various languages. Striving for a good morning is apparently so essential in each of Earth’s cultures that it is probably the most famous international greeting.

Even on holiday, we are not ashamed to hint at the country of travel in our IG Story super apparently: ‘Buenos diàs’, ‘Bonjour’, ‘Buongiorno’, ‘Bom dia’, … *takes picture of morning sun and ideally palm trees / cute streets* Maybe this is because ‘Good Morning’ it the first thing we learn in a foreign language. Or maybe because it’s the only thing we learn. Maybe, because everyone understands anyway. And sometimes, we are even as mindless in spelling good morning as we are in saying it (yup, guilty again. Bonjiorno to my 2021 fellow IGlers…). However. Today I woke up and realized that it is quite ironic to wish everyone a good morning without even knowing what a good morning means to me.

INTERVENTION NEEDED!

So I went on a short research.

Best go-to address (as for so many health questions): Andrew Huberman, professor of neurobiology at Stanford University who also is a famous podcaster and Youtuber (let’s be real, never would I have found him only by his papers published). Let’s grab some general Huberman advice on YouTube:

Get some sunlight: Huberman names getting natural, bright light early in the day “the single best thing you can do for your sleep, energy, mood, wakefulness, and metabolism.” Natural light induces hormonal and neurobiological processes that are extremely beneficial and basically tell your body to start the day. No sunglasses when soaking up the light! Light exposure should happen within the first hour of waking up and takes about 10 minutes on sunny days, and on cloudy days up to 30. You could just go walking outside — or even working from outside, if that’s possible. Really worth watching this short video on the topic! ☀️
Hydrate: This one’s a no-brainer. We lose lots of water by sweating and even breathing at night and should refill this after waking up. 💦
Delay your caffeine: This is about your cortisol levels — a hormone that causes the body to be alarmed. Normally, cortisol levels are highest directly after waking up and drop throughout the day. Also coffee releases cortisol, it is not effective for the body to add this to the natural cortisol spike in the morning, which is why Huberman recommends having a first coffee 90 minutes after waking up earliest. ☕️
Avoiding social media and mail at all costs: Totally agree with Huberman here. When I directly receive external input in the morning — messages, postings, … — I feel pressured to react. And even if there is nothing calling for a direct reaction (as, objectively, most of the time tbh): The digital content I shot fire on my brain causes immediate stress. Congrats! Social media consumes my mind’s capacity right at the beginning of the day, leaving less space for my own thoughts. This makes me lose ownership of my morning. Do we want this? HELL NO! So why even bother turning off flight mode? ☎️

Thanks, Andrew! This is a great inspiration for setting up a ‘Good Morning’. To be honest, I once had a morning habit that felt really good. Until I lost it. I remember it involved drinking water or tea, walking, no social media, and some calm time for myself, maybe journaling or reading. Quite intuitively, I ticked some of the boxes that Huberman suggests on a scientific basis. So science seems to be roughly in line with what feels good for me. This is also why I think intuition is quite a big deal for building a morning that sticks.

Reclaiming My Morning Routine

I’ll try to use some of Huberman’s suggestions along with what feels good for me by answering the following questions:

What brings you the feeling of building a good day, personally?
Which activities make you look forward to the next hours?
What leaves you feeling energized?
Which actions can potentially destroy your morning?

For me, it is definitely cherishing the magic of calm mornings, getting some movement, and a meaningful task done. But I start small. I know I feel overwhelmed if I push too many potential things to do in the morning, even if it is the things I enjoy.

This is why tomorrow, I’ll just go for a morning walk.

Good night until then! ✨

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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