The Optimal 30-Minute Morning Routine that Took 10 Years to Perfect

Posted on June 13, 2019 by Jason Eisner, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

Most people underestimate how valuable the first 30 minutes of your day are. This little window of time, more than any other, gives you the opportunity to start moving your life in the direction you want it to. Until you give it up, you are in control of your day. Until you start scrolling through Instagram, listening to the news, or playing music with someone else’s words, there is a blank slate for you to be the Cause instead of the Effect in your life. To make little strides each day toward greater well-being that add up over time. Use this time to improve your health, your happiness, your relationships, and watch the money pile up.

If you are already thinking you don’t have 30 minutes – you have to get to work, you have to answer emails, you have to take care of your kids, etc. – then you need to go to bed and wake up 30 minutes earlier. Stop making excuses and blaming external factors. You need to invest the time into taking care of yourself first if you want to be effective for others. Boom.

Understanding that if you win the morning, you win the day, I’ve been perfecting my morning routine for the last 10 years. I’ve experimented with different sleep cycles, nutrition plans, supplements, exercise routines, saunas, cold tubs, float tanks, microdosing entheogens… you name it, I tried it for at least 2 weeks and documented the effects it had on me. From everything I’ve learned, these 6 steps which take less than 30 minutes are the most bang for your buck to win the morning and win your day. Even adding just 1 of them to your current routine is worth the investment 10-fold.

Of course if you have more than 30 minutes to dedicate to yourself, there are other things I would add. Getting sunlight and fresh air in the morning, longer meditation and exercise sessions, journaling, and cold showers are all amazing for you, but with only 30 minutes, this is an optimal routine to keep your mind and body strong and resilient to the stresses of life.

You can use this checklist digitally or print it out each week. Some people say it takes 21 days to make a habit – just keep doing it until it sticks, your future self will thank you. Find a partner to start this with and hold each other accountable – add a tab to the checklist so you can track each other.

1. Make Your Bed (3 Mins)
Making your bed is not about having a Pinterest-worthy display of decorative pillows that no one but you is actually going to see. Making your bed is about what it represents. It’s about choosing to take responsibility and to organize the world around you. Starting your day by making this choice creates the trend for more positive choices. Big changes are the result of many small things, making your bed the clearest example of them.

2. Breathwork (10 Mins)
You train your muscles to get stronger. You train your tendons and ligaments to be more flexible. But you don’t train your breathing to be more effective? Do you know how much stronger you would be, how much more flexible you would be, and how much more control over your body you would have if you also had power over your breathing?

You don’t need to sit on a cushion in half lotus position staring at a blank wall pondering the nonduality of the universe, but some sort of mindful breathing exercise is the first part of priming your body and mind to be strong and resilient for the day ahead. If you are someone who says you don’t have time or patience to focus on breathing, you are exactly the person who needs to be doing breathwork.

Take 10 minutes to do your breathwork using one of the methods below (starting with the most accessible) until you find the one that suits you best. Meditation is for the mind what weight lifting is for the body. Each time you are able to bring your mind back to the present, to let go of all thoughts of the past or future, to let go of stress and worry – that’s a rep. Those reps will get easier over time and your stronger mind will be able to hold them for longer.

Diaphragm Breathing – practice switching your breathing from chest to diaphragm. Put one hand on each and do 10 reps of chest, 10 reps of diaphragm. Or do 20 reps alternating between chest and diaphragm. It’s about gaining control. Notice how your body relaxes with the diaphragm breathing – you can use this in real world situations when you notice you tense up.
Core Bracing – practice keeping your core engaged, like a slight sit up, breathe into your diaphragm and expand into your sides and back. It should almost feel like you have a weight lifting belt wrapped around your torso. Pull up on your pelvic floor (kegel exercise) to feel the breath really stay in the midsection. You can use this position to improve strength and posture in almost all of your exercises.
Square Breathing – inhale for 4 seconds, hold 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds, hold 4 seconds
Body Scan – start at one end of the body – top of the head or tips of the toes – and work your way to the other end, getting in touch with the feeling in each tiny muscle and relaxing them wherever you feel tension. The muscles in the face, the muscles behind the eyeballs, the shoulders, everything.
Breath Awareness – keep your attention on the breath. Feel it go in through your nose, fill your lungs, feel the lungs compress as the oxygen leave. If the mind wanders, go back to the breath. Feel the rhythm of your breathing. Feel how effortless it becomes. Always back to the breath.
Positive Thinking – sit quietly, breathe deeply, and repeat messages of love and positivity that you are sending out for others, the world, yourself, anyone and anything.
Mantra – repeating a sound, a word, a phrase or something over and over again. Always going back to that mantra when the mind starts to wander. It could be a sound like Ommm. It could be a world like “Nature”. It could be an idea like “I am not my thoughts”. It could be a self-affirmation like “I am an amazing public speaker”.
Rapid Breathing – 30 forced quick inhales and exhales, hold on the last exhale until you can’t, inale, hold until you can’t, repeat 3×.

You can also use a guided meditation app like:
Headspace
Calm
And for other options you can check out Best Meditation Apps of 2018

3. Be Grateful (2 Mins)
Don’t underestimate the power of this one. If you’re a type A personality or an overachiever, gratitude tends to get overlooked and becomes a real weak spot in adulthood. No matter what you achieve or what status you reach, if you don’t balance it out with gratitude, it means nothing. It feels empty, and you continue the cycle of filling the void with more achievement or turn towards nihilism.

Take 2 minutes each morning to close your eyes and think of 3 things you are grateful for. Feel that moment, feel how it fills your body and brings a smile to your face and improves your posture. Feel how it improves the quality of your thoughts and emotions. Use a notebook or journal to write the 3 things down for even better results.

If you are struggling to find anything to be grateful for that day, remember how grateful you are to be alive, to be breathing, to have a bed to sleep in, to have a job – there are many things to be grateful for. Also notice how much easier it is to think grateful thoughts when you’re looking up and smiling…

4. Release Your Muscles (5 Mins)
Your body is holding a lot of stress that you are not consciously aware of. There are muscles that are tight and knotted up because of some imbalances or poor posture. Dig your finger into your traps, your neck, your glute med, your calf. You spend most of your day sitting, standing, and sleeping and very little of that time is with proper posture. You need to take some time every day to reset these muscles by finding the pain points and releasing them. You have to learn to breathe your way through the feeling of pain so that you can retrain your body as to which muscles should be activated for each movement.

Here are a few quick exercises you can do to evaluate where the imbalances are – take videos so you can analyze where your posture is off. Or you can just start to roll around on the ball and find the trigger points. The key is to hold the trigger point while you breathe deeply. Big inhale, full exhale, until you feel the muscle release.

Leg Lift on Back
Leg Lift on Stomach
Trunk Rotation
Overhead Deep squat

Tools needed: Foam Roller and Lacrosse Ball

Foam Roll upper back, Quads
Lacrosse Ball on Pecs, QL, Glute Minor, Piriformis, Upper Trap, Levator Scap, Calves

5. Improve Your Mobility + Strength (7 Mins)

Balance on each leg (30 seconds each)
10 Pelvic Tilts
10 Bottle rocks
5 Groin Rocks each side
Plank (60 seconds)

Banded Glute Bridges (10 reps)
Bird Dogs (10 reps each side)
Scapular retractions (10 reps each side)

While this quick reset is great, it’s important to maintain correct posture throughout your day.
Learn the 6 checkpoints of correct posture:
Feet – toes spread and gripping
Glutes – engaged
Hips – neutral
Core – engaged
Scapula – retracted
Head – pulled up from the crown

6. Drink a Healthy Morning Cocktail (3 Mins)

At the very least, you should be having a nice big glass of water in the morning after 7+ hours of dehydrating. If you want to step it up though, add a splash (1-2 tbsp) of Apple Cider Vinegar, which does a ton of great things for your body and mind.

The next step up is adding a dropper full of Reishi Mushroom tincture to your water. Reishi is known in China as “the divine fungus” or “the mushroom of immortality.” For over 2,500 years, it has been revered as an elixir of vitality and enlightenment. With over 150 documented health benefits, reishi may be one of the most important herbs for detoxification and immunity on the planet.

I stumbled across this magical mushroom by chance – a story for another day – but since I have started taking it 3 years ago, my energy in the mornings has improved and I tend to stay super healthy even when a bug is going around.

For the most economical way to get Reishi into your life, buy dried Reishis from a farmer’s market or online. It takes about 8 weeks of soaking in Everclear to get the alcohol part of the extraction. You can also buy it premade if the money is not an issue and I’ve been seeing more places selling mushroom tinctures.

So that’s it. Efficient 30 minutes, getting your body, mind, and spirit right to bring on the best possible version of the day ahead.

Do I always hit all 6? No, but batting over 30% will get you into the Hall of Fame.