Six Ways to Start Early and Lift Your Mood
Six takeaways:
Brooks begins with a discussion of the scientific phenomenon of “affect,” the intensity of a person’s positive and negative moods, which he explains don’t move in tandem because they’re produced in different regions of the brain.
Brooks notices that his most negative affect comes in the morning. In short, he is not a morning person. This forces Brooks to have to make a serious effort to manage negative affect in the morning. In this piece he shares his six-part daily protocol for shaking off the cobwebs and feeling human again in the morning. These six parts are:
- Experience the brāhma muhūrta: In the Hindu religion, this phrase means “the creator’s time” and refers to the period that begins precisely one hour and 36 minutes before sunrise. Research shows that rising well before dawn can lead to better attentiveness and recall throughout the day.
- Get physical: Brooks suggests 30 minutes of weight lifting followed by 30 minutes of light cardio. Research often shows that a person’s mood improves and depressive symptoms decrease with vigorous physical exercise. Depressed people tend to have lower hippocampal volume than others; strenuous exercise works to reverse this.
- Get metaphysical: Brooks attends daily Catholic Mass, which he says meets a need we all share regardless of religious or spiritual affiliation: some form of focused prayer or meditation. Research shows that both practices significantly lower negative mood — in part by giving us a safe, private space to express emotion and prompting reflection on our own feelings.
- The magic bean: After mass, Brooks returns home and joins millions of Americans in the daily ritual of a morning coffee. Caffeine blocks the A2A receptors in the brain from detecting adenosine, a neuromodulator that depresses energy and promotes drowsiness. Brooks notes that he refrains from drinking coffee immediately after he wakes up, as it tends to soften the effect of an afternoon crash.
- Tryptophan time: Brooks then eats breakfast. Here, the choice of foods is key. Brooks urges a high protein meal, which helps retain muscle mass and fight disease. Researchers have shown that proteins that are high in an essential amino acid named tryptophan, which raises serotonin activity in the brain. In other words, this dietary approach makes us calm.
- Get into the flow: By 7:30, Brooks is at work. He purposefully schedules calls in the afternoon, saving the mornings for long spells of uninterrupted creative work. Structuring his day this way allows him to get into a “flow state,” the intensely rewarding psychological state of absorption and focus first identified by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the 1970s. This is when his best work gets done.
Brooks notes that routines like his are hard won and constantly being slightly adjusted; he also notes that you might have a completely different morning vs night affect and require a different structure. Either way– he urges you to build and stick to a routine that helps you fight in the times of day you are traditionally at your lowest.
From Arthur C. Brooks at The Atlantic:
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