10 Things You Can Do This Morning to Reduce Your Anxiety by 67%

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10 Things You Can Do This Morning to

Reduce Your Anxiety by67%

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and
asked myself:If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do
what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been No
for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. -Steve
Jobs
If you are anything like I used to be, you probably put mornings right up
there with death on the scale of things you most dread. I used to wake
up in a fog, feeling just as tired as when I went to bed, and immediately I
began to fear the inevitable feeling that creeps into your stomach and
throat
here it is again, I would think to myself as I pulled the covers over my
head. Fearing that this is how I would feel every single morning for the
rest of my life. No condence that I could ever make myself feel better.
I had always heard about how the most successful people like Gary
Vaynerchuk, Tim Ferriss, and Ben Franklin had daily, morning routines
that helped them wake up energized and ready to take on the day. But
in the midst of my anxiety, the thought of waking up at 4 am to hustle
was the last thing on my mind. I needed to nd a way to model the
morning routines of the most successful people in business in a way that
was focused on decreasing my stress & anxiety.
I realized the morning routine I used to follow was setting me up
for increased anxiety and failure throughout my day.
I would wake up. Snooze my alarm a couple times. Then nally open my
eyes to face the day. Immediately, I would check all of my socials to
assure myself that I had not missed anything. After realizing that no one
had liked me throughout the night, I would get out of bed, take a
shower, down a cup o coee, and run o to work.
No structure. No purpose. No peace.
It was no wonder why I would arrive to work completely stressed out. I
was setting myself up for failure by not being intentional with how I
operated my day.
After reading an incredible article by Benjamin P. Hardy on Medium, I
decided to nally try out a morning routine. My morning routine would
be focused solely on lowering my anxiety, instead of increasing it.

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Why a morningroutine?
Because It Can Massively Reduce Anxiety
When I implement an eective morning routine, and stuck to it, I was
able to massively reduce my anxiety. In addition, it also helped with my
productivity, energy, relationships, and a host of other areas of my life. It
truly was life-changing.
I wish there had been a list like this when I was rst battling with
anxiety during my senior year of college. On most nights I was going to
bed after 2. I would procrastinate anything that felt remotely dicult in
fear it may trigger more panic. And my mornings were always a
nightmare. It was my daily reminder of that I had a problem.
However, something happened once I began working on my personal
development, I started to view my mornings as a gift rather than a
nightmare. I begin to trigger my brain, from the moment I rst opened
my eyes, to see the beauty in my life.
Creating a morning routine has been the single most important
strategy for lowering my stress and anxiety that I have implemented
over the last year. It has allowed me to get more done than I ever
thought possible, while also helping to keep me grounded throughout
the day.
Once you begin starting your day o on a positive, structured, and
intentional note, you will be amazed by the reduction in your anxiety as
well as the other benets you will receive.
With this short morning routine, your anxiety will start to drop and your
life will become enhanced.
10 Things You Can Do to Reduce Your Anxiety by 60%
Wake Up Early
Make Your Bed
Meditate / Pray
Take a Cold ShowerThanks Tim Ferriss
Coee, Tea, or Your Breakfast Drink of Choice
Brain Dump at Desk
Gratitude
Morning Three
MITs
Deep Work
Lets Do This.

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1. Wake up between 5:306:00

According to Hannah Hepworth, an expert on natural anxiety relief,
when you wake up early you can have plenty of time to get where you
need to go. Instead of rushing and yellingyou can work calmly.

2. Make YourBed
The reason making you bed is so powerful is that it allows you to
successfully complete a task rst thing in the morning, which then builds
momentum to continue doing more for the rest of the day.
Making my bed has taught me that how you do anything will be how you
do everything. No matter how bad or stressful your day becomes, you can
also make your bed. And if that is all that you complete in the day; it is
still a success.

3. Meditate /Pray
Like some of you, I used to be very skeptical of meditation. Just the word
itself has an aura of incense and ommming. I didnt want to lose my
edge or be one of those hippies sitting cross-legged playing the banjo and
singing Kumbaya. But as I dug deeper into the research, I found that
mindfulness meditation (devoid of religious ties) can have massive,
positive eects on your brain and help decrease your anxiety and
depression, substantially.
According to an article written by the Harvard Medical School,
Mindfulness meditation can help ease psychological stresses like
anxiety, depression, and pain.
Wellif Harvard said it worked, I better try it. So, I gave it a shot using
the free 10-day trial from Headspace. And the results have been
amazing. I started to feel calmer and had more clarity of my thoughts
and emotions after ve days. However, It took me several months to
make this a recurring habit, but now that it is a staple in my morning
routine, the benets have been less anxiety, more clarity in business
decisions, and overall increased happiness.
Best Resources on Getting Started:
Free Guided Meditation for Anxiety
Tara Brach
Headspace
Waking Up By Sam Harris

4. Take a ColdShower

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Disclaimer: This sounds awful. In fact, when I rst heard about it I

didnt try it for months because I didnt think it could help and I loathed
the idea of taking a freezing, cold shower. However, after 3-months of
consistently taking a cold shower every morning, I can ensure you the
benets are enormous.
The science behind cold exposure is not new science. Cold shower
therapy is an ancient Ayurvedic remedy that has numerous health
benets such as treating anxiety and depression, improving circulation
and toning skin. The use of coldness as a good stressor on the body can
help to trigger several helpful responses within the human body. It
allows the controlled elicitation of the bodys natural cell repairing, pain
& inammation reducing and metabolic processes.
A study by Researcher Nikolai Shevchuk of the Department of Radiation
Oncology at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine
found that cold showers can alleviate, and even prevent, depression and
anxiety. Shevchuk theorizes that short, cold showers may stimulate the
locus ceruleus, or blue spot, which is the brains primary source of
noradrenalinea biochemical that could help mediate depression and
anxiety. The body is stressed by a hostile factorin this case, icy water
that stimulates a healing response in the body and can lead to lower
levels of anxiety and depression as well as a plethera of other benets.
The easiest recipe to get the psychological lift is by taking a cold shower
for 2 to 3 minutes once or twice daily, preceded by a ve-minute gradual
adaptation to the temperature (i.e. start you shower hot and then nish
it with 23 minutes of pure icy goodness). Only taking a cold shower can
strengthen your bodys parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous
systems, increase proper circulation of blood through your body, and
contract your muscles to eliminate toxins and poisonous wastes.
Cold Therapy Experts:
Dr. Ronda Patrick
The Earth Clinic

5. Co ee, Tea, or Your Breakfast Drink

ofChoice
I like Bullet Proof coee. Find the recipe here.
According to Dave Asprey, the man responsible for promoting the
beverage, [bulletproof coee is] the creamiest, most delicious, highest
octane cup of coee youve ever experienced. People who use this precise
recipe experience a kind of mental clarity and focus that is hard to
express in words. You owe it to yourself to try it at least once before
showing yourself that changing the ingredients doesnt work very well.
Although I think Dave is over-exaggerating a bit, I have seen some
boosted levels of energy throughout my mornings by replacing my
breakfast with this creamy cocktail. I try to use high-quality, singleorigin beans for my coee because it has drastically lowered my
post-coee jitters.
This is not for everyone, but if you are looking for a way to keep hunger
at bay for the rst 56 hours of your day, give it a try.

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6. Brain Dump atDesk

My Journal

Ill Let Tim Ferriss explain the benets here

I dont journal to be productive. I dont do it to nd great ideas, or to
put down prose I can later publish. The pages arent intended for anyone
but me.

Morning pages are, as author Julia Cameron puts it, spiritual

windshield wipers. Its the most cost-eective therapy Ive ever found.
To quote her further, from page viii:

Once we get those muddy, maddening, confusing thoughts [nebulous

worries, jitters, and preoccupations] on the page, we face our day with
clearer eyes.

Please reread the above quote. It may be the most important aspect of
trapping thought on paper (i.e. writing) youll ever encounter. Even if
you consider yourself a terrible writer, writing can be viewed as a tool
that you can and should use. There are huge benets to writing, even if
no oneyourself includedever reads what you write. In other words,
the process matters more than the product.
The Two Main Reasons I Journal:
1. Brain Clarity
2. Detachment from thoughts
Could bitching and moaning on paper for ve minutes each morning
change your life? As crazy as it might seem, I believe the answer is yes.
Tim Ferriss

7. Gratitude Practice

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I write the three things I am most grateful for today:

The key here is not to repeat that you are grateful for your family, life,
and god. The key is to focus on being aware of the smaller things in life
that you would miss if you were gone. This is a very powerful practice
that has been utilized by the Stoics, Billionaires, and monks to help
them appreciate life and reduce anxiety. Dr. Emmons, a gratitude
researcher, conrms that practicing gratitude daily can reduce anxiety
and depression.
The three topics I nd easiest to channel are:
1. PersonI write one thing about my anc that I am grateful for
every morning. But it could be anyone for you and probably helps if you
change it every day to realize how many people you are grateful for.
2. Small object close byThe wind blowing on your face, the warmth
of the coee mug, the silence of your bedroom. This is a stoic practice to
realize that even if everything you owned were taken from you their are
still small pleasures in life.
3. Something I would miss if it were gonerunning water, heat, the
ability to run, etc.

8.Write Your MorningThree

1. Armation: By stating three armations in the morning I am able to
put myself into a charged state. It may seem hokey, but it has been
hugely benecial to my mental state.
2. What do I get to enjoy todayBy starting my day thinking about what
I get to enjoy today, I put my mind into a positive mode and trigger my
brain to see the upside of the day.
3. Daily IntentionI start out each day with intention. Whether its as
simple as I will be present today or I will choose to see the beauty in
everything that happens to me today. It doesnt really matter, but I have
found it extremely helpful for lowering my daily anxiety to be
intentional about what I want my days purpose to be,

9. Write out Your MITs: 35 Most

Important Tasks that need to getdone

Even a basic plan of attack for your day can drastically reduce your
anxiety by decreasing the cognitive load that comes with increased
decision making. Each morning we wake up with a nite amount of
brain power and every decision we make detracts from it. By having a
basic structure that decreases the amount of decisions you have to make
about what you are going to do next, you will be able to take control of
your day and calm your restless mind.
Every morning, I write down the 35 things that are making me the
most anxious or stressed out. They tend to be things that I have pushed
o for days on end. And more often than not, they are the most dicult
or uncomfortable taks that I need to do in order to move myself forward.
Once I have written out the 35 MOST important tasksand no more
I ask myself the follow questions to help me prioritize which to focus
on rst:
1. What task, if completed successfully, will make all of the others obsolete?

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2. What task do I have the most anxiety/fear about?

3. What task will move me closest to accomplishing my number 1 goal?

10. 90 Minutes of Deep Work on TopMIT

If its your job to eat a frog, its best to do it rst thing in the morning.
And If its your job to eat two frogs, its best to eat the biggest one rst.
Mark Twain
Once I have prioritized my top MIT for the day, I block o 90 minutes of
time to focus exclusively on it. This is a common strategy known as the
90901 rule.
Why is it so important to get the top MIT done rst thing in the
morning?
Well, according to psychologist Ron Friedman, the rst three hours of
your day are your most precious for maximized productivity. Typically,
we have a window of about three hours where were focused. Were able
to have some strong contributions regarding planning, regarding
thinking, regarding speaking well, Friedman told Harvard Business
Review.
I understand we all have dierent schedules and responsibilities, but if
we want to overcome anxiety and move our goals forward truly we must
protect our mornings. If we dont take control of our mornings,
something else will.
Dont check your email or social media until you have spent at least
3090 minutes of uninterrupted time on your number 1 MIT. Use your
mornings for output, not more meaningless input. As productivity expert
Benjamin Hardy says, [p]rotecting your mornings means you are
unreachable during certain hours. Only in the case of serious emergency
can you be summoned from your focus-cave.
Not only will this help you complete your number 1 MIT, but it will also
do wonders for your anxiety throughout the day.

Bonus: The Routines ofTitans

The Titans of our day all follow routines that make them successful and
fullled. Here is a couple. Pick and choose what works best for you.

Leo Babautas Morning Routine [zen habits]

Top 10 Ways to Upgrade Your Morning Routine [Lifehacker]

What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast [Fast

Company]

The Morning Ritual [Hack the System]

Create a Morning Writing Ritual [Freelance Switch]

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Slay Your Dragons Before Breakfast [Michael Hyatt]

5 Morning Routines that help me win the Day [Tim Ferriss]
Tony Robbins Intense Morning [Tony Robbins]
What We Can Learn from Ben Franklins Daily Schedule [Ben
Franklin]

Conclusion: Make it sustainable foryou

The purpose of this list is to be a roadmap, a blueprint, to help you
reduce your anxiety by creating a empowered morning routine. It is
packed with strategies and loads of scientic research about what
routines and habits are the most eective to lower your anxiety and
increase your life. But the most important strategy of all is to remember
that when you are creating your own condent morning it needs to be
sustainable for you. The best routine is the one you actually stick to.
If you are anything like I used to be, you need to listen to this part. I used
to spend so much time worrying about the perfect morning routine.
Should I wake up at 5:45 or 6:00. Should I meditate before or after, I
shower. Should I exercise or not exercise? This constant need to be
perfect kept my mornings stressful and prevented me from forming
habits with my morning.
So, my hope is that you try out some of the ones that worked wonders
for decreasing my anxiety and test if they make a dierence for you. If
they dont then drop them and try something else. The key is to keep
testing what works and what doesnt for you and your life. The more you
test; the closer you will get to your condent morning.
An Empowered Morning isnt something that just falls into your lapits
created consciously. I hope you are able to implement some changes in
your morning and more importantly, I hope it lowers your anxiety and
gives you more excitement in life!
The Morning Routine Experts
Chris Wineld
Kevan Lee
Taylor Pearson
Benjamin P. Hardy
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