Welcome back to Morning routines to reach any goal article series! The previous installments, part 1-4, can be easily accessed from the WIP homepage. We're adding another routine to the pack with part 5: exercise.
Exercise is one of the ingredients of The Miracle Morning, a technique Hal Elrod describes in his book that almost guarantees a Christmas-morning-like feeling when waking up. While Morning routines to reach any goal article series isn't the same as Elrod's technique, I've decided to have this one element in common, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, exercising in the morning, within the hour from waking up, helps your body wake up and shake any feeling of getting back under the blanket there may be left. Secondly, doing something physically active will refresh your mind as well, as the increased blood and oxygen flow in your body will allow you to think clearer and get the mood elevation that comes with the release of endorphins. Thirdly, getting up your butt and doing the exercise in the evening, when you're already mentally and physically tired from the day, is a hundred times harder than doing it in the morning. Fourthly, exercising is a form of self-love. You'll feel better after doing it, both physically and mentally, and that elevated feeling shows in your confidence.
In the morning, exercising won't deprive you of energy, but the opposite - it energises you. And if losing weight or getting in shape is a goal of yours, it sounds like exercising is a task in your daily to-do list, giving you all the more reason to get it over with rigt after waking up.
So whatever your chosen activity is - running, swimming, yoga, pilates, weight lifting - do it within 60 minutes of waking up, sometime amidst the coffee and the goal listing and the cold shower, and before your first time block of the day.
Take care of yourself. It'll come in handy on your path to greatness.
RK
