Mastering The Daily Routine

As my first post to Medium, I can’t think of a better place to start than the daily routine. As James Clear states, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems”, and there is no more important system than the routine you carry out knowingly (or unknowingly), every day.

My daily routine has been, and will be an evolving method over many years, with the main goals being:

• To best optimise and protect my body circadian rhythms, to allow better energy and focus today, and longevity of health for the future.
• Start each day on a clean sheet of paper, not let stress or worries carry over between days.
• Efficiently move through necessary daily tasks (brushing teeth, showering chores etc) without worrying about when and how I do them.

Before diving into the routine itself, it is important to highlight the key science, knowledge and experience that define it. In subsequent posts I will dive deeper into these topics.

• Sleep: We should wake and go to bed at the same time every day. This trains our mind and body to release hormones at the same time each day to promote sleep and wakefulness. Namely the production of more cortisol and less melatonin in the morning to wake us up naturally and more melatonin and less cortisol in the evening to help us fall asleep. It also controls our core temperature minimum, which occurs approximately 1.5–2 hours before waking. This directly impacts the circadian body clocks throughout the day, which govern cell repair, organ functions etc. Note, this does not mean a specific time of day, just the same time.
• Morning light: After sleep, light according to Dr Andrew Huberman, is the most important factor for controlling our daily wakefulness cycles. When we first receive light (particularly, blue wavelength) into our eyes, it helps to set circadian rhythms into progress. The timing of that morning light, and how it interacts with light in the evenings is a more detailed discussion, but generally getting 5000K+ temperature, 10,000lux light for 10+ minutes within the first hour of waking is key to health and happiness. Outside ideally, but I also have a 10,000 lux SAD light for those overcast UK days.
• Evening light: Getting light around sunset is good to balance the potentially circadian advancing effects of morning light, but importantly according to Huberman will help to reduce the negative effects of receiving light from screens later that evening as most of us do at a phone / laptop / TV. Nonetheless the main goal here is to not get blue light in the evenings (use night shift, blue blockers etc), and reduce / remove screen time within the 1–2 hours before bed. Also Huberman points towards multiple papers that states getting light between the hours of approximately 11PM-4AM has negative impacts on many things, including dopamine production and depression.
• Eating: Here I draw insight from a fantastic book: “The Circadian Code”, by Dr Satchin Panda, a truly fantastic read, with life changing implications when actioned (for myself and several friends I recommended it to). The key here is to eat within a 8–10 hour window, and fast outside that. Fasting for me mean only water, but I do currently allow a caffeine drink within the 10 hour eating window, to make eating within an 8 hour window more enjoyable. Time restricted eating is a whole topic in itself for a later post, but this brings me greater focus, energy, longevity, metabolic flexibility, some potential autophagy amongst much more.
• Exercise: The timing of exercise for me works best to align with my natural circadian core body temperature and meal plans. Exercising around 5PM ensures my body temperature is near its high to reduce the chance of injury, and gives my muscles a glucose clear out just before I eat my largest meal, dinner, around 6–7PM, meaning a reduction in glucose and insulin spike. Especially important, considering our insulin sensitivity (ability to store glucose quickly) is worse later in the day, again more detail for another post.
• Body core temperature: This can be influenced through showers, baths, exercise. Generally you want a rising temperature in the morning to help you become more wakeful, a dropping body temperature at night to help promote sleepiness.
• Morning mediation, journal, reflection: The power of this cannot be emphasied enough. This is an opportunity to check in on yourself, how your mind and body are feeling, and create a clean sheet of paper for the new day. Only then can you write on that paper how you want to be, and what you need to do for the day.

Above is a rough mapping of some key circadian trends through the day the body experiences. I have since measured my own core temperature and cortisol levels and will delve deeper in later posts.

Right, without further ado, lets jump into the daily routine:

7:00AM: Sleep app on Apple Watch wakes me up, out of bed within 5 mins

Wake routine (10 mins)

• Wash face, wet hair
• Clean teeth (left handed to promote neural plasticity and early focus)
• Get dressed
• Drink 1 pint of water

Go for a walk outside (15 mins)

• 10+ minutes of bright natural light early to kick off circadian clocks
• Walking promotes optic flow (Huberman) that helps to reduce anxiety
• Body temperature keeps rising through movement to help wakefulness

Morning stretch (5 mins)

• Various dynamic stretches to ensure not overly stretching tight muscles
• Gets body supple for the day, helps flexibility throughout day
• Gets mind aware of aches and pains and helps focus on the body

Meditation (5–15 mins)

• Typically, 1 breathing exercise, 1 body scan, 1 mindfulness technique
• To be discussed further in later blog

Morning Journal (5 mins)

• Briefly review the previous day, what I was grateful for, what others were grateful for
• Briefly think about the day ahead, how I need to feel, what I need to do
• List 3 main tasks / goals for the day, and a key habit / focus for the day

8:00–8:30AM: Start focussed work

9:30–10:00AM: Caffeine (optional)

• Around 90 mins after I start working (1 focus cycle) I might have a tea (yerba mate / guayusa / green / black) without milk or sugar.
• Note: no caffeine at least 2 hours after waking to not effect and take benefit of natural adenosine process. Also, I don’t want to interfere with the cortisol spike which is high first thing in the morning
• With coffee I always supplement L-Theanine to remove the coffee anxiety / jitters.

11:00AM: Breakfast, supplements

• No food up to this point, food fasting window 7PM-11AM
• Try to eat the same type of food at the same time every day so that my body produces insulin, saliva, body prepares for intake of food.
• Insulin sensitivity is better in the morning so typically I eat some carbs (oats) with at least 50% nuts and nut butter, with nut or oat milk. Ground flax seed is my favourite for that extra Omega 3 hit.
• Daily vitamins include vitamin C (1000mg), vitamin D (4000IU), 1000mg Omega 3 (fish oil), some form of magnesium supplement

2:00PM: Lunch

• Typically, a smaller meal consisting mostly of vegetables, fats and protein (minimal carbs to help reduce glucose spikes and production of serotonin)

5:00–6:00PM: Workout

• 5 days a week
• Using peak body temperature of the day to minimise injury risk
• Ensure at least 2 hours since last food to maximise growth hormone production
• Drink additional water 30–60 mins before to ensure hydrated
• Hydrate with an electrolyte mix of Sodium, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium

6:00–7:00PM: Dinner

• Keeping a regular schedule allows body to produce enzymes etc to prepare for food processing, cell clocks are in tune with food intake
• Typically, a balanced meal of carbs, protein, fats. Less carbs if I haven’t exercised that day
• Normally follow up with mint tea to help digestion
• Ensure at least 2 hours before sleeping to maximise growth hormone and sleep efficiency.

8:00PM: All light around the house are dimmed, all smart devices have low temperature night shift enabled

9:30PM: Prepare for bed

• No screens from this point onwards
• Hot shower within 30–60 mins of bed to ensure body temperature drops to promote sleepiness

10:00PM: Read

• Aim for 30 mins of reading to calm mind. Generally non-fiction at night.

10:30PM: Sleep preparation

• Back stretches: quick round of 4 back stretches to take out stored tension in spine and neck and prepare for comfortable sleeping
• 3 physiological sighs — short double inhale, long exhale to reduce stress and lower heart rate
• Scan muscles, particularly those in the face around the eyes to allow tension to release, and not store it unconsciously

If not asleep within 30 mins:

• Apigenin (camomile extract) normally sends me off within 20 mins
• Get out of bed and go to another room, open door to outside and then get back in

Some key windows throughout the day

That was longer than I’d hoped, but if you made it this far, thank you for reading and I hope you found something interesting, useful, or familiar to your own routine. Please do comment, I’d love to hear what your suggestions are and whether you agree or disagree with the above.

As always with change, start small. Brainstorm where you need the greatest change, and focus on one change at a time. Write down your own routine and be mindful of how it is impacting you, and build your own system.

And finally, this is my perfect day, but I am not perfect. I will sleep in a few days every week, miss the odd workout, eat a little earlier or later one day, I get ill and take time off, etc etc. The key is always to contain it to one mistake where possible, don’t beat yourself up over it, be self compassionate, and crack on the next day. Thank you for reading and good luck!