13 Apr If being productive makes you happy, then do these things first thing every morning!
via Inc.com by Benjamin P Hardy
When you start your workday, do you feel like Superman or like a zombie? If you're like most people, you probably feel like a zombie.
Most people's mornings are a chaotic mess. Exhausted. Stimulant-driven. Rough.
However, Benjamin Franklin is quoted to have said: "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." To be sure, when you consciously develop an effective morning routine, your entire life will change and improve.
Let's begin.
1. Get a quality 7-plus hours of sleep (wake up between 5 and 6 a.m.)
The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) conducted surveys revealing that at least 40 million Americans suffer from over 70 different sleep disorders. Not only that: 60 percent of adults, and 69 percent of children, experience one or more sleep problems a few nights or more during a week.
In addition, more than 40 percent of adults experience daytime sleepiness severe enough to interfere with their daily activities at least a few days each month–with 20 percent reporting problem sleepiness a few days a week or more.
On the flip-side, getting a healthy amount of sleep is linked to:
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Increased memory
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Longer life
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Decreased inflammation
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Increased creativity
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Increased attention and focus
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Decreased fat and increased muscle mass with exercise
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Lower stress
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Decreased dependence on stimulants like caffeine
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Decreased risk of getting into accidents
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Decreased risk of depression
If you don't make sleep a priority, the rest of this article is irrelevant. You may use stimulants to compensate, but that isn't sustainable.
2. Don't check your email or social media (0 minutes)
Eighty percent of people between the ages of 18 and 44 check their smartphones within 15 minutes of waking up.
Checking your smartphone puts you in a reactive–as opposed to a proactive–state. Emails and other notifications are databases for other people's agendas. They're distractive inputs that get in the way of creative outputs…
…keep reading the full & original article HERE