Hi [FIRST NAME GOES HERE],
My work generally focuses on how to become happier. But over the years, I’ve found that the questions I most often get from readers are less about getting happier and more about becoming less unhappy. Getting happier or less unhappy might strike you as equivalent efforts, but they aren’t. Indeed, neuroscientists have long shown that positive and negative emotions are produced in different regions of the brain.
What the science says
This distinction between your positive and negative emotions also means that their intensity does not move in tandem. Being below or above average intensity in positive and negative mood—which psychologists call affect—has been a topic of a lot of research, and led scholars to develop the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. (I am what I call a “Mad Scientist” profile: I’m above the population mean in both positive and negative affect. You can discover your affect profile here.)
When it comes to negative affect, especially for those who feel it intensely like me, one’s experience of it can vary a lot over the course of the day. Some people feel best in the morning and are grumpier at night. I tend to experience the reverse, with my highest negative affect in the early hours of the day.
What I think
My personal well-being challenge is to manage strong negative affect in the morning. I do this with the help of a six-part daily protocol, based on the neuroscience and behavioral-science research that is my trade. If you, like me, struggle to feel fully human in the morning, this protocol can probably help you.
What you can do
Regardless of the time of day, you can surely find ways to adopt this routine that works for you as well.
- Experience the Brāhma Muhurta. I rise daily at 4:30 a.m. In the Hindu religion, Brāhma Muhurta means “the creator’s time” and refers to the moment that occurs precisely one hour and 36 minutes before sunrise. Although modern neuroscience has found no evidence for positive effects from rising precisely one hour and 36 minutes before dawn, good experimental—not just observational or anecdotal—data suggest that pre-dawn rising leads to better attentiveness, mood, and recall throughout the day.
- Get physical. My first activity, starting at 4:45 a.m., is to exercise for an hour, usually 30-45 minutes of heavy resistance training (weightlifting), plus 15-30 minutes of Zone-2 cardio (the level at which I am breathing heavily but can still talk). Lots of research has shown that mood improves and depressive symptoms fall with vigorous physical exercise.
- Get metaphysical. After exercise, I get cleaned up, and at 6:30 a.m., go to daily Catholic mass (with my wife, when I’m not on the road). This lasts about 30 minutes. Obviously, if you are not Catholic, this is not for you. But focused meditation or prayer of some sort—religious or not—is an important component of this protocol. Meditation, even among the inexperienced and for short periods, significantly lowers negative mood.
- The magic bean. This is the point at which I introduce caffeine. Caffeine blocks the A2A receptors in the brain from detecting adenosine, a neuromodulator that depresses your energy and promotes drowsiness. Caffeine doesn’t in fact, pep you up; rather, it stops you from feeling lethargic. More importantly, being caffeinated demonstrably lowers negative affect.
- Tryptophan time. With my coffee, I take my first meal, which is a large dose of protein in the form of unsweetened Greek yoghurt, whey protein, nuts, and berries. The affect-management properties of this first meal are significant as well. Researchers have shown that proteins high in the essential amino acid tryptophan raise serotonin activity in the brain. In other words, this dietary approach improves mood by encouraging calm.
- Get into the flow. The last element of this morning protocol is work, to which I turn my attention by about 7:30 a.m. I take almost no meetings or calls before noon, so I can get several hours of uninterrupted time to write, prepare lectures, develop new ideas, and read research by others. This helps to induce a flow state, which balances mastery and challenge in such a way that I am fully engaged yet not stressed out, and is closely linked to an improved affect balance, raising positive mood and lowering negative mood.
These six protocols have changed my life in a very positive way. Your challenges may be different from mine, as will what works best for you. But if your affect profile is at all similar, you might want to use this protocol as a starting point. Then you can carefully vary each of the elements, keeping painstaking records of the results—being your own Mad Scientist working on an experiment. And watch as your well-being improves.
Want to learn more?
If you’re like me, you might like to track your progress with your morning protocol the old-fashioned way (with—gasp—paper and pencil). My team and I created a handy worksheet to help you do so.
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You can also learn about it in this week’s episode of my show Office Hours, where I covered my morning protocol in detail. Watch on YouTube, or listen on Spotify and Apple.
Finally, in unrelated (but no less exciting) news, my book publisher, Penguin, tells me that my eBook of Build the Life You Want will be on sale this Wednesday, 9/24, for only $1.99. You can grab your e-copy here.
