The Biology of Morning Routines: Why Do We Have Them? – Huffington Post

What are the most important parts of a morning routine? originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Answer by James Altucher, author, entrepreneur, podcaster, wall street investor, on Quora:

They say, win the morning, win the day.

I dont know what that means.

Heres the only thing thats important in a morning routine: Brush your teeth.

Brushing your teeth gets you moving, shakes your head a lot so you wake up, and gives you good breath. People hate to smell people with bad breath. And you cant miss with bad breath.

Plus dental hygiene helps prevent strokes and heart disease because it prevents infections that can reach your brain or heart.

And finally, you look better with better teeth. Its one of the few things I can control in my looks that only takes a few minutes a day.

Did you know the leading cause of suicide in the 1800s was dental pain? Dental pain is the worst.

If you don't do anything else in the morning, just do this.

Heres what I do every morning, because I love doing this:

First, be a maker, then a manager.

I READ: For the first two hours after waking up I read from at least one fiction book, one non-fiction book, one self-help book , and one book about games.

I WRITE: Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational. once told me that the brain is most active two to five hours after you wake up.

So by the time I finish reading, I start writing. I dont know if the writing will be good or bad. I just make sure I write every day.

I love writing and I want to be good at it. To be good at something you have to do it almost every day so you get a lot of exercise.

And thats my morning. No phone calls. No Internet. No games. I read and write.

Then in the afternoon, Ill eat and then manage. Make phone calls related to business.

And then I play. I play every day.

Today: Im going to play basketball. And Im horrible at it. And the person I play against crushes me every time and she tries to show me how to be better. But Im really bad. But I try.

Humans, chimpanzees, apes, etc were hunter-gatherers for millions of years.

Think about how we evolved.

Humans, chimpanzees, apes, etc. were hunter-gatherers for millions of years.

This means we had no morning routine. When we were hungry, we searched for food. When we exhausted the resources of the area we lived, we moved.

Its estimated humans worked for about twelve hours a day taking care of their basic needs. What else did they do? They had sex and played.

And, I guess, some tribes probably battled over resources. Or moved rather than fight.

When did routine develop?

Ten thousand years ago we had the Agricultural Revolution. Hunters became farmers over the course of several centuries.

Now we had morning routines.

Get the water from the river. Clean out the weeds growing around the wheat. Take care of the cows and chickens and pigs that we had just domesticated rather than hunt them in the wild like we did for thousands of years.

This was the first time humans had morning routines. Did it make us successful?

Many farmers were poor hungry peasants or slaves their entire lives. And once we had to protect our stores of wheat, there were many wars to battle for resources that we could no longer move away from.

The human species grew to be huge and take over the world. But the individual human wasnt necessarily happy.

Dont be dedicated to a morning routine.

Many people commute in the morning. They use this commute to close their eyes, to rest, to read the newspaper.

I have two friends who tried something different.

One wrote one page a day on a novel. Hes now on his third successful thriller novel. The first one sold one hundred thousand copies. It took him two years to finish. One page a day.

Another woman I know wrote one page a day on a screenplay while she was on the subway commute to work.

She wrote the movie, Pitch Perfect, which, I have to say, Ive seen three times with my kids.

Vary things up. Do something different. Explore your morning routine like its an uncharted map into your life.

Go west, young man (or woman).

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Excerpt from:
The Biology of Morning Routines: Why Do We Have Them? - Huffington Post