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How to Master Your Morning Routine
April 16, 2024
When it comes to improving resilience, we know from the research that consistency is key. Consistency is about ensuring regular habits that we can string together to form a ‘routine’. It is habits that are important.
It comes as no surprise that an effective morning routine can set you up for success for the rest of the day. We sat down with Rob Redenbach, one of Australia’s most sought after keynote speakers, to find out his morning non-negotiables.
Rob has survived a road-side ambush in Baghdad and performed stand-up comedy at the world’s largest arts festival in Scotland. Rob has also worked with Nelson Mandela’s bodyguard team in South Africa and trained elite organisations in his unique style of highly functional martial arts. He is a successful author and his latest book, The Promise, was described by Mark Wales as “timeless advice on how to grapple with the mess, pain and uncertainty of life.”
Q: What is the importance of a morning routine to you?
R: The answer begins with an understanding of the Anterior Mid-Cingulate Cortex (AMCC). People know about the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, but the AMCC is a relatively new discovery and is a brain area that governs tenacity and willpower. People such as Dr Andrew Huberman describe it as one of the most significant discoveries within neurobiology. Comparable to a muscle, it builds with training and deteriorates with neglect. Each time someone chooses to do something they don’t want to do but it’s good for them, or they resist doing something bad for them, they engage the AMCC.
Q: Have you found that the benefits compound every day as you execute your routine?
R: Yes! That’s part of the beauty of the research. The more it’s worked, the stronger it becomes. Just as the more it’s neglected the weaker it becomes. There are fascinating studies showing its use within professional athletes when their careers end and they stop training. These studies show in MRI scans that there’s a significant reduction in that part of the brain. It also is larger in people who stick to a diet, and it contracts when they fall off the wagon and stop the diet. Working it every day consistently over time builds the capacity of that AMCC.
Q: What are your key morning habits?
R: The first thing I do – and it’s not original – is simply make my bed. There’s an interesting YouTube clip from US Admirable William H. McRaven. He talks about the value of making your bed and I subscribe to that. It’s not a big thing, or overly difficult, but it takes a little bit of a push so that’s the very first thing.
The next thing I do is 10 minutes of controlled breathing. Again, it’s not overly difficult, but it takes a bit of grunt to stop me from saying “Oh, I’ll skip it today”. It’s the doing it that has value as far as AMCC goes, but of course, there are benefits to breathing/meditation.
The next one might sound a bit loopy, but I go and have a cold shower. Again, there’s a lot of really convincing research about the value of cold-water exposure or cold-water therapy.
Then, I’ll go outside and just walk around the block to get that early morning sunlight, it only takes about 6-7 minutes. Again, based on science, there’s some extensive research on the value of getting those early morning rays from different angles. The photons are registered by the optic nerves differently and it stimulates elements of the brain structure that reduce the impact of the amygdala. You don’t want that fear section firing first thing in the morning.
Finally, I come back and check my phone. Thanks to Tim Curtis, I realised I had developed an appalling habit of checking my phone non-stop. I don’t think It would be an exaggeration to say I was checking my phone 100 times a day. This got to the point where I was checking my phone as soon as I woke up. You don’t want that early morning addictive dopamine hit for low function activities like social media. So, I resist that desire to check my phone by getting up, making my bed, doing the 10 minutes of breathing, having a cold shower, going for a walk and then allowing myself to check that phone.
Q: How have you made your morning routine adaptable throughout your life, including during your time in South Africa?
R: Part of the reason I choose those specific components is that they are transferrable from one location to another. I think there’s potential for it to add consistency and value since I’m not dependent on any equipment. Maybe the cold shower isn’t always there. For example, in September last year, I spent a couple of weeks in Scotland, and I would get up in the morning and walk down to jump into a cold Scottish creek. It did the job!
Q: How do you deal with disruption to your routine?
R: I don’t worry about it. I’m not going to beat myself up if something happens. That’s life, I get on with it. It’s not a case of, “oh my god, my morning routine has been broken! How will I cope? Today is ruined!”. I just don’t allow my mind to get caught in that rabbit hole.
Q: What is your advice to others who are wanting to master their morning routine?
R: I think to approach it from the thinking that it’s the consistent focusing on the development of the AMCC; that’s the foundation. What someone does in their routine is all secondary. Is it better to have, for example, cold water exposure first thing in the morning, or should somebody jump into a sauna? It doesn’t really matter, what matters is that it takes a bit of effort. What matters is that people don’t really want to do it, but you overcome that limbic friction.
On the other side of that, it needs to be something positive and healthy. If someone’s waking up in the morning and the first thing they do is reach for a packet of cigarettes, that’s not so healthy! Don’t blame the AMCC for that! Use the AMCC to overcome that addictive compulsion.
It doesn’t matter what the specifics are; what does matter is there has to be some bit of resistance. If somebody wakes up in the morning and, for example, loves making their bed – well, they’re not working their AMCC. It’s still nice they make their bed, but the AMCC requires a different activity, so they need to find something that they’d prefer not to do.
Upcoming Events
Conversations with Mandela
Sydney Opera House, 13 July 2024
With hundreds of shows to choose from at the world’s largest arts festival at the Edinburgh Fringe 2023, the Edinburgh Evening News compiled a list of the Top 10 acts worth catching at the Fringe – Rob Redenbach’s Conversations with Mandela was positioned at #4. With a masterful mix of humour and storytelling, Redenbach recounts his journey from Australian nightclub security to working in South Africa with the bodyguard team of Nelson Mandela. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride as Conversations with Mandela provides unforgettable insights into one of the 20th century’s most celebrated leaders.