How I Work Through Sadness and Fragility Each Morning

First published on July 3, 2019

I often feel sad and fragile in the morning. Not every morning, not all the time. But most mornings.

I try not to check my phone, because if I do and there's a message there that says the wrong thing, or a tweet about the wrong issue, I'll find myself locked in an anxious contraction. I turned off email alerts on my phone for partly this reason, to give myself a chance in the morning.

It's not because my life isn't good, by the way. By any measure I can think of it's better than it has ever been. But I don't jump out of bed in delight, skipping across the bedroom with cartoon birds singing round my head. I lie there, wishing I didn't have to get up, feeling sad or anxious about the day ahead.

Jonathan Haidt talks about this - knowing it is sensible to get up, but still not moving - as proof that our rational brain isn't as in control as we think it is: if our instincts want to stay in bed, then we stay in bed.

For me, it's just a part of the pattern of life. When I spoke to a friend of mine last year, she thought being miserable in the mornings was proof that she needed to change her job. Now, it may well have been the right thing for her to change her job, but for me there is no correlation (let alone causation) between feeling miserable in the morning and doing powerful work that fulfills me and changes the world for the better.

I often feel miserable in the morning. Here's what I do to help with that.

In the end, I get up (after wrestling with my instincts for a while, and usually ill-advisedly checking my phone and getting dragged by my instincts yet again into some dopamine-friendly app).

I put my exercise gear on and I go to the gym. I know from Eve Poole that there is research that shows that the only way to break down stress hormones is exercise, and also that you can fuel yourself up ahead of time. So I go to the gym and I do some lifting and some cardio. It's not a particularly well-planned or efficient workout, but it's good enough. It gets my heart pumping, gets the endorphins flowing. While I'm at the gym, I listen to something, a podcast. Nothing too stressful, as I'm still trying to protect myself in a fragile morning state. Nothing political, usually, and certainly no news. Often a football podcast, sometimes Tim Ferriss, sometimes a different interview, sometimes a documentary. Occasionally something political, actually, if I'm feeling secure enough.

I come home and eat my breakfast. It's not a perfect breakfast (too many carbs, maybe) but it's not terrible (sugar only via banana, protein via almonds). While I'm eating it, I drink a lot of water (dehydration is a common reason for feeling off-centre) and a take multivitamin (I trust the placebo effect will make sure I gain something from it, even if most of the vitamins will pass through my system). I sit, as I do this, and I read. Usually fiction: I'm still easing myself in to the day, protecting myself from things that might stress me until I'm feeling secure.

Then I shower and dress and make a cup of coffee.

I sit down with the cup of coffee and as I drink it, I read again. Usually this is about 15 minutes of non-fiction, which is often my entire helping of non-fiction for the day.

At some point during this routine, towards the end, my phone will buzz with the question: 'What is in best service of your goals today?' I write the answer to this in a note on my phone, and check if I did what I said was most important the day before (marking 'did this' if I did it, or what happened if I didn't).

And then I'm ready to start work. If I have a coaching call first, I'll do two short meditations to prepare myself and warm myself up for my work. If not, I'll ease into whatever is most important.

I go to a lot of trouble to make sure that I work myself through the sadness I feel in the morning, the fragility, and build myself a solid foundation for the day.

It started bit by bit and evolved month by month and year by year. On different days each part of this feels like the part that makes the most difference, the part I love the most.

You might not have the freedom to do all these things, but you can do some of them if you choose to. You can do a little more today than you did yesterday.

And now, by accident, I have something to answer Tim Ferriss if he ever asks me to tell him about my morning routine.