You wake up in your bed just as the sun peeks through your curtains. After a good night’s sleep, you feel well-rested and optimistic about the day ahead.
The first thing you do is reach for your phone and start scrolling. Soon, the flood of social media notifications, news, emails, and messages sends your brain buzzing. The day has barely begun, and already you’re glued to your phone and looking for your next boost—perhaps caffeine will help?
What’s really happened is that the sudden switch from the calmness of sleep to overstimulation has given you a dopamine hit. Later in the day, you’ll want more of those—leading to an unending spiral of unhealthy activities.
What you do during your first 90 minutes—or so says the low-dopamine morning trend—influences what your brain craves for the rest of your day. 🧠 By minimizing instant gratification during those crucial 90 minutes, you can train your mind and body for deep, focused work and sustained productivity.
Many people are embracing a calm, low-stimulation morning routine and finding that it helps! Interested in transforming your mornings? Read on. 🌞
How to Improve Productivity with a Low-Dopamine Morning Routine
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Is a Low-Dopamine Morning Routine?
A low-dopamine morning routine is a structured approach to starting your day by minimizing activities that cause rapid increases in your dopamine levels.
Dopamine is a chemical produced by the brain. It plays a crucial role in regulating mood and motivation. It’s often associated with feelings of reward and reinforcement.
A low-dopamine morning routine means starting your day without immediately engaging in activities that provide instant gratification, such as checking your phone or consuming high-stimulation content. As these activities have been shown to drain your energy in the long term.
The theory is that indulging in such activities early on makes you more likely to turn to the same activities later in the day when you’re working at your desk or attending a meeting. This can make it harder to concentrate.
Public attention on low-dopamine mornings began on TikTok, ironically enough. As users on other social media platforms highlighted the negative effects of starting the day with dopamine-spiking activities, the low dopamine morning trend took off.
Did You Know: The low-dopamine morning movement is a viral social media sensation with over 5.6 million views under the hashtag #lowdopaminemorning.
The trend encourages you to embrace simple, low-stress tasks and screen-free morning rituals such as making your bed, making breakfast, watering plants, or going for a stroll.
Keeping your dopamine levels in check has multiple benefits. It can help prevent mood swings and increase productivity later in the day. People with ADHD may benefit even more from low-dopamine activities: reducing the amount of dopamine in the brain can help them better control their impulses and reduce anxiety levels.
If you’re intrigued, start by asking yourself a few questions:
Do you start your day with activities that give you dopamine hits?
Do you want to change that and improve your mood, productivity, and creativity?
If yes, you’re in the right place!
Summarize this article for me pleaseCrafting a Low-Dopamine Morning Routine
If you don’t want to start your day with a dopamine rollercoaster, try dialing it down a notch. Give your brain a gentle wake-up call instead of a screen-filled or caffeinated jolt. Start small with these steps:
- Practice mindfulness: Stay grounded as you navigate through your morning rituals. Being present helps keep you calm and collected
- Maintain discipline: Consistency is key. Stick to your routine to build habits that last a lifetime
- Make time for exercise: Exercising in the morning has proven benefits—it helps regulate your circadian rhythm and improves sleep quality. Include high-intensity interval training (HIIT) in moderation and consider guidance from a fitness professional to ensure it’s done safely.
- Prioritize low-intensity workouts: HIIT in the morning can sometimes lead to restlessness. Go for a long walk or practice yoga
- Delay gratification: Train your brain to savor being in the moment rather than chase immediate rewards. Keep away from your smartphone for at least an hour after waking up. Think of it as a digital detox for your brain—no social-media-induced dopamine spikes before breakfast
If you need a more focused approach to planning a low-dopamine morning routine that works for you, try using a good planning app to craft one. A user-friendly and versatile one like ClickUp would work best. Individuals and companies alike use it as a one-tool-suits-all solution and vouch for its versatility.
As Kateryna Sipakova, Portfolio Manager at Trinetix, says,
So, how can ClickUp help?
First on, ClickUp’s Daily Planner Template can help you create an engaging and energizing low-dopamine routine. With this template, you can:
- Organize tasks into categories such as Personal, Work, or Goals
- Prioritize tasks based on their importance and urgency
- Monitor progress with visual aids like graphs and charts
You can also customize this template to better suit your needs by adding elements such as Custom Statuses—Completed, In Progress, and To Do—to keep track of your tasks. Incorporate Custom Fields such as Deadline and Estimated Time to easily visualize how your low-dopamine morning routine transforms your health and well-being.
Now, let’s take a look at some activities that can be part of your new low-dopamine morning routine.
Meditate and do breathing exercises
Meditation and breathing exercises can set a tranquil tone. Incorporating these practices into your daily habits can create a peaceful routine and help you be more mindful and aware throughout the day.
Meditation, however, may not work for everyone. You can figure out whether meditation works for you by using ClickUp’s Exercise Log Template. It can visualize patterns and track the impact that daily meditation and other exercises have on your well-being and mood.
The ClickUp Exercise Log Template helps you keep track of any exercise activity. You can use it to:
- Log each workout: Capture detailed notes to track your progress and improvements over time
- Search efficiently: Easily find specific exercises, equipment used, and other details to refine your routine
- Track key metrics: Monitor important stats like sets and reps, duration, weight lifted, and more to stay on top of your fitness goals
You can add some key elements to this template, such as Custom Statuses—Completed, Missed, and To Do—to keep track of your progress in your fitness journey. Plus, Custom Fields such as Flexibility Exercise, Trainer, Strength Exercise, Session Duration, and Balance Exercise are great to save vital information about your workouts and easily visualize your progress.
Pro Tip: Studies suggest that morning meditation may be particularly impactful in improving attention levels and performance on accuracy-based tasks.
Eat a protein-rich breakfast
Opt for a high-protein breakfast to sustain your energy levels throughout the day.
Protein-rich foods help keep you full and support brain function so you can tackle your workday with clarity and focus.
In fact, you can create a food journal using ClickUp Docs to:
- Categorize pages for specific needs, such as a water consumption tracker and favorite high-protein breakfast recipes
- Track what you eat, when you eat, and who you eat with
- Personalize your experience using colors, fonts, and images that resonate with you, making it more motivating
You can share your food journal with friends and fellow fitness enthusiasts, revving up your social interactions and giving yourself another boost in motivation!
Go for a walk in natural light
When you wake up every morning, go outside and seek natural light—a great source of Vitamin D. And as your body feels refreshed, let your mind wander. Researchers at Stanford University found that walking promotes free-flowing ideation, also known as “divergent thinking.” Divergent thinking allows you to come up with many ideas and unleashes your creativity. Just make sure to wear sunscreen and carry adequate sun protection! ☀️
You can also utilize this time to take stock of the coming day and plan for it. Create a to-do list of tasks and plan your work day well in advance. This sets a focused tone for the day, ensuring you tackle your priorities with clarity and purpose. You’ll find a variety of daily planner templates online that can assist with your planning.
Fun Fact: Henry David Thoreau called early morning walks ‘a blessing for the whole day‘. A philosopher, naturalist, and writer, Thoreau believed in living a simple life surrounded by nature.
Delay morning stimulants like coffee
Morning coffee might be the first thing your system craves, and after years of feeding this addiction, it might seem impossible to break the habit. But delaying your morning cappuccino can be beneficial.
Allow your body to wake up naturally before introducing caffeine. This can lead to more sustained energy throughout the day.
Avoid stressful tasks and high-dopamine activities in the morning
Avoid tasks and activities that could spike your stress hormone levels or dopamine production. Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, for example, deliver a constant stream of videos and images that trigger a ‘sensory rush’ and consequent dopamine release.
Instead, focus on a low-stress task that prepares you for a productive day without overwhelming your senses. As we discussed earlier, you can use your early morning hours to set goals for the day.
Later in the day, use ClickUp Goals to fine-tune those goals. Set targets and measure progress automatically. You can create different folders to track different categories of goals you’ve set for yourself. If you’re someone who thrives on external motivation, share these goals with your friends and family members to keep you accountable. You can also use some goal-setting templates to do this instantly.
Having set goals, get the most out of them using ClickUp’s Daily Goal Template.
You can use this template to:
- Set realistic and measurable goals that are attainable and specific
- Regularly review your progress and adjust your goals as necessary
- Maintain motivation and focus on your long-term vision
- Stay organized with a record of your achievements
- Gain clarity and direction in your goal-setting efforts
To further tailor this template to your needs, consider tracking goal progress using Custom Statuses such as On Track, At Risk, and Completed. You can also use Custom Fields such as Goal Deadline, Priority Level, and Progress Percentage to store vital information and visualize your progress at a glance.
Daily checklist apps are an easy way to enhance your routine by helping you stay organized and on track with your goals.
ClickUp is like a helpful friend that supports your personal goals. With its easy-to-use and intuitive design, this app makes transforming your morning routine easy and fun!
Summarize this article for me pleaseHow to Maintain Low-Dopamine Energy Throughout the Day
Well, you now know how to keep dopamine levels low in the morning. What about the rest of the day?
Keeping your dopamine levels in check is like trying to calm a puppy—challenging but doable with effort. Tactics like taking regular breaks, practicing mindfulness, and avoiding the lure of doomscrolling can help.
As your day starts to get busy and filled with stressful activities, and you find yourself feeling agitated or overwhelmed, try deep breathing exercises or taking a quick walk outside.
Try habit stacking to inculcate a sense of discipline, such as linking your new low-dopamine activity of reading a book with your existing routine of spending time outdoors. Finish your morning walk by sitting on a park bench and reading your book for 15 minutes—that’s two great morning rituals rolled into one!
Want to make sure you’re staying on track? Using habit tracker templates can help you monitor your progress and stay motivated as you build and sustain these positive routines.
Summarize this article for me pleasePlan a Low-Dopamine Morning with ClickUp
Low-dopamine mornings may have started as a TikTok fad—but the benefits of a mindful start to the day have been validated by expert opinions, studies, and real-world experiences.
By integrating practical strategies and understanding the science behind low dopamine states, you can set up an effective morning routine that works for you.
Ready to streamline your morning routine? Try ClickUp today to organize your tasks and track your progress, making your mornings as productive and calm as possible.
Get started with ClickUp today!
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