This is the best morning ritual 3 secrets from research

This is the best morning bung 3 secrets from researchThis is the best morning ritual 3 secrets from researchA morning ritual suresoundsnice (if it didnt, you wouldnt be reading this) but whats the point of one? Whats it even supposed to accomplish?No, you dont have to eat kale or mechanistically begin planning your day according to some odd formula. Youre human. The first thing you need to do is get your head on straight. Get your feelings sorted. Your mood.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moraResearch shows yourmood in the morningaffects your productivity all dayResearchers found that employees moods when they clocked intended to affect how they felt the rest of the day. Early mood was linked to their perceptions of customers and to how they reacted to customers moods.And most important to managers, employee mood had a clear impact on wertmiger zuwachs, including both how much work employees did and how well they did it.Seriously, your mood is numero uno. Think you can ignore your feelings or fight them? Think again, Spock.FromThe Antidote Happiness for People Who Cant Stand Positive Thinkingwhen experimental subjects are told of an unhappy event, but then instructed to tryleidto feel sad about it, they end up feeling worse than people who are informed of the event, but given no instructions about how to feel. In another study, when patients who were suffering from panic disorders listened to relaxation tapes, their hearts beat faster than patients who listened to audiobooks with no explicitly relaxing content. Bereaved people who make the most effort to avoid feeling grief, research suggests, take the longest to recover from their loss.In fact, one of the biggest reasons you procrastinate is because of negative feelings.FromTemptation Finding Self-Control in an Age of Excessfar and away the most procrastination occurred among the bad-mood students who believe d their mood could be changed and who had access to fun distractions. This group spent nearly 14 of their 15 minutes of prep time goofing offSo what does a morning ritual need to contain to put you in the right frame of mind to be productive? And happy? (Yeah, happy is important. This is a morning ritual, not a mourning ritual.) Just remember PCOPurposeControlOptimismWhy these three? What do they do? How do you turn these three nouns into a Tyrannosaur of a morning ritual that will make the Earth tremble at your approach?Im so glad you asked1) Feel A Sense Of PurposeYou know whats great first thing in the morning? To feelyoure on a mission. You have a destiny. Your life has meaning. Youre beginning an epic quest, Frodo.And as motivation master and bestselling author, Dan Pinkexplains, feeling a sense of purpose is one of the most motivating things in the known universe. HeresDanPurpose is, Am I doing something in tafelgeschirr of a cause larger than myself, or, at the very least, am I making a contribution in my own world?And feeling your life has purpose and meaningnot only makes you feel alive, it alsokeepsyou alive.Researchers at Tohoku University in Japan did a 7 year study of over 43,000 adults age 40 to 79 asking if they had ikigai (a Japanese term for meaning in life) and then tracked their health. People with ikigai were much mora likely to be alive 7 years later.ViaPursuing the Good Life 100 Reflections on Positive PsychologyEven when likely confounds were taken into account, ikigai predicted who was still alive after 7 years. Said anotherway, 95% of respondents who reported a sense of meaning in their lives were alive 7 years after the initial survey versus about 83% of those who reported no sense of meaning in their lives.Feeling motivated and living longer isnt enough for you? Seriously? Okay,how about this? Itllmake you sexyStudy 2 also found an interaction between physical attractiveness and meaning in life, with more meaning in life contributing to greater interpersonal appeal for those of low and average physical attractiveness.So how do you find purpose withoutgetting a new job working for a charity?Duke professor Dan Ariely suggests reframing your experience. You might not be able to changewhatyou have to do but you can changehowyou see it. And when you look at it through the lens of how it can help others, youll often find more motivation.FromPayoff The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivationsif we are feeling bored and unmotivated, we can ask ourselves How is the work Im doing helping someone down the road? What meaning can I find here? With this type of mind-set, chances are that we will be able to find a positive answer.The work wontchange. Yourperspectivecan.Youre not filling out boring paperwork. Youre helping people get insurance that could save their lives. Focus on how you already help others.(To learn more tips on living an awesome life, check out my bookhere.)Okay, youre filled with purpose. But its the thoug ht that counts only applies to gifts. How do you get yourself in the mood to do something about it?2) Feel In ControlFeeling out of control gets celebrated in pop songs but doesnt fare as well in performance reviews or happiness research. (College is over. Sorry.) You want to be happy? Feeling in control is key.FromThe Simple Secrets for Becoming Healthy, Wealthy, and WisePeople with a sense of control in their lives, in both career and relationship, were 66 percent more likely to report feeling happy and satisfied. (Chou and Chi 2001)It has this otherwonderful side effectI like to call not dyingLimited perceived control over life circumstances is associated with an increased risk of CVD mortality, independently of classical cardiovascular risk factors, and particularly among those at apparently low risk.It helps you get stuff accomplished too.FromThe Simple Secrets for Becoming Healthy, Wealthy, and WiseResearch comparing students of similar ability found that the feature that dist inguishes those who maintain a strong work ethic in their studies from those who give up is a sense of control. Those who expressed a sense of control received significantly higher grades than those who do not. (Mendoza 1999)Okay, you get it. Feeling in control in the morning beats eating your Wheaties. But how do you do it?Set goals for the day ahead. Havingconcretegoals was correlated with huge increases in confidence and feelings of control.FromThe 100 Simple Secrets of Successful PeoplePeople who construct their goals in concrete terms are 50 percent more likely to feel confident they will attain their goals and 32 percent more likely to feel in control of their lives. Howatt 1999And this isnt some random connection its working at the neuroscience level. Your brain chills out when you make decisions and set goals. Start the day calm, not crazed.FromThe Upward SpiralMaking decisions includes creating intentions and setting goals - all three are part of the same neural circuitry and engage the prefrontal cortex in a positive way, reducing worry and anxiety. Making decisions also helps overcome striatum activity, which usually pulls you toward negative impulses and routines. Finally, making decisions changes your perception of the world - finding solutions to your problems and calming the limbic system.(To learn the four rituals neuroscience says will make you happy, clickhere.)Alright, youve set your goals and you feel in control. But its still early and youre gonna need more than a feeling of calm. You need some energy. Wheres that going to come from?3) Feel OptimisticResearchers tested soldiers on endurance. Turns out it had a lot more to do with their head than their legs. The researchers put it like thisBoth hope and despair are self-fulfilling prophecies.FromMaximum Brainpower Challenging the Brain for Health and Wisdomthe brain does not want the body to expend its resources unless we have a reasonable chance of success. Our physical strength is not accessible to us if the brain does not believe in the outcome, because the worst possible thing for humans to do is to expend all of our resources and fail. If we do not believe we can make it, we will not get the resources we need to make it. The moment we believe, the gates are opened, and a flood of energy is unleashed. Both hope and despair are self-fulfilling prophecies.Scientific research has come up with a very longlist of benefits to being optimistic. Here are just a fewOptimism is associated withbetterhealthand longerlife.Research has shownthat practicing optimism and gratitudecauses (not just correlates with) an increase in happiness.The army teaches soldiers to be optimistic becauseit makes them tougher and more persistent.Being socially optimistic - expecting people to like you - makes people like you more.Expecting a positive outcome from negotiations made groupsmore likely to come to a deal and to be happy with it.Optimists are luckier.Research showsby thinking positi vely they persevere and create more opportunities for themselves.Soyou might think you should take a few minutes in the morning to look in the bathroom mirror and say positive things to yourself. Too bad that doesnt work at all.FromLearned OptimismPessimists can, in fact, learn to be optimists, and not through mindless devices like whistling a happy tune or mouthing platitudes (Every day, in every way, Im getting better and better), but by learning a new set of cognitive skills We have found that merely repeating positive statements to yourself does not raise mood or achievement very much, if at all.So what does? Mental contrastingand implementation intentions.In English think about your goal, consider the obstacles, and then figure out how you might be able to overcome them. Youre more hopefuland persistentwhen youve considered the problems ahead and made a plan.ViaUngifted Intelligence RedefinedA recent study by Duckworth, Heidi Grant Halvorson, Benjamin Loew, Oettingen, and Gollw itzer asked a group of high school students preparing for the high-stakes, standardized Preliminary SAT (PSAT) to complete athirty-minute written intervention that involved mental contrasting (vividly imagining the goal and writing down possible obstacles) with implementation intentions (coming up with two if-then contingency plans if an obstacle presents itself). They found that students undergoing the intervention completed more than 60 percent more practice questions on the PSAT compared to a placebo control group who were instead asked to write about an influential person or event in their life.(To learn the 4 scientific secretsthat will make you lucky, clickhere.)So you know how to PCO your way to a great morning. Lets round up what weve learned and discovera simple ritual todo with someone you lovethat provides big, big benefits in the morningSum UpHeres the best morning ritualFeel A Sense Of Purpose Ask, How does what I do benefit others? (Selfish people are doomed to lousy m ornings.)Feel In ControlSet goals for the day. (Your brain will thank you.)Feel OptimisticConsider the obstacles to your goals and plan ahead. (I am optimistic that one day I will find a funny joke to put in these parentheses.)So whats awonderfulritual with big benefits that you can do with someone special? Well, you may already be doing itA hug and a kiss.Hardly groundbreaking, I know, but you may be skipping this vital ritual and that isan affront to science. And to your happiness.Hugs are powerful. Sometimes they tell someone you love them even when youre not ready to say the words. And they have impressive effects on stress - for both hugger and huggee.FromThe Simple Secrets for Becoming Healthy, Wealthy, and WiseA brief hug with a loved one reduced the effects of stress on blood pressure and heart rate by half. (University of North Carolina 2003)And a morning kiss goodbye canextend your life and boost your salary by 30%. (Clickhereto learn how to be a better kisser.)ViaThe Sci ence of Kissing What Our Lips Are Telling UsA ten-year psychology study undertaken in Germany during the 1980s found thatmen who kissed their wives before leaving for work lived, on average, five years longer, earning 20 to 30 percent more than peers who left without a peck good-bye. The researchers also reported that not kissing ones wife before leaving in the morning increased the possibility of a car accident by 50 percent.Psychologists do not believe its the kiss itself that accounts for the difference but rather that kissers were likely to begin the day with a positive attitude, leading to a healthier lifestyle.So some PCO in the morning can lead you to a happy, productive day.Or just give somebody a big hug and a kiss. It always makes me optimistic about the future. And love is a pretty good purpose in life. That said, too much hugging and kissingcan getout of controlBut thats a good thing.Join over 290,000 readers.Get a free weekly update via emailhere.This article first appe ared on Bakadesuyo.com.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people