Speaker 1: Hey, they're Healthy Ish listeners. Thanks for joining us today
Speaker 1: and welcome if this is your first time tuning in. This,
Speaker 1: of course, is the daily podcast from Body and Soul.
Speaker 1: I am Felicity Harley. Do you feel that everyone else
Speaker 1: has a morning routine sorted but you, Well, that's simply
Speaker 1: not true. Joining us today is Emma Maidman. She's a
Speaker 1: yoga and meditation teacher, author and co founder of Flow
Speaker 1: States Studios, and she's going to share her tips for
Speaker 1: sneaking in some early morning habits for a better day ahead.
Speaker 1: If you do like what you hear from Emma, tune
Speaker 1: into Extra Healthy Ish, where she talks about how to
Speaker 1: find your flow state. You can search for that wherever
Speaker 1: we get your podcasts. Emma, nice to have you back
Speaker 1: on the podcast. How are you.
Speaker 2: I'm good. Thanks for having me back. It's been a
Speaker 2: little while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and well done. Well back with a new baby
Speaker 1: and a new book.
Speaker 2: In many ways, yeah, it's a whole new media coming
Speaker 2: to you this time around.
Speaker 1: Okay, good, Well, let's talk about I just wanted to
Speaker 1: focus on one thing in your book, build a perfect
Speaker 1: morning routine or a better morning routine, because you know,
Speaker 1: in my eyes, there's no perfect morning routine. It just
Speaker 1: sometimes happens. It sometimes doesn't talk to us about well,
Speaker 1: perhaps firstly about the importance of having a good morning routine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think we know that the things that
Speaker 2: we come back to, the routines that we have, create habits,
Speaker 2: and when we're in those habits, we you know, they
Speaker 2: become a little bit more healthy habits that we can
Speaker 2: instill into every day. However, it really depends on what
Speaker 2: season of life you're in. So I know, for myself,
Speaker 2: before I was a mum, I had like an hour
Speaker 2: and a half mourning routine that was super lush and
Speaker 2: now feels like a lifetime away before I get to that,
Speaker 2: and now as a mom with you know, two young children,
Speaker 2: it looks very very different. However, the way that we
Speaker 2: set ourselves up for the day it actually has like
Speaker 2: from a scientific point of view, a massive impact on
Speaker 2: our brain. So one simple thing that we can do,
Speaker 2: as you know, to to start a more healthier morning
Speaker 2: routine is to not pick up your phone first thing.
Speaker 2: And that is because when you wake up in the morning,
Speaker 2: your brain starts to move into a FATA state, which
Speaker 2: is like the deeper relaxation kind of semi conscious. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of creative insight in that brain wave state,
Speaker 2: or the alpha state, which is kind of like awake
Speaker 2: but relaxed or a bit more passive. And so what
Speaker 2: that state, what those brain waves are doing, is essentially
Speaker 2: opening you up for this amazing window of time where
Speaker 2: you're more creative and you're more able to access flow state,
Speaker 2: You're more able to be, you know, in alignment with
Speaker 2: what you desire to bring through and manifestation and all
Speaker 2: those beautiful fairy words that we hear. But when you
Speaker 2: look at your phone, what this does to your brain
Speaker 2: straight away is it takes it from that beautiful creative,
Speaker 2: you know, anything's possible state and pops you straight in
Speaker 2: to essentially like the doing brain waves, the beta state,
Speaker 2: which means that you know, you're alert and you're just
Speaker 2: kind of like ready for action. What that means is
Speaker 2: is that you miss this kind of beautiful moment of
Speaker 2: manifesting your day, of being creative, of having beautiful ideas
Speaker 2: pop through. And so, you know, we often think of
Speaker 2: morning routines as needing to be this big long thing,
Speaker 2: but a simple morning routine could be do something else
Speaker 2: other than look at your phone for that first little
Speaker 2: like half an hour window that you wake up. It
Speaker 2: might mean that you grab your journal or even just
Speaker 2: spend a moment in time just being with whatever creative
Speaker 2: impulse is arising within you. It's such an incredible window
Speaker 2: to access that. But if the first thing we do
Speaker 2: is grab our phones and jump into our emails, we
Speaker 2: miss that window of opportunity.
Speaker 1: It's hard. I mean, it's hard, isn't it, because you often,
Speaker 1: you know, I often have to check my phone just
Speaker 1: to see if you know, and if there's anything come
Speaker 1: up from my kids' school. And I know that's an excuse,
Speaker 1: but it is really hard to put a barrier up
Speaker 1: against that phone. First thing, How do you do it?
Speaker 1: I mean, is it just a practice, a habit that
Speaker 1: you're in that you don't touch it in the first
Speaker 1: half an hour an hour?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think it's the awareness piece around it. Like
Speaker 2: I mean, look, you can go the full hob of
Speaker 2: putting the phone in another room on charge and having
Speaker 2: an alarm clock behind your bed or whatnot, but ultimately,
Speaker 2: I mean, for me, I have mine as my time,
Speaker 2: so I'll just kind of, you know, see what time
Speaker 2: it is, Okay, Yeah, six o'clock in the morning. I
Speaker 2: can hear the kids who are awake it's time to
Speaker 2: wake up. But then it's having that discipline to just
Speaker 2: go it's six am. Nothing needs me right now, Like
Speaker 2: I can check that in twenty minutes time, half an hour,
Speaker 2: it's not going to make a huge difference if you
Speaker 2: find out that school's canceled that day or whatever, that
Speaker 2: little window of time is not really going to matter.
Speaker 2: And so it's then going, Okay, that's a discipline to
Speaker 2: put that down and to move into some other activity
Speaker 2: or whatever you're doing in the morning, and then come
Speaker 2: back to that very very intentionally. And when you bring
Speaker 2: awareness to it, that's when you start to make the change,
Speaker 2: because then you notice, hang on, I actually am in
Speaker 2: this habit of the last thing I do is look
Speaker 2: at my phone. And the first thing I do is
Speaker 2: look at my phone. What is that doing to my brain?
Speaker 2: How could I actually create more for me to access
Speaker 2: this internal flow state those simple little things. It just
Speaker 2: starts small. Maybe it's like, Okay, I'm totally addicted to
Speaker 2: this for the first fifteen minutes of my day, I'm
Speaker 2: not looking at my phone, and then I can pick
Speaker 2: it up and then you know, build it up. So
Speaker 2: that you're getting that first little twenty minute half an
Speaker 2: hour window that your phone free, that you're in that
Speaker 2: kind of flow state and you're able to experience that
Speaker 2: before you then intentionally pick it up and go. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm with intention using this device to check what's coming
Speaker 2: up for my day.
Speaker 1: What are some of your other fundamentals when it comes
Speaker 1: to building a good, solid morning routine.
Speaker 2: For me, one of my non negotiables is having a
Speaker 2: meditation practice, and in an ideal world, it's doing it
Speaker 2: in that first kind of window of the morning when
Speaker 2: the brain is still in those beautiful creative states you're
Speaker 2: able to meditate and then move out into the doing
Speaker 2: part of the day. So for me, that's the non negotiable.
Speaker 2: And then now that I have kids, every other part
Speaker 2: of my morning routine is very much integrated around them.
Speaker 2: So I love doing like Hwasha because I am not
Speaker 2: getting much sleep, So I'll grab my gwasher as I'm
Speaker 2: you know, making the kids breakfast, and I'll be doing
Speaker 2: that on my face. Or simple things like I like
Speaker 2: to wake up and drink a warm glass of water
Speaker 2: to get my digestive system moving. All of those little
Speaker 2: things make up a routine of moving from the sleep
Speaker 2: state into the awake state. So having that glass of water,
Speaker 2: doing my guasher, getting the lymph moving in my body,
Speaker 2: and then you know, ideally sitting down to do my meditation,
Speaker 2: and then moving into the day. Obviously, not every day
Speaker 2: looks like that. You might have a kid that suddenly
Speaker 2: vomited everywhere and you're doing loads of washing at six am.
Speaker 2: Like it's it's being fluid within that, but just having
Speaker 2: small little things that you can do consistently that it's
Speaker 2: those things, those little habits that stack up that actually
Speaker 2: create well being rather than it needing to be. Oh no,
Speaker 2: I missed my whole hour long routine. Now my day
Speaker 2: is ruined. It's going. Okay, some of that didn't go
Speaker 2: to plan, but I can still you know, for me,
Speaker 2: it's like I can still do the guasher, I can
Speaker 2: still drink the warm water, I can still have that
Speaker 2: moment of meditation to pause. I can still try not
Speaker 2: to look at my phone straight away. That stuff's to
Speaker 2: set me up for those healthier habits heading into the
Speaker 2: rest of the day.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point because often we
Speaker 1: can scroll Instagram and or TikTok and people have these
Speaker 1: amazing morning routines where they meditate for twenty minutes and
Speaker 1: they drink some water, and then they go for a
Speaker 1: walk and then they listen to a podcast and they
Speaker 1: do this and I'm like, excuse me, that does not
Speaker 1: happen in my world. So just putting a few tiny
Speaker 1: habits and then you can still feel like you've achieved
Speaker 1: something of a you know, semi perfect morning.
Speaker 2: In some ways, it's really about honoring the season of
Speaker 2: life that you're in and going, Okay, that's nice that
Speaker 2: that you know, twenty one year old influencer has the time,
Speaker 2: because that was me, you know, many many years ago.
Speaker 2: That was me with the two hour long morning routine.
Speaker 2: Every day in the morning. What are you doing? There's
Speaker 2: definitely reels the way back. I'm like, this is my smoothie,
Speaker 2: this is my the and now it's like I wake
Speaker 2: up with my children as an alarm, you know. So
Speaker 2: it's it's going, well, it's the season of life that
Speaker 2: I'm in, and then what are the things I needed
Speaker 2: to do to support that season through those routines. Because
Speaker 2: if we want to experience this beautiful life and flow,
Speaker 2: it's if you think of it like how water works,
Speaker 2: it needs a container. It needs the structure, and so
Speaker 2: often we think like, oh, just flow with the day,
Speaker 2: and then you lose the structure and everything turns paar shaped.
Speaker 2: And if you're a parent listening to this, you know
Speaker 2: that if your kids missed a little bit of their structure,
Speaker 2: you get them their breakfast a little bit too late
Speaker 2: or whatever, things turn pair shape. Really quickly assessing what
Speaker 2: season of life am I in? What is realistic? Because
Speaker 2: if it's not realistic for you to do ninety minutes
Speaker 2: of yoga at four am, you're not going to do it,
Speaker 2: and then you're going to be setting yourself up for failure,
Speaker 2: and they're feeling worse about yourself and spiraling, and it's like,
Speaker 2: what's the point. So going, Okay, what is realistic? What
Speaker 2: can I actually achieve? And then maybe you start achieving that,
Speaker 2: and then you start adding.
Speaker 1: On like, yeah, great advice, Emma, thank you for coming unhealthy.
Speaker 2: Ish worries, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Well there we go, folks. You don't need to necessarily
Speaker 1: do that one hour, rigid routine. You can just take
Speaker 1: a few little moments you're in there for yourself to
Speaker 1: set yourself up for a healthy is day. Emma's new
Speaker 1: book is called Find Your Flow and it is out now.
Speaker 1: If you did enjoy this chat with Emma, jump on
Speaker 1: rate and review it, or of course you can subscribe
Speaker 1: to this podcast. Bodyansoul dot com dot you is the
Speaker 1: place you should go. If you need any more info,
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Speaker 1: out in your local Sunday paper and until tomorrow, Stay
Speaker 1: Healthy is