Rise & Shine!
It’s fair to say that not all of us are morning people. It seems to take a certain kind of energy to get someone to get out of bed at 5am and be ready for the day - but for some, that gentle and quiet time of day, watching the sunrise, or just those extra hours to work with make setting the alarm earlier well worth it.
Whether rising early comes naturally to you, or you struggle to open your eyes before sun is blaring through your windows, there are some great benefits to be found in an early morning workout that could convince all of us to rise early. When it comes to productivity, those that commit to early morning exercise before their day fully starts can enjoy much greater focus and more completed to do lists than those that hit snooze.
Not convinced? Let’s take a look at the evidence and see what a morning workout could do for you…
Early Workouts Bring Greater Energy Throughout The Day
While you may think coffee or a strong cup of tea is your greatest tool in feeling fresh and alert in the mornings, starting the day with a workout is actually one of the best ways to feel energised. As exercise improves circulation in the body, getting the heart pumping, and releases endorphins that leave you feeling refreshed and awake.
Harvard Health Publishing explains this with a little more scientific backing: exercise generates cellular-levels changes inside the body, which encourages your body to produce more mitochondria inside your muscle cells. Mitochondria utiliises food and oxygen we take into the body as fuel, therefore increasing the body’s energy supply.
Ultimately, this process enables more oxygen circulation in the body, greater blood flow, and a more efficient use of energy - so you feel active and alert in a more sustained way than taking in an early morning caffeine hit. Even some gentle yoga or a short jog can be enough to kick the body into these invigorating cellular changes.
Morning Exercise Enables Greater Stress Management
A morning workout can help eliminate and manage stresses later in the work day - especially helpful if you’re facing big deadlines in the office.
Exercise enables us to move away from worries or cyclical thoughts and get into our bodies, burning off anxious energy and calming the mind. This process can imitate the body’s normal stress responses - fight, flight, or freeze - and in going through these processes in a healthy way, we can practice coming into and out of stress in a non-harmful way. This creates healthy responses in the body when it comes to stress in a wider context - making last minute meeting planning or commute stresses easier to handle. The cellular changes within the body also help stimulate your cardiovascular and immune systems, ensuring your body stays healthy and defended.
Endorphins and neurotransmitters released through exercise also help improve mood, alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression, and improve sleep quality - all of which help to ensure a stable state of mind, and body.
Physical Activity Can Clear And Focus The Mind
Whether you're lifting weights in the gym, hitting the trail for a morning run in nature, or counting laps in the pool, all intensive physical activity can help clear and calm the mind, and focus your decision making and cognitive ability.
As Tonya Russel reports for verywellfit, a review published in the Translational Sports Medicine journal concluded that even just two minutes of exercise can result in temporary boosts to memory function, whilst longer periods of physical activity - ideally around 60 minutes or more - can improve cognitive function for as long as two hours after exercise. If you’re fitting in a workout and then heading into the office, that’s one optimum morning of productivity on your hands!
The review focused on cardiovascular exercise in young adults aged 18 to 35, specifically, but that’s not to say that strength training or exercises that are less intense on the heart, such as yoga or pilates, cannot be of benefit. Alongside memory and overall cognitive function, problem-solving and concentration were specifically found to improve post-exercise.
Ready For Your Warm-Up?
Feeling a little more inspired? It can be an effort for some of us, but setting an early alarm and making an effort to get into an early morning routine could really be worth the extra planning for the greater productivity you’ll reap later in the afternoon. Whatever activity you choose, a little morning movement can focus the mind, energise the body, and help you deliver more than you thought possible.