Andrew Huberman’s Morning Routine is famous worldwide; he is a renowned Stanford neuroscientist and host of the massively popular Huberman Lab podcast, and is known for identifying science-backed tools for living an optimized life.
Arguably, the centerpiece of his extensive self-improvement toolkit is his tailored morning routine that sets the stage for days filled with elevated focus, deeper fulfillment, and peak productivity.
In this article, we’ll break down the underlying methodology shaping Dr. Huberman’s daily AM ritual and detail the step-by-step sequence of activities and tools he employs to support cognitive clarity and laser-like drive.
By implementing Huberman’s thoughtful morning blueprint focused on priming the nervous system, regulating energy, and triggering creative flow, we can tap into success on our terms every day.
Managing Energy Levels Upon Waking
The foundational element of Andrew Huberman morning routine is strategically managing energy levels immediately upon waking to support focus and flow during precious AM hours. This involves tactics for avoiding energy crashes later and optimizing neurochemicals for Drive and focus now.
Limit Cortisol Spikes
The priority is mitigating excessive cortisol spikes soon after waking, which can hamper cognitive performance and sap motivation and negatively impact the rest of the day.
Follow Chronobiological Needs
Huberman stresses aligning wake times with innate chronobiological cues to limit cortisol spikes rather than using alarm clocks that abruptly disrupt natural cycles. Upon rising, he suggests light exposure, movement, and hydration to ease the transition gently.
Support Healthy Cortisol Curve
Strategic nutrition choices also help maintain a healthy cortisol curve. Consuming proteins, fats, and greens early on provides slow-burning energy, while sugary carbs and caffeinated drinks are avoided to prevent blood sugar rollercoasters.
Harness Dopamine for Drive
In contrast to cortisol, Huberman also seeks to leverage dopamine spikes upon waking for their energizing, mood-elevating, and focusing properties, which are essential for ambitious undertakings.
Cold Exposure
One favored way Huberman stimulates dopamine (and noradrenaline) is through brief cold exposure from an icy shower or plunge. The cold triggers a stress response, releasing stimulatory neurotransmitters to start the day with physical vigor and mental motivation in overdrive.
Creativity-Boosting Chemicals
In conjunction with a surge of energizing dopamine, Huberman’s routine also incorporates practices for elevating creativity, flow states, and feelings of well-being by boosting essential neurochemicals like serotonin and endocannabinoids in the early hours.
Morning Movement Routine
One essential practice Huberman swears by to stoke this creative cocktail is an intentional 20-30 minute movement routine performed upon rising. He cycles through a structured series of mobilizing and stimulating full-body calisthenics to get blood pumping and endorphins flowing.
Sun Gazing
Paired with physical movement, Huberman is also an avid proponent of direct sunlight exposure immediately after waking – even just 5-10 minutes – to boost serotonin and Vitamin D and increase circadian rhythms. Here, too, moderation is critical as excessive early light can have unintended effects on the nervous system.
Structuring Your Optimized Morning Flow
Once Huberman has effectively stabilized and fine-tuned core neurotransmitters and hormones for performance through strategic lifestyle inputs, he begins structuring his morning flow around key outputs required for his ambitious days filled with cognitively demanding deep work.
Define Your Non-Negotiable Priorities
With norepinephrine and dopamine surging and cortisol balanced after purposeful energy management upon rising, Huberman enters a 2-3 hour period of peak performance capacity in the morning.
To maximize this precious window, he first stresses identifying 1-3 non-negotiable priorities to anchor your day.
For example, his non-negotiables are often deep-focused work like writing new scientific journal articles requiring intense research, analytical problem-solving, and creativity. Defining these essential outputs first helps avoid getting swept into less impactful tasks.
High-Value Execution Sprints
With non-negotiables for the day identified, Huberman moves into 60-90 minute concentrated execution sprints on those top priorities with the Phone in Do Not Disturb mode and notifications blocked. With energy optimized and external distractions minimized, he can tap into coveted flow states for high-value output.
Reflection and Planning Microbreaks
He punctuates these output blocks with quick 5-10-minute microbreaks to reflect and calibrate energy levels as needed. During the AM window of peak performance, he frontloads executions sprints and saves less demanding tasks like admin work for later when energy naturally dips.
Repeating Peak Performance AM Sprints
Leveraging this sequence of prioritized execution sprints fueled by optimized energy levels, alternating with brief breaks for reflection and adjustment, Huberman repeats 2-4 of these 90-minute peak performance loops in the AM hours.
Sticking to the routine on less demanding days builds automaticity so that when intense concentration and problem-solving are required, the ritualized structure supports getting into the flow. With practice, Huberman’s science-based template makes regularly achieving 2-4 hours of daily highly focused work possible.
Recap: Harnessing Neuroscience to Own Your Mornings
Andrew Huberman morning routine provides an exemplary model for designing mornings scientifically supported by what you want and need to achieve daily, consistently accessing peak performance through deliberate energy management.
While his exact routine ingredients may differ from person to person, the key ingredients – managing energy, structuring flow, eliminating obstacles, sticking to the basics – can help anyone sculpt optimized mornings.
The overarching insight is strategically using lifestyle inputs like light, food, movement, and temperature, almost like biohacking your nervous system inputs, to stabilize and amplify desired cognitive and emotional outputs for ambitious days over the long term.
Through learned optimization carried out as a ritual, we can call the shots on how we show up each morning and proactively set into motion our highest priorities, accessing flow states on our terms.