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Cycles and Rhythms – Commentary

Hi, this is AJ. Let’s be simple and practical about this month’s topic. Here’s what I want you to do every day this month.

Every morning when you wake up, scan yourself.

What does that mean? It means observe yourself in three areas.

1. One, when you first wake up, scan your body.

That means, pay attention to, focus on all the parts of your body. You might do this piece by piece. Focus on your head, just feel, how does your head feel? Then your neck, how does your neck feel?

How do your shoulders feel? Your arms? The front of your torso, the back? Your legs, your feet, you get the idea. Just scan, just notice which parts are tight and which are loose.

Also notice your general physical feeling of energy. Does your body feel energetic in the morning when you wake up or does it still feel kind of tired, slow and heavy? Does it feel light or heavy? Tight or loose? So just be aware.

1. After you scan your body, scan your mind.

Notice your thoughts. That’s all. What do you think about when you first wake up? Are you remembering a dream you just had? Are you immediately thinking of the problems facing you today?

Are you calm mentally or do you have a lot of thoughts immediately racing in your head in the morning? Just notice. You’re not going to do anything but notice, just notice.

1. And finally, your emotions, how do you feel emotionally when you first wake up in the morning?

Do you feel happy? Are you smiling? Are you grumpy or irritable? Are you sad? Are you excited? What is it? Just notice your emotions.

You could if you want to be really thorough about this, you could even write this down on a calendar each day, morning a.m. and then you write down body heavy, tight, tired, energy low or energy high whatever.

And then mind and worrying a lot, thoughts very busy, very fast thoughts. Emotions, feeling happy, feeling sad whatever. Just scan it and notice the pattern, write it down and take a note.

The other thing I want you to notice, in addition to those three elements is I want you to decide for the day, do you feel like you have a high motivation or a low motivation?

Very simple, high or low motivation. High or low motivation. Motivation for what? To do your work for this day. If you’re a parent maybe that means taking care of your kid.

And if you have a job, then it means going out there and working. If you’re volunteering, it means volunteering, whatever it is you’re doing, is your motivation to do this in the morning high or low?

Then, after you scan all of these things, you make a decision about all these things. You’ve decided okay my body feels this way, my mind, my emotions, my motivation. Make a decision looking at all of this and decide, today do I need to be really active or do I need to rest and relax more today? Based on this scan what should you do? That’s all, very simple.

Next, every day repeat all of this again, but do it in the afternoon, the early afternoon, like around noon or 1:00, it depends on what time you wake up, but about the middle of the daytime for you. And repeat all those same scans again. Your body, your mind, your emotions, your motivation and whether you feel you need more activity or you need more rest. That’s it.

So you’re going to do it in the morning and then midday. If you like, you can also do it again in the evening time, let’s say, before or after dinner. You could repeat all of this one more time. It would be a good idea as I said to take notes. Track this on a calendar.

What’s going to happen as you do this over a full month, you’ll start to notice patterns. You may already have an idea of what your patterns are, but this will make them very clear.

You’ll notice, for example, that at certain times of day you have more physical energy, more mental energy, you feel happier generally, you have more motivation. And other times of the day the opposite of that. The classic example of this are people who are morning people and people who are night people.

If you ask people in the United States it’s very common to say are you a morning person or are you a night person? That just means when do you have the most energy? When do you have the most motivation? When do you feel most alive and ready to work and do things?

I’m not a morning person, for example. I like to wake up slowly, my energy is kind of low in the beginning of the day and it gradually grows during the day.

Sometimes, even when I get very little sleep, even when I’m very tired during the daytime, somehow and for some reason, in the evening I’ll suddenly get energy, around 8:00 o’clock at night I’ll suddenly get energy.

But actually, this has changed over my life. When I was young, I really hated mornings. I just couldn’t function in the morning, I hated it. As I’ve gotten older I’m getting better in the mornings. I’m getting more energy in the mornings.

Now I find I like to do more work in the afternoons, that’s really my best time now, like from Noon to 4:00 or 10:00 to 4:00, somewhere in that range. That’s when I have the most mental, physical and emotional energy.

This is all just about discovering for yourself. When do you have the most energy? When do you have the most motivation?

You may also notice patterns that are weekly. In other words, you might notice certain days of the week or certain days of the month are higher energy or lower energy, higher motivation or lower. You want more activity or you want more rest.

Women classically have these cycles that are based on their bodies on a monthly level too. At certain times of the month they feel better, and at certain times of the month they don’t.

But everyone has certain fluctuations, certain rhythms.. They might be weekly. They’re certainly daily and possibly even monthly and even over a long year. If you wanted to track this you could track it over that period and you would notice that at certain times of the year you might be more energetic.

You might feel better, stronger and more motivated. Then at other times of the year you really need to rest or want to rest. It’s interesting.

Do this in as much detail as you want. At least do it for one month and look at the daily and weekly results.

After you do this, you’re going to trust yourself, trust your rhythms and adjust, and this is sometimes challenging for people, because we have an idea culturally that we must always be working hard, we must always be pushing ourselves. We must always be productive.

But it doesn’t really work that way. That’s not the most effective way to do it. It’s actually better to follow your own cycles and rhythms and when you really need to rest, just rest.

So what I want you to do now, after you’ve done all this for a month or at least for a couple weeks is to start to follow your own cycles and rhythms.

So, when you are normally high energy schedule your work at that time. Do most of your productive work at that time. That’s when you schedule it. Be disciplined during that time.

And at the other times, when you notice that you’re usually lower energy, lower motivation, plan on just relaxing or playing during that time. No discipline during the low times. Try to avoid having serious work during that time. You can’t always do it, but do your best.

So, for example, if the early morning is your most productive time and your highest energy time, schedule all your work then. Really be disciplined then.

Maybe turn off your phone. Don’t let people call you or distract you during that time, maybe a four hour period of time. That’s your time to get as much work done as possible or to focus on what is most important to you.

And then in the afternoons when your energy is lower, that’s when you do lower energy activities. That’s when you maybe take phone calls and go to meetings or maybe just take a nap during that lower energy time.

And, of course, maybe it’s the opposite, maybe your afternoons are more energetic for you and your mornings are more slow and relaxed, so you just change that.

But trust yourself and honor your own rhythms and eventually you’ll figure out when is your most energetic time of the day. When is your most energetic day of the week or days of the week. And you may notice the monthly patterns as well and the seasonal ones.

Use this information to plan work and to plan big projects. If you have a big project, a work project, something big for your family that you’re planning, plan it for the times when you have the most energy.

So then you don’t have to push yourself so much. It requires less discipline and less effort because you naturally have more energy at that time. Don’t schedule something big for a time when you’re normally lower energy.

And then schedule your naps, your play time, your rest time, your vacations for the time when you’re lower energy and you want that rest naturally. It’s just flowing with your own energy, that’s all it’s about.

As usual, get onto our forum and social site and tell us about this. Tell us about your experience this month, scanning your body, your mind and emotions and your motivation, and following your own rhythms.. Let us know how you’re doing.

I’ll see you there. Have a great month. Bye for now.