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