The Bamboo Lab Podcast
"Ordinary people doing extraordinary things!"
The Bamboo Lab Podcast
"You Snooze, You Lose! The Power of Morning Routines" with Brian
That annoying alarm sound marks your transition from dreamland to reality—and what you do in the moments after it rings could determine your entire day. Are you hitting snooze and unknowingly sabotaging your productivity?
In this eye-opening episode, peak performance coach Brian Bosley reveals why that tempting nine-minute snooze isn't the gift you think it is. Science shows it triggers "sleep inertia," leaving your brain confused for up to six hours afterward. Your focus, processing speed, strategic thinking, and emotional regulation all take massive hits—all for nine extra minutes under the covers.
But there's good news: transforming your morning doesn't require dramatic overhauls. Brian walks through simple, proven steps to reclaim your first waking hour: hydrating properly, moving your body briefly, visualizing success, reading meaningful content, journaling thoughts, practicing gratitude, and planning intentionally. Each element creates the foundation for a day where you control your destiny rather than surrendering to external demands.
What makes morning routines so powerful? They offer rare moments of complete self-determination in days otherwise controlled by bosses, family needs, and algorithm-driven distractions. After coaching high-achievers for 29 years, Brian identifies lack of control as the primary driver of disengagement, anxiety, and depression. Your morning routine is your first daily opportunity to break that pattern.
Try Brian's challenge: banish the snooze button for three weeks, gradually adding one morning practice each week. Use the "Five Second Rule" to get moving before your brain can object. Your future self—and everyone who interacts with your best version—will thank you. Subscribe and share your morning transformation journey with us!
https://bamboolab3.com/
Hello and welcome to the Bamboo Lab Podcast with your host, peak Performance Coach, Brian Bosley. Are you stuck on the hamster wheel of life, spinning and spinning but not really moving forward? Are you ready to jump off and soar? Are you finally ready to sculpt your life? If so, you've landed in the right place. This podcast is created and broadcast just for you, all of you strivers, thrivers and survivors out there. If you'd like to learn more about Brian and the Bamboo Lab, feel free to reach out to explore your true peak level at wwwbamboolab3.com.
Brian:That, for most of us, is the most annoying sound in our lives. It's morning, you're cozy in your warm bed and that damn alarm goes off, whether it's 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, or even 11 o'clock am for some people. We are so afraid of getting up and tackling the day and, quite frankly, that noise is kind of that first reminder that we're back from our dreamland and heading back to reality. How do you handle those moments right after you hear that sound? What is your morning routine? For most people, their morning routine is alarm goes off. You hit the snooze button once, twice, maybe three times. You get up, you jump in the shower, you grab coffee and you go to work. Anyone who lives in a cold climate knows you don't get into a car at 7 o'clock in the morning, start it and go. You let the car warm up, you let the oil cycle through the engine. Our minds and our bodies are no different. If you truly want to change any aspect of your life, whether it be financial, physical, romantic, your mindset, your job, your family, if you want to cut bad habits out and increase better habits into your life, it all starts once you hear that sound.
Brian:What I'm here today to do is to share with you what I've learned about morning routines, what I use myself that has helped me dramatically, and what I've learned through research from experts around the country and around the globe. Actually, I want to tell you a little bit about the dangers of snooze. And you all know who you are out there who just love that snooze button. We think automatically that when we hit that little button which, if you look on your cell phone and that alarm goes off, the snooze button is right in the middle and it's a big button to push, the stop button is on the bottom, it's much smaller. So that temptation is not just ingrained in us, it's culturized into us. Just ingrained in us, it's culturized into us. But that snooze button, that extra nine minutes of sleep you get, is killing you figuratively and maybe in some cases literally. Sleep is incredibly important to us. That seven to eight hours we get every night is crucial to all that we do throughout the rest of the day. But those extra nine minutes, they are destroying so much of what you're trying to accomplish and the person you're trying to become. And here's why when you go to bed at night, you fall asleep.
Brian:Your brain then works on sleep cycles and those sleep cycles are 75 to 90 minutes long and you go through roughly four of those every night. Your brain kind of cycles through this deep sleep coming out, a little bit deep sleep, coming out a little bit throughout the night. Then, roughly the last two hours before your body is accustomed to waking up, it begins to wake up. Your brain slowly comes out of that sleep cycle. Then the alarm goes off. Now you have two options you can jump right out of bed and start your day, or you can hit that button and get another nine minutes of sleep. But what happens in that nine minutes is your brain now having the last couple of hours been trying to wake up.
Brian:When it's now time to get up and you hit the snooze button and go back to sleep, it starts to cycle through another sleep cycle. You go into something called sleep inertia. Nine minutes later you hear that stupid sound again, that damn sound for the second time. Now your brain has not gone through the two hours to try to wake up. It's still in the middle of a sleep cycle. It's still in sleep inertia. So when you get up at that time, or you maybe even hit it a second or third time. Your brain is completely effed up. It thinks it's in the middle of the night and yet you're trying to get it up and to get your day started.
Brian:And that sleep inertia, whoa, and really what happens? There is, the cortisol region of your brain is in that sleep cycle and because you hit the snooze button and then four minutes, nine minutes later get up, your brain now for the next four hours is completely confused. For the next four hours and some experts say four to six hours your focus levels will be dramatically down, the speed at which your brain can process information is lowered, your strategic thinking is minimalized, your anxiety and depression can elevate, and yet we think that's the best way to start our days. The most important moments in our day is that first hour, and yet we're starting our days in this just completely convoluted way. The thing is, most people think, oh, it's not a big deal, I hit my snooze once or twice. I don't really see any effect. That's because you've never not hit your snooze once or twice. I don't really see any effect. That's because you've never not hit your snooze and you don't know the capacity of your brain and your body and what you can accomplish if you just simply get out of bed and start your day.
Brian:So much literature, so much research, so much information on the internet, youtube, podcasts, books on tape that discuss this exact challenge that we have as human beings. And, trust me, I understand the need, or the desire anyway, to stay in bed. I live in Michigan and also in Wisconsin. These are not the warmest weather states. Our mornings are not exactly the kind you jump up to and see a beautiful ocean and the sun, the sunrise, and it's 70 degrees already. It can be negative zero. The wind can be flying through the trees, snow coming left to right. I understand that temptation and that comfort we gain by staying in bed for another nine minutes, but that nine minutes is literally destroying all that you want to accomplish.
Brian:Now people say well, I know people who hit the snooze button all the time and they're highly successful. Sure, there's anecdotal evidence to everything. People say well, I know people who hit the snooze button all the time and they're highly successful. Sure, there's anecdotal evidence to everything. There are outliers to every situation. But one thing I would tell you, and I would challenge them, is, if they didn't do that, they would be even more successful, even happier, more well-adjusted, physically more healthy, more intelligent and better at almost everything they do during the course of the day.
Brian:One of the books that changed my life several years ago was a book called the 5 am Club by Robin Sharma Amazing, amazing book. I would highly recommend it. It's a fable, so it's a story you follow, but within that fable and that story, you learn so much about how important our mornings are. That story you learn so much about how important our mornings are. One of the things I'm just going to share with you is some simple things we can do in the morning. Now, anybody who's followed this podcast for the past few years understands I'm not a person who believes in making dramatic changes in life. I believe in starting small, getting some successes and wins under your belt and growing from there. So if you are the type of person who does hit the snooze once or twice or three times, gets up, jumps in the shower, grabs coffee and goes to work, I'm not expecting, nor would I even coach you on implementing all of these things tomorrow, but what I would challenge you on is to try one thing that I'm going to recommend. First thing, the most highly recommended thing I can say is what I've already said Eradicate the snooze button from your life.
Brian:The old saying you snooze, you lose couldn't apply better here. When you snooze in the morning, you lose the rest of the day. Put your alarm clock or your phone across the room. Force your body to get up, because you all know you've done it before when you had to get up and you couldn't hit that snooze. You had an important meeting, or maybe you were going hunting that morning, or you're starting on vacation. You have to get to the airport. You know you can get up without the snooze. And they have to get to the airport. You know you can get up without the snooze. And what do you notice? Within about 15 seconds of standing up, you feel pretty good. Once you stand up for just a few moments, that desire to go back into bed eradicates, it dissipates relatively quickly. So you know, create your environment for success. Design it for success.
Brian:One thing the alarm clock or phone should be across the room forcing you to get up. I've had clients in the past that that didn't even work for them. They were such heavy snooze users. So I recommended they get on Amazon and buy this little dancing or jumping alarm clock and literally what it is is it sits on your nightstand or somewhere in your room. When it goes off in the morning it pops up and it starts bouncing around your bedroom and you have to catch it. I'm not saying I recommend that. That would annoy the hell out of me. But if you try all the other techniques and they don't work, that could be a very, very effective last ditch effort. No snooze, it's not giving you nine minutes, it's costing you another four hours of your day, up to six hours of your day of low productivity, foggy thinking, poor decision-making, increases in anxiety and depression. So it's kind of like bending over dollars to pick up dimes. Would you rather have four hours or nine minutes? I'd take the four hours. So, first of all, do not under any circumstances hit that snooze button.
Brian:Number two first thing in the morning hydrate. Drink 16 minimum ounces of water every day. A little tip to that that could add a lot to it. Freshly squeeze lemon juice in your water with a pinch of Celtic sea salt. Oh my goodness, it tastes great for one thing, but it just gets your body moving. Next thing move your body. Do something, even if it's 10 minutes. Go for a walk, do some crunches, some sit-ups, some stretching, jumping jacks, whatever it is. Get your body moving, get that blood flowing, only for 10 minutes. You don't have to do much more than that. If you can go for a long run or get on the treadmill or go to the gym or do yoga, oh my goodness, by all intents and purposes, go do that. But if nothing else, move it for 10 minutes.
Brian:Next thing visualize your day, visualize your life. If you want to go back to a former podcast episode, I believe we did back in 2022 on I think we did two episodes on your true peak identity, tpi Go back and listen to that. Visualize who you want to become that. Visualize who you want to become. Do daily affirmations, maybe prayer. You know, if you have a book on affirmations that you read every day, read that, but think about who you want to become that day. Think about who you want to become for the rest of your life. This needs to take no more than a minute or two.
Brian:Next, read. You could do Audible if you want. You could listen to a podcast if you want, but I'm a firm believer there is nothing more powerful than sitting down with your eyes and reading a book or reading an article. Grab a highlighter, grab a pen. Note the important things you read that day. You don't have to read long. Read for 10 minutes. Read five pages, learn something and get your mind flowing.
Brian:Next, journal, write something down. It can be one sentence on how you feel right now. It could be a full page, but just journal some thoughts, some feelings. Get some of that stuff out. Your brain has just spent the past seven to eight hours processing information. Now that information is ready to be put on paper. Maybe something you thought of an idea, a quote, a learning. Maybe write down the three wins you had the day before a learning. Maybe write down the three wins you had the day before. Maybe write down a dream you had. Or simply just write down I'm kind of feeling shitty today and I don't know why. Or write down I'm feeling incredibly positive and energetic today and here's why I think that's happening. And then, once you're done journaling on that same paper or journal, write down three to five things that you are grateful for at that moment. You know I've stated this research so many times in the podcast that the University of California, berkeley, did a study several years ago showing that for every one positive thing we notice in our lives and in the world. We notice nine negative things. That's the way our brain has worked.
Brian:We have this little part of our brain called the amygdala. It's the size and shape of an almond. It is in our brains to detect danger and of course, it has kept our species alive for millennia because it's so powerful. It saw, you know, warring tribes that kept us on the alert for warring tribes or animal attacks or typhoons and bad weather. So we were always on the alert. Well, thankfully for most of us anyway, we don't have those existential threats any longer. We don't have a pack of wolves at our door when we open up the garage. We don't have warring tribes coming to rape and pillage our village. We get weather alerts long before they hit us. But that amygdala is still there. It's still detecting danger, it still wants job security, it wants to keep us safe and it wants to keep us in our comfort zone. It's the primary reason why we have road rage, because we sense everything is danger.
Brian:But in reality we know there are not nine negative things to every one positive. There are probably a negative things to every one positive. There are probably a thousand positive to every one negative and with the corporate media constantly throwing negative news at us and trying to fear-monger us, I can see why our media is still so strong in us. So we see negative and negativity is no way to start the day. You deserve to have a very positive, productive and prosperous day, every single day, so showing gratitude is one of the most important things we can do. Just write down three to five things you are grateful for at that moment. They can be big things, they can be small things, they can be average-sized things. Moment they can be big things, they can be small things, they can be average size things. And then, from there, plan your day, plan your day out. Just look at your calendar, look at your to-do list. Get mentally and emotionally ready for the things you are about to accomplish that day.
Brian:Some things to avoid Do not look at your email, your texts, your social media. Give your brain one hour before, after you wake up, before you jump on any other correspondences, because anything that somebody posted on Facebook or any response they might have had to a post you put on Instagram, it can wait an hour. You know our brains have been evolving for hundreds of thousands of years and it's really only been in the past few years that we've had this quantity of information thrown at us. Our brains are not even close to being ready for all this information that we get through the corporate media and TV, or through podcasts like this, even, or, you know, social media and all the just so much information so quick and so readily available at our fingertips. Give your brain an hour of spending time with you, building you up, getting yourself ready emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually, before you then go on and get other people's information, because you think about our days.
Brian:Most of our days are within someone else's control. Our children, our companies, our jobs, our boss and managers, our professors, our teachers, sometimes our own friends and family dominate our day, and one of the things I've learned in the 29 years of coaching high-end professionals is that the number one cause that I see of people becoming disengaged in life and getting stuck on that hamster wheel and in some cases, the number one cause for depression and anxiety is a sense of having lack of control in their lives. Somebody always wants this. My boss is demanding this project to be done. My kids are screaming at me from the other room. My professors tell me we have to do this presentation next Tuesday. It's nonstop. And then, when we're not being told by someone else what to do or what they need from us, we're getting on YouTube, we're getting on Facebook, we're getting on TikTok and we're sitting there being absorbed into their world. Trust me, I'm a TikTok fiend. I'm a fanatic with it. I had to take it off my cell phone because it was too much of a distraction. But they all are pulling at us and they're trying to control. They're trying to control us for clicks, for eyeballs, they want advertising, they want to make money and we are simply just servants to their creation of wealth.
Brian:So give yourself that first hour where you have full control. You have full control on whether or not you get up when that alarm goes off no snooze. You have full control over drinking a big glass of water, hydrating first thing. Over drinking a big glass of water Hydrating first thing, of moving your body for 10 minutes Of visualizing, reading affirmations. You have full control over what you read and put into your brain first thing in the morning, what you journal and what you show gratitude for, and you have full control over on how well you plan out your day.
Brian:Now I do have a client who I think of very I hold in high regards Great guy. He's having a difficult time with the snooze button. So in two days I'm going to have the pleasure of telling him there is an anecdote to it. Now I just learned this over the past couple of weeks If you in fact are not going to avoid the snooze button and you're going to hit it a couple of times every morning, you do. There is an anecdote. If you jump into an ice cold shower when you get out of bed, that can snap that sleep inertia out of you. It can wake up your brain so that you don't have that four hours of working far less than your peak level. So I think the best question is is when really you think about all the things I mentioned, that drinking water, the exercise, visualizing, reading, journaling, planning the day you know, all those great things.
Brian:The number one, most important fulcrum habit is to not hit the snooze button to wake up instantly. The best way to do that is to follow Mel Robbins. Her book is the Five Second Rule and her claim and I believe it deeply from the research that others have done is that if you think of something for more than five seconds, you're probably going to not do it. So if you think I'm going to go exercise and you wait five seconds before you get up, you're probably not going to exercise. If your alarm goes off and you wait five seconds before you get out of bed, you're probably going to stay in bed and hit the snooze button. So I don't like the five, I don't like the five seconds themselves, but the five second rule is this you start as soon as that alarm goes off. You go five, four, three, two, one up. I do three, two, one.
Brian:If I have a hard time getting out of bed at 5 am when my alarm goes off which thankfully most of the time I don't, because I do go to bed early, but when I do, I just say in my head three, two, one and get up. Try that, just try it, or don't, because you can do the other thing I mentioned, which is get up after another 9, 18, or 27 minutes and you can jump into an ice-cold shower for three to four minutes, your choice. Personally, I think the ice-cold shower is something we should all do anyway and I've recommended it so many times on the podcast and to clients and to family and friends. But that's one recommendation and coaching aspect that I get pushback on the most. So what I gathered is most people don't like cold showers. So I guess you have three options.
Brian:You can, at the sound of that alarm, say 3, 2, 1 and get up and start your day, control your morning, set the pattern for the rest of your day of what you want to accomplish and who you want to be, for the rest of your day, of what you want to accomplish and who you want to be. Number two you can hit the snooze button one or two times and get up and take an ice cold shower and then still do those things like hydrate, exercise, journal, etc. Or you could just say I'm going to continue to hit the snooze button two to three times, I'm going to get up, jump in the shower, warm shower, hot shower, I'm going to grab my coffee and I'm going to go. And what I would say to you is I feel pity for the people who have to work alongside you for those first four hours of the day, because I believe this, when we don't prepare ourselves for the day, we are, in my opinion, dishonoring the people we work around, whether it's colleagues, whether it's classmates, whether it's family, children, friends, grandchildren because we are not able to give them our best. Because we are not able to give them our best Because we are not at our best.
Brian:Now, I know this is a little bit preachy and I'm okay with that, because I firmly believe that this is one area we can all control. And it's amazing how many questions I get from people. What would you say is the most important thing for success in the world? What is something I can do that will increase my confidence, my attitude, my wealth, my ability to attract a romantic partner, my ability to be a better father or mother, whatever it might be? We all want the answers, answers, but oftentimes, when we hear the answers well, we shrug them away because they're a little inconvenient. This is the most inconvenient thing you can do if you're used to staying in bed.
Brian:After that, alarm goes off and I will challenge you to try it for three weeks and I will be shocked if you, in three weeks, are pleasantly surprised and you are honored to look into that person, into the eyes of that person in the mirror, it will literally change who you are honored to. Look into the eyes of that person in the mirror, it will literally change who you are. And again, you don't have to start by doing all of them. Start with the snooze button, avoiding the snooze button. Do that for a week, then the next week, add in the water, then add in the exercise and add in the visualization and then add in the reading and the journaling and the gratitude and the planning out your day. Maybe over the course of the next seven, eight weeks you just add one a week. However you want to do it, I will promise you that if you do these things and migrate them into your morning routine, you will hardly recognize the person you are in 365 days. So remember one thing folks Go back to that old saying mom and dad told us years and years ago you snooze, you lose.
Brian:Thank you everyone for tuning in this week. I would be honored if you would subscribe. Hit that like button. That helps keep our algorithms going and gets more and more people across the globe listening to us and hearing some of the great guests we bring on. And please rate and review us. I respect and appreciate each and every one of you. Until next time, please get out there and strive to give and be your best. Show love and respect to others and to yourself, first of all by having a strong morning routine, and then get out there and live consciously Until next time.
