How to Rewire Your Brain with a Simple Morning Routine

In this episode of the Mind Body Method podcast, I’m breaking down how the mind-body connection has completely changed the way I train, recover, and show up in my life.

Because here’s the thing — your thoughts aren’t just “in your head.” They create real physical reactions. Stress spikes cortisol. Anxiety tightens your body. Fight‑or‑flight drains your energy. But calm, focused states? That’s where recovery, digestion, clarity, and real performance live.

I talk about Neuroplasticity — aka your brain’s ability to rewire itself based on repeated thoughts and behaviors. Basically, whatever you practice, you become.

Then I get into heart-brain coherence, which sounds technical but really just means getting your nervous system, heart, and brain on the same team. Breath work, meditation, slowing down — that’s how you shift from reactive mode to intentional mode.

And honestly? It starts in the morning.

I explain why a solid morning routine is one of the most underrated tools for discipline, identity, and mental clarity. If you don’t take control of your mindset early, the world will gladly do it for you.

Then I walk you through exactly what I do:

• Early wake-up (before the chaos starts)
• No social media scrolling
• Intention-setting
• Hydration + supplements
• Meditation & breath work
• Making the bed (small win, big energy shift)
• High-protein breakfast
• Gratitude journaling (when I’m consistent 😅)

Nothing extreme. Just consistent.

Because small early wins build momentum. And momentum builds identity.

If you’ve ever felt stuck, stressed, or scattered, this episode will help you understand how to train your brain and body to work with you instead of against you.

And I want to hear from you — what’s in your morning routine?

Write to me at: Questions@MindBodyMethodPodcast.com

You can follow me at @JoshGrimm_FITNUT

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Mind Body Method, the podcast where health and fitness go beyond the weights and the workouts. I'm your host, Josh Grimm, and every week we'll dive into what it truly means to build strength, not just in your body, but in your mind and your life. From movement with purpose to building a resilient mindset, this podcast is about empowering you to thrive in every aspect of your life, inside and outside of the gym. So let's get started. Hi, welcome back to the Mind Body Method podcast, and I am your host, Josh Graham. You know, today I want to talk a little bit about my own fitness and wellness journey. I don't think that my journey with fitness or wellness is much different than a lot of others. However, I do know that I spend quite a lot of time thinking about the correlation between the mind and the body. I speak about that a lot on this show. I speak about it a lot to my clients on social media and whatnot, because I am a believer as I've gotten older and the things that I have learned through my own studies and habits that the correlation between the two is really important for your own success, goals, achieving your goals, and things like that. So, what I want to talk a little bit about today is specifically neuroplasticity, a little bit of like heart and brain cohesion, and morning routines, things that are all very important to me. So let's get into that. Everybody talks about the mind and body connection, but most people don't actually know what that means. They think it's just stay positive, work out, take care of yourself. But the reality is that your mind and body are in constant communication every second of the day. If you don't learn how to control that connection, it will control you. So what it actually is, is that the mind-body connection is the relationship between, you know, your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings, and your actual physical state. Your thoughts create, you know, chemical reactions in your brain, and those chemicals affect your nervous system and your body then responds. So when you're stressed, when you're anxious, you're overwhelmed, that's just not in your head. Your body is literally, you know, it's tightening, it's it's giving you a response, it's holding tension, it's increasing your cortisol levels and increasing your stress and shifting more into a survival mode or like a fight or flight mode on the flip side. When you're calm, you're focused, and intentional, your body shifts into a completely different state. It's better recovery, better digestion, better decision-making skills, clearer thinking, you know, more energy. So, you know, this isn't just mindset like fluff, it's actual physiology. Neuroplasticity is something that I've been reading about over the past couple of years. And here's where it gets somewhat powerful. It basically means that your brain is constantly rewiring itself based on what you repeatedly think, feel, and do. So if you wake up every day stressed, your day is going to run stressed. If you rush through your morning, nothing's gonna change. You know, you react to everything, you live in chaos, you live in fear, and you're literally training your body and your brain to stay in that pattern. But the opposite's also true. You know, if you intentionally practice to stay present and calm and focused and disciplined, then your body is going to react in those ways as well. You know, it brings on full awareness and present behaviors. You can actually rewire your brain to operate from that place, and that's why routines matter. You're not just going through motions, you're going through an actual plan to get to the end goal, right? There's something that's even a little bit deeper that I really like to talk about, and that's the heart-body coherence. This is when your brain, your nervous system, and your heart are all kind of in sync. You know, it operates on a completely different level. You feel uh more grounded of them all working together, more clear, more in control. And one of the simplest ways to tap into this is through mindful practice, through your breath, slow, controlled breathing, bringing your heart rate into a rhythm, calms your nervous system, and signals to your brain that you're safe in control. That's why something as simple as breathing or meditative practices or breathing practices, being present, slowing down, can completely shift your state in mere minutes. When we talk about the mind and body connection, we're not talking about something abstract. We're talking about how you think, how you feel, the things that are actually affecting your body and how your body responds from your own thoughts and your own patterns. All working together. And the more aware you become of that, the more control you have over your energy, your decision-making skills, your performance, and ultimately your lifestyle. So if you think about working everything together, bringing it into a foundation, and everything else that we talk about here on the mind body method, you know, things will get things will get easier. One of the most important things I find to start our days off right is to have a proper, healthy morning routine. Today I want to talk about something that I think is one of the most underrated game changers in your life, and that's your morning routine. Not in a cliche, wake up at four in the morning kind of way, but in a real practical way, you know, how you set the tone for your day and you know, what kind of the habits that you do that actually directly tie into how your day is gonna run. Today I'm gonna break down why morning routines matter and what they actually do for your mind and for your body. And then I'll walk you through, of course, my personal routine. So when I think about a morning routine, I think, why do I want to wake up immediately and have some habits or have some chores? Um, but people want to go into some sort of reaction mode. You know, they they check their phone, they respond to texts, they scroll Instagram, or they jump right into work stress, life stress. And what happens? You're already kind of behind mentally. You didn't choose your mindset, your environment chose it for you. So a morning routine kind of flips that. It puts you into a world where you have control and where you can access the things that you want your work life and your personal life to look like that day. This helps regulate the nervous system and kind of sets you up for success, creates mental clarity, and then you build some disciplinary habits to help guide you along through your day, having small wins very early on. When you do that consistently, you're not just having better mornings, you're actually building a stronger identity and you're becoming someone who is a little bit more intentional, grounded, proactive, and you know, ultimately making better decisions. That carries into your workouts, your nutrition, your business, your relationships, and everything else. So, what does a good morning routine actually look like? A solid morning routine should hit a few key areas. Your mind, number one, something that creates some sort of healthy space for you, whether that's journaling, meditation, sitting in silence, because if you don't create space, your thoughts will just control you and the stress will control you instead of the other way around. Your body, you know, movement very early in the day changes everything. It doesn't have to be a full workout, it doesn't have to be getting on a treadmill, but getting your body moving wakes up your system and boosts your momentum and then your focus. You need to anchor into something intentional. You know, this could be reviewing your goals, looking at some journaling that you have done in the past, setting intentions, or even just asking yourself, what do I want to do to show up today for myself or for others? Without that purpose, you kind of like drift. So you need to have a little bit of like a solid grounding. So let's talk a little bit about my personal morning routine. This isn't going to be for everyone, and this has taken years and years and years of practice to understand what makes this work best for me. So, first thing I do, I'm an early riser. I typically wake up during the week around 4 a.m. Naturally, my body wakes up around like 3 45, 3 50. During the weekends, I definitely can sleep in a little bit longer, maybe 5 a.m., 6 a.m. It's just my body habit and age as I've gotten older. Um, I like the consistency and I like the pattern. But I do typically get seven to eight hours of sleep because I go to bed early as well. One of the first things I do, it's not always in the same order, but I definitely set an intention for the day, right? I'm very aware of that. I think about in the first few seconds of waking up what I want today to look like. I don't look at my phone right away. Maybe I do for the time, but that's it. And then I, you know, I wash my face, typical hygiene things. I typically put on a face mask of some sort. And I always drink my creatine and some sort of turmeric powder or green powder right away. I do that before I actually wash my face, just to get that first 8 ounce to 12 ounces glass of water. And I typically face mask, eye patches, lay back in bed for a few moments. That's when I will turn on my phone. I'll catch up on any important texts or emails. I won't look at Instagram or social media. I'm not massive into scrolling anyway, so that's not a big habit for me to have suppressed. It's not my favorite thing to do. I rarely do it. And I will take this time to meditate. I will do some sort of meditation, whether it be fire breath meditation, it will be guided meditation from an app. A lot of times it's just a some breathwork meditation. When it comes to meditations, I've been doing these for so long and so many years. There are multiple kinds that you can do. You just have to kind of learn the ones that work best for you. And I'm able to figure out the ones that I need for that day, depending on maybe some stressors that are in my life or things that are going to be coming up throughout that day, the day ahead. Let's see. After meditation, it's when I get up, make my bed, make sure it's all very precise and clean. I actually always, not always, but I often vacuum at that time as well, or I have one of those little vacuum guys that runs around. Breakfast time for me is always the same staples. I am at this place right now where I really enjoy two pieces of sourdough toast, cottage cheese with fresh black pepper, maybe a little bit of guacamole, and then some sort of rice with egg whites and another protein, such as chicken meatballs, turkey meat, something like that. Hot sauce, I'm good to go. That's half the breakfast there. Then there's usually an added benefit of having a bowl of Greek yogurt with berries, honey, and then I pour a protein shake on top of that. So that's quite a lot to eat at 4:30 in the morning. But because of my day, that's going to be ahead. That's probably my biggest meal of the day. Let's see what else. If I have time, and it's not even if I have time, if I feel inspired to, I've been into journaling again lately. Not in a very like big, let's see, not in a very common way, I guess. If if when it comes to journaling, I have a journal, and I might say three things that day that I was grateful for from the day before. I will say an intention of what I want this day to look like, and I will say of something I want to let go. Usually the letting go thing is maybe if I'm having some sort of feeling or anxiety about something that's coming ahead in the day, it's usually pertaining to work. And um, and the intent is usually for kind of the antagonist of that. So those two usually go hand in hand. And that's kind of my morning. I watch a little bit of TV and while I'm eating my breakfast, it's a pretty busy morning, but it it's brought it, it's uh it's a stretch of an hour and 45 minutes before I'm out the door. But that's every day. So I urge you to find your own morning habits and morning routines that work for you. Um, play around with them. But um, it's a fun thing to do to like kind of let go of some bad habits, which you know what they are, you know, the doom scrolling comparison and starting your day with stress. Get rid of the stress, create new habits. So if this morning routine has resonated with you or inspired you at all, I would like to hear what your routines are. If you are aligned with mine, or I'm just curious the comments. So like, comment, subscribe to this channel, and leave some comments. DM me or leave some comments below, and I want to hear everything. So you could also email questions at mindbody methodpodcast.com. My Instagram is Josh Grimm underscore fitnut. Let me know. Thanks. Thank you for joining me today on Mind Body Method. This podcast is part of Pride House Media, hosted by me, Josh Grimm, produced and edited by Josh Rosensmike, original music composed by Mel Balabin. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're there, leave us a rating and review. It really helps others to discover the show. I'd love to stay connected with you, so join the conversation by following me at Josh Grimm underscore fitnet on Instagram and by emailing me at questions at mindbodypodcast.com.