10/25/2025
How you start your day may determine how the rest of your day goes. Here is a leading happiness expert’s morning routine:
Data shows that the way you structure the start of your day can have significant effects on your energy, creativity and happiness. Arthur Brooks, who teaches a class about happiness at Harvard & authors a happiness column for The Atlantic, has a set of practices that he can pick and choose from each morning to boost his mood for the rest of the day.
“I have used all of my background in behavioral science, & everything I’ve learned about biology to put together a morning protocol that supports my well-being,” Brooks said on his podcast, “Office Hours with Arthur Brooks.”
Here is Brooks’ morning routine, and what he says we can all do “to start your day in the best possible way.”
To get a better understanding of himself, Brooks determined his baseline emotional state using a tool in psychology called the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). After taking the test, people are placed in one of four categories depending on how intensely they lean towards positive or negative emotions.
Brooks would be considered a “mad scientist,” who experiences high positive affect and high negative affect. “I feel things very intensely, and that’s great on the positive side. But I need to manage the negative side,” he said on the podcast.
To avoid allowing the intensity of his negative emotions, Brooks created this six-step morning routine:
EAT A HI PROTEIN BREAKFAST: Brooks eats between 175 and 200 grams of protein each day, so he gets about 60 grams of protein for breakfast by eating unflavored, non-fat Greek yogurt with whey protein, walnuts and berries. “It makes me feel great. It keeps me full all through the morning and fueled up,” he said.
RISE EARLY: Research shows that getting up before the sun rises can improve your creativity, focus and memory, he said. Brooks wakes up at 4:30 a.m. nearly every day, and has experienced positive effects on his mental health as a result. ENGAGE IN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY: “Fifteen minutes after I wake up, I’m in the gym,” said Brooks who has a gym in his home. He exercises for an hr a day, seven days a week, & alternates btwn cardio and resistance training.
DELAY COFFEE: “I love coffee for sure, but I don’t drink it when I first wake up,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I don’t have my first cup of coffee until 7:30 in the morning.” He finds that it prevents him from having a 3 p.m. slump later in the day.
GET THOUGHTFUL: Taking a page out of the Dalai Lama’s book, Brooks practices his take on analytical meditation each morning, by worship or saying a prayer in his car. If you aren’t religious or into meditation, you can gain similar benefits from journaling for 20 to 30 minutes, Brooks added.
FLOW STATE: Instead of using the energy that his morning routine gives him to check emails, take phone calls or read the paper, Brooks starts working right away. “When I do that, I can actually get two hours of super high-quality creative work,” he said. “I’m in the flow for the rest of the day.”
Though Brooks encouraged listeners to try his morning routine, he also suggested altering it to fit their personal experiences.
“Experiment on yourself,” he said. “This is the result of my experiments. You need the result of your experiments.
Thanks to Wendy Simkin, PhD for this post.
