You may or may not be a morning person, but I have a simple prescription for you this week. If you’re not already in the habit, start exercising each and every morning within an hour of waking up for at least five minutes. Of course, if you customarily do a full workout in the morning, you’re already ahead of the game. This directive is for people who currently have no regular fitness routine in the morning.

You can keep it simple with a few exercises and stretches that are just enough to get your heart rate up. Typically, I get out of bed at 5:15 a.m., and I’m in my living room ready to meditate for a few minutes by 6:00 a.m. Then it’s time for some light exercise. Upper and lower body stretches, push-ups, stair-stepping, biceps curls, kickbacks, body-weight squats, and planks are some examples of the types of exercises I do on any given morning. I rarely go for more than seven minutes. In that vein, it’s important that you don’t overthink things. Just do something to move your body against some kind of physical resistance. Having a set of resistance bands and some dumbbells is useful in that regard.

You should have a couple of objectives in mind when establishing this habit. Your main objective is to boost your mood so that you’re in the right frame of mind for the day ahead. You need to be alert and firing on all cylinders because every day holds the possibility of an unforeseen challenge. Think of it as a mental trick you play on yourself. You’re inflicting some mild but controlled stress on yourself first thing in the morning so that stressful situations later on are less likely to fluster you.

The secondary objective is to keep fitness at the top of your mind. I call it making fitness "conspicuous," and it affirms your identity as the kind of person who stays in shape. I believe the reason so many people struggle to stay motivated to work out is because they’re able to see themselves as being out of shape. But when being fit is part of your very identity, you don’t struggle with motivation to work out because your commitment supersedes your motivation or lack thereof.

Don’t beat around the bush. Implement this in your morning routine immediately and watch what happens. It’ll be habitual after a few weeks, and you’ll be loving the benefits.

Sayonara until next time.