Issue #15

Hey friends 👋🏽,

Welcome back to Thought Caffeine, a weekly newsletter where I share my favourite discoveries during the week.

I finished my rotation and exams in Anaesthesiology last week and had plenty of time for some clickety clacking after all was done. I'm currently working on two articles, both of which are under review by publication editors, and I'm really excited about them.

☕️ Morning Routines

I used to have a morning routine. It involved waking up at 6.30 without fail every single day, followed by a 10-minute mindfulness practice with Headspace. I’d then gather my bearings, take a quick cold shower, and make myself breakfast – the same thing every day: oatmeal porridge with banana and honey, and a mug of hot chocolate or café au-lait.

That routine starting breaking down bit by bit. First, I stopped waking up at 6.30. I had read Matthew Walker’s thesis about the importance of sleep, and that had convinced me that my 6.30 daily wake-up call was unjustifiable. Fair enough.

Then I too started incorporating intermittent fasting to my dietary life, which meant I had to retract the breakfast menu I had known and loved for over 3 years. Intermittent fasting has since been mentally very therapeutic for me, a challenge I look forward to day in and day out.

Soon, my Headspace practise went down the drain too. I lost motivation for mindfulness drills at the start of the pandemic, and I couldn't seem to go back to it. I’ve since started reading daily devotionals in the morning, but because of my erratic sleep-wake schedule, I often find myself doing it in the evening or late at night. So much for a morning routine.

I’m left with just my cold morning shower now, something I don’t think I’ll ever not do unless I was extremely late for work – an occurrence that I hate to admit happened once last week.

Stumbling upon Dr Jeff Livingston’s post last week on morning routines – inspired by Hal Elrod's The Miracle Morning, I was refreshed and inspired to rekindle the flames with mine. I’ll expand more on this on a future post, but here were some of my favourite takeaways from his article.

1. We all work so hard to create an amazing life for ourselves, but we never stop and take the time to enjoy the life we have created.
2. He [Hal Elrod] suggests a morning routine called SAVERS (silence, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing.)
3. I prefer practicing mindfulness in the evening before I go to bed. Meditation in the morning made me sleepy.
4. I also created and started living my personal mission statement “to become the best version of myself to have the maximum impact on others.” Every day I work to make this a reality.
5. Once the coffee is ready, I sit a comfortable chair, and I read an affirmation paragraph. The affirmation keeps me focused on my mission and values.

One of the incorporations I’m most excited about is his idea of a morning mantra routine, where you read over affirmations and your personal goals and values out-loud. I’m especially working on spending more time with friends this year, and I’m publishing an article about it soon.

🙂 Other things I've been enjoying

1. Book: With The End in Mind by Kathryn Mannix. I was surprised by how little I actually know about the natural dying process, even when my job entails that I do. Mannix provides a fascinating perspective on death, guiding readers through its peaceful biological progression, and challenges us to address uncomfortable questions surrounding death.
2. Article: Beer Mode and Coffee Mode. An interesting 3-minute article by David Perell about productivity and a common trap we fall into when it comes to measuring progress. My tl;dr to you: Creativity cannot be forced. Aimless wandering is often necessary.
3. Series: The Fall on Netflix. I grew up watching and reading crime, so this was right up my alley. Gillian Anderson, who I learnt was American, played the role of chief inspector brilliantly: charming and elegant in her own right.

📸 Photo of the Week

My Apple Watch took this photo of my colleagues and me after our last rounds in Anaesthesiology. Can you spot me? 👀

📖 Quote of the Week

“She said she had married a guy, and he was just a guy. He wasn’t going to make all her problems go away, because he was just a guy. And that freed her to really love him as a guy, not as an ultimate problem solver. And because her husband believed she was just a girl, he was free to really love her too. Neither needed the other to make everything okay. They were simply content to have good company through life’s conflicts. I thought that was beautiful”

From A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. Resurfaced via Readwise.

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Hope you have a great week! 🎡

John