The Benefits of a Morning Practice

When we wake up and immediately go to social media and email, we force our brain to move into a Beta brain wave. In Beta, our active awareness is directed toward the outside world. Beta waves are present during stress, worry, fear, anger, anxiety, addiction, irritability, moodiness, and depression. Beta waves are also present with excessive mind chatter and self-destructive impulses. Too much time in beta weakens your immune system, and because we spend too much time in a beta state we tend to mistake it for our conscious mind and our concept of self. To be honest, it’s our worst expression of self.

 

When we wake up in the morning we have a choice. We can choose a beta wave OR we can choose more soothing connected brain waves like Alpha or Theta. If instead of going straight to our phone when we wake, we choose to entertain some breathwork or yoga and meditation, we shift our morning brainwaves into Alpha and, depending on your proficiency, Theta. When we choose to alter our brain waves away from Beta, it’s like tuning a guitar before you play a song, making the music of the day much more pleasant. A morning practice is just that. It can function as a tuning fork for your day.

 

So what’s so different about an Alpha brain wave? Here’s what Alpha offers:

 

• We experience Alpha waves when we are focused yet deeply relaxed.
• Thoughts are dreamy, associative, and flowing.
• Alpha shows up when we are relaxing, in light meditative states, or walking in nature.
• Alpha waves bring an effortless sense of comfort, harmony, and happiness.
• It’s a relaxed, alert, perceptive state – it feels profoundly peaceful compared to beta.
• Alpha states help block the stress of being in Beta from crippling our immune system.
• Alpha has been associated with “peak performance”.
• In Alpha, we learn, process, memorize, and recall large sums of information quickly with peak effectiveness.
• Alpha waves make the brain act young again.
• During Alpha, fears, habits and phobias fall away.

 

 

Your phone will be there when you’re finished. You have a hand in the mood and state you bring into your day, and it all starts with a morning practice. I hope you’ll give it a try.

Angie Aristone, co-author of Consciousness Becomes You www.angiearistone.com