A Brain-First Morning Protocol!

 If you were asking us the best way to start your day from a brain-first perspective, this is how we might reset your nervous system, start calm, and stay focused all day.

Let's Ask The Hard Question:

What If Your Morning Ritual Is the Reason You Can’t Focus?

What if your “optimized” morning was quietly frying your nervous system?

You’ve followed the productivity playbook:
Wake up at 5. Meditate. Journal. Workout. Cold plunge.

But by 10 AM… getting that third cup of coffee, you're exhausted already, edgy, looking at the clock, and can't believe it's not even noon. 

Here’s the question no one asks you:
Your nervous system and brain might hate your morning ritual.
And if your brain doesn’t feel safe, you won’t focus, recover, or grow.

So, how do you know? 

What do we do when we know? 

Great question...

Let’s unpack it with some simple neuroscience.

By the end, we hope that you will have been neuro-stimulated to know exactly how to build a brain-safe morning routine that boosts focus, energy, and emotional resilience—in just 10–15 minutes.  And...

......how you know it worked.

Let's ask the question nobody thinks to ask regarding morning rituals, because let's be honest, the "gurus" are telling everyone it makes you more productive...

But....

Can Ritual Fatigue Be Real?

...More specifically, can it be setting your nervous system into threat?

Wake up at 5 AM. Meditate for 20 minutes. Chug lemon water. Workout. Cold plunge. Journal. Gratitude. Read 10 pages. Stretch. Breathwork. Then start your actual day.

Sound familiar?

More and more biohacking gurus have glorified the morning ritual as the golden ticket to peak performance.

CEO's and the like are posting workouts at 4 AM that seem to get earlier and earlier. 

The problem? 

Most rituals are built for machines, not nervous systems.

You’re a human......not a checklist.

And if your morning routine leaves you anxious, overstimulated, or low-key resentful by 10 AM, it’s not helping.

Food for thought: I have one CEO of a major accounting firm who plans his red-eye flights back to see me bright and early the next day.

When I applied what you are about to learn, his morning workouts changed drastically, and his health improved quickly. (after a few arguments about what we were doing:)

So here is Next Level Neuro's basic introductory concept that we want you to understand first.

Understanding the concept of Threat and how it shapes your entire day. 

Threat is what the health world calls stress.

We use the word threat because your brain’s #1 job is safety.

At Next Level Neuro, we use the "Threat Bucket" analogy --> when too much stress fills your bucket, it overflows, and your brain reacts.

If your morning routine leaves you foggy, guilty, reactive, anxious, depressed, or doomscrolling, it’s not helping—> it’s adding to your bucket.

That’s your brain signaling it needs relief, not more input.

Learn more about the Threat Bucket here

So, what should you do instead?

Enter: The Brain-First Daily Protocol

This isn’t about doing more.
It’s about doing what your nervous system needs, in the order your brain understands best.

Here’s what we’ll get into:
• Identify if your current rituals are helping or hurting
• Use the Assess–ReAssess–Process framework to adjust in real-time
• Train your brain for clarity, calm, and resilience in 10–15 minutes

We are going to rewire your ritual, from the brainstem up.

 Why the brainstem up? 

This is where we want to get into a little neuroscience on the morning ritual and what might be happening for many. 

When Rituals Work Against the Brain

Are You Starting Your Day in Survival Mode?

What works for one brain might completely dysregulate another.

Many popular rituals, especially the ones trending in the wellness world, can trigger a stress response:

• Cold exposure when your nervous system is already hypervigilant
• Journaling that spirals into shame, self-judgment, or obsessive thinking
• Meditation routines that drop you into freeze or dissociation without you realizing it

These tools work top-down.

They rely on cognition and mindset.

But if your bottom-up brain, your brainstem, amygdala, and sensory systems, are already sounding the alarm, these tools can misfire.

Your body doesn’t feel safe, so the brain doesn’t process the input the way you intended.

Think your routine is helping?
Here’s how to tell if it’s secretly hijacking your brain instead:

Signs Your Ritual Is Backfiring:

• Can’t focus after your routine
• Feel edgy, flat, or overstimulated
• Still procrastinating hours later
• Craving sugar, doomscrolling, or needing caffeine by 10 AM

Here’s a simple way to check in: rate yourself on a scale of 1–10.

• 1 = Overwhelmed, shut down, or spinning
• 10 = Calm, grounded, and focused

When I started using this “What’s My Number?” system, I realized I was doing everything right, but I felt wrong inside. 

My rituals were stacking cognitive input on top of a nervous system still locked in threat.

It was like throwing glitter on a panic attack.

Once I flipped my approach and built my routine bottom-up, my number flipped too.

This simple shift is what led us to build the Brain-First Morning Protocol.

Before you stack habits, we need to ask if your brain is even online.

A Brain-Safe State = A Highly Productive Day

Calm Brains Think Clearer, Work Faster, and Lead Better

Can we debate these last two lines? 

Want to know why your brain shuts down mid-morning, even with all those guru-designed rituals in place?

Here is the neurological truth: 

Your prefrontal cortex (planning, memory, decision-making) only comes online after your brainstem and limbic system feel safe. 

No safety? No higher thinking.

That means:
• No focus without regulation
• No executive function without interoception
• No real productivity while the threat is high

This is exactly what we teach in our mentorship: how to decrease threat so people move better, think clearly, and live pain-free.

So here’s the real question:
Are you starting your day priming your brain for safety, or unknowingly increasing threat and sabotaging your focus and mood?

A Safe Brain = Productive  

When your nervous system is regulated, you experience:
• Faster decision-making
• Better emotional control
• Clearer thinking
• Less impulsivity

You stop wasting energy fighting yourself.
You stop swinging between hyperfocus and collapse.
You get more done, not by force, but by capacity.

 And this is where we built "What's My Number?"

“What’s My Number?” — The Interoception Scale

Ask yourself first thing in the morning:
“On a scale of 1–10, how regulated do I feel right now?”

• 1 = Dissociated / numb / frozen
• 5 = Buzzed / jittery / scattered
• 10 = Calm / grounded / focused

This number isn’t set. It’s data.

If you’re below a 7, you may not be ready for journaling or cold exposure.
You may need regulation first.

And that’s where Assess–Reassess–Process comes in, which we teach throughout our mentorship and where you can learn for free, here. 

The Assess–Reassess–Process Model In Application 

(The Neuro Process will follow below)

The Only Morning Ritual Formula That Matters

Forget perfect. 

Think feedback.

This model helps you track whether your ritual is helping your brain—> not just your to-do list.

1. ASSESS – Initial State

• Ask “What’s my number?” before your ritual
• Track symptoms: tension, overwhelm, exhaustion, distraction
• Pick a Neuro Assessment (e.g.,torso rotation, shoulder mobility, neck rotation, toe touch etc) See video tutorial and education here.

2. Do Your Morning Ritual

3. REASSESS – Post-Ritual Check

• Reassess 
• Has your number improved?
• Do you feel calmer or more grounded?

4. PROCESS – Decide What’s Next

• If you feel better → proceed with the day
• If you feel worse or the same → try a different drill or add more input

You don’t need a perfect plan.

You need a system that checks if your ritual is working FOR YOU. 

Example: Morning Protocol

When I first started the Bottom-Up, Brain-First approach, this was my go-to:

Upon Waking: 

• Assess: Toe Touch
• "What’s my number?"
• 10' Walking / Low-Impact Cardio Machine
• 20' Neuro Active Movement / Yoga
• Reassess: Toe Touch
• What’s my number?

Need some examples or thoughts on how to proceed with your own morning brain-first daily rituals?

Great,  let's proceed. 

Here is that link again for our Free Masterclass on the Assess/Reassess Process. 

Build-A-Brain

The Next Level Neuro Brain-First Daily Protocol

10–15 Minutes to Train Focus, Calm, and Resilience

This isn’t a list to perform.
It’s a menu for your nervous system.

Quick Reminder:  This is an example of what you may do. If you’re part of our mentorship or have a background in applied neurology, you will know what neurology drills will work for you. If not, the assess/reassess process helps you find out immediately what is working and not working. 

Your Own Brain-First Daily Protocol

1. “What’s My Number?” Check-In (1–2 mins)
Quick scan:
• What’s my breath like?
• Where am I holding tension?
• Is my mind racing, flat, or focused?
• Am I stressed?

 2. Vagus Nerve Activation (3–5 mins)
Stimulate parasympathetic safety (choose one or two)
• Humming
• Bouncing
• Slow nasal breathing (inhale 4, exhale 8)
• Gargling
• Gentle neck rotations

3. Vision + Gaze Drills (1–2 mins)
Visual input = 70% of sensory data
• Gaze stabilization
• Peripheral vision softening

4. Brain-Safe Joint Movement (3–5 mins)
Proprioceptive input = safety
• Arm, elbow, wrist, leg, knee, ankle circles
• Hula hoops + lateral shifts

5. Integration: Infinity Walk
Walk in a figure-8, eyes locked on one object.

6. Brain Nutrition (2–3 mins)
Neuro-Fuel your brain:
• Hydration
• Electrolytes
• Healthy fats
• Protein

Morning Rituals Don’t Matter Unless They Regulate You

You don’t need more rituals.
You need better signals.

“Don’t ask if your morning looks good. Ask if your brain feels safe.”

You can’t outthink a threatened brain.
But you can train one.

And that’s what we do at Next Level Neuro.

Real tools.

Real transformation.
Starting with your first breath of the day.

Food for Thought

Something Matt Bush and I talk about often in the strength space:

How do you know your clients are leaving your sessions better than they came in?

Seriously, how do you know?

Because it's not just about whether they lifted heavier, did the drills, or completed the program.
 

The real question is: 

Did your client's brain leave in a less threatened state?

That’s the win.

That’s what changes lives.

And how do we measure that?

We assess.

We reassess.

We give their brain the input it needs.

We close our sessions with regulation, not depletion.

And here’s the kicker.

If we care this much about how our clients leave a session…

Shouldn’t we care just as much about how we enter our day?

That’s why I don’t start my mornings with a checklist anymore. 

I start with clarity.

So what’s your number today?

And if you want to go deeper into how to train the brain this way—for yourself and your clients—check out how our applied neurology can be integrated with your business.

You can read more about it [here].

Until next time, and hey, if you catch yourself walking around yelling “WHAT’S MY NUMBER?”

You’re one of us and welcome to the club.

Chris