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Welcome to today's quick brain challenge. I am your brain coach and host of the Quick Brain podcast, Jim Kwik, and today your challenge is making your bed for a better brain. You may be thinking, "Jim, I already make my bed, why do I need to watch or listen to this episode?" I'll tell you in a moment. Or you may be thinking, "Number two, Jim, I don't want to make my bed. I've never made my bed. It's such a waste of time. I'm just going to make it messy again, or my partner is going to end up making the bed." Let me tell you a few reasons why you want to make your bed and why it's good for your brain. It's going to help you to have better focus, improve memory, and overall a better life. It's like making your bed: you make up your mind, right? Because it's good bed hygiene, and it's also good mental hygiene.
The number one reason is this: how you do anything is how you do everything. How you do anything is how you do everything. Your life is really a reflection of the cumulative habits that you have. First you create your habits, and then your habits create you back. You create your habits of meditation, journaling, working out, and eating good food, and all of a sudden that creates your life back. Now, the most important habit, I think, one of the most important habits to get good at, is the habit of creating new habits, because most people want to create a new result in their life, but insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Most of us are doing the same thing: we're using the same words, the same thoughts, the same habits, the same behaviors, the same feelings, and we're expecting life to change, but it doesn't happen that way. So little things mean a lot. How you do anything is how you do everything. So make your bed. What does it take, one or two minutes? Make it with excellence, because how you do that is how you're going to do everything else in your day, because success breeds success. They call it the science of momentum. You have one big win, which is a win you create, you accomplish something first thing in the morning, and then you can build on that.
The second reason why you want to make your bed is because we talk about the 10 keys for activating your Quick Brain: eating good brain foods, killing automatic negative thoughts, different workouts to build your brain power, supplementation, positive peer group, and sleep, and really maximizing or optimizing your reduction for stress, all that. But we also talk about a clean environment. We're talking about having a tidy environment. You're seeing this a lot online, having everything clean. Your external world is a reflection of your internal world, and when you clean your environment, don't you feel less stress? Don't you have clarity of thought? So start the first thing in the morning by making your bed. When you get out of bed, you make it, and you have a clean environment, and you train yourself to have control over your environment, because you influence your environment, and your environment also influences you right back.
The third reason why you want to make your bed first thing in the morning is because once it's done, and we do it with excellence, and how you do anything is how you do everything, you're establishing a clean environment. When you look at a bed that's freshly made, like you're in a hotel room, and you look at that hotel bed and it's immaculate, doesn't it feel good? You get to come back to that. So the third reason is that if you come full circle, when you finish your day and somebody asks you how your day was, because you created this momentum of success, you're like, "I crushed it," and you get to go to bed and come back to success. You made success in the morning, you had your day, and you come back to success. Both bookends of your day, first thing in the morning and last thing at night, you start with success.
For more information about this, I would recommend you listen to number one, my morning routine episode. Number two, listen to the episodes we did on habits with James Clear and Dr. BJ Fogg, on how to create new habits and how to break old, disempowering habits. And finally, I would listen to the episode with Julia Roy about productivity and how you have different places and devices for different activities, especially the bedroom.
So here's what you're going to do. You're going to make your bed first thing in the morning. You're going to do that even if it's difficult. You're not going to ask somebody else to do it; you're going to do it. Take a picture of it and post it, tag me at @jimkwik, #QuickBrainChallenge, and I'll repost some of my favorites. But what you're going to do is really celebrate the fact that you're doing this, that you can make a little habit, and it changes your brain and changes your life, because what other habits can you take on after this? You're getting really good at creating brand-new habits, and you have a well-made bed and a well-made mind. I'll see you in the next challenge.