The 10 Minute Morning Routine That Will Make You More Creative
The fastest way I’ve found to get into a creative flow state
Most people start their mornings with coffee.
I start mine with breath work.
I literally spend about ten minutes every morning focusing on my breathing before I look at my phone, check messages, or let the outside world in.
Something happens when you sit in silence and focus on your breath. The noise starts to fade. The endless thoughts slow down. My mind gets quieter.
By the time I’m done, I feel more present, more creative, and a lot less reactive. Ideas seem to come more easily. Things that felt overwhelming the night before suddenly feel simple.
It’s probably been one of the biggest changes I’ve made to my creative life over the past few years.
No phone. No scrolling. No distractions.
Just ten minutes to clear my head before the day begins.
I want to walk you through exactly what this is, why I think it works, and how you can build it into your own mornings starting tomorrow.
What I’m actually talking about
This is a guided version of the Wim Hof breathing method. I found it on YouTube a couple of years ago and almost gave up on it the first time I tried it. It felt strange. Uncomfortable. My mind kept telling me this was pointless.
But I kept going, and somewhere in that first session, something shifted. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was one of those moments where you go, wait, what is this?
Here’s the basic structure, done in three rounds:
- Thirty deep breaths, full inhale and exhale, back to back
- Exhale fully and hold your breath for around a minute on the first round
- Inhale again and hold for fifteen seconds
- Repeat the thirty breaths, then hold a bit longer on the second round
- On the third and final round, the breath hold extends to around a minute and thirty seconds
The first time I did this, I didn’t think I could hold my breath for a minute. I didn’t think I could hold it for a minute and thirty seconds. It felt like, what is this doing. But I was so surprised by what I felt. My mind started to go quiet.
That quiet is the whole point.
Why mornings specifically
I do this before I touch my phone. Before email, before texts, before anything pulls my attention somewhere else. That sequencing matters more than people think.
When your first input of the day is something demanding your focus, like checking notifications or scrolling, your mind starts the day reacting. When your first input is ten minutes of controlled breathing, your mind starts the day choosing. That’s a completely different state to build a creative session on top of.
What I’ve noticed, consistently, is that everything that would normally feel heavy or overwhelming just isn’t there anymore. Whatever I was overthinking the night before, whatever stress was sitting in the background, it genuinely lifts. Not in a vague, woo sense. It actually goes quiet.
Everything feels more within reach. I’m only thinking about the moment I’m in. I’m present.
The flow state connection
You know that feeling when you’re completely locked into something. A movie that’s got your full attention. A game. A sports event you can’t look away from. Your mind isn’t wandering anywhere else; it’s just there, totally engaged.
That’s the state this practice puts me in, except I get to choose what to point it at. For me, that’s writing, filmmaking, thinking through a new concept. The breath work doesn’t hand me ideas. It clears enough space that the ideas I already have access to can actually surface.
I have ADD, and this is the part that’s mattered most for me personally. Going about my day after this practice is noticeably sharper. Not because the breathing fixed anything, but because it gives my mind one clean, demanding task first thing, and that seems to set the tone for how focused I can be afterward.
Taking it outside
If you can, do this outside. Preferably with the sunrise.
There’s something about being in nature for this that deepens it. Getting natural light in your eyes early in the day is its own practice entirely, separate from the breathing, and it pairs with this in a way that feels almost designed. Watching the sun come up while you’re doing this is one of the most serene things I’ve built into my routine.
I’m a big believer in night walks for ideas; that’s a different kind of creative fuel for me. But this morning's practice is its own category. It’s not about generating ideas in the moment. It’s about clearing the static so the ideas that are already there have room to surface.
What the research actually says
I’m not a brain scientist, and I don’t want to overstate the science here. But there is real research behind this, and I think it’s worth knowing what’s actually been studied versus what’s more anecdotal.
The most well-known research comes from a 2014 study where scientist Wim Hof and a group of people he trained were able to voluntarily influence their own immune response during a controlled experiment, something that was thought to be largely outside conscious control. The trained subjects were able to deliberately activate their sympathetic nervous system, resulting in adrenaline release and a reduced inflammatory response when exposed to a bacterial toxin, and the breathing exercises were the primary tool they used to get there.
A more recent 2023 study out of the University of Bern put the broader method through a structured trial. Forty-two participants were split into a group that practiced the method daily for fifteen days and a control group, with researchers measuring cardiovascular markers along with stress, mood, and vitality. It’s a small study, but it’s a real, controlled one, and it adds to a growing body of work on what breath-based practices can do for stress and nervous system regulation.
Where I want to be clear with you: some of the more specific claims you’ll hear about this method, including effects on dopamine specifically, are repeated often online but are not as firmly established in peer-reviewed research as the stress and immune findings above. I think the practice is genuinely powerful. I also think it’s fair to separate what’s well studied from what’s still anecdotal, even when the anecdotal part is true to my own experience.
Why I think this is the real unlock
None of this is hidden information. It’s not a secret formula. It’s something you have to actually experience to understand, and then become aware of enough to build into your life on purpose.
The entire creative journey, for anyone, comes down to getting into a state where you genuinely cannot be distracted. That’s it. That’s the whole thing people are chasing when they talk about discipline, or inspiration, or creative blocks. It’s not about waiting for an idea to strike. It’s about building a state where you’re available enough to notice the ideas that are already there.
This practice is how I get there before I create anything. It became a non-negotiable part of my morning, the same way prayer and scripture already were. I didn’t expect a breathing exercise to earn that kind of place in my routine. But it did.
If you try this, give it more than one attempt. I almost wrote it off after the first round. The discomfort is real at first. So is what’s on the other side of it. Let me know what it does for you.
-Noah