The simplest morning routine is giving me the best results

I'm writing this post as a reminder that this morning routine has worked for me, and that I should remember exactly how to do it. I hope it does for you too.

The outcome

I have had a consistent and very noticeable increase in physical and mental energy throughout the day. This gives me the energy to do things I usually tend to procrastinate on. This change is so noticeable it compelled me to write this post.

The routine

The routine is very simple, in comparison to anything I've tried in the past.

1. Roughly 10 minutes after getting up, I plank for 10 seconds more than I did the previous day. I also listen to a fun podcast during the plank, which adds as a distraction and reward mecanism when things get difficult.
2. For breakfast, I eat 3 organic labelled chicken eggs, sunny side up, greasing the pan with rapeseed oil.
3. I enjoy two cups of Earl Grey black tea.

That's it.
No waking up earlier, no going for a walk, no sunlight, no meditation, no journaling, no reading, no writing, no planning, no nothing¹.

I don't know if any one of these is the main contributor, or whether it's the combination of all of them.

Why this may work

I'm not entirely sure why this routine primes me so well for the day, but it does.

Planking

Planking is a difficult exercise which strains a large part of the body, mostly the core.
Pushing yourself to do more than the day will release all sorts of chemicals in your brain, which is likely the biggest contributor to the increase in energy.

The planking came idea came from this video from the SpoonFedStudy channel:

I don't implement most anything from the video, but I did take away one core idea: Tell yourself you can do it; in fact you've done it before yesterday; what's an extra 10 seconds?

The video underlines the plank should be done in two parts: one for mental toughness, one for physical fitness. The first part of the plank should be done in silence, it trains your mental resilience. The second part should be done with something distracting, like an addicting phone game, to distract your mind and trigger dopamine responses. Currently, I don't know of an addicting game I could play using only my thumbs as I plank, so I listen to a podcast instead.

Breakfast

Eggs: Starting the day with protein (and avoiding sugar) has been shown to prime the body for consuming fat as an energy source over glucose stores.

Rapeseed oil: A healthy cooking oil should have a a ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 of 0.5²; for instance, olive oil has a ratio of 0.0775, sunflower oil has a ratio of 0.0079, and rapeseed oil has a ratio of 0.5³. Rapeseed oil is very affordable and healthy.

Earl grey black tea: I've been progressively getting rid of coffee in favour of tea, as I've heard it's better for you.
I've got no source yet to back this claim, but it's part of the routine which works well.

What I used to do

Unless I had physical activity planned for the day, I almost always skipped breakfast. This has been the case for years, starting in 2017 where I would do intermittent fasting (16-8 window). Although I've dropped fasting - for no good reason - I've kept skipping breakfast.

What I've tried in the past

Not to say the following does not work, but none of the items had the same impact as the current routine.

1. 20 minutes of working out in the morning, 3 times per week. Overall improves physical fitness, but did not give as much energy ; it's quite possible I was not pushing myself enough.

2. Exposure to sunlight and going for a walk. I've tried it, the habit never stuck, and I cannot recall if the results were any good.

3. Meditation. No increase in physical or mental energy; but that's not really the point of meditation anyhow.