Ancient Wisdom, Modern Brains

Living it out

Protocols and Processes

“It takes a protocol, upon which you can process.” A morning built around 1 Samuel 3:10, with the science behind each step and why it matters, starting the night before, with room for grace when you miss a day.

Speak, for Your servant is listening.

1 Samuel 3:10 NASB

Hearing before speaking

And word from the LORD was rare in those days, visions were infrequent.

1 Samuel 3:1 NASB

Was the word rare because God wasn’t speaking, or because no one was listening? The chapter leans toward the second. God had already sent a man of God to warn Eli (2:27–36). Eli, the priest, didn’t recognize the LORD calling Samuel until the third time (3:8). And “Samuel did not yet know the LORD” (3:7). Once Samuel answered, “Speak, for Your servant is listening,” the word stopped being rare (3:19–21).

Before God trusted Samuel with the speaking part, He had to be able to trust him with the hearing part. Hearing comes before speaking.

From a recent sermon on 1 Samuel 3 (1 Samuel 3:10, 19–20)

Samuel’s hearing was not a single event. “Samuel grew and the LORD was with him” (3:19). Hearing came first, and it grew over years. That is the shape of this page: a protocol you keep, and a process you trust.

A protocol, and a process

“It takes a protocol, upon which you can process.”

Protocol

What it isA fixed structure you run on purpose, the same way each morning
Your partShow up, run the steps, and keep the phone out of it
Scripture1 Samuel 3:9–10 (Samuel lies down, listens, and answers)
ResearchIf-then plans have a medium-to-large average effect on reaching a goal (d ≈ 0.65 across 94 studies; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006)

Process

What it isThe slow, uneven growth God does in you over time
Your partReturn after a miss without scolding yourself
Scripture1 Samuel 3:19 (“Samuel grew”); Philippians 3:12–14
ResearchA new habit takes time, the time varies widely from man to man, and a single missed day barely matters (Lally et al., 2010). Small samples and simple health habits, so read it as moderate evidence

A protocol without a process becomes a checklist you either ace or fail. A process without a protocol becomes good intentions. The protocol gives the process something to grow on, like the trellis in the rule of life. As a recent sermon on 1 Samuel 3 put it plainly, maturity takes time, so don’t beat yourself up. A missed morning isn’t failure. Come back tomorrow and run it again.

The morning

Begin with fifteen minutes. When those hold, open the full morning. Every step says how strong the research behind it is. What the labels mean.

The 15-minute morning

Start here. Use this on busy days, and on every day until it holds. Print it and keep it by the bed.

  1. T+0, 2 minutesPray 1 Samuel 3:9 before you touch the phone: “Speak, LORD, for Your servant is listening.” Stay still for a minute and notice what you woke up carrying. Then drink a big glass of water.
  2. 6 minutes outsideTake a prayer walk, or face the brightest part of the sky. If it’s dark, turn on bright indoor lights.
  3. 3 minutes of silenceTake two slow sighs, then listen. Write one word for each distraction.
  4. 3 minutes of ScriptureRead one short passage, twice.
  5. 1 minuteWrite one line in the static log, and say one if-then commitment out loud.

Fifteen minutes kept beats fifty-five minutes planned. That’s the process.

The full morning, about 55 minutes

T means the time you wake. On dark winter mornings, turn on bright indoor lights first and take the walk once the sun is up. Tap a step to read the why and the Scripture.

  1. T+0One line before the phoneModerate

    Do. Wake at the same time every day. Before you touch the phone, pray, “Speak, LORD, for Your servant is listening.” Put the phone in airplane mode in another room until T+60.

    Why, from the research. A regular wake time keeps the body clock on schedule. Irregular sleep is linked to later circadian timing and worse performance (Phillips et al., 2017). Keeping the phone away is about using it, not its mere presence (see the notes).

    Scripture. 1 Samuel 3:9–10; Isaiah 50:4; Psalm 5:3

  2. T+1–3Look back before you moveEarly

    Do. Before you get up, stay still for two minutes. Notice what you woke up carrying: the first thought, a dream, an old worry, or a fresh idea. Don’t analyze it. Hand it to God in a sentence, and remember one word of it for the journal.

    Why, from the research. Your conscious awareness faded overnight, but your brain kept working. It replayed the day and filed it into long-term memory (Klinzing et al., 2019), and it reworked emotional memories during dreaming sleep (Walker & van der Helm, 2009). The first quiet minutes are your chance to notice what that night’s work brought up before the phone fills your head with other people’s agendas. See why each step works.

    Scripture. Psalm 16:7; Psalm 4:4; Psalm 63:6

    EarlyStrong that sleep reorganizes memories; early, and only by inference, for a morning habit of reflecting on them.
  3. T+3–5Water and lightModerate

    Do. Drink 500 mL to 1 L of water. Turn the lights up bright.

    Why, from the research. Mild dehydration, about 1.4 to 1.6 percent of body mass, worsened mood and attention in young adults (Armstrong et al., 2012; Ganio et al., 2011). The exact amount of water, and adding salt, are untested.

    Scripture. Psalm 63:1

  4. T+5–25Sunlight prayer walk, 20 minutes, no earbudsStrong

    Do. Spend five minutes on praise and thanks. Then pray through adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and requests (ACTS) as you walk.

    Why, from the research. Special light-sensing cells in the eye tell the brain’s master clock that morning has come (Berson et al., 2002). Light in the biological morning moves the body clock earlier (Khalsa et al., 2003). A week of natural light and dark moved melatonin onset about two hours earlier (Wright et al., 2013). Morning light adds to the natural cortisol rise after waking (Scheer & Buijs, 1999; Leproult et al., 2001). More daytime light is associated with lower psychiatric risk, though that finding is correlational (Burns et al., 2023). Walking gives a small lift to thinking (Chang et al., 2012).

    Scripture. Psalm 19:1–6; Lamentations 3:22–23; Mark 1:35

    StrongStrong for light timing the body clock; moderate for light boosting morning cortisol; the minute counts are rules of thumb.
  5. T+25–35Listening silence, 10 minutesModerate

    Do. Sit. Take two or three slow sighs: a double inhale, then a long exhale. Do a two-minute body scan, then wait in the posture of 1 Samuel 3:10. When a thought pulls you away, write one word on a card and come back without scolding yourself.

    Why, from the research. In a one-month randomized trial, five minutes a day of exhale-focused “cyclic sighing” improved mood and lowered breathing rate more than mindfulness did (Balban et al., 2023). Most people find 6 to 15 minutes alone with their thoughts unpleasant, and many men chose a mild electric shock instead (Wilson et al., 2014). Static is normal. It isn’t failure.

    Scripture. 1 Samuel 3:10; Psalm 46:10; 1 Kings 19:11–12

    ModerateModerate for slow, exhale-focused breathing and mood; expect the silence itself to be hard.

    See also: Passage 4, “Cease Striving” · Rule of Life practice 2, “Ten minutes of stillness before God”

  6. T+35–45One passage, slowly, twiceModerate

    Do. Read one passage slowly, twice, and stop at the phrase that catches you.

    Why, from the research. In a study of evangelical Christians, prayer practice and a trait called absorption were associated with reports of hearing God (Luhrmann, Nusbaum, & Thisted, 2010). The science can describe the receiver, not the Speaker.

    Scripture. Joshua 1:8; Psalm 119:105; John 10:27

    ModerateModerate that prayer practice changes how prayer is experienced (correlational); it does not show that God speaks or that prayer brings health benefits.

    See also: Addition 23, “Talk of Them When You Walk”

  7. T+45–52Three lines in a journalModerate

    Do. Write three lines: what I read, what I sensed or heard, and the static, meaning what got in the way.

    Why, from the research. Across experimental studies, writing about experience has a small positive effect (Frattaroli, 2006).

    Scripture. Habakkuk 2:1–2

    ModerateModerate, small effects.

    See also: Addition 22, “Pour Out Your Heart Before Him”

  8. T+52–55One if-then commitment, said out loudStrong

    Do. “If [situation], then I will [action].”

    Why, from the research. If-then plans had a medium-to-large average effect on reaching a goal (d ≈ 0.65 across 94 studies; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).

    Scripture. James 1:22; 1 Samuel 3:13 (Eli knew and did not act)

    See also: The study guide · Rule of Life practice 18, “A two-month habit plan”

  9. T+60 and afterPhone on, move, then workEarly

    Do. If you get afternoon crashes, try your coffee at T+90 for two weeks and compare. Otherwise, drink it when you like, but not late in the day. Do deep work with the phone in another room.

    Why, from the research. Caffeine blocks adenosine receptors (Fredholm et al., 1999), but no trial shows that a morning delay prevents an afternoon crash. Caffeine taken six hours before bed still cut sleep by more than an hour (Drake et al., 2013).

    Scripture. 1 Timothy 4:8; Colossians 3:23

    EarlyEarly for delaying caffeine; strong that late-day caffeine harms sleep.

    See also: Addition 33, “Bodily Discipline” · Addition 32, “Sleep as Gift”

  10. OptionalOptional: a cold shower of one to three minutes, or energizing breathworkSee note
    • Cold shower. Check with a doctor first if you have any heart condition.
    • Energizing breathwork. Sit down for it, never do it in or near water, and skip it if you’re prone to panic.

    For what the research does and doesn’t show, see the notes.

Why each step works

This is the purpose of the whole book and this site. We don’t keep these practices just because we keep them. Scripture commends them, and the research helps explain why they work and how they improve a man’s life. Here is the why behind the morning, step by step. Andrew Huberman, a Stanford neuroscientist, has done more than anyone to popularize these morning tools, and this protocol draws on his recommendations. The labels below say where his advice rests on solid studies and where it runs ahead of them.

Your mind worked all night

When you fall asleep, conscious awareness fades, but the brain doesn’t shut off. During deep sleep, the hippocampus replays the day’s experiences in rapid bursts and helps move them into long-term storage in the cortex (Klinzing et al., 2019). During dreaming sleep, the brain reactivates emotional memories while its main arousal chemical sits at its lowest level of the day. One leading theory proposes that this lets the brain keep the memory and soften some of its sting (Walker & van der Helm, 2009). The evidence for the softening is mixed (Baran et al., 2012), so read it as a possibility, not a promise.

Sleep can even reshape what you learned. In one experiment, more than twice as many people discovered a hidden rule in a task after a night’s sleep as after the same hours awake (Wagner et al., 2004).

So you wake up with a mind that has been at work. The first quiet minutes give you a chance to notice what that work brought to the surface, the first thought, a dream, or the worry you woke up carrying, and to bring it to God before the day’s noise covers it. No study has tested that habit directly. It is a reasonable inference from the sleep research, and it fits the psalmist who said, “my mind instructs me in the night” (Psalm 16:7).

Coming back online takes a few minutes

The grogginess you feel on waking has a name: sleep inertia. Thinking is measurably slower and less accurate right after waking, and it recovers as time awake goes on. A short night makes it worse (Hilditch & McHill, 2019). Meanwhile, the stress hormone cortisol rises on its own in the first hour after waking (Scheer & Buijs, 1999).

That is one more reason to spend the first minutes listening instead of deciding. Your brain is still coming online. Don’t hand it to the inbox. Hearing comes before speaking, in the brain as in 1 Samuel 3.

Why sunlight, and why early

Your eyes do more than see. A small set of cells in the retina, separate from the rods and cones you see with, respond to light directly and signal the brain’s master clock, the suprachiasmatic nucleus. Berson and colleagues (2002) found these cells in rats, and they explain how light sets the clock without any help from vision.

Timing matters. Light in the biological morning moves the clock earlier, and light in the evening pushes it later (Khalsa et al., 2003). After a week of only natural light and dark, people’s melatonin onset, the body’s “night has begun” signal, moved about two hours earlier (Wright et al., 2013). Morning light also adds to the natural cortisol rise after waking, which helps you feel alert (Scheer & Buijs, 1999; Leproult et al., 2001). And across more than 85,000 adults, more daytime light and less light at night went with lower psychiatric risk, though that finding is correlational (Burns et al., 2023).

Huberman recommends getting outside early, for longer on cloudy days. The direction of that advice is well supported. The exact minutes are rules of thumb (see the notes). A morning walk in the light sets tonight’s sleep in motion, which is why the morning and the night before belong together.

Caffeine: the point is waking up

Through the waking day, a chemical called adenosine builds up in the brain and adds to the pressure to sleep. Caffeine wakes you up by blocking the receptors adenosine acts on (Fredholm et al., 1999). It doesn’t pay down that sleep pressure. It hides it for a while.

Huberman recommends waiting 90 to 120 minutes after waking before the first cup, to avoid an afternoon crash. No trial shows that the delay prevents a crash, and his own newsletter calls it optional. If you crash in the afternoon, try the delay for two weeks and compare. The part with strong evidence is the other end of the day: caffeine taken six hours before bed still cut sleep by more than an hour (Drake et al., 2013). Use caffeine to wake up, keep it to the morning, and protect tonight’s sleep.

Why the quiet and the Scripture come before the phone

Slow breathing with long exhales calms the body. In a one-month randomized trial, five minutes a day of exhale-focused breathing improved mood and slowed breathing more than mindfulness meditation did (Balban et al., 2023). Sitting still with your own thoughts is hard for almost everyone (Wilson et al., 2014), so the static you notice is normal.

Practice also shapes how prayer is experienced. Evangelical Christians who prayed more, and who scored higher on a trait called absorption, reported hearing God more often (Luhrmann, Nusbaum, & Thisted, 2010). The science can describe the receiver. It cannot speak for the Speaker. Writing a few lines has a small positive effect across many experiments (Frattaroli, 2006), and saying an if-then plan out loud has one of the strongest track records in behavior research (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).

Eating through the day

Huberman’s daily blueprint gives four simple pieces of advice about food and drink. Here they are, with what the studies show for each.

  1. 1

    Morning: water first, with a pinch of salt

    Huberman suggests about a liter of water in the first hours after waking, with a pinch of sea salt for electrolytes. Mild dehydration worsened mood and attention in young adults (Armstrong et al., 2012; Ganio et al., 2011). No study we found tests the salt.

    ModerateModerate for hydration; the salt is untested.
  2. 2

    Lunch: go lighter on carbohydrates

    Huberman recommends a lower-carbohydrate lunch to avoid an afternoon crash. We found no trial that tests this directly, so treat it as an experiment. Try it for two weeks and notice how your afternoons feel.

    EarlyEarly: no direct trial.
  3. 3

    After lunch: walk for 5 to 30 minutes

    A short walk after a meal gets you back into the daylight and moving. Short bouts of light walking that broke up long sitting lowered blood sugar and insulin after meals, in a meta-analysis of seven one-day trials (Buffey et al., 2022). Walking also gives a small lift to thinking (Chang et al., 2012).

    Moderate
  4. 4

    Dinner: some starch and protein, not too late

    Huberman suggests a dinner with some starchy carbohydrates and protein to help you relax and sleep. In one study of 12 young men, a high-glycemic rice meal four hours before bed helped them fall asleep faster than a low-glycemic meal, and it worked better at four hours than at one hour before bed (Afaghi et al., 2007).

    EarlyEarly: one small study.

This protocol puts the Word before breakfast on purpose. “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3). Eat with thanks. “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Daniel asked to be tested for ten days on vegetables and water, and the text records how he looked at the end (Daniel 1:12–15). It is a story of faithfulness, not a diet plan for every man, but it shows that Scripture cares about what goes on the table.

The morning starts the night before

The best way to prepare for the morning is the night before. Most of these take five minutes or less, and each one makes the morning easier to keep.

  1. 1

    Set a fixed bedtime, with seven or more hours in bed

    Work back from the time you want to wake. Six hours a night for two weeks produced deficits in attention equal to one to two full nights without sleep, and the people in the study hardly noticed (Van Dongen et al., 2003).

    Strong
  2. 2

    Stop caffeine at least six hours before bed

    Caffeine taken six hours before bed still cut sleep by more than an hour (Drake et al., 2013).

    Strong
  3. 3

    Dim the lights and put the screens down in the last hour

    Evening light pushes the body clock later (Khalsa et al., 2003). Reading on a light-emitting e-reader before bed, compared with a printed book, delayed sleep, suppressed melatonin, shifted the clock later, and left people less alert the next morning (Chang et al., 2015). Read a printed Bible or book instead.

    ModerateModerate: a small lab study, plus well-tested effects of evening light on the clock.
  4. 4

    Write tomorrow’s to-do list, five minutes

    Get the open loops out of your head and onto paper. People who spent five minutes writing a specific to-do list at bedtime fell asleep faster than people who wrote about what they had already finished (Scullin et al., 2018).

    EarlyEarly: one study of 57 young adults.
  5. 5

    Set up the morning

    Choose tomorrow’s passage and leave the Bible open where you will sit. Charge the phone in another room. Lay out your shoes for the walk. Then make the plan specific: “When the alarm goes off, I will pray before I touch the phone.” If-then plans have a medium-to-large average effect on follow-through (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).

    StrongStrong for if-then plans.
  6. 6

    Hand the day to God, and settle what you can

    Name to God the work you are leaving unfinished, and leave it with Him (Psalm 127:2; Psalm 4:8). If you are at odds with someone at home, settle it or set a time to talk tomorrow (Ephesians 4:26). Short sleep makes anger worse (Krizan & Hisler, 2019), so this protects the morning too.

    See also: Addition 32, “Sleep as Gift” · Passage 5, “Do Not Let the Sun Go Down on Your Anger”

    Obedience

The static log

When someone asks, “What keeps you from hearing God?”, the honest answer is often “I don’t know.” The static log turns that into something you can see. For seven days, write down each distraction word from the silence, the time the phone came back on, and how many minutes of real silence you got.

At the end of the week, read the list back. The word that shows up most is probably your static.

DayKept itDistraction wordsPhone back onMinutes of real silence
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Your log is saved in this browser only. Nobody else sees it.

What the evidence shows, and where it’s overstated

This protocol borrows from popular neuroscience podcasts, especially Andrew Huberman’s. Some of it rests on solid research. Some of it runs ahead of the data. Here is which is which.

ClaimWhat the studies showEvidence
Morning light shifts the body clock earlierLight in the biological morning advances the clock, and evening light delays it (Khalsa et al., 2003). A week of natural light moved melatonin onset about two hours earlier (Wright et al., 2013).Strong
Morning light raises cortisolThe cortisol rise on waking happens anyway. Light adds to it, about 35 percent higher at 800 lux than in the dark, in a study of 14 men (Scheer & Buijs, 1999), with an immediate rise when dim light turns bright (Leproult et al., 2001). Note 1Moderate
Daylight helps moodIn more than 85,000 UK Biobank adults, more daytime light and less light at night were linked to lower psychiatric risk (Burns et al., 2023). Correlational.Moderate
Exact minutes, and “not through a window”The 5-, 10-, and 30-minute doses are rules of thumb, not tested doses. Glass blocks UV but passes most visible light. The real problem indoors is much lower brightness.See note
Walking “quiets the amygdala all day”The nearest evidence is lab eye movements during fear extinction (de Voogd et al., 2018), not walking. The “all day” part is untested.See note
Delay caffeine 90 to 120 minutesCaffeine blocks adenosine receptors (Fredholm et al., 1999). No trial shows the delay prevents a crash, and Huberman’s own newsletter calls it optional. Note 4Early
Late caffeine harms sleep400 mg, even six hours before bed, cut sleep by more than an hour (Drake et al., 2013).Strong
Hydrate on wakingMild dehydration worsened mood and attention (Armstrong et al., 2012; Ganio et al., 2011). The amount and the salt are untested.Moderate
Exercise sharpens thinkingA single bout of exercise has a small positive effect, according to a meta-analysis (Chang et al., 2012).Moderate
Exhale-focused breathing improves moodFive minutes a day beat mindfulness on mood and breathing rate (Balban et al., 2023; Huberman was a co-author). Claims about sleep and resting heart rate go beyond the reported results. Note 6Moderate
Cold raises dopamine 250 percentPlasma dopamine rose 250 percent after an hour in 14 °C water (Šrámek et al., 2000). Dopamine in the blood doesn’t cross into the brain, so any brain effect is inferred.See note
A phone nearby drains focusThe original study is Ward et al. (2017). A meta-analysis of 56 effects found only a small working-memory effect (d ≈ −0.2) and about zero overall (Parry, 2024). Using the phone matters more than having it nearby. Note 7Early
Sleep reorganizes what you learnedDuring sleep the brain replays the day and moves memories into long-term storage (Klinzing et al., 2019). More than twice as many people found a hidden rule in a task after a night’s sleep as after the same hours awake (Wagner et al., 2004). No study has tested a morning habit of reflecting on that overnight work.Moderate
Grogginess fades with time awakeThinking is measurably impaired right after waking and recovers as time awake goes on. Prior sleep loss makes it worse (Hilditch & McHill, 2019, a review).Moderate
Screens before bedReading on a light-emitting e-reader before bed, compared with a printed book, delayed sleep and the body clock and left people less alert the next morning (Chang et al., 2015). A small lab study.Moderate
A to-do list at bedtimeFive minutes writing a specific to-do list helped 57 young adults fall asleep faster than writing about tasks they had finished (Scullin et al., 2018). One study.Early
A lower-carb lunch prevents the afternoon crashWe found no trial that tests this directly. It is a reasonable idea, not a finding.Early
Walk after you eatShort bouts of light walking that broke up long sitting lowered blood sugar and insulin after meals, in a meta-analysis of seven one-day trials (Buffey et al., 2022).Moderate
Carbohydrates at dinner help sleepTwelve young men fell asleep faster after a high-glycemic rice meal four hours before bed than after a low-glycemic one, and faster at four hours than at one hour (Afaghi et al., 2007). One small study.Early
Keep a consistent wake timeIrregular sleep is linked to later circadian timing and lower grades (Phillips et al., 2017).Moderate
If-then plansd ≈ 0.65 across 94 studies (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).Strong
Writing it downA small positive effect across experiments (Frattaroli, 2006).Moderate
Practice shapes hearing GodPrayer practice and absorption were associated with reports of hearing God (Luhrmann, Nusbaum, & Thisted, 2010). Correlational, and it says nothing about whether God speaks.Moderate

Where the popular claims run ahead

  1. Light and cortisol. Light boosts the morning cortisol peak. It doesn’t cause it.
  2. Windows. Glass mainly blocks UV. The indoor problem is brightness, not missing wavelengths.
  3. Walking and the amygdala. No study shows that walking quiets the amygdala for the day.
  4. Caffeine delay. The idea of “clearing residual adenosine” is speculative, because adenosine is at its lowest on waking.
  5. Cold. Blood dopamine is not brain dopamine.
  6. Breathing claims. This page cites only the mood and breathing-rate results.
  7. Phone. The “mere presence” effect is far smaller than first reported.

Popular sources reviewed for this page (not peer-reviewed): Huberman Lab, The Daily Blueprint; Huberman Lab newsletter, Using Light for Health; Huberman Lab newsletter, Use Caffeine for Mental & Physical Performance; Huberman Lab episode, Maximizing Productivity, Physical & Mental Health with Daily Tools; Huberman Lab episode, Sleep Toolkit.

None of this proves a verse. It helps us see why the disciplines are good. Convergence, not proof.

Five cautions

  • Sun. Never look straight at it. Blink as you need to.
  • Energizing breathwork. Do it seated only, and never in or near water.
  • Cold. Talk to a doctor first if you have a heart condition.
  • Care. None of this replaces medical or psychological care.
  • Grace. These are means of grace and obedience, not techniques for extracting benefits from God.

How it connects

Passage 4 · Psalm 46:10“Cease Striving”Stillness and the default mode network.Living it outAn everyday rule of lifePractice 2, stillness before God, and practice 18, a two-month habit plan with if-then.BeginA thirty-day startUse the 15-minute morning as your “one for the body,” tied to the cue of waking up.Addition 23“Talk of Them When You Walk”Scripture memory on the walk.Addition 22“Pour Out Your Heart”Journaling and lament.Additions 32 and 33“Sleep as Gift” and “Bodily Discipline”The body in its place.Addition 31“I Press On”The process side: Philippians 3:13–14, not yet having laid hold of it.For the groupStudy guide and leadersUse the question below as an optional extra for a session.
Studies cited on this page33
  1. ↗ Afaghi, A., O’Connor, H., & Chow, C. M. (2007). High-glycemic-index carbohydrate meals shorten sleep onset. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 85(2), 426–430. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/85.2.426
  2. ↗ Armstrong, L. E., Ganio, M. S., Casa, D. J., Lee, E. C., McDermott, B. P., Klau, J. F., Jimenez, L., Le Bellego, L., Chevillotte, E., & Lieberman, H. R. (2012). Mild dehydration affects mood in healthy young women. The Journal of Nutrition, 142(2), 382–388. https://doi.org/10.3945/jn.111.142000
  3. ↗ Balban, M. Y., Neri, E., Kogon, M. M., Weed, L., Nouriani, B., Jo, B., Holl, G., Zeitzer, J. M., Spiegel, D., & Huberman, A. D. (2023). Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal. Cell Reports Medicine, 4(1), 100895. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100895
  4. ↗ Baran, B., Pace-Schott, E. F., Ericson, C., & Spencer, R. M. C. (2012). Processing of emotional reactivity and emotional memory over sleep. Journal of Neuroscience, 32(3), 1035–1042. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2532-11.2012
  5. ↗ Berson, D. M., Dunn, F. A., & Takao, M. (2002). Phototransduction by retinal ganglion cells that set the circadian clock. Science, 295(5557), 1070–1073. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1067262
  6. ↗ Buffey, A. J., Herring, M. P., Langley, C. K., Donnelly, A. E., & Carson, B. P. (2022). The acute effects of interrupting prolonged sitting time in adults with standing and light-intensity walking on biomarkers of cardiometabolic health in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 52(8), 1765–1787. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-022-01649-4
  7. ↗ Burns, A. C., Windred, D. P., Rutter, M. K., Olivier, P., Vetter, C., Saxena, R., Lane, J. M., Phillips, A. J. K., & Cain, S. W. (2023). Day and night light exposure are associated with psychiatric disorders: An objective light study in >85,000 people. Nature Mental Health, 1(11), 853–862. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-023-00135-8
  8. ↗ Chang, A.-M., Aeschbach, D., Duffy, J. F., & Czeisler, C. A. (2015). Evening use of light-emitting eReaders negatively affects sleep, circadian timing, and next-morning alertness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(4), 1232–1237. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1418490112
  9. ↗ Chang, Y. K., Labban, J. D., Gapin, J. I., & Etnier, J. L. (2012). The effects of acute exercise on cognitive performance: A meta-analysis. Brain Research, 1453, 87–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2012.02.068
  10. ↗ de Voogd, L. D., Kanen, J. W., Neville, D. A., Roelofs, K., Fernández, G., & Hermans, E. J. (2018). Eye-movement intervention enhances extinction via amygdala deactivation. The Journal of Neuroscience, 38(40), 8694–8706. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0703-18.2018
  11. ↗ Drake, C., Roehrs, T., Shambroom, J., & Roth, T. (2013). Caffeine effects on sleep taken 0, 3, or 6 hours before going to bed. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 9(11), 1195–1200. https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.3170
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