- This was my morning routine
back as a plastic surgery resident,
and also as a medical student on certain rotations.
(calm music)
First, waking up.
I usually woke up around four A.M.,
plus or minus 30 minutes, sometimes 3:30,
sometimes 4:30, sometimes a little bit later,
depends on the rotation.
And in my bedroom, I had Philips Hue lights
that I would program to simulate sunrise.
So if I needed to wake up at four A.M,
thirty minutes before starting at 3:30 A.M,
it would slowly turn on and increase in brightness.
That simulates sunrise, and it's a much less
jolting way to wake up.
Back to the scheduled time, so four A.M,
my phone would go off and this would just be
the standard iPhone alarm.
But if I was really sleep deprived
which would sometimes happen, especially after call nights,
or just really long weeks where you don't
really have a day off, then I would use
this other app called Spin Alarm Clock,
where you actually have to get up and spin in circles.
And that was just to make sure I didn't snooze,
and sleep through the alarm.
Next, going to the bathroom.
Have a strong orthocolic reflex,
so I would always drop off the kids,
if you know what I mean.
And I would use my phone during that time.
And this is also the time when I was running
two other companies while doing plastic surgery residency,
Med School Insiders, and Blue LINC,
so I was cranking through emails
first thing in the morning, handling that stuff.
That would be about 10 minutes
using of course my Squatty Potty, and a bidet,
two investments that are definitely worth it.
And then of course I would brush my teeth,
wash my face, put in my contacts, all that stuff.
And then immediately after, very important timing wise,
that I would weigh myself at this point.
If you wanna weigh yourself, you need to do it consistently,
because if you weigh yourself at different times
during the day you get wild fluctuations.
So at this point you have used the bathroom,
you have emptied your bowels and your bladder,
and you have not drank or eaten anything.
And I would usually weigh myself completely naked,
but don't worry I'm gonna spare you guys that visual.
Next, my stretching routine.
First I would roll on my back,
on a trigger point foam roller,
then use a lacrosse ball, cross my leg,
and roll on my piriformis and glutes.
Then I would lay on my back, and then stretch out
each hamstring, one at a time.
Then get up, and do a hip flexor stretch.
Then I would do cat-camel, then upward dog, or cobra,
to child's pose, then frog to stretch out the groin.
Followed by a deep squat, to open up the hips
a little bit more.
And then finally I would roll out
again using that same lacrosse ball.
My pecs, and then stretch my pec major and pec minor.
Now doing this routine every single day
was super important to me because first of all,
it reduced aches and pains throughout the day,
and it helped me stand with better posture.
And if you are standing in the operating room
for most of the day, then standing
with a good posture is paramount.
Right after stretching I would go straight to meditation.
I use Insight Timer on my phone,
because it's free and there's a lot of variety.
And I would choose any meditation, five to 10 minutes.
I had a few that I favorited
and usually I would do guided meditation,
very occasionally I would do a silent meditation,
but I feel like that's a little bit more advanced.
So I was mostly doing the guided meditations,
and I actually laid on my back.
And the reason being is if I were to sit cross legged,
I was even more inflexible back then then I am now,
and my legs would fall asleep, or I'd be very uncomfortable.
So I would lay on my back, I wasn't worried
about falling asleep again
because I was very much awake at that point.
After meditating, I would of course get dressed.
So that means putting on scrubs,
getting my pager on, putting on my badge
with of course a high quality reel
that you can get from Amazon.
Putting on my stethoscope holder,
but not my stethoscope and also grabbing my backpack.
Backpack was always packed the night before,
and it had my stethoscope, my white coat, and my iPad.
I actually have another video back from when
I was in plastic surgery residency,
going over what I carry in my backpack.
So I recommend you watch that if you want the details there.
Next, going to the kitchen, breakfast time.
Now in a surgical residency, actually in any residency,
it's very challenging to eat and get enough calories
because you're so busy.
Even more so in surgical residency,
because in the operating room you're not allowed
to have food obviously.
At a computer you can kinda munch and snack a little bit,
but if you are in the operating room
for several hours you cannot eat at all during that time.
So for that reason my priority
was packing in as many calories as possible.
It's easier to get calories in through liquid,
rather than food, you won't feel full as quickly.
So I did this monster protein shake,
well meal replacement shake rather,
that would have sometimes even over 1000 calories.
So the ingredients are pretty simple,
it just comes down to the proportion
of each ingredient you want to put in.
So I always put in a banana, some protein powder,
I usually used True Nutrition.
I enjoyed their plant based protein powders.
Cocoa powder for flavor, high quality peanut butter,
for good healthy fats, or avocado, one or the other.
Fresh spinach, flaxseed, frozen blueberries,
or frozen strawberries, or frozen mangoes,
or whatever I was in the mood for that morning.
And then of course almond milk, or flax milk.
Now again, efficiency was the name of the game,
so I would be drinking this and it would fill up
two large containers usually,
and while I was drinking this I was either journaling,
so I have a template on my phone
using the Day One journaling app.
I would do that every morning,
it auto pipelates a template,
and also has a reminder for me.
Or I would be cleaning up the kitchen,
cleaning up the blender, because you definitely
don't want to clean it up later in the day
when you come back, that's the last thing you wanna do.
Next I would grab my bike lights,
both front and rear, and these are rechargeable.
High quality lights, definitely do not skimp on your lights,
because it's very important for safety reasons.
And I would charge them overnight,
always because you ride in the morning at five A.M,
pitch black, and then you come back at night,
eight P.M, also pitch black.
So visibility is very important.
And then, I would grab my bike, go out,
and start my day.
Now it was important to me to cycle
to and from work because I was so busy,
again, this is the one period of my life
when I was the most busy and just optimizing
every single minute of every single day,
like onchy cards when I was waiting in line
at the grocery store or at the restaurant.
Everything was so optimized, and going to and from work
was part of that because I did not have time
to do cardio anywhere else.
I would have some time to do strength training
three or four times a week,
but by cycling to and from work,
I was able to get in my cardio and my commute,
killing two birds with one stone.
Anyway, that is it for my morning routine
as a plastic surgery resident,
next week, I'll be making a video
about my current routine as a entrepreneur.
(calm music)
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