A man reading a book in bed while drinking out of a mug
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Neuroscientist: ‘Bookend’ Your Days With Reading for a More Peaceful and Productive Life

Jessica Stillman

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Just about everyone agrees that how you start and end your days has an outsize impact on your mindset and productivity. Which is why the internet is jammed packed with complex morning routine prescriptions and tales of A-listers’ superhuman start-of-day rituals.

Far be it from me to criticize Tony Robbins’s morning ice baths or Tim Cook’s 3:45 a.m. wake-up time if these extreme routines work for them, but wouldn’t it be nice if there was an impactful routine out there that was also both easy and pleasant?

According to one Harvard-trained neuroscientist, there is. If you’re looking for more peaceful and productive days without any additional dawn hours discomfort, maybe you should consider adopting it.

The most pleasant daily routine I’ve read about in a while

What’s this miracle tweak? Nothing more complicated than starting and ending your days reading a well-chosen book. On Ezra Klein’s podcast recently, Maryanne Wolf, a UCLA professor who specializes in how our brains learn to process written language, shared her simple morning and evening routine for a clear mind all day long (hat tip to Austin Kleon).

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