{"id":378768,"date":"2026-04-07T01:15:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T01:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/378768\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T01:15:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T01:15:34","slug":"10-expert-habits-from-arthur-c-brooks-to-live-life-with-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/378768\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Expert Habits From Arthur C. Brooks to Live Life With Purpose"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is Expert Habits<\/a>, a regular column in which thinkers, leaders, and other high performers talk about the habits and routines that help them live a better life.<\/p>\n

Arthur C. Brooks has made a living by studying the myriad mysteries and meanings of life. Writing weekly columns about happiness for The Atlantic, penning three books about how to craft a better life, and teaching a class at the Harvard Business School literally called \u201cLeadership and Happiness\u201d all make Brooks well-equipped to handle the rigors of modern existence<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ll spend the rest of my life writing, speaking, and teaching about the science of happiness,\u201d Brooks said in a recent video chat.<\/p>\n

His latest venture, a book titled The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose In An Age of Emptiness<\/a>, is out today. Per the book\u2019s description, its purpose is to use science and evidence-based approaches to help you, dear reader, \u201cfind the meaning you need to live a happy, fulfilling life.\u201d Now 61, the man with an eclectic background\u2014he is also an accomplished French hornist, and in the \u201990s, he did military research on a special project for the Air Force\u2014shares his expert habits that can turn your life from unfulfilling to unstoppable.<\/p>\n

Become a morning person<\/p>\n

Arthur C. Brooks: \u201cYou\u2019re more of a morning lark than you think, and you can be more of a morning lark than you are. Mornings are just absolute magic time for productivity and creativity and happiness. There\u2019s an ancient theory in Hindu philosophy, Vedic physics, actually. It\u2019s called the Brahmamuhurta. In Sanskrit it\u2019s called the Creator\u2019s Time. It was the ancient idea that if you get up an hour and 38 minutes before dawn, there\u2019s special properties and how it will affect your day. Getting up before dawn\u2014especially if you witness the sunrise\u2014more productivity<\/a>, more focus, more creativity, more happiness. If you\u2019re getting up when the sun is warm, you already made a big sacrifice. But it starts the night before, so you got to go to bed.\u201d<\/p>\n

To sleep better, limit caffeine and booze<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t drink any alcohol, which is a really important thing. I mean, alcohol wrecks your sleep<\/a>. I do 100 speeches a year, they\u2019re usually at night. And so guess what? I\u2019m going to go to bed later than I want. I like to get up at 4:30 every morning. When I was 30, I drank coffee at 4 in the afternoon. Now if I drink coffee after 11 in the morning, I\u2019m going to be cleaning the garage at 3 A.M. That\u2019s because the half-life of caffeine, it gets longer and longer the older that you get. I\u2019m 61, so when I talk to people who are my age, they\u2019re like, \u201cI can\u2019t sleep anymore. It\u2019s because I\u2019m old.\u201d<\/p>\n

I say, \u2018When\u2019s your last cup of coffee?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u20183 PM.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s too late.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ve always had that.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Well, guess what? Your body changed!\u2019<\/p>\n

Psychoactive substances become more delicate, actually. That\u2019s an important thing to keep in mind. I drink about 380 milligrams of caffeine a day, which corresponds with one large venti dark roast from Starbucks. Dude, I\u2019m from Seattle<\/a>. It\u2019s a small, local company. By the way, I got nothing against big business. That is a great product.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wait 90 minutes after you wake up to drink caffeine<\/p>\n

\u201cI use [coffee] as a nootropic. I don\u2019t use it as an alarm clock. I use it to focus, not to wake, and the reason is because I\u2019m actually using it in a way where the caffeine is not interfering with A2A adenosine receptors. If you use it to wake up, you\u2019re going to crash in the afternoon<\/a>. If you let the adenosine in your brain\u2014which makes you groggy\u2014if you let it clear endogenously and then you have your caffeine, then you\u2019ll get focused for work, but you won\u2019t crash later. But the key thing is, don\u2019t drink coffee within the first 90 minutes after you wake up. You want the adenosine to clear naturally. I usually wait three hours. I wake up at 4:30 and I drink coffee at 7:30 typically. That\u2019s when I get the maximum impact. I\u2019m just ready to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is Expert Habits, a regular column in which thinkers, leaders, and other high performers talk about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[14476,15699,181396,163,85,46,56752,522,523,6612,5101,558],"class_list":{"0":"post-378768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-drinking","9":"tag-eating","10":"tag-expert-habits","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-life-advice","15":"tag-mental-health","16":"tag-mentalhealth","17":"tag-textbelowcentergridwidth","18":"tag-web","19":"tag-wellness"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}