Brain science: wake and bedtime plasticity

🕐 What if 15 minutes could change your entire life?

✅ The brain science behind why your morning and evening routines matter more than you think

✅ How to build a sustainable Daily 15 practice that actually sticks

✅ Why Sabbath might be the most Christ-like (and kid-favorite) rhythm your family is missing

✅ The one thing 93% of men said they want to grow in

SHOW NOTES

https://www.dadawesome.org/blog/411

SUMMARY

What if the first thing you did each day was sleep—and trust God with it? In this episode, Chris Cirullo unpacks the brain science behind why your morning and evening routines carry exponential power, and how a simple 15-minute daily practice can transform your faith, health, and focus over time. Plus, he shares how his family has made Sabbath the most anticipated day of the week—complete with chains hitting the floor and kids fighting over who gets to throw them.

• The Daily 15 is a sustainable morning routine that anchors your day in hydration, scripture, prayer, prioritization, and movement—all in just 15 minutes.
• Your brain is most "plastic" during wake-up and bedtime windows, meaning small, consistent inputs during those times create outsized transformation.
• In Jewish tradition, evening begins the new day—so the first act of every day is actually resting and trusting God for the first eight hours.
• Sabbath is the only commandment we boast about breaking, yet God designed it for human flourishing—not as a burden but as a gift.
• Start your Sabbath practice small and sustainable (even takeout Thai food counts), then expand it over time with sensory anchors your kids will crave.

Chris Cirullo is a former Army Ranger, executive coach, and the founder of Mission Fit. He helps high-performing men build lifelong health, faith, and focus through his coaching programs and his new book, The Daily 15. Chris and his wife have four sons and live with deep intentionality around family rhythms, Sabbath rest, and hearing God's voice. He's passionate about helping fathers lead their homes as kingdom outposts.

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• Forming Men

1. "Where God gives responsibility, He will come and aid you in the ability."
2. "The first thing we do in our day is go to sleep and trust the Lord for the first eight hours. Then we wake up and we do—after we've rested."
3. "You can create exponential change in the way your brain functions in those wake-up and bedtime windows compared to other hours of the day."
4. "Sabbath is the only one of the Ten Commandments that we're okay boasting about breaking."
5. "It's like compound interest. At some point it hockey sticks and you look back and realize—I'm a different person now."