As human beings, we all care about similar things. We want to be happy, wealthy, establish deep and meaningful relationships, and lead a healthy life. However, these things don’t come all at once. They also don’t come that easily. Unfortunately, we are currently living in a hyper-consumerism world in which everyone is telling us that we have to get everything instantly. Instant gratification is put on a pedestal – it’s the new norm. However, this kind of approach to life only gives short term satisfaction. It quickly becomes repetitive and can’t sustain itself. On top of that, it can easily turn into a problem where people constantly need instant gratification to feel good about themselves. Today we are going to talk about a different approach, in which we see the big pictures for ourselves.

Everyone Wants Gratification

First of let’s make it crystal clear what gratification is. Simply put, gratification is the pleasure or satisfaction we get when fulfilling our desires. For example, if someone loves chocolate, getting a good chocolate bar and eating it is a form of gratification. However, gratification isn’t just about physical satisfaction. It’s also about mental desires, goals, dreams, achievements, and praise. For example, as kids we all largely want to impress our parents or peers. When we learn something new that impresses them we feel gratification when they praise us for it. Most psychological theories and models agree that humans have a driving force behind gratification. It fulfils us and gives us a feeling of well-being, confidence, and overall happiness. When these needs aren’t met, the natural response is tension and anxiety and pursuance of different avenues for that gratification.

Sometimes the "Living in The Moment" Mentality is Wrong

According to the “Pleasure Principle” by Freud, pleasure is one of the main forces driving our behaviour. He sees it as a biological mechanism created to help us survive. That’s why children crave instant gratification. They need love, human touch, and food to survive and stay healthy. On the other hand, he also talks about the “Reality Principle”, which refers to our ability to go past instant gratification and delay it. That’s usually a trait of adults – we can ignore or surpass instant gratification better. For example, instead of wasting money each day on expensive food and drinks, we can save up money to buy something that has more value to us. However, all our basic instincts are usually met in this modern world we live in, this doesn’t always stop us from pursuing them further. If someone looks for instant gratification in food, they can easily over-eat and indulge in this instinct, but over time that can negatively affect their overall physical and mental health. It will lead to other aspects of their lives suffering. A cycle forms where the outcome causes unhappiness and the root of happiness is also the cause of the outcome. That’s why focusing solely on instant gratification can, over time, become really harmful.

The Concept of Delayed Gratification

Delayed gratification is the term used for delaying immediate pleasure and having the patience to wait for a reward in the future. Delayed gratification means ignoring instant gratification and waiting for greater, more valuable rewards. Not all delayed gratification is equal. First of all, it might be different in terms of how long it’s “delayed.” Creating a schedule where you only eat sweets once per week to lose weight is a shorter investment. On the other hand, putting in months of tough training to achieve a change in your physical self is a longer-term investment that ultimately brings greater gratification but is often overshadowed with the implementation of non-sustainable actions. Too much pleasure can make us lazy, kill our ambitions, and leave us wanting for more.

Challenges of Waiting

To practice delayed gratification, you’ll need a strong ability to control impulses and suppress your urges. That’s not an easy thing to do. After all, this is why people are spending money more recklessly than ever. That’s especially true if you’re used to instant gratification. Unfortunately, most people today are. We are used to buying and getting things right away. There’s no value in delaying things and waiting for something bigger. Even if you are able to delay your gratification for some time, a lot of people can’t push it through until the end. That’s especially true if they are working on something big and things don’t go as they were planned. Lots of people lose motivation and go for the easy way out.

How to Improve Your "Patience"

Delayed gratification isn’t easy, but it’s worth it. Luckily there are ways that you can improve your ability to delay pleasure. First of all, in many cases, you can’t determine when the gratification will come. That’s how things usually go when setting long-term goals. If gratification depends on someone else like your teacher or boss, make sure to ask them to give you a time-frame or a deadline. On the other hand, if you yourself don’t know when the reward will come, set a timeline yourself. On the other hand, it’s also important to set a realistic deadline. For example, if you want to lose weight, you can’t expect to lose 5kgs per week. When you fail the first time, you might lose your motivation.

Benefits of Delayed Gratification

More satisfaction

The more work you put in, the higher the returns, simple as that. When you get something really easy, it starts to lose its value and give less pleasure. However, when you put in the hard work – you’ll feel like you really earned that gratification.

More confidence/willpower

When you set higher expectations and goals for yourself, you’ll have to put in a lot more work, but you’ll feel better about yourself and be ready for future challenges when you achieve them.

Learn to do more with less and enjoy life

When you are focused on little instant gratification things and get them all the time, you start to take life for granted. Nothing gives you pleasure, and everything becomes repetitive. Delayed gratification gives you more pleasure with lower intervals, teaching you just how valuable life is and doing something new.

Conclusion

Delayed gratification works. You just need to get yourself on board with it and start practising it. It will take a while before you get used to it, but it’s well worth it in the long run.

The HMN24 Team

Tags: Adapt Habits and Behaviours Lifestyle Mindset Motivation Self Development

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The First 7 Minutes After Waking: Why They Matter More Than You Think

Modern neuroscience confirms what ancient traditions have practised for millennia: the first few minutes after you wake up are biologically powerful.

Your brain doesn’t flick on like a light switch. It transitions, slowly and delicately, through a cascade of brainwave states:

Delta → Theta → Alpha → Beta

These transitions reflect the shift from deep sleep (delta), through drowsiness and subconscious processing (theta), into relaxed awareness (alpha), and eventually into full alertness (beta).

Gamma, the fastest and most subtle of the brainwave frequencies, is typically associated with heightened cognitive processing, insight, and peak states of consciousness. While not dominant in the first few minutes of waking, gamma activity can emerge later in the morning, or more rapidly in trained meditators, when the brain begins to integrate thought, emotion, and sensory input into a coherent experience.

This means that during the first 5 to 10 minutes of wakefulness, you’re not fully asleep, but you’re not fully awake either. You’re in a unique, mouldable neurobiological state that scientists call a neuroplastic window, where your brain is most open to new programming.

This is your most influential moment of the day.

What’s Happening in Your Brain

During this waking transition:

The Default Mode Network (DMN), the brain’s internal narrator, begins to light up. It controls self-talk, emotional tone, and how we perceive ourselves and the world (Smallwood et al., 2021; Edlow et al., 2024).
The Reticular Activating System (RAS) switches on. It decides what’s important by scanning your environment through the lens of your current emotional state (Negelspach et al., 2025).
Your brain hemispheres synchronise, promoting coherence, clarity, and creative thinking (Wang et al., 2025).

Stressful first thoughts?

The RAS filters your day through threat detection.

Grateful first thoughts?

It scans for opportunity, healing, and connection.

Your first thoughts are not neutral. They set your emotional and cognitive trajectory for the entire day (Yadav & Purushotham, 2025; Devaney et al., 2021).

You’re Not Just a Mind in a Body

You are an electromagnetic system living in a connected field of energy. Research now supports what mystics, monks, and performance experts have known for decades:

Your thoughts become biology. Your biology becomes behaviour. Your behaviour becomes your future.

When your intention (mental clarity) aligns with an elevated emotion (like awe, gratitude, or joy), you begin to create physiological coherence, a synchronised state between your brain, heart, and nervous system (Ahn et al., 2021; Bukkieva et al., 2022).

In this state:

Synaptic pathways rewire
Your immune system balances
Emotional resilience strengthens
Gene expression can shift
Your nervous system "memorises" a new baseline (Valenta et al., 2025; Titone et al., 2023)

Your 7-Minute Morning Protocol

You don’t need technology. You don’t need a perfect routine.
You just need awareness and intention.

Here is a practical protocol, backed by neuroscience, to help you rewire your mind and body from the moment you wake up:

Step-by-Step 7-Minute Morning Protocol

You don’t need technology. You don’t need a perfect routine.
You need awareness and intention.

The first few minutes after waking are a powerful biological window—a period of heightened neuroplasticity and emotional influence. What you do in this time shapes how your nervous system responds to the world for the rest of the day.

Here’s a practical step-by-step protocol to guide those first moments with intention:

1. Wake Gently

Let your body come to naturally. Avoid harsh alarms that jolt your system into a stress response. Give yourself permission to rise slowly, without urgency.

2. Avoid Your Phone

Reaching for your phone immediately forces your brain into beta waves (high-alert mode), disrupting the slower, more programmable states of theta and alpha. Stay in the softness of waking. Let your internal world settle before external stimuli intrude.

3. Place Your Hand on Your Heart

This simple act grounds you. It activates the vagus nerve, supporting emotional regulation and heart-brain coherence. Let your attention settle into your body.

4. Breathe Slowly and Deeply

Inhale through the nose for 4 seconds, exhale through the mouth for 6. Repeat for 3 to 4 minutes. This breathing pattern supports parasympathetic activation—bringing calm, focus, and internal alignment.

5. Cultivate an Elevated Emotional State

Bring to mind someone or something you deeply love. Recall a moment of awe, joy, or deep gratitude. Smile gently. Let your body feel calm, safe, and expansive. This is not about performance—it’s about coherence.

6. Speak Like Your Future Self

Now that your system is receptive, introduce affirmations—spoken internally or aloud—as your future self would speak them. Use intentional, emotionally resonant language.

Here are some modern, grounded affirmations to guide you:

Personal Leadership & Direction

Affirmations that reinforce clarity, self-trust, and inner authority:

“I lead my life with clarity and calm direction.”
“I respond with purpose, not pressure.”
“I honour progress over perfection today.”
“I am becoming the version of me I respect.”
“I trust my process. I’m already aligned.”
“I am exactly where I need to be to take the next step.”

Resilience & Adaptability

Affirmations that support emotional flexibility and grounded strength:

“Whatever arises, I meet it with presence and capacity.”
“I am wired for change and built for resilience.”
“Challenge sharpens me. I stay grounded in motion.”
“I move from centre, not from stress.”
“My nervous system is calm, and my mind is clear.”

Focus & Intentional Action

Affirmations that support mental clarity, focus, and productive intention:

“Today I move with direction, not distraction.”
“I choose energy that matches my intention.”
“I prioritise what matters. The rest can wait.”
“Peace is my default. Focus is my return point.”

Gratitude & Emotional Coherence

Affirmations that promote emotional alignment and heart-brain synchrony:

“This day is a gift. I meet it with quiet strength.”
“I feel supported, resourced, and ready.”
“My heart leads. My body follows. My mind aligns.”

Each of these is a message to your nervous system, spoken as if the future is already embodied. Use them in stillness. Speak them with emotion. Let your physiology anchor the future you’re rehearsing.

7. Visualise Your Desired Reality

Now, visualise your ideal day, state, or outcome, not as a hope, but as if it has already occurred. Let it play in your mind’s eye with detail and emotional texture. This isn’t wishing. It’s rehearsing coherence.

Why It Works

This process works because it aligns with your biology:

Neuroplasticity is at its peak during transitional states, especially when paired with strong emotions and repetition (Chen et al., 2025).
The Reticular Activating System (RAS) filters your environment through the emotional lens you set at waking (Devaney et al., 2021).
Coherence between heart and brain enhances clarity, memory, and immune response (Mueller et al., 2021; Jespersen et al., 2024).
Repeating these patterns daily helps your nervous system establish them as a new baseline (Dennison, 2024; Ma et al., 2023).

Final Thoughts

The first seven minutes of your day are not a luxury. They are leverage.

Coherence is the signal.
Intention is the vector.
Emotion is the charge.

So tomorrow morning, don’t scroll. Don’t rehearse stress.

Instead, tune your frequency.

Let your thoughts direct your biology. Let your body believe before your mind begins to doubt.

Your brain is listening.
Your cells are listening.
The field is listening.

Train it. Shape it. Repeat it.

References

Aggarwal, A. (2025). Brain connectivity using EEG data. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.01.26.634935

Ahn, J., Lee, D., Namkoong, K., & Jung, Y. (2021). Altered functional connectivity of the salience network in problematic smartphone users. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.636730

Bukkieva, T., Pospelova, M., Efimtsev, A., Fionik, O., Alekseeva, T., Samochernych, K., & Shevtsov, M. (2022). Functional network connectivity reveals the brain functional alterations in breast cancer survivors. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 11(3), 617. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm11030617

Chen, J., Lewis, L., Coursey, S., Catana, C., Polimeni, J., Fan, J., & Rosen, B. (2025). Simultaneous EEG-PET-MRI identifies temporally coupled, spatially structured hemodynamic and metabolic dynamics across wakefulness and NREM sleep. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.01.17.633689

Devaney, K., Levin, E., Tripathi, V., Higgins, J., Lazar, S., & Somers, D. (2021). Attention and default mode network assessments of meditation experience during active cognition and rest. Brain Sciences, 11(5), 566. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11050566

Dennison, P. (2024). The enigma of jhāna and implications for neuroscience, consciousness studies and research methodology. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/ncp25

Edlow, B., Olchanyi, M., Freeman, H., Li, J., Maffei, C., Snider, S., & Kinney, H. (2024). Multimodal MRI reveals brainstem connections that sustain wakefulness in human consciousness. Science Translational Medicine, 16(745). https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.adj4303

Hardikar, S., McKeown, B., Schaare, H., Wallace, R., Xu, T., Lauckner, M., & Smallwood, J. (2024). Macro-scale patterns in functional connectivity associated with ongoing thought patterns and dispositional traits. eLife, 13. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.93689

Jespersen, K., Stevner, A., Kringelbach, M., Someren, E., Vidaurre, D., & Vuust, P. (2024). Modelling of brain dynamics reveals reduced switching between brain states in insomnia disorder – a resting-state fMRI study. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.11.27.625644

Ma, M., Li, Y., Shao, Y., & Weng, X. (2023). Effect of total sleep deprivation on effective EEG connectivity for young males in resting-state networks in different eye states. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 17. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2023.1204457

Mueller, J., Pritschet, L., Santander, T., Taylor, C., Grafton, S., Jacobs, E., & Carlson, J. (2021). Dynamic community detection reveals transient reorganization of functional brain networks across a female menstrual cycle. Network Neuroscience, 5(1), 125–144. https://doi.org/10.1162/netn_a_00169

Negelspach, D., Kennedy, K., Huskey, A., Cha, J., Alkozei, A., & Killgore, W. (2025). Mapping the neural basis of wake onset regularity and its effects on sleep quality and positive affect. Clocks & Sleep, 7(1), 15. https://doi.org/10.3390/clockssleep7010015

Smallwood, J., Bernhardt, B., Leech, R., Bzdok, D., Jefferies, E., & Margulies, D. (2021). The default mode network in cognition: A topographical perspective. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 22(8), 503–513. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-021-00474-4

Titone, S., Samogin, J., Peigneux, P., Swinnen, S., Mantini, D., & Albouy, G. (2023). Frequency-dependent connectivity in large-scale resting-state brain networks during sleep. European Journal of Neuroscience, 59(4), 686–702. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.16080

Valenta, S., Ventura, S., Benuzzi, F., Rizzello, F., Gionchetti, P., Ronchi, D., & Filippini, N. (2025). A heavy feeling in the stomach: Neural correlates of anxiety in Crohn’s disease. Neurogastroenterology & Motility, 37(7). https://doi.org/10.1111/nmo.70029

Wang, X., Peters, E., Strelen, J., Lockhart, N., Franklin, M., LaBerge, S., & Erlacher, D. (2025). EEG microstates reveal distinct network dynamics in lucid and non-lucid REM sleep. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.02.12.637792

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Why Delaying Gratification Matters