Like any normal person, part of Marcus Aurelius did not want to wake up, especially early. No, he wanted to “huddle under the blankets and stay warm,” he would say. It was nicer there. Easier there. But another part of him knew he wasn’t created to feel nice, to have it easy. “I have to go to work — as a human being,” he said, hauling his feet up and onto the floor.

This is the internal back and forth so many of us have every morning. Not Arnold Schwarzennegger though. “My rule in the morning is, ‘don’t think,’” he said on a recent episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. To prevent the internal back and forth, the negotiating, the rationalizing, the justifying, Arnold recommended, “Make it a rule where you say, ‘Okay, there are certain things that I would do before I start thinking…I’m going to work out before I start thinking.’ Don’t think. Just go. Get out on a walk. Get on that bicycle. Get to the gym.”

The day starts in black and white, Arnold continued. You’re tired. You’re not thinking clearly. You’re groggy. Your to-do list gives you anxiety. But after you have done that hard thing, gotten active, “the day turns more and more colorful,” Arnold said. “You get to the gym and you do the first set, that’s colorful. The gym is colorful. The characters around you are colorful…And by the time you get home and have breakfast, all the colors are on. I mean, you feel really good.”

The Stoics talked similarly about the connection between the body and the mind. “We treat the body rigorously,” Seneca said, “so that it will not be disobedient to the mind.” We move the body to turn on or up the colors of the mind. When you wake up, don’t think. Just get moving. Get active. Get the body going. Turn the colors on.