3 Ways to Upgrade Your Mornings

sunrise at Fort Barwara, near Jaipur, India

How you start your morning matters.

Not because it’s the key to “winning the day,” but because it sets the tone for how you will carry yourself through it. So lately, instead of asking myself “what do I have to do today?” I’ve been asking “how do I want to feel today?”

This shift has been so powerful that it’s a large part of why I brought morning meditations to Peloton, and recently created a weeklong program called 7 Days of Mindful Mornings. I wanted a simple, accessible, and repeatable way to come home to myself before getting into the chaos of each day.

But I digress. There are so many different ways to create an effective morning routine. Most importantly, it’s helpful to start by acknowledging that our bodies have its own internal clock, the circadian rhythm, that governs our sleep-wake cycle, alertness, hormones, digestion and more. Like all clocks, it likes consistency. By virtue of this clock, our body responds to light, movement, and nourishment.

Below are three small science backed (and fairly accessible) shifts that are both supportive of our circadian cycles, and softer, steadier mornings.

---

Move Something

After hours of stillness, your body wants to be reminded that it exists. You don’t need an intense workout but after 6-8 hours of stillness, your nervous system needs to know you’re awake, your lymphatic system needs help flushing, and your joints need synovial fluid. Movement activates the prefrontal cortex, which improves decision making. It releases endorphins, which (as Elle Woods famously pointed out) boosts your mood. This doesn’t mean a sunrise HIIT workout, it can mean rolling your ankles, shaking out your hands and stretching in bed.

Personally, I like to spend 5-10 minutes doing what I’ve decided to call “free movement,” which at its heart, is an opportunity to check into my body physically, and move in an unstructured way to relieve any feelings of stickiness or tightness. Paired with music, it can feel like intimate, creative, open play. It’s my favorite thing to do before meditation, and helps me to sit with a bit more ease.

Light Before Likes

Morning sunlight is more than a pleasant treat, it’s chemical. Sunlight exposure, ideally within the first hour of waking up, helps regulate our circadian rhythm. It signals to our brains that it’s daytime, triggering a cascade of hormonal responses: cortisol rises (in a good way,) melatonin production shuts off, and alertness increases naturally.

Morning light also helps regulate serotonin production, which is linked to mood stability. In fact, light therapy is a clinically proven treatment for seasonal affective disorder and depression.

If you can, step outside. It’s so much easier in the summer to go outside for a walk. Frankly,I despise the cold, and in the winter I often try to get as much natural light as I can while drinking lemon water or journaling next to a window. 5-10 minutes makes a measurable difference. Let sunlight be the first thing you take in, not headlines or notifications.

Hydrate Before You Caffeinate

Sleep is an overnight fast. We lose water while we sleep, which means waking up dehydrated is a baseline for most of us. Most people lose 1-2 liters of water through breathing and sweat during sleep. Dehydration, even mild, can impact mood, memory, and focus.

Therefore, one of the simplest ways to support your brain in the mornings is to drink water before anything else. I typically sandwich my caffeine with water on either side. (Bonus points if you add a pinch of sea salt and a squeeze of lemon to replenish electrolytes.) Or if you prefer an electrolyte product, I love LMNT and sometimes mix in a chocolate one into my coffee, which, of course, supports hydration and balance within the body.

---

These are 3 of many different ways to begin the day with intention and self-care, and I’m curious to know what else you might do for yourself. (Let me know in the comments!) As for me, my routine typically moves in this order: shower, free movement, lemon or chlorophyll water, meditation, coffee and journaling, herbal tea or fennel water, sunlight, devices/phone calls/work. I cherish the mornings when I can spend 20-30 minutes nourishing myself in this way, but realistically, some mornings still start with a call or flurry of emails. Some mornings I run out the door forgetting to drink water. But every morning, I come back to this: your morning doesn’t have to be perfect to belong to you.