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Before I tell you about my morning routine, you should know who is writing it. This is not the routine of someone who has it all figured out. It's the routine of someone who learned, the hard way, what happens to her when she doesn't have it.
In 2022, I went through a breakup that cracked something open in me. & what came out of that crack, slowly & a little painfully, was this. A morning that belongs entirely to me. A ritual I built from the ground up, piece by piece, out of pure necessity.
Then I moved from California to Las Vegas. & I nearly lost it all over again.
I won't dress it up. Moving to Las Vegas was one of the darkest seasons I've walked through as an adult. I hadn't felt that kind of heaviness since 2019. Something about it made me feel like a teenager again. Like the darkness was permanent. Like I couldn't see the other side of it.
Except I knew better this time. I'd been here before. I knew what the other side looked like. But knowing something & feeling it are two very different things.
So I stayed in the freeze longer than I wanted to. I stopped working out consistently. I stopped eating in a way that felt like care. I was drinking in a way that wasn't serving me. The things that had always fed my soul got quieter & quieter, & I let them.
& then slowly, almost imperceptibly, I started making small movements back toward myself. I quit drinking. I started moving my body again. I started waking up early, not because an alarm told me to, but because somewhere inside me, my body remembered what it felt like to have that quiet hour before the world woke up. & it wanted it back.
That slow return saved me. & it started, every single morning, before the sun came up.
Before I walk you through what I actually do, I want to say something about what mornings mean to me, because I think it matters more than the specifics. Mornings are mine in a way nothing else is. Not in a rigid, perfectionistic way. I am not precious about this. But in the way that anything that brings you back to yourself becomes load-bearing. Mornings are where everything begins. They are the first conversation you have with yourself each day, & that conversation sets the tone for everything that follows. They are a promise to solitude.
For a long time I didn't know how to cultivate that relationship with myself. I'd wake up & immediately hand myself over to the world. To my phone. To my to-do list. To whatever was loudest. & I'd wonder why I felt so far from myself by noon.
My morning promise to solitude changed that. Not because it's magic, but because it's a daily act of choosing yourself first. Before the noise. Before the demands. Before anyone else needs anything from you. More than anything, it is a coming home.
Now let me head off the obvious. I am not telling you to wake up at 4:30am. This is not that kind of post. I wake up early because I am, in my own words, a little insane about my mornings. The quiet before the world wakes up feels like mine in a way that nothing else does. When I worked at an Amazon warehouse, I set an alarm because I had to. Now my body just wakes up on its own, because it has learned that something good is waiting. That shift, from alarm to instinct, is one of the quietest forms of healing I've experienced. I do use a Hatch alarm clock for the mornings I want a gentle nudge rather than the jolt of my phone.
The first thing I do is not reach for my phone. Non-negotiable. No scrolling until my full routine is done, because I know what happens to my nervous system when the first thing it encounters is the internet. Nothing good.
Instead, with my groggy eyes & tired body, I reach for my journal. If any of you have heard of Morning Pages from The Artist's Way, it's essentially that. Three pages, no stopping, the moment you wake up. It's supposed to unlock creativity, which it does. But what I've personally found is that it helps with subconscious unblocking. The continuous flow from your pen to paper gets all the gunk out, & you move through the rest of your morning more clear-headed for it.
Before I head into movement, I drink my Body Health Perfect Aminos. No calories, equivalent to 30 grams of protein, & the reason I can train fasted without feeling depleted. If you work out in the mornings, I cannot recommend this enough. It's my favoriteeee.
Then I head to the living room for my dedicated movement. I follow Courtney Fisher's workout program, Fit with Coco in the app store. Strength & pilates hybrid, & this woman has never once let me down. Nothing gets me out of my head faster. I finish the workout with a 1-2 mile walk, which brings my energy back up if the session left me a little tired.
After my workout, I go into the kitchen. Apple cider vinegar & lemon water first, which supports gut health & digestion. Then spearmint tea, which I take for hormone balance.
Then breakfast, which I take very seriously. Two eggs & a bowl of plain greek yogurt with berries, granola, & honey.
Then comes the stillness. Meditation after the workout, partly to help my nervous system come down from something so intense, & partly because if I tried to meditate the moment I woke up I would be asleep in four minutes. I also put my legs up on the wall for the duration. It supports lymphatic drainage & gets blood circulating through the body, & it's become one of my favorite parts of the whole sequence.
Then a shower. In the shower I listen to podcasts. The Skinny Confidential for my entrepreneurial spirit. To Be Magnetic for my soul. These two shows have genuinely shaped the woman I'm becoming. I owe them more than I can say.
After my shower, skincare & body care, finished with my favorite perfume. Something about that last step makes me feel genuinely loved & cared for. & then I'm ready for whatever the day has to throw at me.
When I skip this whole sequence, I become, in my own words, a real sour puss. Not in a dramatic way. Just in the way where everything feels slightly harder, slightly more irritating, slightly less like mine. The patience runs thinner. The fog sits heavier. The day feels like something I'm getting through instead of something I'm living. I do this routine for love. Love of myself, & honestly, love of the people around me. Because the version of me that skips it is not the version of me I want to be in relationship with.
So what does any of this actually have to do with your nervous system? Everything. Morning pages shifting your brain from anxiety rumination to a state of agency. The lemon water & apple cider vinegar gently activate your digestive system & signal to your body that it's safe to begin the day. Spearmint tea supports your hormones. Movement completes stress cycles. It discharges what your body has been holding & tells your nervous system that the threat has passed. Eating a high protein breakfast helps support your blood sugar & reduces the release of stress hormones. Meditation activates your parasympathetic system, the part of you that knows how to rest. Walking regulates your cortisol. Legs up the wall supports your lymphatic system & calms your vagus nerve. None of this is complicated. None of it requires a perfect life or a perfect morning or waking up at 4:30am. It just requires showing up for yourself in the small ways, consistently, until your body starts to trust that you will.
That trust is everything.
If you're curious about what it actually looks like to build a morning practice that sticks, Remembrance is a free place to start. & The Soft Landing is a 7-day return that gives your nervous system a real structure to come home to.
Your morning doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be yours.
Stay close,
Jess