An energizing yet gentle morning routine that doesn't include waking up at 5 am or green juice
Get Sunlight As Soon As You Wake Up
Sunlight is our natural regulator. The international symbol for Good Morning, time to get up and get moving. But in our current world, it’s very easy to spend your whole morning getting ready and not see sunlight at all. Especially if you work from home and don’t have to walk or drive to work. While electricity is basically magic, in this case, it’s not helping to regulate our internal clock or the circadian rhythm. This is our body’s cycle of how and when it should produce certain hormones and neurotransmitters to help us function for the day. If we don’t tell it when we’re waking up, it has a hard time figuring out when we’re ready to go to bed.
There is some really interesting research being done on our daily light exposure and the effects it can have on our body. Lumen is the measurement used to determine how bright a light source is, like the light from a lamp or a flashlight. Lux is the measurement of how bright the room or space is, taking into account the lumen of the light source and how much space there is for it to cover. On a bright sunny day outside the lux reading can go above 100,000! While on a rainy or very cloudy day the lux reading for the same outdoor area would be more around 1,000. The typical sunrise and sunset read right around 400 lux. Compared to our average office space which varies around 300 to 500 lux, and our living spaces which can be as bright as the office but more typically are around 100 lux. Just think about how big of a difference that is, even if it’s only a partly sunny day around 65,000 lux outside but we spend 8-10 hours sitting in 400 lux room.1 We are living in a perpetual sunset and our bodies are confused about it.
Try to get at least 10-15 minutes of sun exposure in the morning, like drinking your coffee on your porch as close as you can upon waking. If this isn’t possible due to your schedule (hello night shift workers!) or where you currently live in the world, try an indoor UV light. Sometimes called Happy Lights because they can help with depression as well. Use one of these while you get ready in the morning for 15-20 minutes to get a similar effect.
Eat Breakfast Within An Hour of Waking
This one is very important, please please please do not skip breakfast. I know it’s very easy to and a lot of mornings we don’t even have an appetite, or you want to try out intermittent fasting. But your body has already been fasting since the night before. If you finish eating around 7pm and go to sleep around 11pm, and wake up around 7-8 and push that breakfast off another hour or so. You’re already at over 12 hours without fuel and your body can’t run on air. While it is true that your liver can create glucose through a process called gluconeogenesis, that should be a last-ditch effort. This process is very metabolically taxing and still needs a lot of micronutrients and vitamins to make it happen. Not to mention that long-term effects can include adrenal fatigue and thyroid dysregulation, along with a slew of other health issues. Your body wants you to eat. Preferably a carb and protein together within an hour of waking, this simple action will help regulate your circadian rhythm over time as well.
No Caffeine Til After Breakfast
Oh our morning cup of hot coffee or tea. Everyone’s favorite part of their morning routine. I’m not saying you can’t have it, I know a lot of health professionals usually recommend to start with cutting out or limiting caffeine intake. There are studies that showcase the benefits of coffee as well so we have to find the happy medium within. Plus, life is supposed to be enjoyable, there’s no need to cut off everything that makes us happy in the name of ‘health’. All you need to do is shift it back a little bit, eat first. Your cortisol level is highest in the morning, that’s what helps you get up and motivated for the day ahead. Adding caffeine in is like throwing gas on a hot fire, you’ll burn bright and hot for a little while and then crash back down. A strong coffee first thing in the morning can spike your blood glucose levels up by as much as 80%.2 Having food in your stomach first will help counteract that spike while still providing the energy and mood boost you’re looking for.
Move Gently
Call me crazy but first thing in the morning I don’t feel like running 3 miles or doing an hour of HIIT cardio. I enjoy my slow mornings much more but that doesn’t mean that movement isn’t a key part. Set aside just 5 or 10 minutes for some stretching or follow a gentle morning yoga or pilates flow (there are thousands of videos on youtube). Find a form of movement that feels good to your body but isn’t going to be your main workout for the day. The goal here is just to wake up the body, loosen some of the tension we held or stretch a muscle from sleeping wrong. Just enough movement to let the body know that we are up and getting ready to take on our day.
One Thing For Your Mental Health
Once we start our workday a lot of us lose control over our scheduling. It can be hard to find time to squeeze in your workout or meditation session in between clients or company meetings. Setting up some time and space in the morning can change the direction of your day. Pick something that feels good to you, it could be journaling, a meditation, a mindful podcast. Anything that helps you feel like your mind is clear and ready for whatever that day brings. It doesn’t have to be complicated, it could be sitting in silence for 5 minutes if that helps ground you. Maybe it’s a little dance party to your favorite song to get those happy chemicals flowing.
Most days my mornings will look something like waking up, and taking care of my dog first. Then some mobility stretching and a few yoga sequences. After that, I’ll grab some orange or pineapple juice and make myself breakfast. It’s usually some combo of eggs, toast, potatoes, yogurt, and maybe some sausage or veggies. After breakfast, I’ll make my coffee or tea, take it and my gratitude journal and my headphones out to the porch to sit in the sun while I journal or listen to a guided meditation. All of this only takes about 45 minutes and when I’m do these five things I feel much better all day. And remember that you’re setting your health up long term so it could take a couple weeks to feel the full effects.
References:
1 Hartwig, Dallas (2021). 4 Season solution: The groundbreaking new plan for feeling better, living well, and powering down… our always-on lives. ATRIA BOOKS.
2 “Glucose control upon waking is unaffected by hourly sleep fragmentation during the night, but is impaired by morning caffeinated coffee” by Harry A. Smith, Aaron Hengist, Joel Thomas, Jean-Philippe Walhin, Philippa Heath, Oliver Perkin, Yung-Chih Chen, Javier T. Gonzalez and James A. Betts, 1 June 2020, British Journal of Nutrition.
