two years ago, every one of my mornings started the same way. i’d open my eyes, reach for my phone before my feet even touched the floor and open instagram “just for a minute”. some days that minute turned into an hour, and i honestly didn’t notice it go by. then i’d make breakfast and keep scrolling while i ate, or answer messages that could easily have waited until the afternoon.
by 9 am my head was already full. i’d taken in dozens of other people’s lives and opinions before i’d even decided what i wanted to do with my own day, and i could feel it. a buzzing, slightly anxious feeling that stayed with me until the evening, and a focus that kept slipping away every time i sat down to work.
for a long time i thought that was just how i was. then i started to notice something i really didn’t like. i had projects i cared about, and i wasn’t moving forward on any of them. i was anxious and stressed most of the time, i overthought every decision before taking action, and i felt unmotivated and mentally tired in a way that a good night’s sleep didn’t fix.
i want to be clear about one thing before going any further, though. changing my morning routine didn’t change my life overnight. a lot of my anxiety came from deeper questions that i’m working on in therapy, and no amount of herbal tea or early alarms was going to solve those. but rethinking my habits had a much bigger impact than i expected, and the difference between how i start my days now and how i started them two years ago is huge.
so in this article i’m sharing the routine i built, little by little, and why i think it works for me. and if the scrolling part sounds a little too familiar, i’ll soon be sharing how i healed my social media addiction, a story that needed an article of its own.
before we start, a quick word about cortisol (minus the tiktok panic)
before i tell you what i changed, i want to talk about cortisol for a minute, because these days you can’t open social media without someone blaming it for everything from belly fat to bad skin.
cortisol is a hormone your body needs. it helps regulate your blood sugar, your blood pressure and your energy, and it follows a daily rhythm.
n the first 30 to 45 minutes after you wake up, your cortisol rises a lot, often by 50% or more, and then it slowly comes down over the day until it reaches its lowest point at night.
this morning rise is normal and healthy. it’s part of what gets you out of bed, and it seems to help your body and your brain get ready for whatever the day is going to ask of them.
where things can go wrong is in what you pile on top of that morning rise. your stress response is built to switch on when you need it and switch off when the pressure is gone. a deadline, an argument or a stressful email will push it up, and that’s fine as long as it has time to come back down. the trouble starts when it never gets that chance, when one stressful thing follows another all day long and your body stays on alert from morning to night.
this is where my old mornings come in. scrolling before breakfast didn’t feel stressful in the moment (it actually felt relaxing), but my brain was reacting to something new every few seconds. social media apps work with rewards that show up at unpredictable moments, a like here, a funny video there, and that kind of reward is exactly what keeps us coming back for more, a bit like a slot machine.
it also impacts our attention. every time something new grabs it, it takes a little effort to let go and come back to what we were doing. a few interruptions are no big deal, but when your morning is made of hundreds of them, you start the day with a brain that’s already tired and scattered.
that doens’t mean your phone is poison or that an hour of scrolling will ruin your hormones. it means that the way you start your morning sets the tone for how much noise you carry through the rest of the day, and the good news is that you get to decide a big part of it.
what my mornings look like now
before i tell you what i do, a quick reality check. i work from home most of the time, so i can organize my mornings in a way that a lot of people can’t, and i know my habits might not work for someone who has kids to get ready for school or who needs to be at the office by 8. i’m sharing my routine so you can borrow whatever fits your life and look at your own mornings with fresh eyes, to see where the stress is coming from.
here’s what we’re going to cover:
the five habits that shape my mornings now, from the moment i wake up to the moment i train
the evening routine that makes waking up at the same time every day possible
what to do if you can’t go a whole morning without your phone
why i moved my workout from early morning to 11 am
the things i dropped from my mornings (including the 5 am alarm)
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