The problem with morning routines

Plus a simple morning yoga practice you can actually do

In my recent Women + Wellbeing interview with Maryam Ovissi about her book Care of the Whole Self she mentioned the power of a consistent practice, specifically a consistent morning practice. Research shows that committing to a morning habit has big benefits to overall mental wellbeing and productivity (though, to be clear, I am not suggesting you need to become a productivity machine). The popular phrase “win the morning, win the day,” is commonly attributed to podcaster and author Tim Ferriss but there is also a book of the same title by C.W. V. Straaten touting a transformative journaling ritual to optimize habit formation, and Ryan Holiday and his Stoic tribe lay claim to this concept as a foundational ancient Roman teaching straight from Marcus Aurelius.

Google’s algorithm spit back these top three Youtube gems from the search term “research on morning routines:”

1. The perfect morning routine every man should do (science based) by teachingmenfashion

2. Morning routines that actually work by Adam Hergenrother

3. My evidence-based morning routine for healthy productivity by Cajun Koi Academy

The level of SEO manipulation in these titles actually makes me feel sick and while I’m sure these videos are all fine (I didn’t watch them) the fact remains that men are profiting off of building a cultural narrative that 1) your worth is tied to your productivity and 2) the key to being productive and of value to society is to stick to a consistent (evidence-based) morning routine. I don’t want to discourage men who actually get something out of establishing daily routines—I’m all for healthier, more self-aware men in the world. But I don’t want anyone—men or women—to do things because someone popular said to do it or because science said it’s good for you. Do things because they make you feel better and they give you meaning. It seems so obvious but I feel like I need to be reminded of this every day.

Just as yoga has been largely dominated by male voices and bodies throughout history, self-worth has largely been defined by male voices and bodies in popular culture and it’s hurting women.

It doesn’t matter what, specifically, you do to win your morning, but consciously committing to an intentional activity can help you feel more prepared for your day. This consciousness piece is particularly important to Kelly Newsome Georges, another interviewee in the Women + Wellbeing series, and differentiates habits from self-care rituals. I think Kelly is onto something. My feminine energy has a hard time getting behind the masculine forces hyping habits, productivity, and optimal efficiency. Without consciousness, reflection, feeling, and emotion, morning practices lack meaning and become another thing to do. The whole point of doing a morning practice, to me, is to be not to do. I already do enough as it is. I need more being, not more doing.

Morning practices in the yoga tradition

This whole morning routine idea predates the Romans. Yoga sutra’s 1.12-1.14 say:

1.12: You can achieve the state of mind called yoga through practice and detachment

1.13: Practice means applying continuous effort toward steadying the mind

1.14: Steadiness of mind is achieved when one practices for a long time, consistently, without interruption, and with sincere devotion (emphasis mine)

Traditional yoga lineages have long prescribed daily practices at sunrise. Your physical, mental, and emotional energy is ripe for transformation in the early morning hours before the rest of your day can throw you off balance. Also, anything not prioritized first thing in the morning is less likely to get done.

Morning routines are also a big part of an Ayurvedic lifestyle. A typical morning routine in Ayurveda involves the following (adapted from page 215 of Dr. Claudia Welch’s Balance Your Hormones, Balance Your Life):

1. Wake up early (at the same time every day)

2. Wash your face, brush your teeth, scrape your tongue

3. Drink a glass of warm water

4. Poop

5. Apply cool water to the eyes

6. Gargle with salt water and use a neti pot

7. Meditate or read inspirational content for 15-60 minutes

8. Apply warm oil to your body (abhyangha), ideally for 15 minutes

9. Take a shower

10. Take a brisk walk for 30 minutes followed by 5-10 minutes of gentle yoga

11. Do 5-15 minutes of alternate-nostril breathing

12. Cook your breakfast

She suggests this will take about an hour to an 1 hour 30 minutes, but that’s wishful thinking. No mother of young children has time for this, let alone at the same time every day. There is no doubt engaging in such a routine will make you feel better. The fact remains it’s not realistic. Seeing routines like this promoted over and over again in yoga texts, by yoga teachers, and all over popular culture reinforces the idea that to succeed you must be able to implement these types of practices in your life. The “experts” interviewed in books and podcasts as testaments to the power of such routines are company CEOs and people in positions of power—as if that’s the pinnacle of success and what we should all be striving toward¹.

Find the morning routine that works for you

It’s not the idea of committing to a practice or routine that bothers me (although, to be honest, I do struggle with this kind of commitment). Ultimately, routine is what really bothers me. I fully understand the benefit of structure both in my creative life and in helping to guide toddlers throughout the day. But when you have young children it is particularly hard to stick to a morning routine because of the unpredictability (and lack) of sleep schedules. I’ve also struggled with consistency my whole life in everything I do. I’ve never been a consistent golfer, I forget to take my herbs at night all the time, and meditation is a three-random-days-a-week kind of practice for me, no matter how much I intend to practice every day. I’m the type of person that gets excited about something for awhile and when the novelty wears off I’m on to the next thing. Rigidity bores me; doing the same thing every single morning is hardly motivating.

In my former non-mom life, I thought this made me deficient. I thought something was wrong with me if I couldn’t do what the experts do. I wasn’t meant to become an enlightened saint since I couldn’t set up the parameters to stick to a consistent daily home yoga practice. Or, I just didn’t want it bad enough. If I couldn’t do it perfectly, I figured it wasn’t for me, I’d just never be good at it, and it wasn’t worth doing. Since becoming a mom, I’ve discovered the error of my thinking. Instead of foregoing the perfect idealization of a practice, I’m leaning into a more feminine energy that allows for change, ebbs and flows, and cyclical patterns. Rather than pushing away what doesn’t work or forcing myself into a prescribed, daily practice in order to be “good,” I’m instead forgetting what everyone else says and doing what works best for me. The societal standards of perfection dominated by male voices don’t work for me (surprise!).

What works for me is simple, fast, and adaptive. Some days, I won’t wake up early before everyone else because I’m tired and I want to consciously prioritize my sleep. I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I’ve started to craft a morning yoga practice that works for me and it’s largely responsive to how I feel in the moment. Like your grandmother’s recipe from the Old World, I can’t give you the exact sequence because it’s not so much about the end result as it is about whether or not it tastes right.

A simple morning yoga practice for everyone else who has no time

For years, the most popular blog on my website described the seven directions of spinal movement. These simple movements are the perfect place to start in a morning yoga practice. They’re easy, infinitely adaptable, powerful, and they feel good. Throw in some meditation and breathing and you’ve got a loose structure for crafting your own doable morning yoga practices.

Below, I’ve shared a short sample practice for what a morning yoga routine could look like for the women who are too exhausted, too overwhelmed, or too time-deficient in their life right now. You might not get to it every morning, but that doesn’t mean your day automatically will suck. The practice is simple enough to fit in elsewhere throughout your day and it doesn’t require a lot of mental or physical preparation. You can even split it into tiny vignettes—sneak in some breath work in the car, meditate while you’re washing the dishes (😂), or include your kids in the movement piece for a little impromptu family yoga session.

Craft the morning routine that works for you and forget about whether or not scientific evidence backs it up or some YouTube influencer with millions of followers promotes its efficacy. Lean into your own truth and wisdom and stop beating yourself up because you didn’t scrape your tongue this morning. It’s okay. You’re okay.

Let’s chat in the comments

• Do you commit to a daily morning practice?

• What’s your morning practice look like?

• What’s your biggest obstacle to developing a consistent morning practice?

The Morning Routine Yoga Practice

The Morning Practice below is available for paid subscribers. Paid subscribers get to put what they read here into practice. The guided yoga practices, tools, and techniques I share behind the paywall help you feel calmer, more empowered, energized, inspired, motivated, relaxed, and connected. Join us!