coming soon - sprinG/SUMMER 2025.
Ever wake up and immediately want to fight the sun for having the audacity to rise? You're not alone. While the internet's full of chipper morning people telling you to "rise and grind" at 4:00 AM, some of us are over here negotiating with our alarm clocks like hostages in a crisis situation.
The thing is, you don't have to become a morning person to have a morning routine that actually works. You just need one that respects who you are: someone who'd rather make friends with their snooze button than jump out of bed ready to conquer the world.
Hating mornings doesn't mean you're lazy, unmotivated, or broken. It might mean you're genetically wired as a night owl (yes, that's real science), or maybe you're just exhausted from a life that demands more than you've got to give. Either way, you deserve a morning that doesn't feel like punishment.
We've all been there, scrolling through those perfect morning routine videos at 11 PM, thinking "maybe tomorrow I'll meditate at dawn and journal my gratitude while making a green smoothie." Then tomorrow comes, and the only thing you're grateful for is that your bed exists.
But what if your morning routine could work with your natural resistance instead of against it? What if it could be so gentle, so sneaky, so actually doable that even your grumpy morning brain couldn't object?
That's exactly what we're building here. A morning routine for people who think morning routines are a special kind of torture. One that starts where you are (horizontal and hostile) and gradually helps you feel slightly more human before noon.
Ready to make peace with your mornings without betraying your night owl soul? Let's dive into the art of the anti-morning morning routine.
Before we try to fix anything, let's acknowledge the elephant in the room. Or rather, the bear that you become before your first cup of coffee. There are legitimate, scientifically-backed reasons why mornings feel like cruel and unusual punishment to some of us.
Science has identified different chronotypes, basically your genetic predisposition for when you naturally feel alert or sleepy. About 25% of people are genuine night owls, with bodies that naturally want to sleep later and wake later.
Fighting against your chronotype is like trying to change your eye color through sheer willpower. Sure, you can fake it with contacts (or in this case, caffeine), but underneath, you are who you are.
Most adults need 7 to 9 hours of sleep, but the average person gets about 6.8. That might not sound like a big difference, but sleep debt accumulates like credit card interest. Miss 30 minutes a night for a week, and by Friday, you're operating on a two-hour deficit. Your morning hatred might actually be your body's way of screaming "I NEED MORE SLEEP" at volumes your snooze button can't silence.
Morning people get a nice surge of cortisol (the wake-up hormone) right when they open their eyes. Night owls? Our cortisol shows up fashionably late, sometimes not peaking until noon. Asking us to be functional at 5 AM is like asking someone to dance before the music starts.
Society runs on morning person time. School starts early, work starts early, and somehow "lazy" became synonymous with anyone who struggles before 9 AM. You're fighting both your biology AND cultural expectations. No wonder mornings feel like a battle you're destined to lose.
The good news? Once you understand why mornings hit differently for you, you can stop trying to force yourself into someone else's routine and build one that actually works with your wiring.
Forget everything you've heard about "jumping out of bed with enthusiasm." We're going for "rolling out of bed with mild acceptance," and honestly, that's victory enough.
Your first mistake might be your alarm itself. That jarring BEEP BEEP BEEP sends your nervous system into immediate fight-or-flight mode. And guess what? Your morning-hating brain chooses flight every time, right back under the covers.
🌅 Try a sunrise alarm clock: These gradually increase light for 30 minutes before your wake time, tricking your brain into thinking it wants to wake up. Your cortisol gets a head start, and you wake up slightly less homicidal.
🎵 Choose your alarm sound wisely: Pick something that makes you feel peaceful rather than panicked. Nature sounds, gentle music, or even a podcast can ease you into consciousness without the trauma.
⏰ Place your alarm strategically: Put it just far enough away that you have to physically move to turn it off. Movement, even tiny amounts, starts breaking the sleep spell.
What if you planned for the snooze instead of fighting it? Instead of setting your alarm for when you need to get up and hitting snooze three times in panic, set it 15 minutes earlier and give yourself permission for ONE intentional snooze.
This is strategy, not failure. That 9-minute snooze becomes your transition time, where you can slowly accept your fate while still horizontal. Use it to do some gentle stretches in bed, take deep breaths, or simply lie there plotting revenge against morning people. Whatever works.
When that final alarm goes off, don't think about your entire morning routine. That's overwhelming and your brain will nope right out of that. Instead, negotiate for just five minutes of vertical existence.
Tell yourself: "I'll just sit up for five minutes. If I still want to go back to sleep after that, I can." (Spoiler: you probably won't, but your brain doesn't need to know that yet.)
During those five minutes:
🔹 Sit on the edge of your bed
🔹 Put your feet on the floor
🔹 Maybe stretch your arms overhead
🔹 Breathe deeply a few times
🔹 Check your phone if that helps you wake up (yes, we're breaking the no-phone rule because we're being realistic here)
🔹 Once you're vertical for five minutes, staying that way becomes surprisingly easier. Physics is on your side now.
Let's be real: we're building a survival routine here, one that gets you functional enough to face the world without wanting to crawl back into bed. This is about feeling slightly more human before you have to deal with other humans, whether that's your boss expecting brilliance at 9 AM, your kids needing breakfast and seventeen other things simultaneously (looking at you, busy moms who somehow manage all this on four hours of sleep), or just the barista at your coffee shop who's way too cheerful for their own good.
You're up, but barely. Your brain is still buffering. This phase is about basic biological functions and nothing more.
💧 Drink water: Your body is dehydrated after hours of sleep. One glass of water starts fixing that. Room temperature is fine, lukewarm is better, but honestly, any water is victory. Add lemon if you're feeling fancy, skip it if you're not.
🚽 Bathroom basics: Use the toilet, splash cold water on your face (or just stare at yourself in the mirror wondering how you got here), brush your teeth if you can manage it. If brushing feels like too much, mouthwash counts.
☕ Start the coffee: Or tea. Or whatever your morning caffeine delivery system is. Just get it brewing. The ritual itself helps signal to your brain that morning is happening whether we like it or not.
You don't need a workout. You just need to remind your body it has joints and they're supposed to move.
🤸 Gentle stretches: Reach your arms up, roll your shoulders back, maybe touch your toes if you're feeling ambitious. This gets blood flowing without requiring actual exercise.
🚶 Walk somewhere: To the kitchen, around your living room, to the mailbox. Doesn't matter where. Movement helps your brain finish booting up.
🌬️ Three deep breaths: Real ones, where your belly actually moves. This tells your nervous system we're safe and it's okay to wake up properly.
Now we're getting somewhere. You're upright, hydrated, and caffeinated. Time to ease into actual functionality.
🍞 Eat something simple: Toast, a banana, a granola bar. Nothing that requires cooking or thinking. Just something to tell your body "we're doing this living thing today."
📱 Check your phone guilt-free: Yes, really. If scrolling social media or checking news helps you wake up, do it. We're going for function over perfection here.
🎧 Put on background noise: Music, a podcast, the news, whatever makes you feel less alone with your morning misery. Sometimes you need voices that aren't your own grumpy internal monologue.
The reason most morning routines fail is because they're designed for people who already like mornings. Yours needs to be different. It needs to be so easy that even on your worst morning, you can still manage it.
Don't try to implement all of this at once. Start with just Phase 1 for a week. Once that feels automatic, add Phase 2. Building slowly means you're more likely to stick with it when motivation inevitably disappears.
Success doesn't mean becoming a morning person. Success means getting out of bed without wanting to cry. Success means feeling 20% more human before you leave the house. That's it. That's enough.
Keep notes on what makes mornings easier. Maybe it's going to bed 30 minutes earlier. Maybe it's having your clothes laid out. Maybe it's keeping a glass of water by your bed. Find your specific morning hacks and lean into them hard.
Some mornings will still suck. You'll still hit snooze too many times. You'll still grumble through your routine. That's okay. The point is having a structure to fall back on, even when you're operating at 40% capacity.
Understanding the science behind why mornings are hard can actually help make them easier. When you know what's happening in your body, you can work with it instead of against it.
Light is the most powerful signal for your circadian rhythm. Getting bright light within 30 minutes of waking (even artificial light) helps shift your cortisol rhythm earlier over time. This is why that sunrise alarm clock actually works. Your brain starts producing wake-up hormones in response to light, even if your conscious mind still wants to sleep.
Your body temperature naturally rises as you wake up. You can hack this by splashing cold water on your face or taking a cooler shower. The temperature change signals to your body that it's time to be alert. You don't need a full cold shower (we're not trying to torture ourselves here), just enough cool water to make you go "okay, okay, I'm awake."
Your prefrontal cortex (the thinking part of your brain) takes longer to come online than your motor cortex (the movement part). This is why moving first, thinking second actually works. By the time your brain catches up to complain, you're already in motion.
Waking up at the same time every day, even on Sunday, actually makes mornings easier over time. Your body starts preparing to wake up before your alarm even goes off. Yes, this means sacrificing those weekend sleep-ins, but consistent 7 AM wake-ups feel better than ping-ponging between 6 AM and noon.
Sometimes the best advice comes from people who've been exactly where you are. Here are strategies from actual night owls who've made peace with mornings:
Sarah, 32, Marketing Manager: "I started sleeping in my workout clothes. Not cute workout clothes, just comfortable stuff I could theoretically exercise in. Most mornings I don't work out, but occasionally I do, and removing that barrier of having to change clothes makes it possible. Plus, I'm already dressed when I wake up, which is one less thing to do."
Mike, 28, Software Developer: "I automated everything I could. Coffee maker on a timer, clothes laid out, breakfast prepped the night before. My morning brain doesn't have to make any decisions. I just follow the path I set up for myself when I was actually functional."
Jennifer, 45, Teacher: "I gave up on the idea of a 'perfect' morning. My routine is literally: get up, shower, coffee, leave. That's it. But it's consistent, and that consistency makes it bearable. I do my self-care stuff in the evening when I actually have energy."
David, 26, Freelancer: "I started treating morning me like a toddler. Gentle, patient, no sudden movements or big demands. I even talk to myself in a soothing voice: 'Okay buddy, let's just stand up. Good job. Now let's walk to the bathroom.' It sounds insane but it works."
Let's clear up some morning routine myths that might be holding you back:
🔹 You have permission to hate mornings forever. You don't have to learn to love them. You just have to learn to navigate them.
🔹 You have permission to have a boring routine. It doesn't need to be Instagram-worthy. It just needs to get you functional.
🔹 You have permission to use snooze. If it helps you transition, use it strategically instead of guiltily.
🔹 You have permission to check your phone. If it helps you wake up, do it. The no-phone morning is for people who don't need help becoming conscious.
🔹 You have permission to skip meditation. If sitting still makes you want to go back to sleep, don't do it. Movement might be your meditation.
🔹 You have permission to drink coffee immediately. You don't have to wait 90 minutes for your adenosine levels or whatever. If you need caffeine to function, have the caffeine.
🔹 You have permission to eat simple breakfast foods. You don't need a vegetable-packed smoothie bowl. Cereal is fine. Toast is fine. A protein bar is fine.
🔹 You have permission to have different routines for different days. Maybe Monday needs more structure, but Friday can be looser. Maybe weekends are completely different. That's okay.
Let's pull it all together into something you can actually reference when your brain is operating at 15% capacity:
Night Before Prep (Do this when you're actually functional):
🔹 Set alarm 15 minutes earlier than needed (snooze buffer)
🔹 Put glass of water by bed
🔹 Lay out clothes
🔹 Prep coffee/tea
🔹 Set out easy breakfast
🔹 Lower your expectations for tomorrow
The Actual Morning:
⏰ 5:45 AM (or whenever): First alarm. Snooze if you want. You planned for this.
⏰ 6:00 AM: Real wake up time
🔹 Sit up (counts as victory)
🔹 Drink water from nightstand
🔹 Put feet on floor
🔹 Breathe three times
🔹 Stand up when ready (or when you can't procrastinate anymore)
🚶 6:05 AM: Zombie shuffle
🔹 Bathroom stuff
🔹 Start coffee/tea
🔹 Splash face with water
🔹 Put on the clothes you laid out
☕ 6:15 AM: Become functional
🔹 Drink caffeine
🔹 Eat simple breakfast
🔹 Check phone/news/social media
🔹 Do gentle stretches if you feel like it
🔹 Listen to something you enjoy
🚀 6:30 AM: Ready(ish) to face the world
That's it. That's the whole thing. No journaling, no meditation, no gratitude practice, no morning pages. Just the basics that get you from horizontal to functional.
Once this routine feels automatic (give it at least a month), you might find yourself with a tiny bit of morning energy to spare. If that happens, you could add:
🔹 Five minutes of journaling (or just writing "I hate mornings" repeatedly, which is therapeutic in its own way)
🔹 A slightly longer walk
🔹 An actual breakfast that requires cooking
🔹 Five minutes of reading
🔹 A short workout (or just more stretches and calling it yoga)
🔹 A quick brain dump to stop overthinking before it starts (literally just write down everything swirling in your head and watch how much calmer you feel)
🔹 Three minutes of productivity planning where you pick ONE thing that would make today feel successful (because let's face it, your ambitious to-do list can wait until you're actually awake)
Or you might never add anything, and that's completely fine. The goal was never to become a morning person. The goal was to make mornings survivable.
You know what? Some of us are just wired to be night owls living in an early bird world. That's not a character flaw or something that needs fixing. It's just biology doing its thing.
The morning routine outlined here respects that reality. It doesn't try to transform you into someone you're not. It just helps you navigate those first difficult moments of consciousness with a little more grace and a lot less misery.
Will you ever love mornings? Probably not. Will they always be somewhat challenging? Most likely. But can you create a routine that makes them bearable, even manageable? Absolutely.
Start small. Be patient with yourself. Lower your expectations. And remember: every morning you get through is a win, even if it doesn't feel like it.
And hey, if you need help building and sticking to even the simplest morning routine, Sunrise is designed for people exactly like us. It won't judge you for your 10-minute "routine" or your heavy reliance on the snooze button. It just helps you build consistency with whatever morning practice works for your chronically tired, morning-hating soul.
Because let's face it: the best morning routine is the one you'll actually do, even when every fiber of your being wants to stay in bed.
Here's to making peace with mornings, one snooze button at a time.
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