*Morning Routine | Maya Tevet Dayan | 6 Minutes on Friday | October 31, 2025*
Life hasn’t settled back into its rhythm yet, but small things have begun to find their way back into my daily life, like green leaves sprouting again after a forest fire - for instance, we stopped sleeping with our phones beside us all night, stopped setting our shoes by the door in case we needed to run to the shelter, started showering again without that quiet alertness that accompanied us for the past two years. Such simple things, who would believe they could affect an entire day.
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Among them, quietly, my morning routine has returned. I had almost forgotten it, after two years of nights interrupted by wake-ups, supporting my daughters, anxiety, travel, returns, news headlines all tangled together - I had almost forgotten that mornings were once my most strengthening hours.
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So this week I asked on Facebook to hear about other people’s morning routines. In response, I got 360 different ideas! I read them all. What I immediately noticed was that my readers fall into two groups: those upon whom the morning descends with its full weight - sandwiches, rides, traffic, work - and those who descend upon the morning: who wake up before it, and gain some time for themselves before the world wakes and comes to them with its demands.
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And that second group divides in two as well - some rise slowly and start the day gently: they water their garden, sip coffee, take their dog to the fields, pray for a good day. Others wake at five, train for an hour and a half, drink mushroom cocoa, do stomach-vacuum breathing, write morning journal, say their gratitudes, do yoga, go watch the sunrise, bathe in a lake, wash their faces with ice water, play music, paint, make salad - well, you get the picture.
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Somewhere between those two extremes, I noted a few important insights that came up. Because managing to keep a morning routine is quite a feminist achievement — in a reality where you’re constantly expected to be available for others, then collapse into sleep, and start again. To be with yourself feels like stealing time from someone. Like a subversive act. And because even though a morning routine is deeply personal, sometimes what helps keep it alive is hearing how others sustain theirs.
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The first insight: it doesn’t have to be at dawn. Many wrote that their morning routine begins only after the kids leave for school, after sandwiches and drop-offs, when quiet finally settles at home — that’s when they roll out the yoga mat.
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Second, Tzofiya wrote that habits are formed by shaping the environment. So she places her yoga mat somewhere visible and easy to reach.
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A third tip: don’t open social media or emails until your routine is complete. It connects to my previous column about the phone fast, remember? The networks pull us out of focus — and in the morning, the focus must be on ourselves.
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And finally, what Joe Dispenza — the great meditation teacher — keeps saying: every morning, he sets aside time to serve himself, so that the rest of the day he can serve others — family, students, relationship. That sentence has become my headline from the moment I wake: I’m going to serve myself so that I can serve others.
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And what does my own morning routine look like?
I really try to get up at six. No matter what time I went to bed. By the way, studies show that if you wake up at the same hour every day — no matter how little you’ve slept — your body recognizes your sleep cycle and releases the maximum amount of growth hormone, which is essential for muscle recovery. I brush my teeth, then in front of the mirror I do a lymphatic facial massage and fascia exercises — working the inner connective tissue that helps lift what droops or tightens, like the jawline or chewing muscles. That takes about twenty minutes.
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Then I make myself a drink — remember the column about Stacy Sims and her recommendations for women? Inspired by her explanation of why women must drink or eat within thirty minutes of waking, I make something light in the blender — say, almond milk, protein powder, and half a banana.
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At that point I send the girls off to school, and once the house is quiet I roll out the mat and do an hour of yoga, plus another half hour of weight lifting. If I feel I can’t motivate myself, I go to the gym — watching others and feeling envious usually does the trick. Either way, during the workout I listen to podcasts I love learning from. Afterward I take my supplements, and only then — at around ten a.m. — I go out into the world. To writing. To networks. To mothering.
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And I have three principles that help me maintain this routine.
The first: I prepare my morning routine the night before. No matter the hour, I make sure the house awaits me clean and orderly. That when I wake up there will be no dishes in the sink, nothing missing for sandwiches, no errands forcing me to go to the store or clean the kitchen first thing. My yoga mat and weights are waiting in place. Every morning when I wake, I thank the nighttime Maya who prepared everything so beautifully for me and made the morning welcoming.
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The second: I don’t schedule anything before ten a.m. No meetings, no Zooms, no calls, no paid work, no workshops — no matter how much people plead. Just as I don’t compromise when working with others, I refuse to compromise on my time with myself. I remind myself that I serve myself so I can serve the world. And that keeping the routine helps the routine keep me.
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And finally, I remember to be human, and forgiving toward myself. After all, we’ve just come through years when there was no trace of routine — sleepless nights, travel, and life’s constant interruptions. So on mornings when my routine unravels, I forgive myself. I try to forgive life, too. And I continue the next day.
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When I read all those hundreds of morning-routine ideas this week, I sighed over all that I don’t do — not enough meditation, no barefoot walks in nature, no foraging herbs for tea, no soaking in a bath. (I don’t even have a bathtub.) But then the next morning I woke up filled with gratitude that another morning had come, and there was quiet. And we had a little bit of routine. And that I managed to do something within it — to be with myself in silence. And that I insisted on it. What a thing that is.
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Wishing us all Shabbat Shalom,
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*Maya Tevet Dayan*