Why “Perfect” Morning Routines Don’t Matter — And What to Do Instead Ep 121

Every endurance athlete remembers the moment when things finally click. Your swim feels smoother, your pacing makes sense, your fueling works, and suddenly the sport feels not only easier, but more fun. And for many athletes, that moment happens at training camp. That's exactly why we created the Endurance Edge Triathlon Training Camp happening April 22nd through 26th at Lake Jocassee in South Carolina. For 4 incredible days, you'll train in a small group with expert coaches, sports nutrition support, and sports psychology guidance, all designed to help you train smarter, race stronger, and finally connect the dots in your performance. We swim in crystal clear mountain water, ride beautiful and challenging roads, run scenic trails, and spend the rest of the time recovering, learning, laughing, and eating some seriously amazing chef-prepared food. Mm-hmm. Camp is intentionally small, just 20 athletes, so you get real coaching, true connection, and amazing breakthroughs. So if you want an experience that can transform your entire season, we invite you to join us. Head to theenduranceedge.com and click training camp and reserve your spot with just a $100 deposit. Come train hard, learn a ton, and leave stronger than you ever imagined. I'll see you there. Welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast. I am your host, Coach Cris, and I am here again with Coach Carly because she's amazing and we have so much fun talking all the things over our pretend coffee that we're drinking. I don't think— are you a decaf girl?

I am.

Yes, I know. Isn't that—

I feel like such a fraud.

I also do, because I'm like, I use caffeine so strategically.

Oh my gosh. I honestly, I feel like this contributes to the whole entire topic of today with morning routines.

Absolutely. Which is all about morning routines. So I don't know if you guys get hammered, uh, with Um, I don't know, social media, books, whatever. There's like, oh, it's all that you have to have. Like, you are a bad human unless you have this magical morning routine, or if you do the same exact thing every single— I don't, I don't know. But I just feel like all these self-development things expect that you're supposed to, like— I think, I think somebody added up all the things that Huberman was supposed to be doing in his morning routine. It was going to be like 3 hours or something like that. Whether that's fake news, I don't know. Does matter. But Carly is here to— it's like, maybe we should talk about morning routines. You're like, oh, I have so many things to say about that. I'm like, oh, bring it on. I cannot wait. So enlighten us, Carly. What's your, what's your take on this?

The irony is not lost on me that I would say something like that when I am very much a woman of few words.

You are not.

Like, for me to have a lot to say means I might talk for 2 minutes, but here we are.

Well, it just goes to show that there is so many things that I feel like we have an expectation.

Yeah.

Uh, of like, oh well, this— if I do this thing, maybe it's gonna make me magically, I don't know, more perfect. But like, better in whose mind? Uh, you know.

Yeah.

Is this the magic missing link to what? To like, what, like, what are you trying to achieve?

Particularly I think in the Um, in the wellness space right now and generally like this self-improvement journey that, uh, our culture is on right now of like, how can I be the best version of myself? How do I take care of myself? How do I optimize my day? And it's kind of evolved into like, how do I optimize every minute of every waking moment that I have? And we've just like, it's gone too far, y'all. Rein it in. Rein it in. Okay. That's it. Close. End the podcast. That's what I have to say about—

well, we were just on another, uh, we're, we're batch recording you guys. I'm getting ahead. I'm so proud of myself. Uh, I, I need some validation from Carly here too, because like she also helps with this process. She's like, oh my gosh, Kris, you are so behind. We are not behind anymore. And we were just talking about hustle culture. And, um, the irony, I'm talking about like, oh, but I have to get all these podcasts out to people.

Well, you do have a podcast, so yes, you do have to do the podcast. But does that mean you need some like very intricate morning routine to set yourself up? Y'all, we can have a good day without having this like very perfectionistic routine in the morning, that you are now waking up at 4:00 AM to have time before your kids get up to journal and meditate and see the first sunlight. And I don't— what, what else are the kids doing these days? Cold plunges in the morning, forest bathing, and— oh God. Anyways, um, my not so hot take is to think about what will actually set you up to have a lovely morning. Okay? What resets you to go into whenever your day starts, I'll say 8:00. Can you get to 8:00 and be like, all right, cool, let's start the day. And maybe that does include cold plunges and a slew of other things. It doesn't for me, and it probably never will. And I'm not a morning person. I'm also not a night owl. Uh, your girl likes to sleep a lot, so I'm not gonna stress about waking up extra early so I can do all of these things before my workout, before I get my kid ready for school, before I go to work. It's not gonna happen. But most importantly, the purpose of whatever sort of routine you have in the morning, cuz I'm sure you do have some version, even if it's loosely a version of a routine routine for the morning, you have some sort of like something that you do every morning, right? Um, run through it. Is it benefiting you? Is it something you wanna improve? And is it something you wanna improve because you actually feel like it would help you start your day better and not because you heard it on a podcast?

Uh, the irony not lost.

Just gonna bite the hand that feeds me for a second here. But, um, But just because, you know, we have evidence that, you know, journaling is really great, and it is a phenomenal tool, y'all. Meditation— the findings that we have on long-term, like, long-term studies that have looked at people that have meditated for years and years, like, amazing things that can happen. I am not saying that is all true. It's all great and wonderful and lovely stuff. I'm just saying we don't all have to do it every morning. There you go. What fills your cup? And I don't mean that, uh, as like a pun for your coffee.

I was gonna say, but can it?

Yeah. Uh, and I guess let me circle back and then we'll kind of get into what different versions can look like, but I figured out that starting my day with a caffeinated coffee makes me a little crazy when I, when I get—

I'm so with you there. I was like, the anxiety. Why is my heart rate so high? First thing in the morning, I'm like, oh, it's caffeine. And you know, to no fault of like, I know my genetics, but I am constantly revisiting them. And while I clear caffeine theoretically quickly with some genes, there are other genes for me that like to hold on to the extra production of adrenaline, epinephrine, norepinephrine that are not serving me. And I found that reducing— for me, reducing caffeine, I was like, I feel so much more peaceful.

Yeah.

And relaxed. And I think this, to me, is worth it.

Yeah, absolutely. Two big points really quickly. One, Chris and I did not, uh, know this about each other before coming on this call. This is not like a setup to switch everyone over to decaf coffee.

No, no, not at all.

That's not why we're here. This is purely coincidental. Two, even more coincidental is that it sounds like Chris and I have very similar genes when it comes to how our bodies use caffeine. And both of them sound like they somewhat go against what we are experiencing in our day, which is, which brings me back to the like, take a minute to reflect on, like pay attention to what you're experiencing throughout your day. We very much, when we are in like a, I get up, I whatever, I have breakfast, I have my coffee, I shower, maybe you work out first, then you shower, and then you go to work, you have your day, you come home, like. We put up blinders when we're in routines like this, when our every weekday looks the same and we're in this really regimented— we stop paying attention to how things are making our bodies feel, how we're mentally feeling, if we're having like dips and peaks with our energy throughout the day. We're just like laser beam. We're cows in a funnel, frankly. Take the minute to reflect on what's happening. What are you experiencing? Because things like this, like I have my genetic reports, I know that, you know, in terms of caffeine, like cool, I use it up real quick and I'm good to go. Reality is it makes me real anxious and I feel like a little bit of a crazy person for quite some time if I have a good chunk of caffeine first thing in the morning. So I changed to decaf and it's been lovely. I love the coziness of a warm cup of decaf coffee in the morning. I particularly love if neither my husband and I have meetings first thing in the morning and we get to sit next to each other and have our warm cups of coffee.

So would you call that a morning routine or would you call that a ritual or can it be both?

I would call it neither because it's circumstantial. Hmm.

Okay. I like this, but it's nice.

And like when I, I take my daughter to school in the morning and then I'm like, hey, are you like, do you have a meeting? Will you be in a meeting when I get back or can we have coffee together? And it's like a nice little way to start our day. We check in with each other. Any of y'all that have tinier humans know that like you don't really get to talk to each other when they're around because they ask a lot of questions and they make a lot of noises and they just generally interrupt every 3 statements that you make. So it's really nice and we just check in and see how we're doing and it's really lovely. And I'm so glad that I take that time instead of like doing a cold plunge or being in the middle of some very regimented thing that I have set for that time of day. Now, if my husband has a meeting or obviously if I have a meeting, I'm off to work, but if he's busy, I just pop on and I get started with my day and it's no thing, right? Like it's very fluid. But I do always have my nice little warm cup of coffee because it makes me cozy and I like it. And that's really all you need. Not coffee, just something that you enjoy in the morning to start your day off on a nice, on a nice little note.

Yeah, my little ritual is that I like to use certain mugs that make me super happy.

There you go.

Like, you know, when you just like hold it just right. Maybe it's got like pictures of my kids on it. You know, one of my mugs says joy on it. When my youngest was maybe 4 or 5, he would take a piece of paper and write joy and then put it at the holidays, put it in everybody's mailbox, but the J was backwards. So like, that just makes me feel like, oh, this is like one of my core values is family and joy. And so that's what my hot beverage goes in. Sometimes it's tea, sometimes it's espresso, Sometimes it's coffee and it just makes me so happy. And that's not to say that I poo-poo on your cold plunge. I feel like there seems to be a pressure of doing something every single morning where I find that there's flow in certain mornings. Like certain mornings I'm coaching at 6 o'clock in the morning, like, and I am not waking up at 4 o'clock in the morning because generally speaking, that's like the peak of melatonin release. So I ain't gonna skip that because I need that for me to be a nice human. And that's no shot on you if you get up at 4 o'clock in the morning. I hope that your sleep routine is meaningful and works well for you. But I also find that there's weekends for me are opportunities to journal deeper. I feel like mornings on the weekdays, it's gonna be rushed. Not to say it's not meaningful, but I feel like it's not going to provide me the deepest value for the amount of time that I can like contribute to it.

Mm-hmm. So, oh, and I think, and I can't emphasize this enough, likely majority of what you're seeing that like creates these wonderful morning routines that you are learning about, hearing about, seeing, whatever, they're great components of a day or a week. Do they have to happen from 4 to 6:00 AM? Every morning and if you miss it, things will be miserable. I think that's my main point here is, is no, if you need to meditate at lunch, go for it. Especially don't skip your sleep to wake up and, and do things that can be done later in the day. Like that's just, get your sleep, y'all. That's the one thing. Everybody skips their sleep. Thinking that they're waking up to like, you know, be efficient with their day when really your brain would really like you to sleep more, please. Thank you.

Yes. The amount of benefits that come from quality sleep is just so vast. Like, let me begin. The benefits of your metabolism, human growth hormone release, memory consolidation, et cetera, et cetera.

And I guess let me also add, because I'm sure a large portion of those of you listening are like, yeah, but I train in the morning.

Mm-hmm.

I'm, I'm not at home, Carly. I have also gone through periods of life like that as well. And that doesn't negate the underlying message I'm trying to send here of it's great if you wanna wake up and go work out, and that's the best time of day for you to do that. Excellent. I hope you're getting to bed at a reasonable time, like we said. I also hope you don't feel the pressure to try and like habit stack some other things into that morning routine. You're already off to a great start. You're moving your body, you're getting your endorphins going, like all the good things are already happening just 'cause you woke up and, and got out the door. So don't feel pressured that you need to also add these other elements and these really intricate things into it. Like, check it off the list. Great. You had a great morning. Off to a great start. Now go start your day again. Meditate in the afternoon. Journal before bed. It doesn't all have to happen. A, it all doesn't have to happen, y'all. B, it doesn't all have to happen in the morning.

But I need to be a perfect human and meet some random expectation of some Navy SEAL that I don't know. Uh, I would be the worst Navy SEAL, which is why I'm not one. So there's that.

Same, same. There's also, okay, if any of you are also like, but I really like Navy SEALs, because I'm sure maybe certain ones are coming into mind at the moment, full respect to actual Navy SEALs.

Oh yeah, 100%.

Yeah. Second of all, what you're learning for them And why they teach what they teach and teach it so well is because they had to have those skills to do their job.

Yeah. To survive.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and not just survive, but have an expectation for an entire country. Perform.

They needed to perform as a Navy SEAL. Okay. This is my counterpoint.

Mm. Okay.

You are not a Navy SEAL.

Hmm.

So you probably don't need a lot of those things. Now, are those skills maybe applicable in other areas and at different levels and intensities that could be helpful? Yes. Do they need to be done to the levels and expectations of a Navy SEAL? No, because you're not a Navy SEAL. Yeah. So that's likely not very fitting for your life and life balance. And lots of other things.

Yeah.

I digress.

Yes, I know. And as you're saying that, I'm like, oh my gosh, I would love to see their genes because I have a sneaking suspicion that they're all— like, there's one particular gene, it's the COMT gene. So if you have a certain genetic variant of that, you tend to be like thrill seekers.

Oh yeah.

Like, because you clear that epinephrine, norepinephrine for— which I am the opposite. You clear that super quick and then you're just like, next, next, next. Bring on the dopamine. Like, bring on the thrill. You know, we're not all in that boat. And I don't know, I feel like we're meant to have all these different journeys and these different challenges. That's why we've been put on this planet. Yeah.

Well, and it always circles back to every time I say, like, stop comparing yourself to other people. This is a prime example why they're either for a multitude of reasons. But when we, when we look at genetics of people and they're like, when we think of how brains operate can so differently with things like what you were just talking about.

Yeah.

And then we think of things like recovery needs or, you know, genes that can be proponents for building strength or building endurance easier than other people. While we're all the same, your body doesn't necessarily work like that person. You could be doing the same things and have vastly different experiences. Is doing them, and maybe that's why that person's always excited to go out and run 1,000 miles a day. And you are like, this doesn't feel great and I feel terrible.

Yeah.

And that doesn't mean that either of you are right or either of you are wrong. You're just your own person. So create your routines around being you and not, again, a Navy SEAL that maybe has quite different genes than you and different objectives and why they're doing those things.

Yes. Which makes me think about our longevity nutrition coaching group and how everyone who walks into that program, the very first module they have to do is all about their core values. Mm-hmm. It's like, well, what does that have to do with the, you know, chicken that I'm eating? Has a lot to do with that and has a lot to do with your morning routine and eating for sure. And exercise all relates to habits and behaviors. Yeah. And if you are not tying them back to your core values and then what is meaningful for you, then you're just gonna be drawing straws of like, well, maybe I need to do a cold plunge every morning. Which interestingly, that's not a great habit for someone who might have cardiac issues.

Mm-hmm.

Having this like massive shock to the system. That's another conversation. We need to have some like research roundups. And we talk about that in, in genetics. There are certain genetics that actually don't do great with cold plunges. Anyway, all that to say is that you are unique and wonderful and pick your morning routine to match you. Yeah. Yeah. Did that— anything else to sum it up?

No, I think that's the perfect summary.

We done did the thing. We did. So good.

So proud.

Yes. Awesome. And again, if you need a reminder, all of you wonderful people out there, that you are beautifully and wonderfully made and I know I'm so grateful for you and I'm also grateful for Carly. So thanks. Thanks for being here and sharing your thoughts on the morning routine. And thanks for listening, y'all.

Bye.

Thanks for listening to the Find Your Edge podcast. If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. And if you're interested in learning more about our endurance coaching, sports and wellness nutrition, metabolic and sweat testing, triathlon training team, or our triathlon training library, Be sure to check us out at theenduranceedge.com and don't forget to follow us on social media at The Endurance Edge. Thanks again. And we'll catch you next time.