What Actual Nervous System Regulation Looks Like Before Your First Cup of Coffee

People ask me this a lot: What does your actual morning look like?

Not the fantasy…the candlelit journaling, the 5am cold plunge, the sunrise yoga on a dock somewhere. The real one, dog hair and all.

Every post in my nervous system reset series has been quietly building toward this one, whether I meant it to or not.

So, here’s what I actually do, most mornings, unglamorous edges bits and all.

It Doesn’t Start When I Open My Eyes

Some of you know this. My sleep isn’t one straight, clean block, and I’ve stopped pretending it should be. (If you read my sleep post, you already know I’m well acquainted with the middle of the night.)

There’s a first stretch, then a waking window somewhere in there because someone in this house always needs something, and then a second stretch before I actually get up for the day.

So by the time I’d call it “morning,” I’ve usually already been conscious for a while, on and off.

The reset doesn’t begin with an alarm. It begins in that groggy, half-surfaced window where my body is deciding, on its own timeline, whether it’s actually ready to be awake…not when the clock says so.

Before My Feet Hit the Floor

I don’t reach for my phone first. That’s the one rule I actually keep. (Mostly.)

Instead, still lying there with my eyes closed, I do some breathing. I make sure I exhale longer than I inhale, go a few rounds, no counting, no app telling me I’m doing it right.

A longer exhale is one of the clearest signals you can hand your own nervous system that nothing is chasing it. Go deeper on this in my vagus nerve post.

This stopped feeling optional a while ago.

It’s the difference between starting the day from my own baseline, or starting it from wherever the night happened to leave me.

The Part Where my Wolves Get a Vote

I wish I could tell you my mornings are quiet and calm. They’re not.

(Our four Alaskan Malamutes don’t really treat vagal toning as a protected activity, lol. Morning is more of an excellent moment to remind me, with real conviction, that breakfast exists. And I wouldn’t change that for the world.)

Because here’s what I actually believe, past the parenthetical: They’re not interrupting my practice. They’re part of it.

This is important for all of you folks out there who share space with others…your kids, your spouse or person, your animals, etc.

I’ve written before about co-regulation.

It’s the idea that your nervous system can borrow calm, or catch urgency, from another body in the room, and that this is a real physiological exchange, not just a sentimental one.

Four huge dogs leaning into my space, insistent, present, very much alive at 6 am, is exactly that kind of input.

Regulating in their company, rather than in a sealed and silent room, is the more honest version of my practice. Their nervous systems are in the mix too, and mine gets to meet them.

So the actual skill was never “achieve perfect stillness alone in a vacuum.” (Who lives like that?)

It’s “regulate in relationship,” dogs and everyone else in your space included.

That’s messier and louder than the version with candles and a closed door.

It’s also more real.

Setting My Actual Intention for the Day

Once I’m up, before my cup of coffee (cacao, actually, most mornings) touches my hands, I set an intention.

Not a vision-board affirmation. Something closer to a direction than a wish.

It’s one sentence about how I want to move through the day I’m actually having, not the day I’d prefer to be having.

Some mornings that’s ambitious. Most mornings it’s closer to don’t take the bait or slow is fine today.

I say it out loud, once (usually to the dogs, who maybe don’t understand a word of it but are excellent, patient witnesses anyway).

Sacred Cacao, Medicinal Mushrooms, and the Cup I Refill All Day

Then I make my cacao.

Most mornings I make ceremonial cacao. I use it as the base for a mushroom tea blend I brew myself with chaga, reishi, turkey tail, a rotating cast depending on what I’m working with that season. (More on the mushrooms soon.)

If you’ve done a cacao ceremony with me, you already know the ritual matters as much as what’s actually in the cup.

This is that same principle, just lived daily instead of held once a month in circle.

Same cup, same order, most mornings. The predictability itself is doing at least as much work on my nervous system as the plant medicine is.

I make it with intention and ceremony. I slow down. In today’s world, every moment of peace like this can have a big, big impact if you pay attention.

There’s usually at least one more plant ally in the rotation, too. Lately, it’s been ambil, a ceremonial tobacco paste that I prepare myself. That relationship deserves its own post, so I’m going to leave it right there for now. (It’s coming.)

My advice? Work with the plants that keep coming up for you. Chances are, it’s just the medicine you need in the moment.

What This Isn’t

I want to be clear about something: This is my routine. Yours could (and should) look completely different. Because it’s yours.

Recreating my exact sequence and expecting my exact result misses the actual point.

My nervous system has spent years learning to trust this specific pattern, in this specific order, with these specific dogs underfoot.

Yours will look different, and it should.

What matters isn’t the breathwork or the cacao or the intention-setting individually. It’s that they happen in roughly the same order, most days, so your body has something to predict. That’s the ritual-as-safety-signal idea again.

The Whole Thing, in One Morning

Here’s what strikes me writing all this out.

Every tool from this series shows up before I’ve even had breakfast.

The breath. The grounding. The ceremony. The co-regulation that four dogs give as generously as any human I know.

None of it requires an hour I don’t have, or a life that looks anything like mine.

That’s more or less the premise of the Nervous System class I’ve been building. It’s not about one more routine to perform perfectly. Think of it more like a working relationship with your own nervous system, built from whatever’s actually available to you.

Mine happens to involve plants I grow myself and a house full of dogs who are, in their own four-legged way, some of my steadiest regulation partners. Yours will involve whatever’s actually yours.

Disclaimer
The information shared in this post is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. What I share here reflects my own personal experience, research, and practice — it is not a substitute for the guidance of a qualified healthcare provider. If you have a medical condition, are managing a health concern, or are considering changes to your care, please consult your physician or licensed healthcare professional before making any decisions. Your health is your own — honor it accordingly.