My Night Routine for Easier Mornings (Especially If You’re Not a Morning Person) | #101

Mornings don’t have to feel chaotic or overwhelming—especially if you’re not a morning person. In this Daily Dose, Dawn Super shares how a simple nighttime routine can make mornings easier, calmer, and more supportive. Drawing from lived experience with narcolepsy and decades of sleep deprivation, this episode explores practical ways to set up your home the night before to reduce stress, limit decision fatigue, and start your day with more ease. This is a gentle, realistic approach to self-care that meets you where you are and helps you get on your own side—one morning at a time.

Watch the Video Here or Read the Script below

Set up your home to say good morning to you.

This video is for anyone who's not a morning person, whose mornings are chaotic, or anyone who just wants a smoother start to their day.

So, why do we want to learn this? Because mornings come every day. And if we can make them better, why wouldn't we want to try? Right?

Welcome back to my Happy Matters Collective. If you're new here, thanks for joining us.

Whether you have hard time wrangling children in the morning or just getting yourself together, mornings can be chaotic for millions of us.

My mornings used to be torture for me. Like no exaggeration. Narcolepsy makes it very hard to get up in the morning. My brain takes a good hour just to come online and if I didn't do things to help myself, life would get very messy fast.

The other day I was talking to one of my clients who also has narcolepsy. They know the struggle is real and I was telling them that I set up my house to say good morning to me.

Essentially, that just means setting up my house so that I have less stress in the morning.

So, what does that look like for me? Water in the kettle, my favorite cup clean and ready to go to go or in the dishwasher clean. No dishes in the sink, nothing on the counters. Any supplements like my Shilajit dry drops ready to go so that I don't forget to take them.

When I first wake up, I make my coffee and then I take an hour to wake up like every day, even if it means I have to get up super early to do it. And it took me years to be able to condition myself to do that. And it was so worth it.

My kids are grown now, but when they were younger, I would set out clothes for them the night before until they were old enough to do it themselves. I set out my own clothes, too.

I have this one crazy laundry hack that I used to do where I would take my clean clothes and just pile up five outfits and that would be my work week. Like, I wouldn't even fold them. I would just lay them over a chair in my closet and then one outfit, two outfit. Didn't have to think all week long.

I also had checklists for my kids. Breakfast, make your lunches, make sure you have your homework and your gym clothes.

Four decades of sleep deprivation can make you a little bit like a goldfish. So, I keep my key fob and my money and my ID in a small coin purse. And that way I make sure I never leave with my car without those things.

And that's what getting on your own side looks like in my life.

Each morning I think about what would be nice to have been done already for me and then I start doing it the night before. Think things that make it easier, things that make you more comfortable, things that annoy you less. And bonus, if it's something that makes you smile when you see it, we have as many mornings left as we do days.

And to be honest, some morning you will not have a next one. So, it's worth it to invest some time thinking about how you can make your mornings better. There's no lose in that, only winning, especially if you're not a morning person.

My name is Dawn, but I was born at noon. I spent 11 years of my life with undiagnosed narcolepsy. At a certain age, I was lucky to get up at noon. Mornings were H.E. double hockey sticks for me. Truth.

It It wasn't until I made little people who might die if I wasn't awake that I began actively conditioning myself to become a morning person. It was like I imagine a boot camp to be torturous but effective.

When you're living a challenging life, your morning routine needs to be more about supporting you than anything else.

Thanks to narcolepsy, my brain takes a minute to come online in the morning. And that's another reason why it's really important to remember that happy matters for me. It helps me be mindful to set up my home to say good morning to me.

My kitchen to greet me with ease and caffeine, the fresh air outside, and the time to sit in it and take it in. Upbeat music to vibe out the fog in my head and set the tone for the day.

And then once my tank is full, then the rest of the world can get some of my attention.

And taking time to invest in yourself, to explore what things might make your mornings easier is self-care. It's not selfish or frivolous, and it pays dividends in setting up your mood for the entire day and could literally improve the rest of your days on this earth.

So, if you struggle with seeing it that way, see below, self-care versus selfish.

ANNOUNCEMENT GIVEAWAY!!

Last week was the one hundredth episode of the Daily Dose of Dawn at dawn—yay. I’m doing a special giveaway to celebrate episode 100.

Submit your name and address and have the chance to be one of the first hundred to receive the gift.

Wanna go deeper? Check this one out:

Go through How To Be On Your Own Side with Dawn!

Coming soon!

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