Part 2: Regulation in the Real World

Twitter

Discover practical and compassionate strategies for building a calmer morning routine, even when life feels chaotic, in this relatable and real-world

In this episode, Lauren dives into the real world challenges of creating a morning routine that supports nervous system regulation, especially when life feels chaotic. She breaks down the morning into four key parts and offers practical, compassionate strategies for bringing more calm and intention to each one, from wake up rituals to the first interaction of the workday.

Whether your mornings start in a sprint or you’re just looking for a little more stability, this conversation reminds us that regulation isn’t about perfection. It’s about starting small, finding what works for you, and building from there. Lauren also shares a peek into her own routine and struggles, making this episode as relatable as it is actionable.

Sign up for the University of Pennsylvania Behavior Breakthrough Accredited Course

Resources:

Other related resources from Five Ives:

Blog Post:

Podcast:

Our Online Programs:

Subscribe to our mailing list and find out more about Stress, Trauma, Behavior and the Brain!

If you’re looking for support as you grow your organization’s capacity for caring for staff and the community, we would love to be part of that journey.
Schedule a free discovery call and let us be your guide

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

---

Transcript:

Lauren Spigelmyer: All right, we're gonna talk a little bit of, like how to start your day proactively and preventatively regulations. We're talking about how to really make your mornings work for you. I know I, like, even going into this episode I have some resistance because I have been in the past a good morning routine person where I've mapped out and followed through with it. And once you kind of set a behavior in place and you start creating a pattern, gets much easier. But here's the thing, it's like, since I've had a child, my life has changed a lot and it's been really, really hard. And almost like with each age and stage of him, my morning routine has to change. So, I'm in a bit of a routine now, but it's not exactly what I want it to look like. And I still really kind of miss my old morning routine. So, we're gonna talk about morning routines, but just some things to do in the AM. So, if you're like hearing morning routines and you're like triggered, trauma with that, you're just like, not for me. Listen in, listen in. And I promise not to make it too triggering. If your mornings are chaos, it's highly likely, especially if you have children, especially if you to leave the house for work, that your nervous system is in fight or flight probably even before like 8 a.m. I leave before 9 a.m. That's when your workday starts. Just I think I'm like, shoes missing. Like if your kid's, like, shoe is missing, like lunchbox is forgotten, like no gas in the car, 17 minutes late and left your coffee on the counter. That's my, that's not quite, our mornings aren't quite like that, but I imagine if I had to leave the house, they would be like that. Luckily, I don't have to leave the house, but I still need a good morning routine. So, the nervous system does not like to start the day with a sprint. We're here to make it slightly more of like a marathon practice versus like a rail of blocks hit it and go which I feel like so many people are and when you start that the morning that way it really just disrupts your nervous system for the rest of the day and it gets really hard to get back to regulation when you start with so much dysregulation so the first like 30 minutes I didn't really even if you can block 60 but the first 30 minutes are really the minutes that are crucial that set the tone for the rest of the day. And if those 30 minutes aren't done well, you kind of end up with like a short fuse the rest of the day, because you start off in such high dysregulation. But if you're able to get to 30 minutes of a quality routine or regulation or pattern series, then it gives you a buffer for the chaos you're probably going to hit the rest of the day.

Lauren Spigelmyer: OK, that said, when I talk about 30 60 minutes is like the dream goal, but 30 is probably more realistic for a lot of us. We're not going to start just going from like having no morning routine and like hitting literal coffee button, grabbing it and going. And going from that to like a rested, meditative, like peaceful morning routine. You're going have to work up to it. It might start with like three minutes where you do something different or one minute even. And then we're going to five minutes and a 10 minutes and 15 and 15 is a huge milestone. And then 20 and 25 and then 30. And celebrate when you hit 30. Don't forget to celebrate the little moments along the way where you're like, okay, I did it. I did, like, laugh at this because I think of a friend who's near and dear to me and she wanted to start working out in the mornings and she'd have to start early because she's got work between eight and nine o'clock and she's gotta drive to work. Like, leaving that or going to the gym means, you know, leaving her home potentially. So, you know, there's resistance to it. Like she had shared there was resistance, there's resistance, there's resistance. And then... When she did it the first day, she's like, wow, not only did it feel really good while I was doing it and after I was doing it, but the rest of my day was so good. And then it started to be pattern. So, she did day two and then she did day three and she, like, did three. I'm like, I could do it. Like it's really making me feel so much better. So, the hardest step is just the first one. Like, literally the first thing can change in the first time you do it. And you do it the second day and you're like, oh, that feels good. And then third day is like, oh, that feels really good. And the pattern is much easier to continue.

Lauren Spigelmyer: So, let's talk about some things that you could integrate into your morning, whether it's one minute, 15 minutes, 30 or 60, that really help you to stay regulated or to even get back to regulation if you become dysregulated. The first thing is, think about your wake-up rituals. Like, what do you do immediately upon waking up? Cause that's when this 30 minute block starts. It starts the moment your alarm goes off or you open your eyes. So, like, what does the light in your house or your room look like? Is there any way to like ease yourself into the bright light. I mean, not necessarily if the light's like coming in your window or something, but if you use like blackout, like, do you have an alarm clock that maybe has like a, like, a light that comes on, but it's like a warmer, lighter hue, or can you possibly wake up to an alarm clock that's not like, it's like more peaceful. So, I tend to do like classical music or like covers, piano. things that are a little bit slower and lighter to wake me up. I mean, yeah, like a fire alarm would definitely wake me, but it would definitely wake me in fear. Sometimes that blaring alarm really just sets your body in the wrong direction. I also tend to keep my water bottle right beside my bed because the first thing I try and do when I wake up is take like a very large couple of gulps of water. Ideally, I want to try and get a glass of water in pretty quickly. And then think about like... You don't need to do all these things and I wouldn't encourage you doing all these things. I'm just trying to give you a couple different things to see there's any of them that you could integrate. Could you do any like gentle movement? Like sometimes I'll just keep my foam roller beside my bed and I'll just roll my back a little bit, stretch my back out, get my body kind of moving. Cause what's going to happen is if you move, if you stretch, if you foam roll, if you, like, literally go through like three stretches with your body, like bend over, your toes, do downward dog and, I don't know, something else. It gets oxygen moving to your... your body. If you get oxygen moving through your body, it goes to your brain. If you get oxygen in your brain, you think more clearly, you wake up, you're just in a better state. So, a little bit of gentle movement could be good. And then, maybe even just like three breaths, like, in for, or yeah, um, you could do in for four, hold for five, out for six, something like that, or box breathing or, which, you know, it's kind of close-ish to box breathing for four and four. Um, just 30 seconds of just intentional breath. I mean, 30 seconds can have a long time. Although it sounds like it shouldn't be, it does feel like a long time. So, just any type of breath work at all, kind of already puts your nervous system in the right state, long, slow, in and out breaths. That's the goal that we're going for. Or if you're like really, really, really, really, really, really groggy, maybe you do need some really fast, quick in and out breaths to just wake up your system. And that's fine too.

Lauren Spigelmyer: So, if you're thinking through this and you're like, I don't know, like, think about some things that like feel good to you or might like be the opposite of how you wake and it might like help you to regulate by hitting the opposite. if you're not sure how to design this like micro part inside of the entire morning routine, because this is just like one phase of it, maybe ask AI like, hey, I'm like, this is how I wake up. This is the time. This is what I go to next. Like, I want to integrate a little bit more regulation based practices. Can you give me some ideas for gentle movement or give me some ideas for like 10 second breath work or some hydration tips or, like, what can I do to change the light structure? So, any of those things would probably be able to be modified for your specific situation. This is why we integrate coaching, so people are like, okay, that sounds great. And then they need the accountability or they don't know how to match it to their situation or scenario. So, that's why coaching with Jessica and I is really great because we can be like, oh, okay, that's what your space looks like, or that's what it looks like. Let us help you create the routine with you and for you.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay, so then let's say you go from that to like the time in between waking, getting ready and leaving. So, it's probably like three sequences there. Like, what do you do immediately upon wake? What's the next thing to do to get ready? Like brush your teeth and shower maybe? Okay, so what does that look like? You might be able to integrate some regulation-based practices there. Like you could hum while you brush your teeth. You could play some music while you're in the shower. You could stretch while you're in the shower, but be careful because you don't want to fall. It depends on what type of stretches. You could just practice like mindful presence with your brushing of teeth or shower. That's hard to do if you've got like littles coming in and just start to that time. So, then there's like that chunk that's kind of like in your space, getting ready, putting your clothes on. And the last like chunk is what are you doing for food, maybe hot drink, possibly coffee, possibly not. And then if you've children, like feeding children before you get out the door. So, like, what's that last sequence look like? And the last sequence is probably the hardest. Like you wake up, you got the first part, then you get ready, you got your second part. And then the third part is probably where, like, a lot of disruption comes in, kids and meeting other people's needs. And that's probably where a lot of the dysregulation comes in. So, how can we take that time? Slow it down. Here's the biggest thing. It's the hurry that really dysregulates us and we tend to wake up too late and have too much to do and try and cram too much and then we're in hurry from the moment we hear the alarm and when we are in hurry it puts kids in hurry or it puts kids in like a more anxious state because they can feel your haste. They can see your haste. So, how if possible can we slow down the hurry for the whole home?

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay, so then that's like Part one, and part one is like three micro parts in it. And then you've got your commute or transition time. So, this is like, okay, from the time that you leave the door until the time that you arrive at your destination, and maybe there are stops along the way, dropping kids off, school stops, whatever it may be. So, what does that time look like and how regulated or dysregulated is that? And probably if you have kids, potentially somewhat dysregulating. So, how can you add in music or silence or a mantra or values or something that, again, makes that time less about hurry, less about chaos, less about moving quickly, and more about just being present. That's like a, just kind of one big chunk there. And then you get to your classroom or your office or your building or maybe you get back home and home is office. Then it's what are the first few things that you do before you actually dig into work? Like, what do you do before kids come into the classroom? What do you do in your office before you make the first phone call or check your first email? And maybe, and probably a lot of us have checked our first email before we even get to the office. If you're at home and you have a home work office or you're sitting at a kitchen table or whatever it is, what are you doing right before you start? If you just jump right in and you're already dysregulated and you jump in, it's likely that whatever you're gonna start is gonna feel a little overwhelming. So, then you go from dysregulation to more dysregulation versus if you're dysregulated and you're coming in and you pause and do something before you start, you at least get closer to equilibrium. Maybe it's just visualizing feeling calm. Maybe it's just visually running through what you need to do for the day, which might cause some dysregulation. So, maybe that's not a good one for you. Maybe it's just starting a consistent rhythm. Like, if you're at home turning on a candle. If you're in the office, maybe get a soft, warm light. Maybe it's a playlist. Maybe it's some iso-chronic tones or binaural beats. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, go back and listen to some old episodes where I talk about these types of beats and rhythms and how they regulate the nervous system.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay, and then the last part, and this may or may not apply to you, although it's probably applying to more than it is not applying to. What is the first interaction that you have with work? So, is it... first child that comes in your room or first couple students that come in your room, is it a colleague that comes in your room? Is it the first phone call or meeting that you have of the day? And if you don't have phone calls or meetings, you don't have, like, a first interaction, this one, that's they apply to you. And you could stop at, you know, morning routine part number three versus this is part number four. But, what does that first interaction look like? So, that first interaction is also going to set the tone. So, for me, if it's a classroom and I have students, like the first interaction, I want to be like soft voice. I want them to feel my calm. want... them to be seen by me and have a connection and a greeting and that's it. Like just again, one part. So, basically you've got the like wake up ritual, which has three parts, like getting up, getting ready, getting out the door. Then you've got your commute or transition time. Then you've got, you your arrive at classroom, office, home time. And then you've got like your first meeting, first interaction, first like human thing. So, it's four parts, but the first part has three parts within it. So, just think about those things. Maybe you can write them down, maybe use AI to map them out for you, but how do I integrate some strategies that help me to stay regulated or get regulated into each of those parts? And even if you just do one thing in each of those four different parts, you're gonna probably feel a lot better. The trick will be you'll forget to do them because it's hard to break the pattern. It's hard to change up what you're already doing. So, you might want to put reminders in your phone. For me, sticky notes work really well. So, I'll put a sticky note where it reminds me to adopt the new pattern or adopt a new behavior. It could be some other type of reminder somewhere else on your phone, on your computer, like whatever it is, but put something there to help you remember to do it. Cause you’ll probably forget to do it. And then you'll sit in shame and spiral and be like, uh, I failed again and I don't feel good again. And I can't do anything right. So, to keep yourself from even getting into that space, help yourself by preventively putting some things in the space to help you recall and remember. The only thing you can do is really kind of set things up the night before. Part of the chaos of the next morning is that we haven't prepped anything the night before. And really trying hard, I know this is a really hard one for me as someone who is raising a child and you're just exhausted by the end of the day and I'm working while I'm raising him and I'm doing all the household things on my own while raising him and prepping everything and lunches and all the stuff.

Lauren Spigelmyer: So, sometimes when I hit night, I'm just like, I'm so tired, I can't even think about prepping for the next day. I just wanna go to bed. I have to talk myself into brushing my teeth, which is terrible. I'm just like, I'm so tired. I just move my head down, like, but you gotta brush your teeth first. But can you just prep one thing? And when you get in the routine of prepping one thing, then the next couple nights or the next week, prep two things and prep three things. So, is it prepping clothes, picking clothes out? Is it... like mentally planning what kind of breath practice or stretching you're going to do. Is it making sure that bags are ready to go or lunches are ready to go or work bags are ready to go? Is it making sure the car has gas? So, you know, what's, what's something you can do the night before to make your morning a little bit more smooth and easy and with less haste and hurry. Just think about, kind of visualize for a second, like what does my evening look like to prep for my morning? And what's my morning usually look like? Like, if I wake up and the first thing I do is like check social media or check email, this is probably your invitation to try something a little bit different here. If the device is the first thing, here's the goal for me. I genuinely am trying to get here. The first thing I need to do is buy an alarm clock that's not my phone because right now my phone is my alarm clock. But genuinely, I want to put my phone in a drawer in the kitchen on silent, my phone usually always stays on silent, but I want to put it away. I want to put my phone to bed at like 7 p.m., at least 8 p.m. And from 8 to 10 when I go to bed, I don't have my phone out. And part of me is like, what the heck am I going to do? Am I going read a book? And I actually desire to do that, but I'm sometimes just too tired to read. But I don't want to have access to my phone first thing in the morning. My dream routine is to put my phone to bed like 7, 8 o'clock, probably read or do something else. I don't know. Whatever it is that's not read or that's not read, that's not on my phone. And then not even to get my phone out first thing in the morning, to have my alarm go off, to get ready, to have my coffee, to pray and read my devotionals, and then to get my phone out. That is the ultimate dream morning routine. I'm not there yet. I'm getting there. I'm getting closer. So, give yourself some grace.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay, so pick this, pick this, start here, I'm trying to say start here and pick one thing. Pick the worst moment of your morning. Like, what's like, ugh, this one micro part is the death of me. And then close your eyes, pause and think, okay, what's one thing I can do that's the opposite of it? What's one thing I can do to change that so I can remove that or make it easier and make it less stressful or make it less hurried? One thing, that's it. And that's what you're going to work on this next coming week or the rest of this week and next week, whenever this episode is coming out. It's probably on Monday or Tuesday. So, the rest of this week and then next week too. Oh, okay. That's morning routines in a nutshell. Really, it's just about getting ahead and planning for it and then remembering to use the things at the moment and breaking the patterns. So, all of this is about nervous system regulation comes from breaking patterns into a healthier existence.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay, on a different note, Jessica and I released, humbly, I think is one of the most amazing courses we've ever designed. We have the best course called Behavior Breakthrough. It's just like neuroscience, nervous system based course, deep into trauma research too. And we teach people about challenging behaviors and simultaneously work on preventing burnout. And it's designed for teachers. It could be early childhood all the way to 12th grade. We have the course kind of modified into three sections. Are you early childhood? Are you K to 4? Are you 5 to 12, 12th grade. So, you would take whichever course series is best matched to your grade level of the students that you work with. And we were going to run that summer, fall and spring. We are wrapping up summer. There's like a week left of the summer course and we're getting ready to launch the fall course in the middle of September. This is your opportunity to join the course. So exciting. It's such a cool course. I don't know if you can hear my excitement in my voice, but it's primarily asynchronous. There are a couple of live touch points where we coach you through some stuck points. I am telling you it is going to change the way you educate and raise children. I mean, even if you're a parent, you want to take it, you could take it. You may not care about the credit, but you do get credit from University of Pennsylvania. It's 4.5 graduate level credits and we will link the registration page below for you so you can learn more about it. If you want to register, can just register right away. If you have more questions, you can always shoot us an email or join the wait list to just, like, continue to get more information about it or to potentially join in the spring. but it's going to be an awesome course. I can promise you will not regret it. Just the feedback has been way too positive from every single person that's taken it. I just know you will not leave having your life a little bit changed. So, if you want to learn more about that, it's linked for you in the show notes. You can also go on to fiveives.com and then it's a little bit longer of a URL. I should probably put this into a bitly, but fiveives.com, F-I-V-E-I-V-E-S.com, backslash courses. Backslash behavior spelled the American English way without the U. Dash, hyphen, sorry, not dash, I guess hyphen. Break through all one word hyphen Penn P-E-N-N. And when you type in that somewhat long URL, that would take you right to the landing page. But we'll link in the show notes on our website as well. So, if you are listening on a podcast player, just go to www.fiveives.com. Go to our podcast page in any of the podcast episodes, you'll see the link and you can click right on the link. Okay, don't forget to log in what you learned today by, like, getting someone to hold you accountable or to do this with you or partner or family system or somebody to help you make this new habit a reality. And what's coming next is really talking about how calm starts with, like, your house or your room or your office. It's spaces, designing spaces that keep us regulated. So, for those of you that have heard episodes before on, like, space design and room regulation and designing, regulating classrooms, it will have a few elements that we've talked about in that, but some new things as well. So, even if you've heard those past episodes, you hear some new things in these creating spaces that regulate episode coming next. And until next episode, I'm Lauren Spigelmyer and thank you for joining me.


Categories: : Regulation Strategies

© 2025 Five Ives