How to Set Your Day Off Right (No Caffeine Required)
How to Set Your Day Off Right (No Caffeine Required)
By Melody Morton-Bucklear, Founder of The Good Space Pilates, Elmwood Place Retreats & ThePilatesCowgirl.com
Every morning, your nervous system wakes up before you do.
Whether you feel groggy, anxious, foggy, or already overstimulated, it’s not just a mindset problem — it’s a somatic one. Your body is either regulated or it’s not. And the fastest way to restore your energy isn’t caffeine. It’s recalibration.
Here are six habits I teach my clients (and practice myself) to set the nervous system in the right direction before the day begins:
1. Look at the Sun
Early sunlight exposure resets your circadian rhythm through the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the brain. Bonus: pair it with light eye movement (saccades) to reduce sympathetic dominance.
2. Roll Your Spine
This foundational Pilates movement stimulates the vagus nerve, transverse abdominis, and enteric nervous system. When you roll, you’re literally turning on the lights in your nervous system.
3. Exhale Before You Inhale
A full exhale wrings out the lungs and clears stale oxygen. It tells the nervous system, "You're safe." Deep exhale = vagal tone = clarity.
4. Move Before You Meditate
Movement should precede mindset work. Once the nervous system is grounded through movement, then journaling, gratitude, and intention-setting can actually stick.
5. Stimulate the Gut, Not Just the Brain
90% of your serotonin and over 50% of your dopamine are produced in the gut. That’s why activating the enteric nervous system through Pilates, breath, and spinal movement works better than any latte.
6. Start Small, Start Somatic
Energy isn’t created through hype — it’s freed when you remove what's blocking it. That’s why my 8-week program at ThePilatesCowgirl.com focuses on frequency, sound, color, and somatic movement (with a tiny splash of dance). You don’t need more willpower. You need more regulation.
About the Author
Melody Morton-Bucklear is a trauma-informed Pilates educator and somatic movement therapist with over two decades of experience in fascia-based healing. She is the founder of The Good Space Pilates Studio, Elmwood Place Retreats, and ThePilatesCowgirl.com, where she teaches an 8-week program to recalibrate the body, release emotional trauma, and restore energy from the inside out.
www.thegoodspacepilates.com • www.elmwoodplace.com • www.thepilatescowgirl.com • @thepilatescowgirl
