my morning and evening routine

rituals that keep me human

hello.

i’ve never been someone who thrives in the chaos of my own personal life.
but at work, chaos is comforting. it sharpens me. i can lock in without hesitation, navigate pressure with ease, and somehow find clarity inside the noise. in that setting, i feel competent. decisive. alive.

but when it comes to my personal life: health, home, my sense of rhythm—chaos is something else entirely. it’s disorienting. exhausting. unsustainable.
i need structure. not in a rigid, joyless way, but in the way scaffolding holds up a building.

without structure, my days blur. my habits slip. i stop feeling like a person.
and that’s where ritual comes in. not as punishment. not as productivity. but as return and re-enter myself, again and again, with a little more softness each time.

for most of my life, i mistook that internal disarray as a personality trait. i thought it was just something i had to work around.but what i’ve learned, slowly and stubbornly, is that i don’t need more discipline. i don’t need another to do list, or an app that promises to organize my brain.
what i need is ritual.

the kind that’s personal and unglamorous and completely essential.
small, daily rhythms that hold me when the day starts to slip.
habits that don’t ask me to be impressive, just present.
they aren’t about becoming a better version of myself. they’re about remembering that i’m allowed to care for the one that already exists.

and maybe that’s what i’ve come to love most about routine—how quietly redemptive it is and how it doesn’t demand transformation, just return.
return to the breath. return to the body and return to the soft, steady patterns that remind you: you’re here. you’re okay. you don’t have to hold it all together, you just have to show up.

this isn’t a guide. it’s not a prescription. it’s just a collection of rituals that have made my life feel more livable. the ones i return to again and again when i forget how to be a person.

so let’s talk about that.
the philosophy of ritual, the routines that hold me up, and how i build a sense of home inside my day, even (and especially) when the day itself is messy.

people tend to talk about routine in one of two ways: either like it’s a rigid, joyless system meant to force productivity, or like it’s some aspirational 5am wake-up fantasy with green juice and cold plunges. but for me, routine is about rhythm, stability, small, sensory moments that pull me back into my body and remind me that i’m okay. it’s the closest thing i have to feeling grounded.

when i fall out of my routines, everything else unravels. my eating habits get weird. my anxiety spikes, i stop sleeping well, i forget how to take care of myself in even the most basic ways. and it’s not because i’m lazy or undisciplined. it’s because, without some kind of rhythm, the days start to bleed into each other. i stop living intentionally and start living reactively. and that’s when things get dark.

but when i am in a routine, even a really simple one, i feel so much better. not perfect or invincible. just steadier and clearer—more able to move through the day without crumbling. it’s not glamorous. sometimes it’s just lighting a candle while i journal, or putting on music while i cook. sometimes it’s making sure i drink water before my second cup of coffee. but these tiny things add up.

and there’s a psychological reason for that. our brains crave structure. predictability lowers cognitive load and reduces what’s called “decision fatigue”, which is a real mental drain that happens when we’re forced to make too many choices in a short time. routines give our brains shortcuts and they tell the nervous system: this is familiar. this is safe. even something as small as having lemon water every morning can activate that sense of safety.

routine also helps regulate cortisol, the stress hormone, by establishing consistent cues for the body to follow. it supports your circadian rhythm, improves emotional resilience, and creates a sense of internal order even when the external world feels messy. it literally rewires your stress response over time.

and honestly? it helps with school and work. it helps with stress. it helps with healing. because so much of the time, the hardest part isn’t the big thing, it’s just showing up for yourself in the small ways. making a nourishing meal. choosing to take a walk instead of doomscrolling. swapping overhead lights for warm, ambient ones because your nervous system deserves a break too.

this isn’t about becoming the most optimized version of yourself.
it’s about building a life that feels like yours. one that supports you and gives you room to breathe, move, and change.

the rest of this essay is for paid subscribers. i’m sharing the full breakdown of my morning and evening rituals. not as a solution, but as a way of creating softness and structure in a world that rarely offers either. if you’ve been craving a slower, more grounded way to move through this season. something beautiful, something nourishing. i hope these rituals offer you what they’ve offered me: steadiness, presence, and a quiet place to land.

thank you for being here, for supporting my work, and for believing in the value of slow, thoughtful thinking in a world that demands urgency.