Morning Routines for Anxiety and Creativity: The Power of Sunrise

(mouse clicking) (gentle music) Headspace Studios. (soft music) Hi friends, it's Rosie here. Welcome to "Radio Headspace." A few weeks ago, someone asked me a question I wasn't expecting. "What's the best part of your day?" And without even thinking, I said, "The mornings, the very early mornings." Not the big moments, not the launches or inbox zero. The best part of my day is the quiet, that in between time right before the world fully wakes up, when the sky is still blushing, the birds are just starting to chirp, and my matcha is still warm. That first light, it's magic. I get my best ideas during this time. The phrases that become meditations, the little memories that turn into stories, they seem to rise to the surface effortlessly like they were already there just waiting for me to be still enough to notice. It's more like a memory than something I'm creating. Has that ever happened to you? For me, there's something about that morning rhythm, but it didn't always exist. For a long time, I blew right past it. I was too busy, too wired, too tired. In fact, I remember a time when I was doing everything right on paper. I was checking boxes, leading sessions, writing content, doing the whole high functioning overachiever thing. And then one morning, I had a full-on meltdown in a parking lot. I had spilled my blueberry smoothie in the car, like really spilled it. The lid popped off and I watched helpless as it slowly oozed into the cup holder, the seams of the seat and those impossible little crevices. To this day, I still find dried speckles of blue when the sun hits just right. I was already running late to a meeting I didn't wanna go to in the first place. And right on cue, someone texted me, "Urgent," for the fifth time that week about something that, surprise, wasn't urgent at all. I sat in the car holding the steering wheel and thought, "What is this even for?" That afternoon, I went to visit my tia, who lives in Boyle Heights. She's in her 70s now and still grows lavender and tomatoes on her little porch. When I told her I had just had a stressful day, she didn't give me advice. She just handed me a cinnamon tea and said, "Tomorrow, wake up early. Sit outside, look at the sky. That's it. Don't think, just look." So the next morning, I did. I got up before the sunrise, wrapped myself in a blanket, and sat on the porch with my tea and no expectations. The sky did not disappoint. It shifted from navy to periwinkle to gold in slow motion. A single bird flew by. The city was quiet. I felt like I was inside a painting, and for the first time in weeks, I felt still. No urgency, no performing, no next. Just light and breath and a sense of remembering something I didn't even...