Creating new morning rituals with Wild Leaves
Updated: Dec 13, 2022
There’s something super seductive about hearing and smelling coffee percolating in the other room, knowing that you’re just a few minutes away from drinking that smooth brown elixir.
That alluring feeling is called an addiction. And the caffeine in coffee hits the adrenals extra hard which keeps us in the loop of wanting more. And more. And maybe even more. So I came up with an alternative.
Waking up can be hard
Sometimes I wake up and the borders of my physical existence feel blurred, like a need to recollect pieces of me, reel in the atoms and molecules trying to escape from my being. It takes a while for my inner world to align with the outer world.
Instead of auto-piloting my morning by grabbing a decaf coffee to ground myself (which to me still feels like I injected a straight shot of caffeine directly into my veins), I breathe. And I dive into other rituals that feel right.
Morning rituals weren’t always part of my day. When I was in my 20s, my first “grown-up” job was freelancing at big companies as an English teacher in Berlin. I really felt like an adult going into offices and correcting the big bosses who were old enough to be my dad on their grammar. Drinking coffee was just par for the course of being an adult, someone who “needs” caffeine to get through their day because they’re so exhausted from being busy and important. I went along with the flow for some time. Each hour was a different student or group, and each new class meant another cup of coffee. Sometimes I would drink up to six cups of coffee by the end of the day! Nowadays, I can’t even fathom what that must have been doing to my adrenals and nervous system.
After a while, my stomach started feeling a bit awful (what a surprise!) and so I did a detox. After detoxing, I could barely handle one cup of coffee. That was in my mid-20s and it’s still like that today! I thought it was a curse at first but it was really a blessing. Coffee can cause hormone imbalances, a drag-your-heels feeling that never seems to relent, and can hit the adrenals and organs real hard, leaving you asking yourself why you constantly feel so depleted of energy and edgy. But the good news is...
There are other ways to set yourself up for a good day!
When you need a chai on the fly, we got you.
Creating healthy morning rituals is the best way. Just ask anyone who has done it and they will tell annoyingly tell you how great their day is because they did their yoga, breathwork, or smoothie. Here’s your permission to be one of those annoying people!
How to create healthy morning rituals
Sometimes my friends and I joke that our morning rituals would last into the night if we didn’t have to work. And on those super rare and luxurious days when you actually do have an entire day to yourself, then sometimes they do. But you don’t have to give up your day job to get into morning rituals. They can even last five minutes if that’s all you have. I’m pretty convinced that everyone can find five minutes for themselves throughout the day (if you can’t then maybe it’s a good chance to ask yourself why). The most important thing is starting somewhere.
Some very simple morning rituals can include:
A yoga practice
Breathwork
Mantras
Working out with weights or your own body weight
Journaling
Lying on your yoga mat and starring at the wall
Applying herbal body oils
Dry brushing
Oil pulling
Face and neck massage with oil
The possibilities are infinite.
My Morning Ritual
My morning usually starts off early and involves gentle rituals to ease into the day. It can involve oil pulling, drinking a warm alkalizing herbal tea either freshly picked or already dried, getting on my mat and breathing, meditating, yoga-ing, working out with weights – or all of the above. I generally need movement to begin my day on the right foot.
After the movement part of the morning, I like to move on to the warm, creamy drink part of the day. In the summer, I’ll sometimes swap out a warm drink for a smoothie packed with adaptogen mushrooms, ashwaganda, turmeric, hemp powder for protein, nut butters and bananas – and even some other ingredients when the mood strikes. If you don’t have time to smoothie/warm-drink and spend time on your mat, we have made it extra easy for you with our two lovely adaptogen drinks. And massive bonus for you: All of our ingredients are certified organic.
Our adaptogen mushroom drinks for when only a warm drink will do.
I honestly like to carve out 1-3 hours every morning for movement and grounding before jumping into work, which I usually begin between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later. It all really depends on the day. I realize if you have other obligations, structuring your day looks a little differently.
If you have less time, then I would recommend giving yourself a few minutes on your mat for breathing, your favorite yoga asana(s), or some other kind of body movement. And treat yourself to a warm creamy drink afterward. Rather than going straight for the coffee, try integrating something gentler like our Adaptogen Chai or Adaptogen Gold. Our Adaptogen Gold has zero caffeine yet still packs the power thanks to adaptogen mushrooms, turmeric, ginger, and other spices. The Adaptogen Chai is full of adaptogen mushrooms, spices, and a teeny tiny dose of caffeine from the cacao and black tea.
The adaptogen mushrooms bring the focus while the spices bring the fire. Every time I drink either of them, I feel a boost of energy almost immediately without the heaviness that coffee leaves in my body.
The Adaptogen Chai
The Adaptogen Chai is a blend of Chaga, Reishi, Maitake, and Lion’s Mane mushrooms, organic masala chai herbs (ginger, cardamom, clove, anis seed, fennel seed, black pepper, and nutmeg), cacao and black tea. The boost you get from our Adaptogen Chai is more like a smooth lift into a higher dimension of your more productive, and clear-headed self.
Our Adaptogen Gold
If you’re looking for a calming factor with a slightly spicy twist (thanks to the ginger), Adaptogen Gold is our spin on classic golden mylk and loaded up with tasty mushrooms. The ingredients for the Adaptogen Gold are turmeric, cinnamon, carob, Lion’s Mane, Reishi, Cloud Ear mushroom, celery seeds, anis seeds, black pepper, nutmeg, and cardamom.
We Suggest Using Our Adaptogen Drinks Like…
Grab a cup of Adaptogen Chai or Adaptogen Gold in the morning and/or afternoon. The mushrooms, spices and small amount of caffeine from the tea and cacao (in the Chai) give you a gentle kick-start into your day without the highs and lows of coffee. The Adaptogen Gold has no caffeine so if you’re sensitive to caffeine, you’ll want this one in the evenings (or any time of the day really).
Try them for yourself and see how you feel! They taste muy bien. Scroll down for a recipe on how to make an Iced Adaptogen Chai.
Recipe for Iced Adaptogen Chai
Step 1:
Take 1 - 2 teaspoons of Adaptogen Chai mix and put it in a glass
Step 2:
Mix it with a splash or two of your favorite (plant) mylk
Step 3:
Add some ice cubes
Step 4:
Pour the rest of the mylk over the ice and stir.
Drink with a glass straw and enjoy!
Plant mylks go really well with iced drinks! Have you ever made your own plant mylk before? If you're curious about how to make your own plant-based mylks for your drinks, cereal, smoothies, everything, I am putting together video tutorials on how to do the things we do at Wild Leaves. Stay tuned*