You’re Not a Night Owl, It’s Something Else
I love to sleep. In fact, I love it so much that at 36 years old, in a very happy relationship and a very secure financial position, it is one of the main reasons I hesitate to step into motherhood. Call me selfish, but I function best with a lot of sleep. It keeps my autoimmune at bay. It allows me to rest after insane Mondays to Fridays that sometimes turn into Mondays to Sundays. Yes, sometimes I work 7 days a week. I am not ashamed of it, I love it, but I am also working on it.
For years, I thought being a night owl was just who I was. I believed I was more creative at night, more productive after dark, more alive when the world was quiet. And to some extent, all of that was true. But the deeper truth? I just hated mornings.
In my 20s I had discipline of steel. My 5:30 a.m. alarm would go off and I’d be up, espresso in one hand, cigarette in the other, heading to the spin studio to get on a fixed bike going nowhere. I didn’t know it then, but I was starting every day on fake energy and adrenaline. People assumed this made me a morning person, because who else would willingly get up that early to exercise? But the truth was, I was never a morning person. I didn’t wake up ready to take on the world. And every weekend, without fail, I would sleep until 9, 10, even 11 a.m. So it made sense that I thought I simply wasn’t built for mornings.
I started looking into chronotypes. Yes, some people really are night owls. There is science behind it. Chronotypes are your genetic preference for when you feel most awake and alert. Researchers generally categorize people into four types:
The Lion (morning early bird): Early risers who naturally rise and thrive in the first half of the day (even before sunrise…. yes really!).
The Bear (majority of people): Energy rises and falls with the sun.
The Wolf (true night owl): Peak energy in the late afternoon and evening.
The Dolphin (light sleepers): Struggle with consistent sleep but function best mid-morning.
Some people genuinely are wired to perform better in the evening. But I wasn’t one of them. I even took a genetic test with Stride Health and it didn’t identify me as a Wolf. It showed I was a Bear. I was designed to wake up with energy.
So why didn’t I?
Because stress and years of pushing my body had blunted my cortisol awakening response. High cortisol, adrenaline, late nights, blue light, scrolling, overworking, over-traveling, all of it disrupted my rhythm. My biology wasn’t broken, it was dysregulated.
The Hidden Role of the Cortisol Awakening Response
Your body is designed with a natural ignition switch: the cortisol awakening response (CAR). It is a spike in cortisol that should rise sharply within 30 to 45 minutes of opening your eyes. That spike pulls you out of sleep inertia, clears brain fog, and tells your body it is time to go.
My CAR? It was flat. And for so many high-performing women, business owners, and mothers? It is the same.
When the CAR is flat, mornings feel heavy, slow, impossible. You beg for 30 more minutes of sleep. By lunchtime, adrenaline finally kicks in, helped along by caffeine. By nighttime, you feel wired and alive. That is why evenings felt easy for me and mornings felt unbearable.
That wasn’t personality. That was dysregulation.
Why Your Cortisol Awakening Response Gets Blunted
A lot of modern life is just inherently dysregulating and stressful for our bodies - the political climate, the financial state of the world, the relentless pace of work, technology constantly pulling at our attention, notifications flooding in left, right and centre all day long and the fact that most of us are living in busy, overly densely, natureless environments completely different from the ones our biology was designed for.
Your body is built to wake up with a sharp cortisol spike that clears the fog and gives you ignition. But when stressors pile up, that natural rhythm flattens. Here’s why:
Sleep-related factors
Poor sleep quality, nightly disruptions, snoring partners, or pets keeping you awake.
Shift work or irregular wake times.
Insomnia and late-night overthinking.
Biological and health factors
Adrenal fatigue or insufficiency during/after chronic stress. Weeks and months of high HPA axis activation eventually lead to dysfunction and exhaustion.
Metabolic issues such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and blood sugar dysregulation.
Ageing, which naturally flattens the curve.
Medications like glucocorticoids, SSRIs, or benzodiazepines.
Stress Masquerading as Identity
This is where so many of us get confused. We accept “I’m just bad at mornings” as an identity. We joke about needing five coffees before 10 a.m. We romanticize being night people.
But often, what we are really describing is:
A flat CAR caused by long-term stress and overwork.
Dysregulation of the HPA axis from constant pressure.
A nervous system stuck in survival mode.
Adrenaline stepping in to compensate.
Sleep cycles thrown off by stress, blue light, or burnout.
It feels like personality, but it is physiology.
How I Rewired My Mornings
When I understood this, I realized I needed to restore my CAR. That meant working with my biology, not against it. As I qualified as an Integrative Health Practitioner, I started to understand that the corner stones of my CAR were actually things that came naturally in the morning. In fact, did you know that in cave man days, we would always hunt at sunrise?
The Biology of Mornings
In early human history, mornings weren’t optional like they are today. At sunrise back in these days, light entered the eyes, signaling the brain to raise cortisol and wake the body. This timing wasn’t just about survival - it was about performance because at dawn, humans would:
Hunt or forage: Early light gave better visibility, cooler temperatures, and aligned with the body’s natural cortisol peak, which sharpened focus and reaction time.
Move the body: Walking, carrying, chasing prey - all of which circulated blood, oxygen, and energy.
Sync with the environment: Rising and resting with the sun was our circadian anchor.
This meant movement, light, and breath were baked into the morning- the exact same cornerstones you now use to restore a healthy CAR. The more I have continued my health journey, I have just become so clear that we have moved so far away from our ‘natural’ cues like morning light exposure, and our breath. We live inside buildings, with blue lights, blue phones and for many of us in cities, no way to step outside until we are fully dressed for the day. We’ve moved so far away from our blueprint that our biology needs to function properly and I am just as guilty as anyone at this (particularly sitting at my desk 8/9/10/11 hours a day with 2 x blue light screens, 1 x ipad and 1 x iphone next to me.
1. Morning Light
Light is the first signal for our beautifully primal bodies. Sunlight in the eyes within 30 minutes of waking resets your circadian clock. It tells your body it is time to rise.
Avoid blue light disruption. I sleep with my phone in another room and always use red light mode before bed. Red light does not interfere with circadian signals, which allows sleep to truly repair and restore.
Consistent bedtimes. Even on weekends. The circadian system thrives on rhythm. Consistency makes mornings easier and sleep deeper. I’m not still winning at this one (is there anything better than staying up late!? I don’t think so, haha), but I’m trying.
2. Breath → Oxygen
Oxygen is the second ingredient. Without it, glucose burns inefficiently, creating stress and fatigue.
Breathwork or intentional deep breathing after waking floods tissues with oxygen, supporting cortisol’s rise and sharpening focus. I have started to really focus on the importance of big, deep, circular nasal breathing (I call this circular breaths) that expands the rib cage, activates the diaphragm, and gently stimulates the vagus nerve. It can feel quite weird to guide yourself but the more you do it, the more you can really feel that oxygenation entering into your body, saturating which your cells then deliver straight to the mitochondria — the tiny power plants inside every cell.
Just a few minutes of circular nasal breathing can leave you feeling clearer, sharper, and more awake: you’re literally charging your cells with energy at the source. Pairing that oxygenation with the natural cortisol spike you’re meant to get in the morning creates the perfect biological ignition - turning heavy mornings into momentum.
3. Minerals → Thyroid → Spark
Think of your cells like tiny engines. Oxygen and glucose are the fuel, but without a spark, the engine won’t turn over. That spark is thyroid hormone T3 which flips the switch inside your mitochondria so they can actually convert fuel into ATP - the energy currency of your body. Our thyroid relies on minerals as 'co factors' but for so many busy women today, our thyroid is totally off. Equally, when we're deficient in minerals, the whole energy chain slows down. So you can be doing all the 'right things' but still be experiencing heavy mornings, brain fog etc.
Now, I always support my mornings with clean electrolytes and mineral blends such as Oshun, BodyBio Remineralise, or Quinton Isotonic. They don’t just hydrate - they give your cells the raw materials they need to flip the ignition switch and spark energy from the inside out.
4. Movement + Circulation → Flow
And ironically what I’ve also learned? The days you feel like moving the least are the days your body sometimes needs it the most. I KNOW, I KNOW, bed is quite literally the most enticing thing in the world (honestly, for me, sleep is like a drug, I love it), but what I have realized through my training and my won lived experience is that movement is so much more than “exercise” - it’s biology in action.
Every step you take generates piezoelectricity, tiny electrical charges that signal and energize your cells and the movement also acts as a lymph pump (because your lymphatic system does not have an auto-pump). It clears waste from your body; it acts as a lactate and metabolite shuttle, recycling byproducts of stress; and a blood glucose shuttle, delivering fuel where it’s needed most and ensuring our glucose doesn’t stay floating around our blood stream (which over time can contribute to blood sugar dysregulation, hormonal imbalances, PCOS and more).
Walking ALSO specifically has a unique power: the bilateral stimulation of left-right-left-right foot strikes rhythmically calms and regulates your nervous system. It’s not just physical flow - it’s emotional regulation in motion and I truly believe it activates your life force too. It switches your energy on and allows you reconnect to your own essence, your power and your potential. It’s one simple, simple exercise that brings your system back online.
The Outcome: Your Daily Decisions and your Mornings Matter
When light, sleep, food, breath, thyroid, and movement align, your mitochondria produce ATP - the energy your body can actually use. That is when mornings start to feel like ignition instead of heaviness. And I’m a big believer that every morning is a blank slate where you get to decide what happens next. Read more here about my daily ‘Upward Spiral of Success’.
Why I Created My Morning Rally Walks
Even with all this knowledge, there were mornings I still wanted to stay in bed. Our ‘conscious understanding’ doesn’t override our biology… otherwise changing would be as easy and pie. And the truth? Breathwork, sunlight, and movement felt like too many separate steps for me when all I wanted to do was sleep. I’d pick up my phone, see the inbox already overflowing from the UK working day, and start the downward spiral into thinking I needed a coffee to be able to handle the day that was about to hit me But then, I noticed something. On the days I had to get up for a workout class, I always felt better. Like WAY better. The days I didn’t? I started the downward spiral. I didn’t breath deeply, I reached for coffee too soon. My energy spiraled downward.
I started to try walking meditations from other practitioners in the market and they did not hit for me, at all. I didn’t need calming, soft reminders at 7.30am to remind me that everything was going to work out for me. I needed something to help me get up, and out, and to help me believe in my potential, my possibility and my life force. So I created my own solution. A walking morning ritual that was simple, movement-based, cost-effective, and layered with everything I needed: circadian syncing, breathwork, mindset, and momentum.
Morning Rally is more than a walk. It is a methodology. A 23 minute way to rally my mornings so I can reign over my day and step into the upward spiral of success. And it works. Today, for example, I had my first coffee at 10:42 a.m. A miracle for me. A true miracle.
Now, mornings don’t feel like my enemy. They feel like ignition. Nights feel restful, not wired. I am sleeping better than ever, with a little help from earplugs and an ice mask and sure, sometimes I still wake up tired, because my booked, busy and brilliant schedule hasn’t calmed at all. But on those days? Now I have the solution in my pocket that I know will help me get back on track, every day, no matter where I am in the world.
The Takeaway
I thought I was a night owl. But what I really was, was out of rhythm and out of balance. My mornings felt impossible because I had been pushing my body too hard for too long. Once I started to restore my circadian foundations, everything shifted.
The best part? Through daily decisions, you can change this too. Whether it’s somatic practices before bed to down-regulate your nervous system, or a mid-day walk to clear stress residue and balance blood sugar, every choice takes you closer to feeling and functioning better.
As a career-driven woman who gives everything to her work, being able to wake up primed for the day feels like the ultimate upgrade. You do not need to accept being bad at mornings. You just need to give your body the spark it has been missing.
Try the Morning Rally Walk Free
The best way to experience it is with my Morning Rally Challenge: 3 days, 3 guided walks, powerful bonuses, and the exact system I use to turn my mornings into momentum. And the best part? You can try it completely free.
Welcome to your upward spiral of success.
x Louise
