Morning Routines When Getting Up Is the Hardest Part

Most morning routine advice starts at the wrong moment. It assumes you are already upright, kettle on, ready to "seize the day". But if you are reading this, the hard part probably isn't the green smoothie or the journalling — it's the bit where you are awake, you know you need to move, and your body simply will not cooperate. This is a guide to morning routines when getting up is the hardest part, written by someone who has spent a fair few mornings negotiating with the ceiling.

I'm Matt, and I built Neuro Supply Co partly because so much "productivity" advice felt designed for brains that don't work like mine. The stuck-to-the-bed feeling isn't laziness and it isn't a character flaw. For a lot of neurodivergent people it's a tangle of poor-quality sleep, a body clock that runs late, and the sheer effort of starting anything when your brain hasn't switched on yet. So let's stop blaming willpower and build something that actually accounts for the morning you're really having.

Why getting up is genuinely harder for some brains

If mornings feel like wading through wet sand, there's usually a real reason — often more than one. Many neurodivergent people experience delayed sleep phase, where the body's natural wind-down and wake-up times sit later than the nine-to-five world expects. Pair that with broken or short sleep and you wake up mid-cycle, groggy and foggy, in a state often called sleep inertia.

The problem isn't that you lack discipline. It's that you're being asked to start a cold engine and then judged for how long it takes to warm up.

There's also the executive-function piece. Getting up isn't one action — it's a chain of micro-decisions (sit up, find phone, decide on clothes, remember why you're doing any of this) and a tired brain stalls on the first link. If you want to go deeper on the night-time side of this, why you wake up exhausted and delayed sleep phase and ADHD are both worth a read. Understanding the mechanism takes a surprising amount of the shame out of it.

Start the night before (the unglamorous truth)

The most reliable way to fix a brutal morning is to ambush it the evening before, while you still have some executive bandwidth. Not a full ceremonial wind-down — just removing tomorrow-you's first three obstacles.

• Lay out clothes, or at least decide on them. A decision made tonight is one your foggy morning brain doesn't have to make.
• Pre-load the first win: glass of water by the bed, kettle filled, curtains cracked so light can do its job.
• Park your phone across the room or out of arm's reach, so the first act of the day is standing up, not scrolling.

This isn't about perfect sleep hygiene. It's about reducing friction. If wind-down itself is the thing that never survives, building a wind-down routine that survives ADHD covers how to make an evening routine that actually sticks rather than collapsing by Wednesday.

Lower the bar until you can clear it

Here's the reframe that changed my mornings: the goal of a morning routine is not to be productive. It's simply to transition from horizontal to vertical without a fight. So make the first step almost insultingly small.

Instead of "get up and exercise", the target is "sit up and put both feet on the floor". That's it. Once you're sitting, the next tiny step (water, then standing) becomes thinkable. This is the same principle behind beating ADHD paralysis — you don't push through the wall, you shrink the first action until it slips under it.

A few specific tactics that genuinely help:

• The countdown. Give yourself a slow five-count, and on "go" the only job is to sit up. Movement before the brain can file an objection.
• Anchor to something pleasant. A genuinely nice coffee, a podcast you only allow yourself in the morning, the good blanket on the sofa. You're giving your brain a reason to come online, not a punishment.
• Warmth and light. Cold rooms and dark mornings tell your body to stay put. A lamp on a timer or simply opening the curtains first thing nudges your system toward awake.

Build a tiny sequence, not a big routine

Once you're vertical, a short fixed order of small actions carries you through the foggy stretch where decisions are expensive. The trick is to make it a chain you don't have to think about — each step quietly triggering the next.

Keep it to three or four anchors, in the same order every day: water, then sunlight or a lamp, then something warm to drink, then one grounding minute (stretch, a few breaths, fussing the cat — whatever's yours). You're not optimising; you're building a runway. When the steps live somewhere outside your head, the morning stops being a memory test. A simple printed checklist by the bed or a low-stakes planner does this job well — what actually works in ADHD planners goes into the formats that don't end up abandoned in a drawer.

If you tend to drift off mid-sequence (you went to brush your teeth and somehow you're reorganising a shelf), a small fidget or a timer can keep you tethered to the task. And on the days the chain still breaks, you've lost nothing — you just restart at the next anchor.

When the duvet still wins

Some mornings you will do everything right and still lose. That's not failure — that's having a body. The aim isn't a flawless streak; it's a routine forgiving enough that one rough morning doesn't torch the whole week.

On the hard days, drop to the absolute minimum: feet on floor, water, daylight. Skip the rest without guilt. A routine you can do at five per cent on a bad day is infinitely more useful than a perfect one you abandon the first time you oversleep.

It's also worth being honest about what's underneath a long run of impossible mornings. If you're sleeping badly night after night, the morning is just where the bill arrives — our practical fix-list for ADHD sleep problems tackles the root rather than the symptom. And if low energy, persistent exhaustion or low mood are part of the picture, that's a conversation for your GP, not a routine to optimise your way out of. Practical tools help with friction; they're not a substitute for medical advice.

A few props that genuinely help

I'm wary of "buy your way to a better morning", so treat all of this as optional. But a handful of low-effort, sensory-friendly things do remove real friction: a warm lamp instead of a harsh overhead light, a soft layer for the transition from bed to sofa, and calm, uncluttered surroundings that don't demand decisions before you're ready. If that's the vibe you're after, our Calm Collection is built around exactly this — gentle, sensory-considered things for the bleary first hour.

If you'd rather start with nothing to buy, the free ND Starter Kit includes a printable morning sequence and an energy-budget tracker you can stick by the bed tonight. Start there, keep the bar low, and let tomorrow-you off the hook a little.