Why fifteen minutes of natural morning sunlight is the first and most foundational step

I have had the pleasure of experiencing a Pluto transit over the last year, and will continue to feel it as Pluto moves slowly through my 7th house and conjuncts my sun.

Pluto transits unlock deeper layers of consciousness. They cut straight to the point and shine a light on the deepest, darkest parts of your soul. While this may sound horrific, it’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s an invitation to receive a new level of consciousness from the cosmos.

With that new level of consciousness comes the work of letting go of what no longer serves. And for me, that means working with my body.

I have a very sensitive body. While I may have experienced it as a burden in the past, I now understand it is my gift. I would not be able to receive the messages I receive or set the precedent that I set if not for my extremely intelligent and intuitive body.

If you’ve read some of my work, you know that my awakening started almost 20 years ago with chronic health challenges. I won’t go into the details today (save that for another post), but the short story is this: I have been guided to regulate my nervous system, balance my hormones, and detox mold and chemicals from my body.

Low Cortisol Symptoms and What My Hormone Assessment Revealed

What the Assessment Revealed

This is a deeply layered process. I’ve been working with an alternative medicine practitioner, and we did a comprehensive assessment of my hormones and toxin load. Like many of us, my cortisol levels are low.

Low cortisol means the body is running without a key hormone. Energy becomes unpredictable. The nervous system has less resilience to draw from. And the body can cascade into a whole range of issues, from hormonal imbalances to gut challenges.

How I Am Resetting My Nervous System Naturally

So my goal right now is to completely transform the way I approach my days. Uprooting an older way of operating and replacing it with something slower, more intentional. Balancing the yin with the yang. The being with the doing. And I was led there by my amazingly sensitive and wise body.

If any of this is resonating, I dive much deeper into the energy of this current phase in my last post on the eclipse and Mercury retrograde — it’s worth a read alongside this one.

Can Morning Sunlight Naturally Increase Cortisol Levels

Anyway, back to cortisol.

How do we naturally start to balance cortisol and regulate the nervous system? The easiest thing you will ever do: go outside three times a day for around 15 minutes. That’s it. And honestly, I can’t make any excuses. If I can’t find 15 minutes three times a day, then what am I really doing in life? Like literally, WHAT am I doing 😂

Maybe you want to start with 5 minutes, whatever works for you. What I’m sharing here is my personal 15-minute morning practice. It helps regulate the nervous system, fuels mitochondrial function in cells, and naturally supports cortisol production. Natural sunlight triggers your body to produce cortisol, and getting outside before 10 am is one of the most effective and underrated ways to support your hormones and overall well-being.

My 5-Step Morning Routine for Nervous System Regulation and Natural Cortisol Balance:

Step 1: Get outside and set a timer.

• Bring a journal, a book, or nothing at all. You can use your phone as a timer, but after that, it goes away. No screens. The goal is to actually arrive before the day starts, asking things of you. This alone is deeply regulating for your hormones and nervous system.

Step 2: Two minutes of Voo Breath.

• Place one hand on your abdomen. Inhale into your diaphragm. Then exhale with a long, audible “voooo” tone, letting it vibrate through your chest and belly. Extended exhales directly activate the parasympathetic nervous system and signal to the body that the threat response can soften. It’s a little strange to make this sound in your backyard. Do it anyway. (I do this on a patio in an apartment building, so you have no excuse.)

Step 3: Panoramic gaze.

• Find something far on the horizon and hold a soft, general gaze there for about ten seconds — no specific focus, just the open horizon. Then shift to something specific on the horizon, a tree, an animal, any object, and hold for five seconds. Then return to the wide, general gaze and repeat. When we’re stressed, our vision narrows and locks in. This practice does the opposite. The nervous system follows the eyes. Relax your jaw. Breathe. Look around.

After steps two and three, choose what feels right for the remaining time:

Step 4: Read something that nourishes you.

• No screens! I’ve been reading How to Be Loving by Danielle LaPorte. Poetry works. Short inspirational passages work. The point is to get into your heart center — something uplifting, calming, and genuinely inspiring. You’re setting the emotional frequency of your entire morning here. This is the sweet spot you want to start your day with energetically.

Step 5: Journal one question:

• What do I want to feel today?
• Close your eyes (or keep them open) and visualize yourself already in that feeling. Where are you? What are you doing? Who’s with you? What does it feel like in your body? This is coherence work. You’re aligning your internal state before the external world gets its turn. And beyond the very real health benefits, this practice is genuinely powerful for calling in what you want to create in your life.

What I Want You to Take From This

The body is always in the work. It’s never separate from it.

You can have deep insight, understand your patterns, do years of meaningful inner work, and still find the body asking for something more foundational. That’s not a setback. That’s the nature of healing. It moves in layers, and Pluto has a way of taking you down to the ones you didn’t know were still there.

The sun is doing something in me that I couldn’t access any other way. And what it keeps showing me is that the most advanced work often asks us to come back to the most basic things.

With Pluto, that’s never a step backward.