Red Light, Creatine, and Other Things I Do Before 9 A.M.
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AMY SYNNOTT |editor in chief at goop
I’ve always been a morning person, though lately my mornings have gotten a little more elaborate. There’s red light, meditation, creatine, sunlight, supplements, and sometimes a weighted vest—but also coffee, NPR, Slack, and dried Greek yogurt stuck to a bowl in the sink. So it’s not exactly serene. It’s more like trying to be healthy while living with a teenager.
6:15 a.m.
Normally I wake up around 7, but I just got back from Greece, so lately it’s been more like 6 or 6:30. I’ve also been going to bed at 9:30, which feels like a slightly geriatric approach to bedtime, but I enjoy having that extra half hour in the morning, so I’m hoping it sticks.
My sleep is a little disrupted at the moment because there’s currently a nationwide shortage of estrogen patches, and I haven’t been able to get mine, so I’ve been waking around 4 a.m. with night sweats. Still, I sleep surprisingly well. I know this because the first thing I do when I wake up is check my Oura ring. It is probably not psychologically ideal to receive a grade on your sleep before your feet have touched the floor, but mine is usually around an A-, so I find it somewhat reassuring.
I also have an Eight Sleep, which adjusts the temperature during the night and wakes me with a low, vibrating series of thumps when I’m in a lighter phase of sleep. One of my favorite features right now is that if I wake up at 4 a.m. having a night sweat, I can press a button and instantly cool the bed down, which is incredibly satisfying.
6:30 a.m.
For the next 10 minutes, I wear my HigherDOSE red light face mask while listening to a guided meditation on Headspace. If I wake up with puffy eyes, I then slap on goop Beauty Lift + Depuff Eye Masks. I keep them in a little beauty fridge in my bedroom (the cold helps constrict blood vessels, turbo-charging the depuffing). Then I make coffee, adding about 10 grams of creatine to my first cup. You can’t taste it, and it supposedly helps preserve muscle mass—a goal I have been relentlessly focused on since starting Equinox’s ARC strength program four months ago.
The coffee takes about four minutes to brew, almost exactly how long my absurd new dental routine takes. I have historically been an extremely lax flosser, and I am now paying the price in lidocaine. So I tend to my gums with the concentration of a Japanese macaque grooming her young: Cocofloss, Marvis Jasmin Mint toothpaste on a Sonicare toothbrush, then a Waterpik. The Waterpik is so satisfying that if I’m home at lunch, I often use it again.
6:40 a.m.
Then I do my skin care. I wash my face with the goop Beauty Daily Detox Foaming Cleanser, which smells so good (herbal and spa-like) that I take several long, deep breaths in through my nose after lathering up my hands. I love this cleanser—I've been using it morning and night since starting at goop a little over a year ago—because it cleans my face really well but never leaves my skin feeling tight. Once a week, I'll use the goop Beauty Microderm Instant Glow Exfoliator instead. I leave it on for three minutes before washing it off so it functions as both a scrub and quick chemical mask.
On the mornings when I use the foaming cleanser, I alternate between prescription azelaic acid and goop Beauty's vitamin C serum, depending on what my skin is doing, and then I apply the Youth-Boost Peptide Serum (my favorite goop product; I'm on my fifth empty), followed by the NAD+ Peptide Rich Cream and then Forah sunscreen on my face, neck, and hands. The hands are new. I wrote an Ask a Plastic Surgeon column about them, and now they have a skin-care routine, too.
Coffee in hand, I then head out to my back porch for 15 to 30 minutes of sunlight. I have listened to an ungodly number of hours of Andrew Huberman talking about circadian rhythms, and he has made his point.
I scan the New York Times and check email and Slack to make sure nothing is on fire.
7:10 a.m.
Then I go back inside to survey the crime scene that is our kitchen.
My daughter is 18 and stays up much later than I do, and by morning there is almost always evidence of some sort of late-night racoonish activity: an open can of peanut butter, Trader Joe’s seaweed wrappers, a bowl scraped clean except for a kintsugi-like layer of dried Greek yogurt glued to the inside. At least three pantry doors are invariably hanging open.
I set a timer for 10 minutes and do a quick reset while listening to NPR. It’s better than starting the day with a fight.
7:25 a.m.
I make a protein-and-antioxidant smoothie for work. It’s not delicious, but I think of it as nutritional insurance (all of the ingredients—walnuts, blueberries, spinach, soy milk, vegan protein powder—are optimized for brain health and muscle preservation). I aim for around 30 grams of protein, so sometimes I add two hard-boiled eggs.
This is also when I take supplements, because several of them are better taken with food. Recent bloodwork showed that I was low in vitamin D and zinc, so I take both from Pure Encapsulations, plus Nordic Naturals omega-3s (these have no taste and don’t give you salmon burps). I also take citicoline and Pure Encapsulations Homocysteine Factors, which a longevity doctor friend recommended after looking at my labs and telling me that “normal” was not necessarily the same as “optimal.”
7:35 a.m.
If I’m going into the office, I make my lunch the night before. It's usually some sort of leafy green salad with protein and a lemon-Dijon vinaigrette from Nora Ephron’s classic book, Heartburn. Right now I’m making it with olive oil I brought home from Phaea Blue in Crete—hands down, the best I’ve ever tasted.
I pack it in a glass container with a bamboo lid, my latest deeply unsexy obsession. The plastic lids kept warping in the dishwasher until none fit the containers they were theoretically designed for. Bamboo lids do not do this. At 54, apparently this is the kind of discovery that can materially improve my quality of life.
7:45 a.m.
I make my bed, tidy my room, then throw on workout clothes, sneakers, and contact lenses, and do one more quick sweep through the house, turning off the lights.
8:00 a.m.
Then I drive my daughter to school. She does her makeup in the passenger seat and is capable of applying an entire set of false eyelashes while I’m driving. I have at times worried she might impale herself with tweezers when I hit a stoplight, so I drive like a 90-year-old woman. “Put the pedal to the metal, mom!” she screams, gingerly pinning a caterpillar-like fringe onto her left lid with the precision of a surgeon. Needless to say, we are often 5-10 minutes late.
8:05 a.m.
On mornings when I'm working from home, I sometimes stop at the beach after I drop her off. It’s literally on my way home, so I set a timer for 20-30 minutes and walk or run wearing a weighted Aion vest while I listen to music or a podcast. When I want a harder workout, I’ll do the Entrada steps instead. They are very steep, so they work for both strength and cardio. I’m often joined by two septuagenarian Asian women wearing hats. I have never seen either of them out of breath. I take two steps at a time and try to do 10 sets.
Once a week, I’ll go to Equinox. I’ve been working with two different trainers there since April, so I try to squeeze in a third solo strength session. To maximize my time, I focus on compound exercises that target multiple muscle groups.
8:35 a.m.
Back home. In the shower, I use the new goop Beauty Black Pepper + Ginger Grounding Body Wash. It’s sweet and peppery and is hydrating enough that I also use it to shave. I now actually enjoy shaving my legs because it feels like a spa treatment.
I usually only wash my hair once a week. I alternate between Nécessaire's The Detox Shampoo and the goop Beauty Himalayan Salt Scalp Scrub Shampoo. I follow that with Roz Foundation Conditioner. It makes detangling with my La Bonne Brosse brush a breeze, especially when I pair it with Rahua's hydrating detangler. I let it air-dry to save time.
After the shower, I slather my whole body with Nécessaire The Body Retinol moisturizer, and then add a slick of goop Beauty's Afterglow Body Oil. I love the sheen it gives my skin.
The Post-Shower Routine
8:50 a.m.
During the workweek, my makeup is minimal: a dab of Counter cream blush in Havana, a swipe of goop Beauty's mascara, and a thin line of Westman Atelier's brow pencil in Stone. One of the weirdest side effects of getting older is anemic brows. I never had a unibrow, but now they are like 90s-era Pamela Anderson squiggles unless I define them. To give my skin a bit of a glow, I dab a few drops of the goop Beauty's face oil onto my cheekbones.
On mornings when I go into the office, I need to leave my house by 8:40 to be at my desk by 9 a.m. so my routine is way more streamlined. I pick out my outfit the night before so I can get dressed in less than five minutes. I recently had my closet redone by the organization guru Lauren Moyer, and it has made putting together outfits so much more enjoyable because I can now see everything in my closet. The wardrobe I wear to the office is about 50 percent gwyn (favorites include the Elio sweater, which I own in both oxblood and charcoal, and the Boyfriend V-Neck Sweater) and 50 percent investment pieces I have owned for 10-15 years, originally acquired while working as an editor for InStyle, Harper’s Bazaar, and Elle. They are classic, well-made pieces that have stood the test of time and look as good today as they did a decade ago.
The one thing that’s changed since moving to Cali: my footwear. I almost never wear heels anymore, though I’ve recently been experimenting with kitten heels. With a strappy sandal, you get the same ease of movement with a slightly more elegant silhouette than, say, a ballerina flat or loafer.
9:00 a.m.
I roll Maison Louise Marie No. 4 Bois de Balincourt into my pulse points, then apply Nécessaire unscented deodorant (it doesn't interfere with my perfume), pour a second cup of coffee, and fire up my computer. I have the Bois de Balincourt candle too, so I often light one of those as I settle at my desk. This may be taking the idea of a signature scent a little far, but I am nothing if not a beauty junkie.
