To me, discipline has always been part of my life. Since childhood I have been “the responsible one,” the early one, the one who eats at the same time every day, the one who never keeps anyone waiting. My parents’ lives ran on structure, and so did mine. I didn’t question it, it simply felt like the right way to be.

And honestly? I’ve always been an early bird. Sleeping late used to feel like a waste of possibility. Morning was to me excitement, like the day was full of treasures waiting to be discovered if only I got up early enough.

When I found meditation and yoga, everything clicked even more deeply. It felt like coming home. Like discovering a language my soul already spoke. And naturally, my routine shifted again: early meditation, early yoga practice, a long practice, and then starting work by 9 am.

But it still didn’t feel like enough. Thirty minutes of meditation and ninety minutes of asana felt like only scratching the surface… so I began waking up even earlier. First 6:00, then 5:30, then 5:00, then 4:45.

And the wild thing? I wasn’t tired.
I was energized. I would wake up before my alarm, buzzing with a mix of excitement, devotion and if I’m honest Pitta-driven intensity. (Hello fellow Pittas! you know exactly what I mean.)

Looking back, it felt almost spiritual. I thought maybe my kundalini was awakening. My intuition felt sharper, my meditations deeper. Everything seemed to be blooming… except for one very important thing:

my period didn’t come back.

And at that same time, so subtly I didn’t even notice…
I was eating less.
Resting less.
Demanding more.
Sleeping shorter.
And praising myself for all of it.

Does that feel familiar?

This is the part that breaks my heart now, how proud I was of the discipline that was slowly draining me. And I want to be clear: waking up at 5 AM isn’t “bad.”

For some people it’s supportive, grounding, even healing.

But for women, especially women with hormonal imbalances, especially women recovering from HA, the “wake up at 5 AM” hustle culture is deeply mismatched to your biology.

And here’s the part we often forget, women’s bodies run on a cyclical rhythm. Not the clean, predictable 24-hour loop men have.

We have a whole inner season that shifts over 28, sometimes 30 or even 35 days. Our nervous system responds differently depending on where we are in that cycle. So yes, maybe waking up before dawn feels totally fine when you’re in your follicular phase, energy rising, everything softer and more playful. But try that same early alarm in your late luteal phase and suddenly it feels like someone has dropped a bucket of ice water on your nervous system.

Most women in HA recovery are already stuck in a chronic “fight or flight” mode, they don’t always feel stressed, but their physiology is holding tension like a clenched fist. When they force themselves to wake up early, especially earlier than their natural waking point, it creates a second cortisol surge on top of the one that already happens naturally. And because morning cortisol is meant to rise gradually, pulling yourself out of sleep too soon turns it into more of a shock. The body instantly goes into survival mode, which is the last thing your reproductive system wants.

And survival mode, by design, suppresses everything that isn’t essential for immediate safety.
That includes GnRH (your ovulation starter signal).
LH and FSH (the messengers that tell your ovaries what to do).
Progesterone production (your calming, protective hormone).
Your entire cycle becomes secondary.

This is why so many women who say, “But I love waking up early!” don’t realise that the same routine they’re proud of is also the reason their period stayed away.

And here’s the beautiful thing Ayurveda understood all of this long before we had hormone maps, cortisol studies, and chronobiology diagrams. In the Charaka Samhita, sleep (Nidra) is described as one of the three pillars of health, right up there with food and balanced energy. Charaka literally states that disturbed sleep disrupts reproductive functioning. They didn’t have cortisol labs, but they had observation… and women’s cycles were one of the first things they noticed becoming irregular when sleep was poor.

Sleep isn’t just “rest.” It’s hormonal repair.
It’s ovarian restoration.
It’s the calibration of hunger cues, progesterone building, cortisol regulation — all the things that HA quietly steals from women.

And yes, Ayurveda does recommend waking early, but only when your sleep is truly nourishing. That nuance matters. The ancient writings explain that each constitution needs a different relationship with sleep. Vata bodies need more of it. Pitta bodies need steady rhythms but too much discipline becomes self-harm. Kapha bodies benefit from early rising, but never at the expense of depth of sleep.

Charaka says, “Sleep varies according to constitution and imbalance.”
It almost reads like a warning not to copy anyone else’s routine.

And for Pitta types, which is so many of you reading this, the obsession with discipline becomes the slippery slope. At first it feels impressive: “look how consistent I am.” Then it becomes rigid. Then depletion sneaks in. And before you know it, your period is gone, your hunger cues disappear, your sleep is light or restless, and you wonder what you’re doing wrong… never suspecting the routine you were praised for.

For Vata types, which is almost always involved in HA, waking up prematurely is like pulling a fragile sprout out of the soil before sunrise. The nervous system gets jumpy, digestion gets erratic, anxiety pokes its head in, and hormonal signalling becomes messy. Vata governs reproductive tissues, so when Vata is aggravated, the cycle is always one of the first things to be affected.

And the nervous system, let’s talk about that with honesty. Because recovery from HA isn’t about adding more routines, more structure, more “good girl” habits. The body doesn’t heal through performance. It heals through safety. And safety comes from feeling deeply rested, warm, grounded, and unhurried in the morning.

When you wake too early, you steal from the deepest sleep cycles, the ones that regulate inflammation, ovulation, temperature, metabolism, progesterone. It’s no wonder so many women feel wired and tired, hungry and not hungry, exhausted but unable to slow down. Their system is simply overextended.

But here's the gentle truth: you don’t have to abandon your practices. Your yoga, your meditation, your morning rituals, they are beautiful. They are healing. They aren’t the problem. The problem is when these practices become fixed identities that we force ourselves into, even when our bodies whisper for something different.

You get to keep what you love without sacrificing your health.
You get to be devoted without being depleted.
You get to enjoy early mornings occasionally without building your worth around it.

There’s no spiritual award for exhaustion.
No enlightenment in a cortisol spike.
No glow in burnout.

So if you take anything from this, let it be this: your practice is meant to nourish you, not hollow you out. Let it remain a source of joy. Let it bend with your cycle, your energy, your season. Let yourself sleep. Let yourself rest. Let yourself skip a practice when the body whispers, “Not today.”

Nothing is fixed.
Nothing is set in stone.
You are allowed to change with your own tides.

It is safe to feel good.
It is safe to slow down.
It is safe to be well.

With love,
Audrey