Welcome to My Morning Routine, where Olivia Wilde and other good-life gurus share their personal (frequently surprising, often healthy) morning rituals—to help you make your a.m.’s more awesome. 

Olivia Wilde
Actress, model, producer, and activist

I wasn’t a morning person until I had kids—then you have to be a morning person because the action starts early. My kids wake up between 6:30 and 7, so that’s when everything begins. My son, who’s 3, wakes me up and comes with me to the bathroom and we brush our teeth together. He recently discovered my electronic toothbrush which he calls the robot brush—he now uses that.

He’ll also watch me as I wash my face. At this point, I’ve been exclusively using True Botanicals products. I’ll use their Hydrating Cleanser, then a combo of their face oils. I use Renew, which is really hydrating and anti-aging, on the top half of my face, then their Clear Oil from their acne-fighting line on the bottom of my face. That’s where I tend to break out with hormonal acne, like on my chin and my cheek. That plus their Nutrient Mist are all I use, then I do the same in the evening but add their Pre-Cleanse Oil to remove makeup.

Mornings always involve a little dance party.

Then I’ll go make breakfast for [my son] Otis, and he helps me make coffee. We hang out, play games, read books. My daughter Daisy wakes up at around the same time and we’ll all play. Mornings are really sacred and lovely. I used to be the person who wouldn’t know when I’d wake up or what I’d do, but now there’s more regularity with kids. It’s a very sweet time before the madness of the day begins.

For breakfast, I make avocado toast and sometimes a smoothie—I alternate between the two. My toast is pretty standard: chili flakes, good olive oil, lemon juice, and salt of course—always salt. Otis really likes oatmeal with chocolate chips, which might make me irresponsible but I give him chocolate chip oatmeal every morning. Just a little, but he feels like it’s a lot so I perpetuate that myth to make it feel super-special.

In my smoothies, I’m a big fan of almond butter—I’ve found it’s a constant in my smoothies. I’ll use banana, almond milk, almond butter, then some kind of green—maybe spinach or kale and blueberries. Sometimes I’ll use cacao to make a yummy chocolatey thing that tastes more like a shake than a smoothie. People who do just straight green smoothies are too intense for me.

If I have time, I’ll work out after the kids are off and settled. I’ll work out in my house, or if I have time I’ll go to a studio or a class—but I have less and less time to do that, so it’s all about finding stolen moments. Now that I’m doing a play, in my dressing room if I have 20 minutes before a show, I know enough routines to do my own and squeeze it in when I can.

Besides that, mornings always involve a little dance party. My son luckily has good taste in music, so usually a lot of Chance the Rapper and Michael Jackson. Well, recently he’s been into the Blue Man Group so we’ve been listening to a lot of those recordings—that’s a really intense way to start the day, let me tell you.

Here’s a slightly less intense way to start the day right: morning mantras that wellness it-girls swear by. And this is the best way to maximize your morning, according to your astrological sign.