Waking up with a racing heart, a pit in your stomach, or a wave of dread before your feet even hit the floor isn’t a sign that something’s wrong with your life — it’s a morning cortisol spike that your body is misreading as danger. Understanding why this happens is the first step to turning it off.

In this video, Rey NP, a dual-certified nurse practitioner, walks through a 5-minute physical reset you can do straight from bed: the physiological sigh to lower your heart rate quickly, a sensory orientation exercise to pull your mind out of catastrophic future-thinking and back into the present, and a cold water technique that activates the vagus nerve to shift your nervous system out of panic mode.

If mornings have felt like this lately, this reset is something you can try tomorrow — no major lifestyle overhaul required, just three physical steps that work with your body instead of against it.