Mel Robbins
Author and podcaster · The Let Them Theory
Former lawyer turned author and host of The Mel Robbins Podcast. The 5 Second Rule came out of a stretch at 41 when she was in debt and could not get out of bed; The High 5 Habit and The Let Them Theory followed from habits she picked up later. Her stack is behavioral rather than biochemical: a fixed morning routine, an evening wind-down she can run half asleep, and a phone that charges in the bathroom.
- Entries
- 24
- Does
- 20
- Recommends
- 4
- Discusses
- 0
Books
4 books in this stack
- BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The 5 Second Rule
Her first book, which tells how she invented the countdown at the lowest point of her life and applies it to procrastination, self-doubt and habit change.
Source: melrobbins.com: The 5 Second RuleVisit melrobbins.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The Alchemist
Calls it a must read, has given it as a gift and wrote about it in The 5 Second Rule. What moves her most is the backstory: the novel flopped on release in Brazil when Coelho was 41, the same age she was when she hit bottom.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 4 Books That Will Change Your LifeView item: The AlchemistOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The High 5 Habit
Her 2021 book on the mirror high five and the self-talk it is meant to interrupt.
Source: melrobbins.com: The High 5 HabitVisit melrobbins.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The Let Them Theory
Her 2024 book, written with her daughter Sawyer, which expands the two-word tool into a guide to relationships, work and stress.
Source: melrobbins.com: The Let Them TheoryVisit melrobbins.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it
Supplements
2 supplements in this stack
- SupplementDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.Sponsor, disclosed
Electrolyte supplementation
Fills a mason jar with water the night before, stirs in an electrolyte mix from a company she names as one of the show's sponsors, and leaves it in front of the coffee maker so morning hydration takes no thought. She adds on air that they did not pay her to mention it.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 5 Night Habits to Boost Focus & EnergyView item: Electrolyte supplementationOn record from 12 of 62 tracked people: 12 do it - SupplementDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Magnesium (threonate or glycinate)
Some nights she stirs a scoop of magnesium into a cup of mint tea as part of her five minutes of wind-down time. She presents it as a small ritual rather than a dosing protocol.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 5 Night Habits to Boost Focus & EnergyView item: Magnesium (threonate or glycinate)On record from 11 of 62 tracked people: 8 do it, 1 recommends it, 2 have discussed it
Protocols
8 entriesStructured routines and practices with a defined method.
Finishes every morning shower by cranking the water fully cold for about 20 seconds, admitting she starts warm to wash her hair and aims the cold at a shoulder rather than her head. A month in when she recorded this, she credits neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki, whose clip she plays, for the adrenaline reasoning.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 5 Tricks That Give You More Energy InstantlyWorks her bedtime backwards from a 6 AM wake-up and the eight hours she wants, which for her lands between 9:15 and 9:30 PM once she allows for reading in bed and the five to 25 minutes it takes her to drop off. Picking the bedtime, she says, is the step everyone skips.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 4 Nighttime Habits to Be Energized & Sleep BetterNatural light before artificial light is her rule for the first minutes of the day, and the walk she and her husband Chris take almost every morning is how she gets it. The circadian case she makes for it she presents as research she has read rather than her own field.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 3 Morning Habits to Feel IncredibleLays her workout clothes on the bedroom floor, texts herself the link to the next morning's exercise class, and sets up her water by the coffee maker, all so that the morning involves no decisions. She says she does these things half asleep on purpose.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 5 Night Habits to Boost Focus & EnergyWaits about 90 minutes to two hours after waking for her first coffee, having drunk a full cup of water first, and says she no longer wants a second cup. Six cups a day was her old baseline, by her own account.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 1 Morning Trick to Boost Motivation FastShe and her husband have done a year-end audit together for 20 years and now include their kids. It starts with scrolling back through the year's photos, then seven questions; she says the last one told her to do less rather than take on more.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 7 Questions to Make Next Year the Best YearRolls out of bed on a spoken 5-4-3-2-1 every morning and says she has done it that way for 14 years, still needing the countdown because she does not like getting up. She frames it as keeping a small promise to herself before the day starts.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: A Toolkit for Creating the Perfect Morning RoutineSays she says let them every day in her marriage and every day with her daughter Sawyer, and that using it through the year they spent co-writing the book closed a distance between them that neither knew how to fix. The second step, let me, she credits entirely to Sawyer.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: Transform Relationships with Let Them Theory
Habits
10 entriesRecurring behaviors recorded in public statements.
Gets her book out once she is in bed and budgets that time in when she sets her bedtime. Some nights she says she is too tired to read much and turns the light off; other nights she reads longer. Reading or an audiobook is also how she fills the bath at the end of her evening routine.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 4 Nighttime Habits to Be Energized & Sleep BetterShe and her husband Chris walk almost every morning, and she puts it right after getting up, before the phone, as the way to get daylight and be present for a few minutes. Even a lap of the block counts, in her telling.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 3 Morning Habits to Feel IncredibleBefore sleep she scans the day for a few things to be grateful for. She never goes to bed without it, she says. She began with a written three-minute night journal, citing a UC San Diego study, and says she has done it so long now that she can simply run back through the day.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: Discover what gratitude really is.Her standing rule is that the phone gets tucked into the bathroom before she gets into bed, because she says she is too impulsive to have it within reach. The alarm still runs on the phone, which forces her up and out of the room to turn it off.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 5 Night Habits to Boost Focus & EnergyNo phone, email, texts or social media until her morning routine is done; she says she would not dare, because none of it belongs in what she calls her million dollar morning. Out of bed, then straight to making the bed.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: A Toolkit for Creating the Perfect Morning RoutineTurns the bath on at the start of her wind-down, tidies the kitchen while it fills, then soaks. Asked what her five minutes for herself looks like, her answer is a bath, every time.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 5 Night Habits to Boost Focus & EnergyClears the sink, wipes the counters, takes out the trash and puts stray jackets back on hooks before bed, a pass she says takes under five minutes and runs on autopilot. A messy kitchen in the morning, she says, drains her energy before the day starts.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 5 Night Habits to Boost Focus & EnergyPart of her fixed morning sequence: alarm, bed made, 16 ounces of water, then a high five to herself in the mirror before she heads outside for a walk. She has built a whole book around the gesture.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: Boost Your Success in 2024: Top TipsThe second step in her morning routine, and she says she does it everywhere: hotel rooms, her parents' house, her daughter's couch. Her reason is that an unmade bed is something incomplete she would see every time she walked back into the bedroom.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: A Toolkit for Creating the Perfect Morning RoutineA full cup of water is step four of her morning routine, ahead of any coffee. She says she used to army-crawl to the Nespresso machine, and that switching the order is the one change that stopped her chasing caffeine all day.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 1 Morning Trick to Boost Motivation Fast
In their own words
Checked word for word against the linked source
“I always make my bed first thing in the morning because there's this momentum to just having it done. I walk into the bathroom, I have 16 ounces of water. I keep a mason jar right there, and I just drink 16 ounces of water. I look in the mirror, I high five myself into the day, and then I get outside and I take a minimum of a 10 minute walk.”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Boost Your Success in 2024: Top Tips (opens in a new tab) “I have been getting out of bed this way for 14 years and I still have to count backwards every single morning, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, because I don't like getting out of bed.”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: A Toolkit for Creating the Perfect Morning Routine (opens in a new tab) “I have gone from being a person who drinks coffee all day long to waking up and drinking a full cup of water. I'm not even craving the cup of coffee. I then enjoy a cup of coffee about 90 minutes to two hours later, and I don't ever need a second one.”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: 1 Morning Trick to Boost Motivation Fast (opens in a new tab) “It means I tuck my phone into the bathroom. I cannot have it next to me. I can't. I'm too impulsive. I am prone to procrastinating. I will avoid doing what's right for me.”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: 5 Night Habits to Boost Focus & Energy (opens in a new tab) “And so every single morning I take a cold shower. I start with a warm shower because I got to wash my hair and I'm not that brutal. I'm not stepping into an ice cold shower as the first thing.”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: 5 Tricks That Give You More Energy Instantly (opens in a new tab)
Episodes from the feed
Show archive, The Mel Robbins Podcast (opens in a new tab)Last fetched . A title without a link is an episode the feed publishes no page of its own for.
- Stop Making Excuses: How to Change Your Life Right Now (opens in a new tab) · 1h 16m
- Give Me 60 Minutes and I'll Eliminate Your Self-Doubt Forever with Benny Blanco (opens in a new tab) · 1h 1m
- A Doctor’s Gut Reset: 4-Part Protocol to Stop Bloating, Boost Energy, & Feel Better Now (opens in a new tab) · 1h 10m
- Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (opens in a new tab) · 1h 10m
- 30 Years of Marriage: 3 Things About Relationships I Wish Someone Told Me Sooner (opens in a new tab) · 1h 4m
Stack notes are paraphrased. Anything in quotation marks is a short excerpt copied from the transcript it links to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.