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"While the world sleeps": youtime for Nina Karnikowski

I’m still not sure whether it’s a blessing or a curse, but for years now my body’s internal alarm clock has been set for 5am.  

I think it started as a by-product of jet lag, during my years of travelling internationally upwards of ten times a year as a travel writer, but it’s now as ingrained in me as the birthmark on my left thigh. 

Thankfully, waking under the stars has allowed me to implement a handful of rituals that help me feel calm and in control in an increasingly destabilised world. They help me get myself clear, help me knit myself back together when I’m feeling frayed, and give shape, rhythm and flow to my days. Here are the rituals I find most indispensable.

After slipping into my office in the dark, I make myself a small pot of Chinese red tea and sit cross-legged at my writing table. On good days, I slowly pour myself three bowls of tea, simply focusing on the steam rising from the bowl, the earthy taste in my mouth, and my breath as I sip. 

I learnt this ceremonial tea practice from Sam Gibb, founder of Cloud Hidden Tea, who runs regular tea ceremonies in Bundjalung country where I live in northern NSW. I also try to remember what Sam taught me about giving thanks to the rain, sun and wind that brought the tea plants into existence, as I drink.

If I start my day without emptying the contents of my fizzy brain into my journal for 20 minutes or so, I always feel a bit unmoored. It’s a powerful way of navigating my (sometimes treacherous) emotional landscape, of clearing some of the 70,000 thoughts that supposedly whiz through our heads each day, and of making sense of the world. This is the ritual I’m most passionate about sharing, and have started to teach it via workshops and online courses (link to ninakarnikowski.com) and mentoring over the past two years. Sometimes I use prompts (starting every sentence with I’m thinking, or I’m feeling, is a simple one), other days I just free-flow. It’s usually not beautiful writing, but it is always honest, and that’s the most important thing.

I sit with a local Zen monk on Zoom once a week, to meditate and listen to his fascinating dharma talks on Zen philosophy, and I try to sit in meditation at least once a day after journaling. Despite having meditated on and off for most of my adult life, and having sat numerous long meditation retreats, I still find this difficult. But the practice of simply observing my thoughts without clinging to them really challenges my monkey mind, and also changes how I experience reality, so I persist.

I can’t sit down to work without moving my body. Some mornings I go for a run with some fun, loud disco music, others I stroll to the beach with our maremma dog Milka to walk and swim in the ocean, others still I get to a yoga class or practice yoga at home. I just need to get my blood flowing, to shift any stagnancy out of my body so I can then find the discipline to sit at my desk and write for the day.


In Ayurvedic medicine, I have an excess of vata energy – which basically means I have too much air in my system and need to ground down. For breakfast, then, which I usually don’t eat until after 9am, I eat things that aren’t usually considered breakfast foods. Japanese bowls with brown rice, eggs, miso, spinach and pickles; Indian curries with mango chutney and spiced yoghurt; or my husband’s delicious Spanish omelettes. I’ll often add a simple nut-milk smoothie – cashews, macadamia butter, banana, blueberries and chia seeds.

I’m going to blame the vata imbalance for this too, but I really love bathing as a way of anchoring myself. Anywhere, anytime, but particularly in the morning if I can swing it (which I usually only can on weekends). We plumbed hot water into a bath in our garden recently - it seemed very indulgent given we were broke at the time, but gosh it was worth every penny. I add a few scoops of Epsom salts with some crushed lemon myrtle leaves from the garden, leave my phone in the house and just float there watching the birds do their thing in the eucalypts overhead. I’m never as present as I am in the bath.


Author, travel writer and Youtimer Nina Karnikowski inspires us with her purposeful morning rituals: From making a ceremony of her pre-dawn tea, to daily journaling, and al fresco bathing in her backyard. 

This is a botanical blend of white tea, delicate flowers and naturally sweet goji berries. Individually hand gathered, white tea is the new young leaves from the camellia sinensis plant.
 It is renowned for its high antioxidant content, and has less caffeine than green tea. Hibiscus flowers, rose petals, and rose hips bring this beautiful blend to life, offering a clean body, with a light, refreshing flavour.
 HOW TO USE START
 Place 1 pyramid into a cup (250ml) and add boiling, filtered water at 65ºc–75ºc. Allow to infuse for 3–4 minutes, and then remove the bag and serve.
 HOW TO USE END
 INGREDIENTS START
 Certified Organic Ingredients White tea (Camellia sinensis), Rose (Rosa Centifolia), Rosehips (Rosa Canina), Goji Berries (Lycium barbarum), Hibiscus (Hibiscus sabdariffa)
 INGREDIENTS END
 EDITORS NOTES START
 A family run business that places purpose and core values at the heart of all they do. From a commitment to transparency in their endeavours to source all ingredients from sustainable and fair trade origins, and meaningfully and positively impact the lives of growers and their families, to supporting the individual on a journey to wellness by creating products that offer optimum therapeutic benefit - and taste delicious.
 EDITORS NOTES END

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White Rose Goji Pyramid Tea Bags

Default Title

Loose leaf tea can easily be brewed at home, at work or on the go with this practical and elegant, mug infuser.
 It can be used in a cup, mug or teapot and also has a convenient lid, that can be used to hold your infuser when you have finished brewing your tea. It is made from stainless steel to remain durable.
 HOW TO USE START
 Care: We recommend washing your infuser by hand in fresh warm water avoiding detergents where possible.
 HOW TO USE END
 MATERIAL START
 Width: 10.5cm Height: 7.5cm
 MATERIAL END
 EDITORS NOTES START
 A family run business that places purpose and core values at the heart of all they do. From a commitment to transparency in their endeavours to source all ingredients from sustainable and fair trade origins, and meaningfully and positively impact the lives of growers and their families, to supporting the individual on a journey to wellness by creating products that offer optimum therapeutic benefit - and taste delicious.
 EDITORS NOTES END

Love Tea Mug Infuser

Ritual Diffuser Oil - Refresh

Nine months ago I walked into my doctor’s office and, my voice and hands shaking with emotion, told him I needed a referral to a psychologist. 

When he asked why, I described my lack of focus, my looping thoughts about imminent planetary collapse, and my inability to make important life decisions – including whether or not to have a baby, and if I should change careers – because of their environmental impacts.



The sense of impending doom I felt was triggered almost daily when I read the news, I told him, full of reports about wildfires, floods, and species extinctions. 

But it started on a travel assignment to the Arctic in 2019, when I saw first-hand the effects our consumptive habits were having on the polar bears, and only worsened with the catastrophic 2020 bushfires and the pandemic. 

My doctor looked at me with sympathy in his eyes and said, “More and more patients are coming to me with this sort of eco-anxiety.”

Eco-anxiety. Now that I had a term for my feelings and knew I wasn’t the only one experiencing them, I immediately felt less… crazy, and also less alone. 

As I soon discovered, nearly six in 10 young people (aged 16 to 25) are extremely worried about climate change, according to a large study conducted by the University of Bath in 2021. 

And this worry is only exacerbated by the cognitive dissonance we experience between our feelings of devastation, and our powerlessness at being able to effectively act on such a huge global issue.

The good news, though, is that the sadness, emptiness and overwhelm caused by eco-anxiety can spur us to take action, and to strengthen our relationship with the earth. 

As Megan Kennedy-Woodard and Patrick Kennedy-Williams write in their new book Turn the Tide on Climate Anxiety, “Accepting the realities of the climate crisis goes hand in hand with accepting the strong emotions it generates. How we learn to manage these emotions and evoke them to strengthen our wellbeing can also positively impact the planet.”

I’ve certainly found this to be the case. Since that visit to my doctor, I found a great therapist who helped me to turn towards my emotions and use them to try to create a better world, and to discover ways of balancing care for the planet with care for the self. Here are five of them.

It’s important to accept your anxiety and let it run its course, while simultaneously holding a hopeful vision of the future. 

As Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac write in The Future We Choose; Surviving the Climate Crisis, “There is a power to consciously bearing witness to all that is unfolding without turning away, and counterintuitively, you may actually feel better about the situation when you deeply accept the reality of it. 

And beyond this, we also then need to look to the future and set our sights on what we can still create.”

Staying informed is crucial, but so is getting mental space from the bad news and carving out time for self-care. 

Try setting a limit on the amount of news you consume each day (five or 10 minutes is really all you need), and developing a meditation or yoga or journaling practice. 

Whatever will help you switch off, find some peace, and get to know your own mind. Because thoughts become actions, and these actions create our future.

How do we deal with a sense of impending doom and feelings of powerlessness as the climate crisis unfolds? Author Nina Karnikowski shares her experience of Eco-Anxiety.

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Having worked as a travel writer for the past decade, Nina Karnikowski is now on her greatest adventure yet: making her and her readers’ travels more conscious, and less harmful for the planet. 

The author of Go Lightly: How to Travel Without Hurting the Planet and Make a Living Living: Be Successful Doing What You Love, Nina works at the convergence of creativity and sustainability, and is dedicated to helping people discover less impactful ways of travelling and living. 

She also teaches regular writing and creativity workshops, both in-person and online, focused on deepening connections to Self and the Earth.

As we dip our toes back into international waters, the time is ripe to consider how we might make our travels more meaningful and less harmful for the environment, and leave the places we visit better than when we arrived, writes author, travel writer and sustainability advocate Nina Karnikowski.

Ritual Brass Incense Holder - Sphere

Organic Whey + Raw Cacao Protein Powder - 400g

Smokeless Ritual Incense - Ground

Deliver nourishment to parched skin with this nutrient-rich face oil formulated to soften and hydrate dry skin without greasiness.
 Avocado oil has antioxidant-rich properties while rosehip face oil helps reduce the appearance of lines, age spots and scars.
 Formulated with entrancing fragrance of ylang ylang, sweet orange, and jasmine. The ultimate anti-aging treatment for stressed skin.
 HOW TO USE START
 Gently rub a few drops into your face, neck, and décolletage, paying special attention to lines and scars.
 HOW TO USE END
 INGREDIENTS START
 Persea americana (Avocado Pear) Oil*, Simmondsia chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil*, Macadamia integrifolia (Macadamia) Nut Oil*, Rosa rubiginosa (Rosehip) Seed Oil*, Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Helianthus annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil. Fragrance of sweet orange, ylang ylang and jasmine: benzyl alcohol, benzyl benzoate†, benzyl salicylate†, citral, citronellol†, d-Limonene†, eugenol, farnesol†, geraniol†, isoeugenol†, linalool†. *Certified organic by BioGro
 INGREDIENTS END
 EDITORS NOTES START
 <meta charset="utf-8">Antipodes harnesses the power of certified organic, premium botanicals to lovingly guide the skin through the ageing process. 
 The award-winning vegan beauty range is formulated using ingredients sourced from sustainable growers around New Zealand and is tested using in-vitro scientific investigations and clinical trials, ensuring their efficacy.
 EDITORS NOTES END

Divine Face Oil Rosehip & Avocado Oil 30ml

This nourishing highly adaptive herb helps balance the nervous system, improves brain function, elevates immunity, and through its effects on the overall harmony of the body, assists those who consume it in remaining youthful, both in appearance and physiology.
 Also known as a ‘beauty berry’ of the Orient, schizandra was used by ancient Chinese royalty to preserve youthfulness, enhance physical radiance, boost desire, and as a potent reproductive tonic.
 SuperFeast's carefully dual-extracted schizandra is sourced from China's Changbai Mountains.
 HOW TO USE START Adults, mix 200mg in 250ml warm water &amp; drink immediately. Take three times a day. Stir into hot water or plant milk for an instant tonic tea. Works well in hot or cold drinks, broths and meals. HOW TO USE END
 INGREDIENTS START Ingredients Schisandra chinensis (Schisandra) berry dry extract 200mg / 250ml Equivalent to dry fruit 2g INGREDIENTS END
 
 EDITORS NOTES START
 SuperFeast source their ingredients Di Dao - from their ancestral homeland (China for Daoist herbs and India for Ayurvedic herbs), specifically from their region where the herbs naturally thrive.
 Using the best processing and extraction methods, the products are housed in Miron biophotonic glass which filters light to best protect and preserve the medicinal properties of the herbs.
 
 EDITORS NOTES END

Schizandra 100g

Having worked as a travel writer for the past decade, Nina Karnikowski is now on her greatest adventure yet: making her and her readers’ travels more conscious, and less harmful for the planet.

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