We finally did the thing this week. The car-bag thing. If you live anywhere it actually gets cold, you know exactly what I mean. The moment you finally take out the extra winter hats and the mismatched mittens and the one stray glove that’s been rolling around the floor of the trunk since October like a little fabric ghost. You replace it all with flip-flops and swimsuits and a couple of beach towels, and you feel a little bit like you’ve just permission-slipped your whole family into summer.

Once that bag is zipped, summer is on. The long evenings are back, the Minnesota winter is a distant memory, and I finally become the version of myself who keeps a stack of books on the nightstand, dirt under her fingernails most days, and a half-melted popsicle usually somewhere in the mix.

If you’ve ever sat down for coffee with me, you know what comes next. The day after, you’ll get twenty links from me. The book, the lip gloss, the podcast you have to hear right now. I can’t help it. If something’s good, I want everyone I love to have it too. Consider this that text from me to you, right before summer officially starts.

And before we go any further, summer is equal parts exciting and a lot. The kids are home, the schedule is wild, you can’t pee alone for three months, and the to-do list does not stop just because the school bus did. So this list isn’t for a woman with infinite time and a personal chef.

It’s for the woman trying to drink her coffee while it’s still warm, find one outfit that takes her from the farmers market to dinner with her in-laws without a full costume change, and feel a little bit like herself in the middle of the beautiful chaos. The simple pleasures are the whole game.

You’ll also find a section toward the end on the things I’ve stopped doing entirely. Because the older I get, the more convinced I am that less is the new luxury.

Pour something cold and let’s get into it.

Heads up: Heads up: this post contains affiliate links, which means if you click through and buy something, it doesn’t cost you a penny extra but does help support this blog. Win win.

The Biohacking Summer Stack (Free One First)

Welcome to my little wellness corner. Everything here is on my ongoing I-actually-use-this list. And I’m leading with the one that’s free, because if you only do one thing from this section, make it this one.

Grounding. Every morning I take my coffee outside and stand barefoot in the grass for about ten minutes before my phone enters the chat. That’s it. There’s actual science behind it (your body picks up free electrons from the earth that act as antioxidants), but more than that, it’s the cheapest nervous system reset I’ve ever found. By the time I come back in, I feel like a person who can take on the day instead of someone who needs to be coaxed into it. Free, ten minutes, life-changing.

Rho Nutrition for glutathione and magnesium, code JENNA for 15% off. The glutathione has been a quiet game-changer this year (it’s a master antioxidant that supports liver detox and skin clarity), and the magnesium is what I take before bed when my body is wired and my brain is going but did you remember to bring the towels in.

Ion Layer NAD+ injections, code JENNA for 20% off. NAD+ is a coenzyme your body uses for cellular energy and DNA repair, and levels drop dramatically as you age. Heading into a season of gardening, swimming, and hauling kids around at lake-wedding-pool speed, this is the one that gives me consistent energy without coffee.

My sauna and cold plunge ritual. Twenty minutes in the sauna at 185 degrees, three minutes in the cold plunge. I do this pretty much every day but even 2-3x a week is a huge benefit. The contrast therapy has done more for my recovery, my mood, and my sleep than any pill I’ve ever tried. This is the practice I’d protect first if life got busy, because it’s the one keeping all the other plates spinning.

The Sauna Blanket is the at-home version when I can’t get to the real thing. Twenty minutes wrapped up on the couch, sweating it out, and I come out the other side feeling like I just had three hours of sleep and a therapy session. The code: JENNA will drop in a discount for you!

The red light mask is my low-key skin saver. I’ll wear it while I read, while I scroll, while I’m on a call with my camera off. The cumulative effect over the last year is the thing that got me to stop apologizing for not wearing makeup most days. Use the code: JENNA to save some money.

The vibration plate is the one that surprised me. I stand on it for ten minutes most mornings while I drink coffee, and the lymphatic drainage, bone density support, and the very gentle workout it sneaks in have made it one of the only pieces of equipment in our house that gets used daily.

If you’re reading this list and thinking I don’t even know where I’d begin, I wrote something for you. Before I had any of this, I had no idea what biohacking actually meant or whether it was something a regular person could even do.

I started with exactly zero knowledge of what any of this meant, so I wrote a whole breakdown of the 8 beginner-friendly tools that moved the needle for me first. It’s the post I wish existed when I was googling “is biohacking just for tech bros” at 11pm. Read that one first.

The Clean Beauty Edit

I’m not a daily makeup person. Most days I’m in SPF and lip balm. But when I want to look slightly more pulled together (a date with Drew, or a school event where I want my girls to see me show up), I have a five-minute routine I do with the same handful of clean products and call it done.

This primer is the one product I’d never give up. It evens everything out, minimizes my pores, and makes whatever I do put on stay there through the heat, the humidity, and the kids.

This foundation is the one that genuinely changed my mind about clean foundation. It gives that airbrush feel I’d been chasing for years, lasts all day without sliding off in 90 degree heat, and (the part I never thought I’d find in a clean line) it’s actually buildable. Light coverage on a beach day, full coverage for a podcast recording, same bottle.

This bronzer is my summer cheat code. Matte and two shades in one compact that give me that just-came-back-from-the-lake glow without any of the orange or shimmer that usually ruin clean bronzers.

This blush is the cheat code on top of the cheat code. One dot on each cheek, blended with my finger, and I look like I’ve been outside (even when I haven’t). It also doubles as a lip stain if I’m in a rush.

This lip crayon is what I keep in my purse, the diaper bag, the car, and on my desk. Buildable color, longwearing, and one swipe is enough to make you look like you actually got dressed today even if you didn’t.

All five are from the same clean beauty line I’ve been using for years, and you can shop the whole collection here.

One quick aside: I’m in the middle of a hair-growing protocol right now and it deserves its own deep dive (coming to the blog soon). The short version is that less is more and I’m letting my hair just be its messy self in the meantime.

The Sleep Hygiene Rabbit Hole

This one needs its own section because I’ve gotten very into sleep this year, and the difference it’s made is the kind of thing you have to experience to believe. In order of how much it’s moved the needle for me.

Mouth tape every single night. I know. Stay with me. The first time someone told me to tape my mouth shut while I sleep, I thought they were joking. Then I tried it and woke up for the first time in my adult life without dry-mouth, without a sore throat, and feeling like I’d actually rested. Nasal breathing all night long is doing something to my sleep quality that no other intervention has matched. Start with one night.

A weighted eye mask. Pitch black is non-negotiable for deep sleep. I tried regular sleep masks for years and always got light leaks. The weighted version stays put, blocks everything, and the gentle pressure on my eyes settles my nervous system in a way I can’t explain.

Red light bulbs in our bedroom. We swapped out the regular bulbs about a year ago, and the difference in how my body feels at bedtime is real. Blue light wrecks melatonin production. Red light tells your body it’s actually night. Lowest-effort, biggest-payoff swap on this list. The code: JENNA will save you $$!

Blue light blockers for the hour before bed. I wear these every night while I read or finish whatever I’m working on, and I’ve stopped having those nights where I lie in bed for an hour with my eyes wide open wondering why I can’t fall asleep. If you use the code JENNA, you can save a few bucks on them (the girls even have a pair!) 

A specific pillow brand I’m obsessed with. I went through about six pillows in three years before I found this one. It supports my neck without being too firm, stays cool through the night, and it’s the first pillow I’ve ever had that I actually look forward to putting my head on. (Jenna to confirm brand.)

If you’re going to overhaul one part of your wellness routine this summer, make it your sleep. I wrote a Mom’s Guide to Biohacking Your Sleep (Even With Little Kids) if you want to go deeper because everything else gets easier when you’re actually rested.

The Skincare Lineup I Actually Use

I’ve been a Primally Pure loyalist for eight years now (use code JENNA for 15% off), and the lineup I keep buying has stayed steady over time (tried and true faves, over here!)

This cleansing oil is how I take off the day. It melts off makeup, sunscreen, and whatever else my face has accumulated in a way that leaves my skin softer than it was before, not stripped. The smell alone is worth the bottle.

This everything spray lives up to the name. I use it as a toner, a mid-day refresh, a primer before makeup, and (the unexpected one) on sunburns.

This clarifying serum is the one that actually healed my adult acne, and I’m not exaggerating. After years of trying everything, this is the bottle I credit with the fact that I can show up to a podcast recording without makeup and feel fine about it.

This clarifying cream is what calms a breakout overnight. Drew has stolen mine so many times that I now order two at a time.

This mineral sunscreen is the one I slather on the girls and on myself every single day, and what I love about it (besides the fact that it’s clean) is that it actually rubs in. Which any mom who has ever fought a four-year-old to apply mineral sunscreen knows is the entire ballgame.

This tea tree deodorant finally answered the years-long question of whether a clean deodorant could actually keep up with a summer day. This one does.

This baby balm is technically for the kids, but I steal it constantly. Skinned knees, dry cuticles, lip chap, tiny eczema patches. There’s one in every bathroom and one in my purse.

A very, very wide-brimmed hat. Hear me out. I have spent more on skincare than I’d care to admit, and the single most effective thing I’ve added to my skin routine this year wasn’t a product. It was a hat. A genuinely huge, almost-comical wide brim that keeps my entire face and neck in shade no matter what time of day it is. I wear it in the garden, on walks, at the lake. I may look like I’m cosplaying as a 1940s gardener and I do not care. The sun damage you don’t get is worth more than every laser treatment combined.

If you’ve been curious about clean skincare but didn’t know where to start, the cleansing oil and the clarifying serum are the two products I’d recommend first. Shop the whole line here.

Currently on My Nightstand

There are three books on rotation right now and they each scratch a different itch.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer is doing something to my brain that I’m going to be sitting with for a while. Robin is a botanist and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and the book is her weaving Indigenous wisdom together with the science of plants in a way that’s made me look at the seeds I’ve been planting all spring (over six hundred of them, but who’s counting) very differently. I’m reading it slowly on purpose. If you read one book this summer with a cold something next to you, make it this one.

Great Big Beautiful Life is the most recent Reese’s Book Club pick, and it’s what I’m cracking open when I want to fully fall into a story. Emily Henry does the dual-timeline thing better than almost anyone writing right now, and this one is set on an island, which feels like the only place a book like this is supposed to be read.

The Secret Garden is the current book I’m ready aloud to my seven year old at bedtime. There’s a chapter where the garden is starting to come back to life after years of being shut up behind a wall, and I read it out loud while my daughter listened, and I just sat there in her bedroom going yeah, okay, I know that feeling. Reading a book I loved as a kid to my kid is doing something to my heart I can’t fully explain.

What I’m Wearing All Summer Long

Every single one of my swimsuits is from Left on Friday and I am not even slightly being dramatic. I’m team brown everything this year, and the hack I want to give you, free, my gift to you, is that almost everything in their swim line mixes and matches with their athleisure pieces.

Which means I can roll out of bed, throw on the same set, do a workout, get sweaty, change exactly one piece, and walk straight to the beach without going home in between. Swap the shorts, keep the top, grab the cover-up, go. The fabric doesn’t get weird after fifty washes, the cuts are flattering on a body that’s actually lived in, and the brand is woman-owned. If you only buy one thing from this entire post, make it a Left on Friday swimsuit.

For everything else, I’ve gotten really into Rent the Runway. The trick that’s made it actually work for me is that I rent with the question of maybe I’ll buy a few pieces (which you can do at a discount if you fall in love with something), and I always toss in one or two fancier items for any events I have that month. It’s been the best way I’ve found to test new staples without committing, dress up for things without buying a closet full of one-time outfits, and have fresh clothes in rotation without the I have nothing to wear spiral.

The De-Influenced List

I’m not going to pretend I haven’t tried a thousand things that didn’t stick. So before this post turns into a list of everything I’m spending money on, here’s the shorter list of things I’ve actually stopped doing. The things I let go of because they weren’t making my life better, and you don’t have to feel behind for not doing them either.

I stopped getting my nails done. Instead, I do them at home now, and most of the time there’s actual dirt under them from the garden. I want them to breath and look like hands that grow things, not hands that get filled and filed every two weeks. The garden manicure is the new manicure.

I stopped worrying about my hair. I’m in the middle of a hair-growing protocol, which means a lot of days my hair is just not the priority. So I throw on a hat (refer to the wide-brimmed one above) and get on with my life. Dirty hair, hat, day saved.

I stopped counting calories, tracking macros, all of it. What I focus on now is protein and real food, ideally grown from the earth, even more ideally grown by me. I cannot tell you how much energy I got back the moment I stopped doing math on every meal. Eat the food. Move your body. Sleep enough. The rest works itself out.

I stopped buying every laser device on the internet. I tried a lot of them. Home lasers, fancy face wands, microcurrent everything. And then I noticed that the times my skin looked the best were the times I’d been outside the most, slept the best, and stopped touching my face. Skincare matters. Sleep matters more. Nature matters most.

The unifying theme, if you’re looking for one, is that less is the new luxury. The more I let go of, the better my life gets. That’s the whole post in one sentence.

My Summer Mindset

I don’t take summer lightly anymore. When you live somewhere that’s frozen six months of the year, summer becomes the thing you’ve been waiting for the whole time you’ve been waiting. The first 70 degree day in May feels like winning the lottery. The first night you can leave the windows open feels like getting permission. And I’m done apologizing for treating it like a holy season, because it is.

I don’t take summer lightly anymore. When you live somewhere that’s frozen six months of the year, summer becomes the thing you’ve been waiting for the whole time you’ve been waiting. The first 70 degree day in May feels like winning the lottery. The first night you can leave the windows open feels like getting permission. And I’m done apologizing for treating it like a holy season, because it is.

So this summer I’m reading slowly, putting sunscreen on my kids, wearing the giant hat with zero shame, and finding any excuse to be outside. The thing I love most, the one I genuinely cannot get enough of, is laying on the warm sand at the lake until my back is hot, then getting up and walking straight into the cold water until I feel my whole body wake up. 

That’s it. That’s the summer for me. I hope you find your version of it. Whatever yours looks like, please don’t wait for the perfect moment to start! 

Want More of My Summer Thoughts?

I’m writing weekly over on Substack now, where I share the longer, more personal stuff I don’t always put on the blog. The wandering thoughts, the harder questions, the conversations I’m having with friends across the dinner table. Click here to join me on Substack.

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