It’s 2:17 in the morning. The house is quiet, and you’re wide awake. Your heart is thumping like you just ran up the stairs, and your brain decided that this is the perfect moment to replay that awkward thing you said at a party in 2019.
I know you know what I’m talking about. You roll over, you try to breathe, you do the box breathing, and then you check the clock again, and it’s now 2:42. And now you’re actually doing the math on how many hours you have left to sleep before the alarm goes off. Look, trust me, I know this. I’ve done it, okay?
Then the alarm goes off, and you feel like you have been hit by a truck. You drag yourself to the coffee pot. You get through the day on caffeine and willpower, and by, I don’t know, 9:30, 10:00 PM, you’re wide awake. You’re scrolling. You’re reorganizing your junk drawer. You’re vacuuming the house. And your mind is racing So if any of that sounds like you, I want you to know something.
This is not a random thing. It’s not just how you are. It’s not just aging. This is your body sending you a very clear message, and that messenger has a name, and that name is cortisol. And today we’re gonna learn its language. Okay? So welcome to the Rebel Nutritionist podcast, and I am excited to have you here.
I am Meryl Brandwein. And why does this matter so much? Because, A, many, many years ago, I lived this, and, B, I have just about every client who deals with this. So what we’re gonna talk about today, we’re not just gonna do surface stuff. We’re gonna talk about why cortisol… Really, why now? Because here’s the thing: it is all over the place, and it is all over the place, and it’s very misunderstood.
It’s one of the most misunderstood hormones that I can think of. So this is gonna be a two-part series. We’re gonna talk about what cortisol does, what its daily rhythm is, and what may be overloading it. And on the next episode, we’re gonna talk about what to do with it, food, of course, the rhythm, your mindset.
So buckle up, because for the next hour, you’re gonna understand your body in a way that most people don’t ever get explained to them. And hopefully you’ll be a little kinder to yourself by the end, and maybe you’ll start to see stress in a completely different way, because that is really important to me.
I think we just give stress lip service, and we talk about it or we just dismiss it, and I think it’s really important that we don’t do that anymore. So what we’re gonna talk about, your roadmap is, for today, is gonna be the four jobs that cortisol does for you every day, why the timing matters more than the actual number, the stress bucket, and we’re gonna talk about that.
We’re gonna actually talk about these faucets and what that 2:00, 3:00 AM wake-up is about. So here’s what I want you to do. I actually want you to grab a notebook, either on your notes app or, or if you like, if you’re a writer like me, write this stuff down. Grab a notebook, and then we’re gonna do a little exercise because I want you to really pay attention and dig in deep on this.
So let’s talk about cortisol and some of its misunderstood… It is a hero in the long run. Okay? So as I mentioned, cortisol has become literally the internet and social media’s most favorite villain. Okay? You’re scrolling, you hear about cortisol face, you hear about cortisol belly, you hear about cortisol lowering mocktails, cortisol detox teas.
I mean, you name it, right? You’d think it was this really bad guy that you need to flush out of our bodies. And so guess what? Cortisol is actually not your enemy. Without it, you would literally not make it through the day. You would die . Okay? And look, there are people who actually need to take medication to help cortisol help them stay alive.
But, you know, that’s not what we’re talking about, okay? , Essentially, cortisol is a hormone made by your body, specifically your adrenal glands, which are the two tiny glands that sit on top of your kidneys, and your brain decides how much to make. So it’s constantly reading your environment. It’s reading your blood sugar.
It’s reading you in your sleep, in your thoughts, and it’s constantly adjusting. And it’s called the stress hormone, but maybe a better name is the readiness hormone because its job is to make sure you have the energy and the resources to meet whatever the day is throwing at you. So I wanna walk you through the big jobs that cortisol does for you every single day because I think once you understand what it’s trying to do, everything else that we talk about starts to click, and I think unders- you can understand it a little bit better.
So number one, its job, first job, is to wake you up and power and help power you through the day. So basically, cortisol is your built-in alarm clock. And it doesn’t wait for your alarm to go off. It really doesn’t, okay? In the early hours before you wake up, so maybe it’s 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, your brain starts signaling for cortisol to rise.
And in some people, it could even be earlier. But then in the first 30 to 45 minutes after you kinda open your eyes, it surges. So this morning burst is called the cortisol awakening response. And for those of you that have had it tested, you’ll see it on some of the panels that we run. But what the surge does for you, it literally nudges your blood sugar up so your brain and your muscles have fuel to get moving for the day, okay?
It raises your blood pressure slightly, so you don’t get dizzy when you stand up out of bed. It switches on alertness and focus so you can think, plan, and engage, okay? And it runs on a clock. Your brain has a master clock that follows light and dark, and this is something we’re gonna continue to talk about through this episode.
But morning light is one of the strongest signals that tells your brain it’s daytime and it’s time to release cortisol. So picture it like this. Cortisol is the person who’s walking through your house in the morning, opening all the curtains, flips on the light, and starts the coffee. It’s the signal to your whole body that the day has begun.
But when this job gets off track, you wake up groggy, and you feel like that for hours. You feel like you need caffeine to function, or you feel like your on switch doesn’t get flipped until noon, right? That is a clue that your morning surge, your morning awakening response isn’t happening the way it’s supposed to.
So job number two, it keeps your blood sugar steady. Your brain is super hungry, and it runs on glucose. That’s it. Mostly glucose. And your brain does not wanna run low, not even for a little while. So when you haven’t eaten in a while between meals or overnight, right, or during a workout, cortisol makes sure your blood sugar doesn’t drop too low.
So in plain English, it basically tells your liver to make new sugar using the building blocks from protein and stored fat. So it’ll temporarily make your cells a little less responsive to insulin, so more sugar stays in your blood for your brain, which is brilliant if you think about that survival mode from our ancestors, ancestors because food wasn’t always available.
So cortisol was part of how humans survived long gaps in between meals. Cortisol is like your body’s backup generator, okay? When the power from your last meal runs out, it kicks on, and it literally keeps the lights on. But when this job is on overtime, right? Now let’s think about what happens when there’s cortisol constantly being called in to rescue blood sugar, right?
Whether you’ve skipped a meal, whether you’ve had sugar crashes, chronic stress. That less responsive to insulin effect, when I mentioned it’s less responsive to insulin, it sticks around and it stays there, and over time that can contribute to insulin resistance, more sugar cravings, and more fat stored around the belly.
So people think insulin resistance only comes from you actually eating sugar or too much sugar. No, no, no, no, no. It can be from this type of cortisol response. And I think the part that people miss is in order to make that new sugar, cortisol can break down muscle. Makes, breaks, breaks down muscle protein.
So chronically high cortisol can eat away at your muscle, the very tissue that keeps your metabolism strong. So again, think about this. If you’re the person who isn’t eating enough and you are super stressed, and then you’re in the gym and you’re wondering why you can’t build muscle, it’s not just menopause, it’s not just aging, it is this whole cortisol physiology.
So when people talk about the cortisol belly, all right, there’s a kernel, there’s a piece of truth to this, but the answer isn’t a supplement, right? It’s asking, why is my body calling in the backup generator so often? So I want you to think about that and sit with that. Job three is that it calms inflammation and it directs your immune system.
So here’s something that I don’t think most people know, is that some of the most powerful anti-inflammatory medicines in the world, things like hydrocortisone cream and prednisone, are built to copy cortisol So what’s happening? When you get injured or sick, your immune system creates inflammation actually as a protection.
It’s to fight off any bacteria, any bad guys, anything that’s happening, and it’s for healing. So cortisol is the referee that steps in and says, “Okay, that’s enough. Calm down.” And why does it matter? Because inflammation is supposed to be a short-term response to an accident, to something, right? To, to a trauma.
So cortisol helps make sure It switches off once the job is done so the inflammation doesn’t damage healthy tissue. Think of your immune system as the crew of firefighters, okay? Inflammation is them spraying the water. Cortisol is the captain who says, “The fire’s out.
Turn off the hoses,” so you’re not flooding the entire house. This is the part that really shocks people because in the short term, more cortisol means less inflammation. But in the long term, when cortisol stays high for weeks or for months, your immune cells stop listening to it.
It’s kinda like the car alarm that’s going off every day, hour after hour, rawr, rawr, right? And you just don’t hear it. And so this is actually called, in the research, this is known as glucocorticoid resistance, and the result is that inflammation actually goes up even when there’s plenty of cortisol around.
We kinda equate that, equate this to, like, insulin resistance, right? There’s a lot of insulin, but your cells aren’t taking it in. So chronic stress can leave you catching every cold, healing more slowly, seeing flares in skin issues or allergies or autoimmune symptoms. And so stress can make you inflamed and run down at the same time, and that’s not a contradiction.
Think about the referee who’s been shouting so long no one’s listening anymore, okay? Job number four is it sharpens your focus and prioritizes survival. So think about this. Someone cuts you off in traffic, and before you even thought about it, your hands grip the wheel, your foot hits the brake, your heart is pounding.
That’s your stress response. I know that has happened to me so many times, right? Cortisol is part of that team. Like, you feel it, right? Adrenaline is that instant spark in seconds, the racing heartbeat, the fast breathing, the quick reflexes. So cortisol is the follow-through, like, minutes to hours.
It keeps your energy available and your focus sharp so you can deal with the situation And what cortisol prioritizes in a moment of stress, your body decides what matters most right now and what can wait. So what gets turned up is your energy, your focus, your alertness, and your memory for the stressful event.
Like, that’s why you remember exactly where you were during a scary or traumatic moment. Okay? But what happens also is those things are turn up, turned up, and digestion, reproduction, repair, and growth, these are turned down because these are not survival. These are the, “I can do this later,” kinda job. You follow?
So your body is basically saying, “Well, we’ll digest lunch and think about making babies when we’re safe, but right now we need to deal with this.” So this explains so much, right? If you’re thinking about it. If your body thinks it’s in a stressful situation all day, every day, those later jobs like digestion, and reproduction, and repair, they keep getting pushed to the back burner.
So this can show up as bloating, as constipation, as a sensitive stomach, like that you are allergic to everything all of a sudden. Irregular menstrual cycles, worsening PMS, low libido, fertility struggles, slower recovery from workouts or when you get injured, and yep, brain fog, for- forgetfulness because in the long run, too much cortisol can actually wear on the parts of the brain that are involved in memory.
So again, the… I hear this all day, “I have brain fog, I have brain fog, I have brain fog, my memory isn’t good.” Well, again, it is not just aging, it is not just estrogen, it’s not just menopause. Okay? Could that be a part of it? 100%. But it is not the be all, end all. So everything works in tandem with the body.
I’m not saying it’s just cortisol either. But when someone’s saying to me, “My gut is a mess, my cycle’s all over the place, and I can’t remember why I walked into the room,” I am not just thinking about their gut or their hormones. I am wondering what their body thinks it’s surviving. Okay? So let’s look at the big picture.
Cortisol is like your body’s fire department. When there’s a real fire, you want them there fast, sirens on, hoses out, ready to go. That is a good thing. But imagine if the firetrucks never left. Parked in your driveway, sirens going day and night. I mean, eventually, your whole neighborhood will stop functioning normally.
Okay? Forget about your house. So let’s talk about the off switch. Your brain is supposed to notice when cortisol has done its job and then dial it back and calm down. That is the off switch. And, and under short bursts of stress, this system works perfectly. The alarm goes off, you handle it, deal with it, alarm turns off.
But when that stress never lets up, that off switch gets sluggish, and your… So your body isn’t malfunctioning. It’s doing what it is designed to do, just for far longer than it was designed to do it So look, I can tell you I lived this. I wanna say when I first moved to Florida back down, I don’t know, this is 20 years ago, I was this, I had just moved, I had three small kids, I was, I was building a business, on, on, on, go, go, go.
And I, I knew, right? Being in this business, I knew what was going on, and I started testing my cortisol and, um, at that point I knew it wasn’t other hormones, I knew it was mainly the cortisol. And I started… This is where a lot of my practice with the mindfulness and the mindset work and all of this started to come into play if cortisol itself isn’t the problem, this is where so many conversations just get it totally wrong.
It’s not just about how much cortisol you have, it’s about when you have it. We get so stuck in the, “I have so much cortisol. I am…” And what I’m gonna tell you also is a lot of times we don’t even recognize the stress because we may not be feeling… I see this all day long, and this was something that I actually felt.
I didn’t necessarily, I didn’t feel like my body felt stressed. I mean, I was symptomatic. But a lot of people say this, “I don’t feel stressed,” but I’m gonna tell you, your body holds stress in many, many ways, okay? So let’s go into the rhythm of cortisol because it’s not always the number. Let’s think about…
I like to do analogies because I think it’s important, you know, when we talk about really, deep concepts or complicated biochem- like this is all biochemistry and biology, so, you know, for those of you that don’t always want the data and aren’t the science… You know, I always hear this all the time, like, “Stop giving us the science, science.”
So I’m trying to make the science easy. So picture a wave at the beach, right? Early in the morning you have a big swell, it rises up, right? That’s your cortisol giving you energy through the day. And then in the afternoon, the wave slowly rolls out. Obviously, waves don’t work like this, but, uh, but I want you to think about the big swell and then it comes in and then it rolls out, right?
And then by bedtime you’ve got this calm, flat water. And about midnight, cortisol is, is at its lowest point of the whole day, right? So you think about the rhythm. The wave comes up, it goes down, it slowly goes back, and then it’s flat. So early in the morning before you wake, cortisol starts climbing in the last few hours of sleep getting you ready to wake.
The first 30 to 45 minutes of waking you got the big surge, the peak alertness, the energy, I’m ready to go. And late morning to afternoon you got a gradual decline and maybe small bumps. You get these little swells because you’re eating, you’re exercising, or maybe you even had a stressful meeting. Like, that’s normal, some of those little things, right?
And then in the evening the wave goes out, cortisol keeps dropping making room for rest. And again, in the nighttime cortisol hits its lowest point and your body shifts into repair mode So if you think about the morning surge, it isn’t just about waking up. It’s your body preparing for the day ahead.
Some research even suggests the size of the surge reflects how much your body expects to face that day. Like, this is how innately smart your body is, right? So if you’re waking up and you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck for three hours every day, that’s information. And, you know, the things that can blunt, the things that s- shorten that wave is poor or short sleep, long-term chronic stress, staying indoors in dim light all morning, and sleeping in very late on the weekends.
Like, that, your circadian rhythm doesn’t like that disruption. Um, and then the nighttime, it’s like the seesaw, right? At night, cortisol is supposed to come down, and as cortisol comes down, melatonin, your sleep hormone, is starting to rise. So they sit on a seesaw. One goes up, the other goes down. But if cortisol doesn’t come down, your sleep can’t come in, and you can take all the melatonin you want, but if cortisol is still sitting on the other high end of that seesaw, it’s gonna be a rough night.
So one of the things I always tell my clients, what we know on average is melatonin is produced between the hours of 10:00 PM and 2:00 AM. So if you are not getting into bed ready with that calm, flat wave, right, then your cortisol , is still pumping and melatonin can’t come up. So what’s keeping your cortisol up at night?
Things like your bright lights and your screens, late afternoon or intense workouts, big late dinners or alcohol, and this is a big one, work emails before before bed or deadlines. , And an unwinding brain that never got a chance to process the day Right? These are out of sync patterns.
So I want you to be honest with yourself here. Does any of this sound like you? Okay, um, in, in terms of what I’ve been saying. And I wanna show you two different patterns. So here’s what I want you to really pay attention to, because two patterns, which one sounds more like you if you’re, if you’re resonating with some of this?
Okay, let’s go into pattern number one. Tired but wired. We see this all the time, right? You drag yourself through the morning, you gotta get your coffee to get going. You need a- another coffee after lunch ’cause you’re starting to dip, and you got that sweet craving around 3:00 or 4:00, right? Then 10:00 PM hits and now you’re awake, and you’re reorganizing the pantry, and you’re scrolling on your phone, and your brain is buzzing with ideas, with worries.
Like, that is that wave flipped upside down. Literally. It’s low when it should be high, and it’s high when it should be low. What are the common signs to look for? Hard to wake up in the morning, the afternoon crashes, your second wind at night, trouble falling asleep or feeling like you’re on edge. People oftentimes feel that anxiety at night and they don’t know why.
This is why. Okay? And where do we see this? Busy parents. Like, I get it. I was that busy parent, right? People working late or on screens late at night. High achievers who finally relax only after everyone’s in bed. And I see this all the time. I see this with moms who have kids in school who are not going to sleep until their kids go to sleep.
I mean, they, you know, they gotta check everything in the house. Like, this is a real thing, okay? Pattern number two is running on fumes. Like you’re tired when you wake up, you’re tired at lunch, you’re tired at night. There is no surge. There is no spark. And maybe you fall asleep okay, but you’re waking up unrefreshed, and everything feels like it’s taking way more effort than it should- should.
So what are the common signs of this? Low motivation, getting sick more often, feeling flat or like you have a low mood or like this just I’m just going through life kinda thing, right? You’re craving salt. You’re craving sugar, and you are struggling to handle even the smallest of stressors.
When do we see this? After a long stretch of high stress. If you’re a caregiver, this is a big one. If you’re taking care of a family member or a friend, like this is real. Burnout, illnesses like grief or years of the tired but wired scenario I just mentioned because you can’t burn a candle at both ends.
You can’t be tired and wired for that long. You’ll eventually go into the I’m in the crash and I’m just always tired, okay? So I wanna be really clear- clear. Like this isn’t your body giving up on you. This is your body actually trying to conserve because think about this. After a long time on high alert, it turns the volume down so it’s protecting you.
This is survival. It’s adapting, and it- it’s adapting over and over and over. And then so this is why like when you test one lab marker, if you’re testing cortisol in the morning, and we do that. But when I see signs of this, you know, you gotta go deeper. So what I really wish more people knew is that two people can get the same normal cortisol result on a blood test and feel completely different.
This is why we say normal numbers or even high numbers, like it’s not always accurate because a single morning blood draw is a snapshot of one moment of the day. So remember, you’re getting a morning snapshot, but remember that wave, right? It goes through cycles. So it’s not gonna show you the shape of your wave.
And so we use, again, there’s many, many tests that we use, but we typically use saliva or dried urine a- across samples across the day so that we know w- what we’re looking at, right? And we’re gonna look at that, and we’ll look at more of the patterns in, in this segment is, in the second episode on this, right?
But your own daily experience is data. I always say you gotta treat the person, not the paper. So how are you feeling at 7:00 AM? How are you feeling at 3:00 PM? How are you feeling at 10:00 PM, right? Write that down for a week, and you’re gonna start to notice your wave, okay? So all right. Let’s go into the whole adrenal fatigue thing, okay?
Because you’ve heard this too, and I’m sure I’ve said it, and it’s not wrong, right? Let’s get this straight. Okay? The idea that your adrenal glands are just getting tired and run out of gas like an empty tank, that’s not what’s happening. Okay? Again, it’s a good analogy because maybe we think about that, and if we think about it running low, like, we’ll pay attention.
But it’s not really a diagnosis. Okay? So what is actually going on is your brain is adjusting the volume, right? It’s turning cortisol up, it’s cur- turning cortisol down in response to everything it is dealing with. So the more accurate language that we use is called HPA axis, axis dysregulation. So again, HPA axis dysregulation.
Fancy name, simple idea. So the H is your hypothalamus. That sits in your brain. The P is your pituitary. That sits in your brain, too. And the A is your adrenals, which, again, sits on your kidneys. So the HPA axis dysregulation means the conversation between your brain and your adrenals is out of sync. And this is why I love this analogy, right?
Because this can be repaired. Your body hasn’t run out of anything, it’s adapted to what it’s been asked to do, and anything that’s adapted can readapt again. So it’s not like, oh, I, I can’t fix this. So if you’ve been told you had adrenal fatigue, your symptoms are real. They are. But I think the label is outdated because we’re not looking at everything.
Again, this is what I do. We take a step back and have to look at all of the picture. It’s not just saying what is going on with the adrenals and one snapshot of a measurement in time. So what has your body been adapting to? Most people think they already know, right? We talked about that. Oh, it’s my job.
Oh, it’s my kids. And yeah, these count. But I want you to see that that’s only a small part of the story. So let’s talk about the stress bucket because I really think this is important to listen to. So imagine you’re carrying a bucket. Everybody has a bucket. Everyone’s carrying a bucket. Some buckets are bigger than others depending upon your genetics, your history, your support system.
And think about the faucets that are pouring into the bucket, okay? Every faucet is a source of stress. So when the water in the bucket stays below the rim, you feel good. You can handle a hard day. You can handle a bad night’s sleep. You can handle a tough conversation. But when that bucket overflows, that’s when the symptoms show up.
Like, that’s the 2:00, 3:00 AM wake-ups. That’s the exhaustion. That’s the anxiety, and the gut issues, and the weight that just won’t move. So here’s the problem. Most people only see one faucet, right? Whether it’s work, or the kids, or the money. You’re worried about money. They don’t realize that there are four or five other faucets running at the same time.
And look, your body doesn’t know the difference between a work deadline, a blood sugar crash, a sleepless night, and a gut infection. It doesn’t. To your stress system, it’s all the same alarm. It pours into the same bucket. So look, you don’t have to turn off every single faucet. Turning down one or two can bring the water level back to the rim, right?
You slow down how quickly the faucet’s running in. So for each faucet, right, we’re gonna, we’re gonna talk about what the scene is, what’s happening, okay? And, and a quick check-in question. So let’s talk about faucet number one, the blood sugar swings. Here’s the scene. You picture a typical day. You wake up, you grab a coffee.
You skip breakfast because you’re not hungry or you’re rushing. And about 10:30, 11:00 you’re starving. So maybe you grab a muffin or a granola bar or whatever happens to be in front of you and you’re feeling like you crash an hour later. And maybe lunch is a salad, a beautiful salad maybe at your desk, but maybe there’s not enough protein in it, okay?
And then 3:00 PM hits ’cause it’s a small salad and you didn’t wanna take too much. And 3:00 PM hits and you would sell your soul for some chocolate or a candy, okay? Dinner is late, so I don’t know, 7:00, 8:00. And then you’re snacking at 9:00 PM because now you’re sitting, your body is resting for a minute and the hunger kicks in.
So what’s really happening? Well, when your blood sugar spikes quickly from the sugar in the morning or the refined carbs or even the sugar at night, insulin rushes to bring it down and sometime it, sometimes it overshoots. So when blood sugar drops too low, your body treats it as an emergency because your brain needs that fuel.
And cortisol and adrenaline are called back in to raise it up. So every crash to your body is a mini emergency. So you think about this. Five crashes in a day are five emergency calls. And then coffee on an empty stomach can add to it because caffeine nudges that adrenaline up, that cortisol up. And alcohol also plays a role because it can cause blood sugar to dip overnight, which is why some people wake up at that 3:00 AM after a few glasses of wine.
Okay? So you think of it like a rollercoaster. Every big drop, your body has to slam on the emergency brakes. Like, it’s go, go, go, ooh. Right? You do that all day and your stress system is, uh, exhausted by dinner time. So what are some of the signs that this faucet, this blood sugar faucet is running? If you’re shaky, if you’re irritable, or if you’re foggy when you’re hungry, like that hangry kind of feeling.
You can’t focus. You have an energy crash mid-afternoon. You have strong sugar or carb cravings, especially in the afternoon or evening, and you are needing to eat every two hours or feeling like you can’t go too long without food. People say, “I’m hypoglycemic. I…” This is something that we have to look at.
Okay? If you wake at the night and you’re hungry or you have a racing heart, like, these are the things that I want you to think about. So here’s, here’s a question. How often do I eat a meal with real protein, and how often is my coffee my actual breakfast? Think about that. Okay? All right. Faucet number two.
Under fueling and overtraining. So here’s the scene, and this one is sneaky because it looks like health, right? I see this all the time. I used to do this. Okay? Someone who is fasting till noon- They think it’s good for them, especially women, doing a hard workout at 6:00 AM, 7:00 AM, like a HIIT or a spin or a long run, and you’re eating clean, lots of salads and veggies, but not enough food for how much you are doing, right?
Then you’re working a demanding job. You’re sleeping only six hours. And then you come in saying, or they come to me saying, “I’m doing everything right, yet I feel worse than I did before.” So here’s what’s happening inside, because exercise is a stressor. And it’s a good one when you can actually recover from it, because it is meant to raise cortisol for a short time, and then it goes down and you rebuild stronger, right?
That’s the goal of exercise. So but if you overdo the exercise, then it’s that ongoing, right? It’s that faucet, just keep going, going. And then under-eating is also a stressor because your brain is always tracking whether you have enough energy coming in to cover how much your brain is spending. So when you’re doing a lot and you’re eating too little, your brain is getting a message, resources are scarce, and we’re being pushed too hard, and it responds by keeping cortisol higher and turning down the non-essential systems.
So like maybe you’re eating a, too little at lunch, you’re stressed, and now you have like that indigestion or bloated feeling because guess what? Your digestion isn’t working well, ’cause digestion is a non-essential system. The other thing that’s non-essential is reproduction, and we’re seeing higher and higher infertility rates, and I guarantee you a part of it is…
There’s many things that contribute, but this stress cycle that, that, you know, the younger generation i- is in and has been in is part of it. Thyroid output- And repair, right? So again, this can show up as hormone and metabolism issues. So this is why we’re seeing people who can’t lose weight, perimenopause and menopause that are worse because this makes it…
This compounds it. So research shows that women’s hormonal systems can be especially sensitive to energy shortfalls. We know that there’s a hormone called kisspeptin. It plays a role in stress. So this is not like, “Oh, I’m so disciplined, and I’m, like, good.” This is your body reading it as a famine plus a threat.
So that’s like three faucets running at the same time. Low fuel, high intensity, and not enough sleep to recover, right? What are the signs? Feeling wiped out after workouts instead of energized, slow recovery, lingering soreness, frequent injuries, or even, like, if you’re working out and you’re not noticing that you’re building muscle.
Okay? Weight that won’t budge or that starts to creep up despite eating, eating less and exercise- exercising more. And things like cold hands, cold feet, hair shedding, or brittle nails Other things like irregular or missing periods, worsening PMS, and not sleeping. Like poor sleep even though you are exhausted.
Ah, feeling obsessive or anxious about food or workouts. That like excessive food noise or anxiety is part of this. So sometimes the most powerful thing you can do for your cortisol is actually eat more, train smarter. But it’s also eat smarter, okay? You don’t wanna be eating the sugary carby stuff, and this is where we get into how we support you.
Okay? So swapping two intense workouts for a walk and strength training and eating a real breakfast can do more than anything else, any supplement, ’cause a cortisol supplement’s not gonna help you here. So what I want you to ask yourself: Is my exercise and eating routine giving me energy or is it taking away?
Am I recovering or am I just surviving my workouts? Like that’s really important to think about. Okay, faucet three. Hidden inflammation. Here we go, right? This is the scene. This is the slow-burning fire in the walls of your house, right? You might not see the flames, you might not even smell smoke, but your fire department is on call 24/7 trying to put out this fire.
And sometimes the only symptom you notice is that you’re just tired all the time. And where does hidden inflammation come from? The gut, an imbalance of gut bacteria, things like SIBO or, you know, parasites or infections like H- H. pylori, or a gut lining that’s irritated and more permeable than it should be.
Again, and this, these are things that we look out for. Food sensitivities that often come as a result of your gut lining being so sensitive. So, but it could also be food sensitivities that your immune system is reacting to over and over and over without immediate symptoms. And a lot of people who are being told they have MCAS, right, mast cell activation syndrome or histamine issues comes from this kind of thing.
So this is why just treating something like that, histamine issues or MCAS, with just a supplement and just isolating one condition all by itself is missing a bigger picture. We’ve gotta really look at that. Other things like lingering in- lingering infections that, you know, viruses that reactivate. Like I see this all the time when people come to me with gut stuff as a result of a trigger from food poisoning or, um, a, a big stressor that happened two years earlier, like a big stress event, a trauma event, and all of a sudden they’ve got an immune thing.
Like viruses actually do get kicked up and, and activate not a full-on infection, but they reactivate stuff in the body, and it can even be activating things like gum disease. Like I’ve seen that, okay? We look at environmental exposures, mold in a home or a workplace. Like chemical load from products, uh, like your chemicals, your plastics, even water.
We’ve gotta really look at all of this. And again, we look at it not just as an isolation of one silo. We need to look at this as the many buckets that it’s, that it is. And so things like chronic pain and injury, like an old injury that didn’t heal right or ongoing joint pain or autoimmunity, right? When your immune system feels like it’s attacking itself.
Like what’s going on inside? Well, inflammation is sending signals to your brain, and your brain is responding by calling for more cortisol to calm things down. So when that inflammation never resolves, cortisol is being asked to work around the clock. So, you know, remember that job number three, right?
Over time, the immune cells stop listening to cortisol. So you can end up, you know, with high stress and high inflammation together, and that is a tough cycle. Because inflammation also affects mood and energy directly, right? It’s a part of why people feel flat or foggy or unmotivated when they’re inflamed.
So signs that this faucet is running: bloated, gas, constipation, could be the opposite, loose stools, joint aches or stiffness without a clear reason. I just had a client come in, had, like, all of the above, and I’m like, “We have got to calm your nervous system down. It’s not another supplement. It’s not the diet only.”
It’s for sure, and she’s got things like eczema flaring back up. I mean, eczema, acne, or skin rashes, those flare up. Brain fog and fatigue that your sleep doesn’t fix, frequent headaches or sinus congestion, could be migraines also, getting sick or, uh, often taking a long time to feel, uh, to get better and recover.
If you feel worse in a certain building, People who are sensitive feel immediately worse when they walk into certain buildings and especially, um, these new buildings that pump in the fragrance. Like, you guys might not pay attention to it, but I walk into some of these buildings, and it’s, like, overwhelming.
So paying attention to those things can even be triggers So, you know, this is where the root cause work really matters, like I mentioned, because you can do every stress management practice in the world, but if there’s a fire in the walls, the fire department’s still gonna be on call, right? So sometimes calming cortisol means finding and putting out that fire.
So this is where working with a practitioner and doing the right testing is super valuable because just trying to find out, like, where the fire is in your walls, you could be punching holes in every a- part of your, you know, house, building, apartment. Here’s the check-in question. Ask yourself, “Is my gut happy?
Do I have nagging symptoms that I’ve just learned to live with?” We’ve talked about it being that quiet whisper. Like, have you just ignored those quiet whis- you know, whispers? Like, time to pay attention, okay? Faucet number four, light, rhythm, and sleep. This is so important. These last two buckets are so important, okay?
So you wake up and spend the morning inside under dim lights. You’re on screens all day long. You eat dinner at 9:00 PM, and then you’re in bed scrolling on your phone until midnight. And then you sleep in till 10:00 on Saturday, and then you wonder why you can’t fall asleep on Sunday night. So what’s happening is your brain has a master clock that sets the timing for cortisol, melatonin, digestion, body temperature, reproduction, and more, right?
Your brain is the master clock, and light is the main signal that sets the clock. So the bright morning light says, “It’s the daytime. Release cortisol,” and darkness at night says, “It’s time for melatonin.” So when you get very little bright light in the morning and lots of bright light and screens at night, your clock is getting mixed signals, and cortisol is following that confusion.
This is why we talk about why do you wanna get out and look at the morning sun, right? It’s not just because… I mean, look, there’s a lot that goes on with that morning sun. You’re getting energy, you get… But that light is touching the pineal gland that’s right… You know when we talk about the third eye?
It’s right there in your brain, and that needs to be activated. So meal timing is actually a clock signal to, a clock signal as well. So big, late-night meals tell your body it’s still daytime. And sleep loss, like not sleeping on its own is a huge stressor. So even one short night of sleep can leave cortisol higher the next morning.
And so Um, or evening, right? Sorry. Leaves cortisol, like it, it, it affects the evening cortisol. So it makes that nighttime harder and then it’s snowballing, right? Like we think about social, let’s call it social jet lag. Sleeping and waking at very different times on the weekends. Like I get you don’t have to set the alarm, but if you’re getting up at 6:00 on the weekdays and then you’re not getting up till 10:00 or later on the weekends, you’re like…
Like that’s like flying across time zones every week. Really. Okay? Things like shift work and frequent travel, uh, obviously new parenthood when you’re not sleeping, right? These big, big rhythm disruptors. I mean, look, sometimes they’re unavoidable, but this is why if this faucet is coming through, then you need to pay attention to some of the other ones where you can balance because your body likes a rhythm.
It’s like a dance partner. When you keep changing the music, it’s like stepping on your toes, right? A dance partner can’t keep up. It’s like you step on the toes, right? So what are the signs that this faucet is running too fast or too much? Trouble falling asleep or you get a second wind at night. Waking unrefreshed even after, you know, enough hours of what you would think is sleep.
Grogginess that lasts for hours in the morning. Relying on caffeine to start the day and then something you need to wind down at night. Very different sleep times on the week, uh, weekdays versus weekends. So some of the check-in questions I want you to ask yourself. When was the last time I saw the sun in the first hour of my day?
Like do you wake up and look at the sun? And what is the last thing I look at before I fall asleep? I’m not saying you have to wake up at the crack of dawn every day to watch sunrise, but I am saying try to get up early enough that you’re catching most of that first morning sunlight because that is super powerful for your brain.
Okay? Faucet five, the emotional faucet. People, I’m gonna slow down here because I want you to pay attention and I think that this faucet runs the hardest for most of us, and it is the one that never, ever shows up on a lab test because think about this. You’re the one everyone depends on. You remember the birthdays.
You manage the schedules. You handle the crises at work. You check on your mom or your dad and you answer every text. You say yes when you mean no. You smile through the things that hurt. You’re lying in bed replaying conversations, worried that someone’s upset with you, and yet if someone asks you how you’re doing, you’re like, “I’m fine.
I’m just busy.” Right? How many of you can relate to this? I know I used to, being honest What feeds this faucet? People pleasing. Constantly scanning to make sure everyone else is okay. Perfectionism. Never feeling like what you do is enough. I know there’s a bunch of you out there who feel like this, right?
Over-functioning. Being the strong one and never asking for help. Okay. Yes, I’m raising my hand. Used to be that. Not anymore. Rumination. Again, playing, replaying the past or even rehearsing the future. And a big one, unprocessed grief or trauma. Things like loss, hard childhood experiences, or events you never had the space to work through.
It doesn’t have to be major trauma, guys, right? It’s like just these things that you never had the time and the space to work through. Loneliness and disconnection. This is a big one. Feeling unseen, feeling unsupported. I can’t tell you how often we hear this. And caregiving. Caring for children, for aging parents, or a sick loved one, oftentimes with no break.
Again, I know plenty of people doing this. Lack of purpose or joy. Going through the motions without anything that fills your cup back up. So if this is resonating, here’s what’s happening inside, is that your stress system is responding to perceived threat, not just physical danger. So a stressful thought can trigger a stress response just like an actual stressful event itself.
That means you don’t just experience a stressful event once. Every time you replay it in your mind, your body responds as if it’s happening again and again. So when you’re always on guard and you’re emotionally scanning for danger or disapproval, your body is staying in a state of alert, and cortisol is never getting the signal that it’s safe to come down.
Feeling safe, supported, and connected is one of the strongest signals your body has to turn the stress response off. I’m gonna say that again. Feeling safe, feeling supported, and feeling connected is one of the strongest signals your body has to turn the stress response off So you can eat perfectly, you can sleep eight hours, you can take every supplement on the shelf, but if this faucet is running full blast, the bucket is still gonna overflow.
And our bodies carry what our minds have not had the space to process. Again, I think that’s super important because our bodies carry what our minds have not had the space to process. So important, and I see this as such a cornerstone for so many people. So signs that this faucet is running, a jaw that’s always clenched or your shoulders are up near your ears.
Do you know how often I see this? Like, we don’t even realize we’re clenching our jaws, okay? Trouble relaxing, like even if you’re on vacation, and feeling guilty when you’re resting. I know so many people… I used to be this, right? Feeling guilty when you’re resting, feeling like you’re supposed to be doing something.
Ugh. A racing mind at night, right? That you lay down and now, like, your to-do list is 20,000 pages long, okay? Um, emotional numbness, like you’re just feeling numb or you start crying out of nowhere, and feeling responsible for everyone’s happiness. Again, this is such a big one. So many, so many, especially women, feel responsible for everyone else’s happiness.
We gotta get out of this. So here’s a check-in question, and look, ask yourself this and be gentle please with the answer, but when was the last time I felt safe and at ease? Not just busy, not just functioning, but at peace. So I really, really want you to think about that. Okay? And if you’ve been beating yourself up thinking, “Why can’t I handle stress better?”
I want you to hear this loud and clear. It’s not that you’re bad at managing stress. You just might have more faucets running than you ever realized or anyone ever told you about. Okay? And so I’m telling you, I see this all the time. I see busy moms. I see women who are retired who are gaining w- like, all of these symptoms that we’ve talked about.
I know so many of you feel it. And we, and we identify all these faucets. Is it the blood sugar faucet? Like, it’s not just one faucet. It’s the blood sugar, the under-fueling, the over-training, the light, the rhythm, you know, the emotional, the caregiving. I, I know so many people, so m- so many of my close friends who, who have all five of these faucets running at the same time, right?
So it’s, it’s like, what do I do? It’s not about doing more. It’s not about doing more because we’re already doing so much. It’s how do we turn the faucets down. So eat some kind of breakfast before coffee. Maybe it’s some kind of protein. It doesn’t have to be eat your, you know, 30 grams of protein.
No, no, no, no. I’m not talking about that. Just get something in your body before you have coffee. Don’t do three HIIT, you know, high-intensity training days. Change out a strength training day and a walking day. Like, you can do strength training without having to do HIIT training. I can tell you I swapped those things out a long time ago.
Makes a huge difference Make sure you set a curfew. Your laptop, your screens should be done by, I don’t know, somewhere between 8:00 and 9:00 PM, no later, right? Address your gut. If you have gut issues, we gotta look at it. And learn to rest without guilt, and maybe ask a sibling or a friend for help with a a child, a mom, or whatever it is, right?
And then the, you know, the result that you’ll see is you’re gonna start to sleep through the night. You’re gonna have steadier energy. You’re gonna have less bloating. You’re gonna start to see the weight shift, and you’re gonna start to feel like yourself again. But we’ve got to identify what faucets are running and overflowing the bucket.
So it’s not about being stricter. It’s not about cutting out. It is about how do we stop fighting your body and start listening to it. So here’s, here’s an exercise. This is what I promised at the beginning, okay? Pause this if you need to, but go grab your notebook or journal or your phone and write down the five faucets.
Write down blood sugar, fueling and training, inflammation, light and rhythm, and emotional. Okay? Now, I want you to rate each one of these from 1 to 10, which 10 is running on full blast and 1 is it’s a slow drip. Okay? Circle your top three and hang on to that list because we’re gonna talk about this in the next episode.
But I really want you to look at those and think about, “Okay, how can I support some of this?” So remember where we started with all of this, right? Waking up at 2:17 AM wide awake, heart pounding. Let’s go back there because now you have everything you need to understand what’s going on, right? The, the 2:00, 3:00 AM wake-up is one of the most common things I hear about and is, and it’s one of the most clear examples of everything we talked about today coming together.
Right? So let’s walk through it because now you know something. Your body works through the night and even while you sleep, your brain and organs need fuel. So you’re going 8 to 10, sometimes 12 hours without food. So blood sugar can dip in the early hours, especially if dinner was light on protein or if it was very carb-heavy, if it was eaten too early or followed by a glass or two of wine, right?
This is your body calling for backup. So remember job number two, the backup generator. Cortisol and adrenaline are released to bring blood sugar back up. So adrenaline wakes you up. It’s the same chemical that floods you when you get that scare. Your heart racing, your mind alert, right? So cortisol is already starting to rise in the early morning hours anyway, and your natural rhythm is beginning to climb.
But if your stress system is already on high alert, that rise comes much earlier and it comes harder, which is why you’re waking up so early. You should be waking up later, you’re waking up early. So you wake up alert, heart pounding, mind spinning, not because something’s wrong, but because your body pulled the emergency brake to keep you safe.
It’s protecting you maybe a little too enthusiastically. So like, again, think of this like a smoke stick detector with a dying battery. Like I know you guys know this because this happens all the time. It chirps at the worst possible time, like two, three AM, right? Never three PM, never in the afternoon okay.
But it’s not malfunctioning, it’s asking you for something. It’s saying change the battery. So clues that your blood sugar is part of the picture: waking up hungry, shaky, sweaty, or with a racing heart. Needing to pee when you wake up, right? Because blood sugar and stress hormones can play a role in that.
An energy crash around three PM, getting hangry before meals, craving sugar or carbs late at night, and waking more often on nights you drink alcohol and skip dinner. So like think about this. Notice how many faucets are showing up here. Blood sugar, obviously, but also rhythm, late screens, late meals, training.
A hard evening workout can keep cortisol elevated. Like the emotional faucet here. Going to bed with a head full of worries will keep your stress system closer to the edge all night, right? So I am not gonna tell you your blood sugar is the only reason you’re waking up at night because that’s not true.
As we mentioned, there are other important pieces to consider, right? The alcohol, like you think it helps you fall asleep, but it’s disrupting the second half of your rhythm at night. Perimenopause and menopause, I’ve talked about this. Shifting estrogen and progesterone can trigger night sweats and early waking.
But again, it’s typically not perimenopause causing those dysregulations. Usually, it’s stress that started it. Things like sleep apnea, pauses in your breathing that jolt you awake, often with snoring or gasping. Like this is important to look at, guys, even for women who think that they don’t snore.
I see so many women who have sleep apnea, so it’s important to look at that. Things like an overactive thyroid or medications or things like reflux and pain or, you know, going to sleep with a full bladder. Like all of this plays a part. And if this is happening night after night, so important, worth looking at the whole picture with someone who can dig in rather than just say, “Here’s a sleeping pill,” which I know so many of you have gotten.
So I think one of the other things that is so liberating is that when you wake up at 3:00 AM with your mind racing, most people assume the worry, like all that worry woke them up. But often it’s the other way around. It’s the chemistry that wakes you up first and then your brain goes looking for something to worry about and why you feel so alarmed.
So it’s not the worry, worry, worry. It’s the other way around, right? So If you’re thinking, “I’m just an anxious person,” I hear this all the time, okay? Um, maybe your body’s just sounding the alarm and your mind is just trying to make sense of it. Because your thoughts aren’t the enemy either. They’re trying to help.
So again, if you’re that 3:00 AM, 2:00, 3:00 AM waker, I want you to try this tonight. Make sure your dinner has a good serving of protein. It’s got some good healthy carbs. And I’m not necessarily even talking about like grains. It could be grains. It could be rice, could be quinoa. But like the carby vegetables.
Your squashes, especially because they’re coming into season now. Your squashes, your potatoes, your root vegetables, like so good and they also help your gut and melatonin and all of that. And make sure you got some good veggies in there, okay? And some healthy fats. I mean, the fats aren’t the most important thing.
But you really want a good robust dinner that you are not overeating but you’re not undereating. And, you know, I would really like you to not eat within a few hours of going to bed. Your body needs that two, three hours so that those blood sugar things are… highs and lows are not happening. Okay? So let’s bring this all together.
Okay? I want, and I hope by now you understand cortisol here isn’t the villain. It is the hardworking messenger with four big jobs. Waking you up, keeping your blood sugar steady, calming inflammation, and helping you rise to a challenge. And remember, the rhythm matters more than any single number. A healthy wave, high in the morning, low at night.
That’s what we’re after. And your stress bucket has more faucets pouring in than you probably realize. So let’s pay attention to these, right? Your blood sugar, fueling and training, hidden inflammation, light and rhythm, and the emotional faucet that never show up on a lab report. So your action for this week, here’s your homework and it’s simple, okay?
For the next seven days, eat a real breakfast with protein within about an hour of waking. Okay? Have it before you have your coffee, not instead of it. And then just notice, how’s your energy at 10:00 AM? How’s your energy at 3:00 PM? How are you sleeping? And look, you’ll get bonus points if you keep your faucet list handy.
Notice which ones are running the loudest. Just notice. You don’t have to fix it just yet, okay? And as you do all of this, I want you to try a new thought. Every symptom we talked about today, the 3:00 AM, the 2:00, 3:00 AM waking, the afternoon crash, the bloating, the wired nights, this is your body communicating with you.
It’s been working for you this whole time, adapting to everything you’ve asked of it, keeping you going through all of it. So now you’re learning its language, and I think that that changes everything. So in episode two, we’re gonna talk about how to drain that bucket, okay? We’ll get into food that calms your stress system, how to reset your rhythm, and the piece that almost every protocol skips, your mind.
Because what you believe about your stress might matter just as much as the stress itself. So bring your faucet list, and I’ll see you there. This is your rebel nutritionist signing off. Make it a great day, everyone. And as always, please share this, like, and subscribe.
