46: The Secret to Syncing Your Cortisol
Listen up ya’ll, this week we are taking a deep dive into all aspects of syncing your cortisol. So many factors including light, stress, sleep, and diet play a role in whether or not our cortisol is released at the appropriate time. Tune in to discover the best ways to set your circadian rhythm and how doing so will significantly upgrade your quality of health.
EPISODE 46: The Secret to Syncing Your Cortisol
SHOW NOTES
(0:00) Intro
(0:44) Today’s Topic: The Secret to Syncing Your Cortisol
Cortisol is a hormone that is critical to life but is so often a contributor to death.
Cortisol gets the rap for being our high drama hormone.
Fight-or-Flight Hormone: Often associated with stress
We DO want to be releasing it at the RIGHT time.
It plays huge a role in how much energy we have throughout the day and how we’ll we sleep at night.
(2:18) Taking a look at how God made us:
We are made to have high cortisol in the morning and low cortisol at night.
Think of it as the sun rising and the sun setting.
Our bodies are meant to be in sync with this sun pattern.
This is essentially our circadian rhythm - and our cortisol pattern is just one little piece of this phenomenon.
Last week’s podcast episode: My Clean Routine
I shared how I do not wear sunglasses in the morning so that I can get morning sunlight into my eyes to help set and reinforce this cortisol pattern.
The light absorbed by the eyes and the body help coordinate us with the earth clock.
Once natural light hits your eyes in the morning it knows it needs to start releasing melatonin about 12 hours later.
Melatonin is our sleep hormone.
It works inversely to cortisol. Cortisol is supposed to be high in the morning and low at night, and then melatonin works the opposite.
LIGHT helps signal your body to keep this balance working properly.
(4:36) How cortisol levels can go out of whack:
We work at all hours of the day
We put on sunglasses and chemical sunscreens to block REAL light and we sit indoors under ARTIFICIAL light.
We take in way too much BLUE light from computer and phone screens which interferes with our cortisol and melatonin patterns.
The #1 most important factor to address is to have consistent wakeup and sleep times.
Staying up too late confuses our body.
Cortisol kicks in when it’s not supposed to.
Too much cortisol at night prevents your nighttime hormones from kicking in and doing their job.
When we sleep is when we detoxify, repair tissue, clear the brain and reset hormones.
Our prime time for detox is between the hours of 10pm-2am.
Catabolic and anabolic balance
(11:00) Hey there sunshine 🌞
When you get up in the morning, get some natural light in your eyeballs
When weather appropriate, absorb natural light into your skin.
The sun helps our bodies make Vitamin D.
All living things need sunshine for life
Seasonal Affective Disorder
Affects close to 10 million people
Type of depression associated with the winter months.
Light makes a huge difference at a cellular level.
Research is showing that using light therapy (photobiomodulation) - can help counteract this.
What you can do on a daily basis is to get some sunshine in your eyes in the morning, and decrease your blue light intake at night.
Do your best to cut off screens an hour or two before bed.
Wearing blue light blocking glasses if you are going to be exposed to screens in the evening.
Blue light suppresses melatonin, the sleep hormone.
(16:13) Another major factor to consider— Stress:
If you are a stress case, you will get your cortisol completely out of whack, creating exhaustion or that weird feeling of tired but wired.
Cortisol and adrenaline both are meant to help us deal with stress, but when we are overstressed, they become an added source of the stress.
Fight or flight state.
Historical perspective
Survival situations
We don’t have these physical life threats like our ancestors had.
We don’t typically need that intense influx of hormones to help us physically escape or fight.
Our brains don’t differentiate between these stressors.
When you perceive something as stressful, whether it’s a lion chasing you or a traffic jam - your body releases cortisol and adrenaline.
In modern times, we have a distorted sense of what is truly stressful.
Can you imagine our ancestors seeing this - Your wifi is not working today. Wah.
(23:02) It’s all about perception:
The degree to which we take on daily inconveniences as stress.
When your brain perceives stress it tells your adrenal glands to release cortisol and adrenaline.
Hidden stressors:
A poor diet
Overgrowth of a bad bacteria
Unrecognized food allergies and sensitivities
(24:42) Why stress is so harmful:
When the body is stressed and thinks there’s an emergency situation, it prioritizes function.
Survival function.
While it does that, it decreases the priority of other functions like digestion, reproduction and immune function.
When your digestion and your hormones and your immune system are constantly downgraded, you are prone to illness and disease.
How we differentiate from out ancestors:
150 years ago the average woman burned 4000 calories a day
(28:12) Blood Sugar Balance:
What does constant circulating blood sugar do? Demand the need for insulin.
What does the constant demand of insulin do? Store more fat.
Insulin resistance: Leads to metabolic derangement and diabetes.
Adrenal glands can become overburdened.
(30:52) So what do we do?
Let’s all take a deep breath - short breaths are breaths of stress, deep breaths are breaths of peace. Take more deep breaths.
Regulate your sleep and wake cycles.
Get plenty of natural light during the day.
Consider light therapy with red and infrared lights.
Take care of your diet:
This is so important. You may not have control over other circumstances that feel stressful in your life - but you have all the control over what you put in your mouth.
Supplements that can be very helpful for balancing out this overblown stress response and helping to support the adrenals.
Salivary test that tracks your cortisol throughout the day to see if you’re on the right sun up, sun down slope.
(37:41) Stress is usually relative.
The degree to which you experience stress is up to you.
When it comes to stress, it managing our minds.
True health is a Spirit, Mind, Body package in that order.
We have to manage our imaginations and stay focused on the best that can happen and not the worst.
The Bible tells us to guard our minds.
Jesus said not to worry. He said: Can any one of you add a single hour to your life by worrying?
We've got to believe God when He tells us not to worry.
The best way to get our cortisol in sync is to get in sync with His Word, His promise, His guidance, His Light.
(40:54) Outro & Disclaimer
Thanks for listening! Have a healthy and blessed week!