052: Why You Crash at 2 PM and Wake Up at 3 AM (It's the Same Problem)

[00:00:05] Tired of Feeling Stuck, Unseen, or Like Your Body Isn't Yours Anymore? It's Time for a Reset. Welcome to An Ageless Life, The Midlife Reset Show, where science, movement, and mindset help you feel strong, energized, and like yourself.

[00:00:25] I'm Diana Devi, a clinical pharmacist, Argentine tango dancer and instructor, and your guide for redefining how women thrive and grow in midlife and beyond. Let's get started.

[00:00:43] Why You Crash at 2 PM and Wake Up at 3 AM and how these are really the same problem. This is part of the Running On Full series, part two. I've been getting a lot of requests to do this episode, and I think it's time to jump into this important topic. And I'm so excited to share this with you in my Diana kind of way.

[00:01:10] Cortisol is one of those topics that you see and hear everything and it's everywhere. And what's concerning to me is that it's either incomplete, it's confusing, or it's just plain wrong. So that's why we're here today. I'm ready to talk about the real story of cortisol.

[00:01:31] I'm Diana Devi, clinical pharmacist for 40 years, Argentine tango teacher and dancer, and host of The Midlife Reset. And this is episode 52, part of the Running On Full episode two. And we're talking about cortisol today. And you've heard that cortisol is called the stress hormone.

[00:01:56] And that's true, but it really does a whole lot more than that. And so that's why a lot of what you see is kind of the incomplete story. So in order to understand what it is that happens with cortisol, let's just take a look at how it impacts your body. Cortisol is the built-in alarm system for your body. You can think of it as the timer. It's the fuel management system. And you can think of that as what it does for your metabolism.

[00:02:28] Cortisol goes up in the morning, which is what helps you get out of bed. It then goes down through the day and starts falling. And it falls down and then it starts to peak and come back up about 30 minutes after you wake up. And again, in the afternoon, it is falling, it's going down, and then through the evening. And it reaches its lowest point around midnight.

[00:02:55] And then it starts to slowly build and go back up again. And it's not something that you really know or notice. It does this quietly so that the goal is by the time your alarm clock goes up, you are ready to move. And that's the normal rhythm that we see with cortisol and how it is supposed to work. Cortisol is not your enemy. It is a timing system.

[00:03:23] And when it works, you do not notice really what's going on. Your body is designed to handle a cortisol spike. For example, if you have to run away from Godzilla and you need to survive, you run away, you're at a safe place. Your cortisol level starts to drop down back to normal. That's the whole system resets in minutes.

[00:03:48] The problem is your body cannot tell the difference between running from Godzilla and an email in basket or inbox that is chock full of things that you need to do. Or a difficult conversation you need to have. Or news that you watch at 10 o'clock at night.

[00:04:10] Or the glass of wine that feels like you're unwinding with it, but it actually is throwing off your chemical signals to your nervous system. And what it has to do to manage those for the next four hours is part of the problem. So again, this is what you are living. It's not a broken system. It's a system that gets, never gets to finish the cycle.

[00:04:38] It never is able to drop down where it needs to go before it comes back up. And the problem with that is it breaks the rhythm. And here's an example of what broken rhythm looks like. And you want to notice if either of these sound like you or maybe both of them are familiar to you. 2 p.m.

[00:05:04] The energy that carried you through the morning has just vanished. You can't focus. You reach for coffee. You reach for carbs, sugar, anything to help you. And it only works for about the next hour. And then it gets worse. You push through. You're not quite yourself. You're not as sharp as you usually are. You're not really you. You're on autopilot. 3 a.m. You're wide awake.

[00:05:34] Your eyes pop open. There's no reason for you to be awake. You're just awake. Your mind is racing. Your heart may be beating a little bit faster than it usually does. You lie there watching the ceiling. And finally, at about 5 a.m., you fall back to sleep only to have the alarm go off at 630. And most of us think that these are two different problems.

[00:06:01] The afternoon food slump, I need a fix to power me through. And the 3 a.m., oh, my God, I'm awake and staring at the ceiling insomnia. But they're the same problem. And it's a rhythm problem with two symptoms. In perimenopause and menopause, the cortisol curve becomes less stable because estrogen and progesterone,

[00:06:27] two of the female hormones both play a role in keeping that the way that that ebbs and flows going. What happens now is that the shifts might be higher or might be lower or more dramatic in a shorter period of time. And it gets kind of bumpy. It can drop too fast in the afternoon. It starts in the morning too early when it's really nighttime. The system is not broken.

[00:06:57] It's renegotiating. But nobody told you that. So you have been treating it as two separate mysteries that need to be solved. This is where the clinical pharmacist gets to be useful. You already know stress raises cortisol. You've heard that dozens, if not a bazillion times without realizing it. And some of those are going to surprise you.

[00:07:25] In other words, so let's cut. I messed up. I messed up. This is where the clinical pharmacist brain comes in and is very useful. You already know that stress causes cortisol levels to rise. You've heard that. You're working on it. Yoga on Sundays. You try. What you don't know is what else is driving that every day without you realizing.

[00:07:55] And some of these things may surprise you. Some of them you may know, but not understand really the impact or role it has with cortisol. For example, the phone screen at 10 PM. The light that comes from the phone is a blue light. Blue light signals to the brain. Hey, it's time to get up. So the cortisol level starts to go up.

[00:08:23] If you're scrolling at 10 PM, you are sending a message to your brain that says, It's morning. Three hours later at one or 2 AM, it starts to come down, but then it rebounds up at that time. You wake up and you have no idea why. This is not the time to reach for your phone to doom scroll. And I want to just take a second to make this perfectly clear.

[00:08:51] What happens when you use your phone at 10 PM is a blue light sends message to your brain to make more cortisol. The cortisol level then goes up when it's supposed to be going down. After a while, it starts that downward spike, but it never gets down as low as it would have before you had the blue light at 10 PM. So then you don't go down as low, which is a sleep that you need.

[00:09:16] It starts to go back up again because as part of our natural body rhythm, it's giving you more cortisol. So you don't get down to the point where you can rest and digest and really sleep well. And then the cortisol level in the morning is higher because you didn't clear it out to zero the night before. So the blue light glasses can help with that.

[00:09:43] There are also some settings that you can do on your phone that will help with blocking the blue light. I would, if you're going to do that, I would put them on starting at about 7 to 8 PM. They can filter some of it, but there's still, it's not the perfect solution. It's not going to block out everything, but it's the next best thing to stepping away from the phone, the laptop or anything else like that.

[00:10:12] Number two, and I know some people are not going to want to hear this one, but you pour yourself a glass of wine at 8 PM to unwind. You know, you feel calmer. You fall asleep easily. And then at 3 AM, boom, you're wide awake. And here's why. Alcohol suppresses or dampens down, makes it drop lower, the cortisol for the first few hours.

[00:10:41] Your body goes, Hey, what's going on? The cortisol level dropped. We need to send out more. So the cortisol level starts to rebound and it goes up quickly and a lot. That's what makes you wake up. The wine was not the problem at 8. The rebound is the problem at 3 AM. And then what about that 6 AM spin class?

[00:11:12] Intense exercise raises your cortisol. And this is actually useful in the morning. It lines up with when your natural peak of the cortisol is and helps your system do what it's supposed to do. But if you are pushing yourself and really hammering yourself at 6 o'clock in the morning, only four hours of sleep, you're stacking a cortisol spike on top of a high cortisol level.

[00:11:41] And that throws even more stuff out of sync. And you really will crash in the afternoon. Your crash will get worse, not better. The next one, a lot of people, again, is one that's not super popular. But I think once you understand the rationale behind it, it makes it easier to think about, maybe this is a good thing to do. And that is the skipped breakfast.

[00:12:08] So your blood sugar levels drop overnight because you haven't been eating. This is normal. And in the morning, the body needs fuel. If you skip breakfast or eat something light, your blood sugar stays low. The body releases cortisol to compensate for that. It's basically saying, hey, I need more fuel. How does it do that? It gives you more cortisol.

[00:12:34] It sounds helpful, except for the cortisol level is higher at mid-morning than it should be, which means that the crash is harder in the afternoon. You think you're being disciplined. Your body is running and on an emergency response. None of these are stress. None of them feel like they should matter. All of them are reshaping your cortisol rhythm every single day.

[00:13:03] What actually moves it? Three things. Simple, no supplements required to start. Anchor your morning light. Get outside within 30 minutes of when you wake up. Natural light, even if it's only for five minutes. This sets the cortisol clock. It tells the system it's morning. This is when we peak and we fall on a schedule. It is the single most effective reset for the rhythm.

[00:13:32] And almost nobody is doing it intentionally. Two, create a real wind down. Not a scroll, not news, not a glass of wine is the only transition between work and sleep. The nervous system needs a signal that the day is ending. Dim the lights. Literally, overhead lighting at its brightest at 9pm is a cortisol trigger.

[00:14:02] Lower the lights. Lower the signal. Lower the evening cortisol. The 3am wake up becomes less frequent. Not because you fix something, but because you stop breaking it. Novel concept. Three, eat something with protein before you go to bed at night. If you're a person who wakes up at 3am. It doesn't have to be a full meal.

[00:14:33] A small amount of protein with a little bit of fat. I have a client that every night, I've recommended that every night before she goes to bed, she has a tablespoon of some kind of nut butter. It can be peanut butter, almond, cashew, whatever it is. What this does is it stabilizes her blood sugar. I mean, there's no wild fluctuations. And that is one of the triggers for the cortisol, you know, surge to happen. Turkey's another good one.

[00:15:02] Small pieces of cheese work. Something that is real food. Your body does not need much. It needs just enough to know it is not in a famine. Here is the reframe I want to leave you with. Your cortisol isn't broken. It's doing exactly what it was built to do. The inputs that you're giving it have changed.

[00:15:30] Some of the hormones have changed. Some of it is light. Some of it is the wine and the phone and the skip breakfast and the spin class at 6am. The rhythm can be reset. Not overnight, but a lot faster than you think. The 2pm crash and the 3am wake up are the same conversation. And now you know what it's saying.

[00:16:00] The next episode we're going to go into movement and how movement can impact all of this. And it will be fun. Fun things that you can do. And that you can do anywhere. No equipment required. There might be some music involved. But that's what we're doing next week. If this landed for you, you know someone who would like to hear the episode, please share with it.

[00:16:25] You can go to an ageofslife.com or if they want to book a session with me, I've got a button there that you can push. No pressure. Just a conversation. I look forward to seeing you next week. Bye for now. That's it for this reset. Thank you for spending this time with me.

[00:16:47] If today's episode gave you something to think about, I'd love to have you subscribe so you never miss what's next. And remember to grab your free gift, your midlife superpower, 5 Simple Power Moves to Feel Like Yourself Again. The address for this is or link is an ageless life.com forward slash super power.

[00:17:17] Thanks again. Bye bye.