Dr. Michael Breus

But generally speaking, cortisol is a good thing.

We just, when you have it in your body or when it's elevated, that's what you want to be talking about.

You got it.

Okay.

Absolutely.

So we do sometimes see a cortisol spike in the middle of the night.

That becomes problematic.

So for whatever reason, most people are waking up somewhere between 1 and 3 o'clock in the morning.

Let's talk about why and let's talk about some of the different things that everybody out there can do to fix said situation.

First of all, you have correctly identified that there is something that goes on.

There is a cortisol spike.

Let me explain the biology.

Before bed, our core body temperature rises, rises, rises until about 10, 10.30 at night.

It's a peak.

Now, to be clear, that peak changes based on your chronotype.

So for lions, that peak is earlier in the night.

For wolves, that peak is later in the night.

But just know that there's a peak.

When you hit that peak and then there's a drop in the core body temperature, that's a signal to your brain to release melatonin.

Now your core body temperature drops, drops, drops, drops, drops.