Latest / Do You F*cking Mind? / 368. How to harness cortisol for energy, focus and improved sleep, how to maintain healthy levels, and dispelling myths around cortisol + cortisol face. Part 1

Transcript

368. How to harness cortisol for energy, focus and improved sleep, how to maintain healthy levels, and dispelling myths around cortisol + cortisol face. Part 1 · Do You F*cking Mind?

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Hello, beautiful beans, and welcome to the episode of today.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: So this episode is intense, and it's intense for many reasons.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: It is a topic that I have had so many
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: requests over. It is something that I then put out
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the question to you guys to see what like on
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: my Instagram. I asked, you know, I want to do
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: an episode on cortisol and the effects of caffeine on
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: cortisol production and all of that. It was wild. It's
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: probably one of the most engaging questions that I ever
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: put out there, to the extent that basically, in a nutshell,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say is that I'm turning this
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: into a two partera. So episode one of this two
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: part the first one is cortsol in general. We're going
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: to be talking about what is cortsol, how is how
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: is it produced? I'm going to be talking Okay, okay,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I've got a list of things. This is what I'm
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: going to be going through this episode. What is cortsol,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: how it's produced, what is the role of cortisol, what
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: happens when you have excessive or not enough cortsol? And
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be talking about actual medical conditions around
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: this cortisol face because this is like I'm not even
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: going to comment on it until I get to it,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: but this is big on social media, different kinds of stress,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: cortersol in the morning, sunlight, and cortisol, How cortisol positively
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: impacts your memory, pcos and cortisol. I'm going to brush
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: on that fasting and cortisol, hit training and cortisol, and
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: also how to ensure that you have balanced levels of cortsol.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: So this episode is, as you can already tell, it's
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: quite like content heavy. It's my favorite kind of episode
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: because it's very science heavy. You know how much I
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: fucking love these episodes. And then the following episode, Part two,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: is going to be specifically based around coffee and cortsol.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I'm going to brush on coffee in this episode a
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: little bit, but I wanted to. I had so many
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: questions come through specifically about cafin that I thought this
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: deserves its episode on its own. So let us begin.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go straight in, guys. I'm not going
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: to do a life update other than all is well.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Everyone's happy. Ha, Bib is really jacked. He's putting on
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: so much muscle. That's my laugh update I just want
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: to get straight into this episode because there's a lot
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: to get through, and I really hope you enjoy listening
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to it as much as I enjoyed.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: I'm magging it.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Hello, my beautiful beans. Whether you're a long time listener
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: to this podcast or tuning in for the first time,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I hope you'll check out my new audio book, How
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: to Chase Change, Thirty Days to Master your Mindset. It's
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: an actionable, step by step thirty days guide to teach
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: you how to shift your mindset and create the change
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: you want to see in your life, from physical and
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: mental health to your relationships, career, self confidence, and beyond.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: How to Chase Change is available now wherever audiobooks are sold.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Start listening today. Okay, So the first thing that we're
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: going to talk about, number one, I'm going to try
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: and break this down in a way that's interesting, relatable
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: that everyone can grasp the concept. But I also don't
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: want to dumb it down too much, because you guys
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: are hungry for information, you're hungry for science, and I
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: think that you will get pretty much everything I talk
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: about in this episode. So we're going to start by
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: what is cortisol? So Cortisol is a glucocord to coid hormone.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Say that ten times really fast that your adrenal glands
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: produce and release. Okay, so it's made through This is
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: going to be complicated. I'm going to break it down,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: but not the first part. It's made through cholesterol, Okay,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: through this entire cascade of events that involves stereogen enzymes,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: among other things. But basically, the secretion of cortisol is
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: regulated by something called a hormonal axis through a feedback loop.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Now you don't have to remember any of that, but
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: this basically involves areas in your brain called the hypothalamus,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: the petuitary gland, and then separate to the brain adrenal glands,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: and then other hormones and this whole system. And this
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: is what you do want to remember. This is called
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the hypothalamic petuitary adrenal axis. You will hear me refer
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: to it in this episode as the HPA axis. Okay,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: So here are the steps. The hypothalamus, which is one
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: of the many areas in the brain, produces something called
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: corticotropin releasing hormone or CRH corticotropin releasing hormone. The hypothalamus
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: produces that. It produces it in response to many things,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: and one of those things is in detecting stress. So
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go into stress later on in this episode,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: but it can be emotional stress, it could be physical stress,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: stress in general. This hormone then stimulates the petuitary gland,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: and this is this pea sized gland which is kind
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: of in line with the top of your nose but
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: at the base of your brain. So if you can
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: imagine that the brain has this like bit that comes
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: out and then goes in, imagine the petuitary gland. I'm
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: actually like going profile, so if you're seeing the video
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: of this you can kind of tell what I mean.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: But it's basically like in line with the top of
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: your nose p sized gland. Okay, this gland does a
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: lot of things, but it also is known for being
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: like a master gland quote unquote because it tells other
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: glands what to do. But once it stimulates the petuitary gland,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: this gland secretes something called adrenocrticotropin hormone or ACT h Okay,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: this act then stimulates the adrenal glands. Now, the adrenal
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: glands are located on top of each kidney, and these
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: make and release cortisol hormones into the bloodstream into your body. Okay,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: and then that binds two different areas in the body
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: and also the brain as well. Cortisol can cross the
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: blood brain barrier, so it behaves in the body and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: in the brain the same. For a lot of other
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: hormones or chemicals. You will see a version that exists
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: within the brain and a version that exists with the body.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: For example, adrenaline is one of those. Anyway, I'm not
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: going to go into that. So here, once you get
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: this release, you get heaps of functions all go into that.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: But we're talking about metabolism, immune activity, stress response, all
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: of that. Now, when the body is operating optimally or normally,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: both the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland can detect cortisol
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: in the blood levels and it knows what to do.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: So when it thinks that the cortisol is unnecessarily high,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: in other words, excessive cortisol so it hasn't been used
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: for something, then it will not only does it like
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: help produce it, but this axis that I spoke about,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: the HPA axis, not only does it help produce the cortsol,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: but it can detect when the cortisol levels are unnecessarily high,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: and then through this negative feedback loop, it will reduce
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the production of cortisol. Okay, Now, when I talk about
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: negative feedback loop versus positive feedback loop, by negative, I
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: mean you're seeing a downturn in the production of something,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and when you hear positive feedback loop, you're seeing an
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: upturne It doesn't mean that it's bad for you or
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: good for you in this context. Okay, So then basically
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: what we're seeing is this HPA access is regulating everything
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: that's going on within cortisol production within the body. All right, Now,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: what is the role of cortisol heaps. Basically, it is
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: an essential hormone that affects almost every organ and tissue
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: in your body almost It reduces reduces inflammation. Okay, So
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: everything I'm talking about cortisol here is what is cortisol
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: designed to do. Then I'm going to talk about what
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: happens when you have chronically elevated levels of cortisol. That's
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: going to be different. But right now, which this may
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: surprise people, in normal, normal, healthy adults and probably children,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: it actually reduces inflammation. Okay, It maintains your blood pressure.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: It regulates your blood pressure, regulates your blood sugar. It
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: transforms food into energy. It aids informing memories. It aids
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: in memory formation consolidation. It helps control your sleep wake cycle.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: That is very important to remember. It increases your alertness,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: It increases your energy and focus is. It increases muscle tension,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: It increases your heart rate when you are under stress,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: and your blood pressure. So when you need to perform bang,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: cortisol is there to help you do that. It obviously
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: takes care of regulating your body's stress response, and it
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: helps control how your body uses fats, protein and carbs
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: in the whole lot, controlling of the metabolism. Okay, so yes,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: it is referred to as a stress hormone, but as
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: you can see, it's got really like a whole bunch
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: of really important functions that's not specifically related to I'm stressed, Bang,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I've got cortisol. Obviously there's a reason for it. You
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: don't just I think we look at cortisol as this
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: negative thing, But cortisol is also there to keep you alert.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: It's also there for your energy levels to be increased,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: so you can tackle big tasks as in your entire
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: day things like that. So cortisol is very, very very
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: important for our everyday experience of life and our survival. Okay,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: without it, we're fucked, basically. And it's just like every
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: chemical that the body produces, there is a massive need
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: for it, otherwise it wouldn't exist. Okay. So I don't
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: want you to look at cortisol as like, oh my god,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: how do I get low cortisol? How do I reduce
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: my cortisol? It's not about that. The aim of this
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: episode is for you to understand how cortisol impacts you,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: how it's going to impact your mental health, how it's
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: going to impact your physical health, and how you can
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: aim to make sure that you've got healthy levels of cortisol,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: because too little cortisol is not good for you either.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: And I'll go into that in a second. So the
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: aim of when I talk about cordisol, we're talking about
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: healthy levels. Okay, now, excessive cortisol. There is a syndrome
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: called Cushing syndrome. Very rare, Okay, it's very rare. The
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: estimates are forty to seventy people per million are diagnosed
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: with Cushing syndrome, But other sources that I found say
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: that it's ten to thirty so even less so depending
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: on the source. But another word for Cushing syndrome is
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: hyper corticialism. It's basically a syndrome that ocosmhen we have
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: excessive production of cortisol from the adrenal glands, which the
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: ones that are located above your kidneys. Now, symptoms of
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Cushing syndrome are weight gain, fatty deposits in certain areas
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: of the bodies such as the back of your neck,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: your face, your abdomen, muscle weakness, easily bruised skin, high
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: blood pressure, and a whole bunch of other things. Now,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: this can also be triggered by an overproduction off act,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: which is that hormone that's pre reduced by the petuitary
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: gland in the brain. And this often is caused by
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: a tumor in that on that petuitary gland okay, or
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: often a benign tumor. Now that is one of the cases,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: but another one of the causes. But another common cause
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: of Cushing syndrome is excessive use of external steroids as well.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: So when we use steroids that suppress your immune system,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: So this is things like prednozone and another medication called
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: dexamethasone or similar drugs to that, to treat a whole
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: range of autoimmune inflammatory diseases. Okay, so chronic stress actually
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: accounts for just a fraction of these cases. So to
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: have Cushing syndrome, which is excessively high levels of cortisol
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: due to chronic stress, is extremely rare. That's not to
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: say that you can't have elevated chronic levels of cortisol.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: You absolutely can. But what we're seeing in these extreme
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: levels where it's causing this like fat gain specifically in
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: the face, neck and abdomen area and all these other
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: symptoms that I just mentioned, that's more Cushing syndrome, and
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: that's not as common as we think that it is. Okay,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: So this kind of level of excessive cortisol is due
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: to tumors, petuitary gland issues, adrenal gland issues, medication side effects,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: and in some cases stress. Now, general high levels of cortisol,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: but not as extreme as Cushing syndrome, will result in
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: weight gain in general, acne difficulty, concentrating, irritability, your healing
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: is slowed down, poor sleep, muscle weakness, and headaches in
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: some cases. Okay, now I want to go into cordisole face. Okay.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: This has been really popularized by a lot of influencers
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: and wellness coaches online on TikTok on Instagram, and I
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: am about to burst that bubble. Well science is about
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: to burst that bubble. So my condolences to those individuals.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: But cordisole face is no way near, no way near
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: as common as people claim that it is. Okay, you
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: might get a puffy face when you wake up in
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: the morning, but this is often not attributed to cortisol,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: but rather to certain foods that you eat, or certain
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: foods that might cause you to retain fluids, okay, or
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the fact that you didn't get adequate sleep that could
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: cause puffiness, or the fact that you consumed alcohol the
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: night before, or excessive salt intake and things like that. Right,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: But this facial puffiness that people claim to be cordisole
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: face does not just appear and go away from one
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: day to the next. So when someone says you want
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: to reduce puffiness, don't have coffee in the morning, that's bullshit. Sorry,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say it. That's bullshit. If you actually
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: have cortisole face, which is due to excessively higher levels
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: of cortisol, and your face is fat and puffy. That's
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: going to be a chronic issue. You're not gonna it's
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: not gonna just go down because you didn't have a
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: in the morning or because you decided to lower your
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: stress levels in the morning by not doing a hit
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: session or something like that. All right, So I think
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: it's really important to look at what could actually be
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: causing that puffy face, because more often than not, it's
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: not going to be elevated levels of cortisol unless you
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: have something like Cushing syndrome. And if you have or
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: you think that you might have something like Cushing syndrome,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: you need to be going to the doctor and actually
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: getting your cortisol levels tested. That's crucial. The only way
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: to like, there is a way of testing your cortisol levels,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: but it's through like I'll go into that in a
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: sect but like you're in in other ways to test
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: your cortisol levels, but you can't just know for sure
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: unless you get it tested. So I think it's really
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: important to understand how cortisol works within the body to
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: realize that this idea of cortisol face in the morning,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: making your face puffy, and how you can just make
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: it go away. That's just like a trend with no
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: real solid evidence to back it up. Okay, it's very rare. Now,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: low cortisol, there's something called Addison's and this causes your
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: adrenal glands to produce too little cortisol, and that could
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: be due to injury or trauma to the glands that
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: can cause that as well. That's another thing that you
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: can get tested for. But having really low cortisol is
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: also not good at all. Based on everything that I
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: explained that cortisol does for you, it's important that we
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: have healthy levels of cortisol. So we're not here to
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: try and reduce our cortisol overall. We are here to
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: try and moderate our cortisol. So let's talk about which
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: leads me into stress. Let's talk about the different kinds
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: of stress. We have three kinds of stress. Right, there's
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: acute stress. That is stress in the moment that is
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm so frustrated. I'm like road rage.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: That's acute stress. You probably don't think about it at
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the moment you get to your destination. Hit training ice baths.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Anything that's very short term is acute stress. We do
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: not need to worry about acute stress. We never need
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: to concern ourselves with what acute stress is doing to
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: us because that is a normal part of the human experience.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: The spike that you getting cortisol during acute stress, which
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: happens all forms of acute stress, will give you a
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: spike of cortisol, but the way the body manages that
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: is extremely normal. It's almost healthy most of the time
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: to have acute stress. So I wouldn't even think about
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: eliminating acute stress in your life. Then we've got chronic stress.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: This is where it gets not great. So chronic stress
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: can be emotional or it can be physical. So this
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: is where you're putting your body under way too much
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: stress without adequate recovery. So that's someone that's like overtraining
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: and they're not sleeping enough, or they're not taking enough
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: rest days, or they're not eating enough or not drinking
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: enough water. There's a lot of reasons what could cause
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: overtraining emotional chronic stress. So this could be being in
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: an abusive relationship, being put under too much work, never
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: getting enough like mental respite from something where or you're
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: just very stressed, very anxious all the time, and this
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: could there are many things that could cause that, but
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: chronic stress is where you see just a constant, ongoing
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: level of stress. Now I'm going to talk about what
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: happens with cortisol and how your body actually behaves quite
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: differently with acute stress and the releases of cortisol there
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: versus chronic stress. But then the last kind of stress,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: the third one is traumatic stress. So this is something
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: that is life threatening. It induces extreme fear, feelings of helplessness,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: catastrophic events, sexual assault, war. I want to get really
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: clear when we talk about traumatic events. All right, I
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: was listening to this podcast the other day and someone
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: was like, I went through this, the trauma of being
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: made redundant. I'm like, let's not fucking minimize that. But
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: she was being legit, and I'm like, can we all
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: fucking relax. It's fine to be like trauma when we're joking,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: but in all seriousness, let's know how to label what
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: an actual traumatic event is versus a difficult event in life.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: They're very different from a neurology standpoint, from how your
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: brain processes the event. Okay, so even a heartbreak that's
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: not trauma. It's not unless it was also coupled with abuse,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: it's not trauma. You've got to think of trauma as
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: life threatening, extreme fear, catastrophe. It's next level. Okay, So
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not really going to be talking about traumatic here
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: because that's not really what we're talking about from a
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: day to day angle from cortsol. We're talking about acute
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: and chronic mainly. Now, it's important to note that stress
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: is stress. Your body doesn't differentiate. So whether it's emotional stress,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: whether it's physical stress, the response in cortisol and how
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: your body processes that is going to be the same. Okay,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: it's a chemical. Now, acute stress, like I said, there's
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: so many different versions off it, but they're all fine
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: really because if it's short term and then we can
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: get over it. If you're someone that's like even like,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: if you're someone that gets worked up by someone said something,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I'm so annoyed, like a little bit reactive,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: even that's not that unhealthy for you because so hopefully
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: that calms people down for people that snap really easily,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: as long as you're able to be like fuck that
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: pissed me off, shake it off, and then I'm fine.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: That actually doesn't affect you. From like a quarterisol perspective,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: that's fine. The main thing that we're trying to look
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: here is you've got to ask yourself, when I experience stress,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: how quickly can I then revert back to my normal
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: state of being. So if you're someone that has really
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: heightened anxiety, and you're someone that spirals or catastrophizes, and
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: you think that you maybe have a mood disorder, or
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: that maybe it's not a mood disorder, but you're under
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: so much stress that you can't let go of that
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: thing or you can't not do that thing, then that
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: is chronic stress, and that's what we're looking at changing
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: or fixing or doing something about. If you're someone that's like,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: oh wow, I get set off really easily, but in
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: a very short amount of time, I don't really think
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: about it, then yeah, you could look at coping mechanisms
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: for maybe to not blow up whatever that affects you,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: But really it's not affecting your overall health. If you
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: can return to baseline with no major like easily and
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I feel fine, don't care, that's all right. If you
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: get really annoyed when someone texts you something and then
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: three seconds later you're over it. That's a cute stress.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with that, Okay. Another thing that's really important
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: to note is that acute peaks in cortisol. The spike
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: will never make you feel like shit. You feel like
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: shit if you've got chronic stress, because then you're depleted.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Then you you know, you don't feel good. But if
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: you wake up in the morning, you get a spiking cortisol,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: You train, you get a spiking cortosole, you have a coffee,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: you get a spike in cortisol. Those little spikes actually
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: are designed to make you feel good. They're designed to
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: help you tackle what's ahead of you. It's that stress
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: response in a positive way, in the sense of like,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: all right, I'm ready, I'm fucking I've got energy, I'm focused,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I'm alert, let's fucking go that. So when people say,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: you know, if you feel shit in the morning, you're
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: caught a fuck. No, not necessarily if you have someone
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: that if you are someone that struggles from chronic stress,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: then you actually have an issue where your cortisol levels
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: are elevated, but your ability to spike your cortisol in
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: moments where you need it most is actually hindered. I
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: do have an entire episode in my back catalog which
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I am going to can I can you write a
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: note for this, so I'm just talking to Shnai. I
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: will link it in my show notes. But there's an
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: entire episode on stress and the effects on the brain. Okay,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: So if you want to listen to that, it's quite interesting,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: and I talk about chronic stress and the effects and
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the brain. Okay. Now let's look at intentionally putting your
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: body through stress. This is things like ice, bath, sauna, exercise, hit,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: getting on a stage, performing even unintentional stress like I
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: mentioned before, such as arguments or getting frustrated in the
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: moment at something or road rage or something like that.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: When done properly and when you're not overdoing it, it
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: can actually help your body deal with cortisol and it
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: actually helps your body respond to stress in general. Okay,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: So this is a good thing. All forms of acute stress,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: especially intentional ones where you're like I can turn it
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: on and turn it off. It's a good thing. The
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: issue is when you don't have adequate recovery on any
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: of the above. This is the problem. It affects your
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: immune response, It affects your anxiety, it affects your sleep,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: it affects your metabolism, your appetite, your circadian rhythm, everything
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: all right. So as you can see, cortisol is constantly
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: being increased, decrease, increased, decrease, ideally, especially in the morning.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I'm about to go into the morning side of things,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: but you've got to see that the body is designed
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: to return to homeostasis. That is what we're made to do.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: So anytime you're like, wow, I'm doing all these things,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: despike my cortisol. If you have a normal baseline where
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: you feel like you're fine, you've got adequate rest, you
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: feel good, then there is nothing to worry about. You
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: don't need to be out there freaking out about oh
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: my god, my cortisol. If you feel fine, if you're
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: sleeping well, if you're recovering properly after you train, if
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: you're eating well, if you're not starving yourself, you don't
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: have anything to worry about. I think there's so much
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: information out that that makes us freak out. Your body
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: is designed to create homeostasis. When this cortosole goes up,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: it does what it needs to do. Your body sends
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: the message through the HPA access it regulates it. It's
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: got that negative feedback loop. Bang, you reduce it. Bang,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: we're all happy. Okay, Now, let's talk about quartzol in
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: the morning. Cortisol should be at its highest in the morning.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: We want the cortisol to be high in the morning.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: There's many reasons for this, and I'm going to go
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: through it right now. This primarily has to do with
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: your circadian rhythm and your energy levels. Okay, light and
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: sunlight in the morning. You know how you hear not
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: just me Huban, mean all these other people. So many
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: experts out there talk about the importance of light, bright
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: light from the sun in the morning. And the reason
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: we say from the sun is because the sun is
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: such a strong, big source of light and its effects
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: on your circadian rhythm are incredible. So if you're looking
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: at just a bright light off your phone versus the sun,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: you cannot compare the two. The sun is number one,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: by far, the best source of light to set your
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: cicadian rhythm and to spike your cortisol. So when you
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: hear experts talk about the importance of getting in sunlight
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: in the first hour of waking, ideally the first thirty
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: minutes or the first hour, unless, of course the sun
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: hasn't risen yet. But when you wake up, get in
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the sun. You're gonna see an amazing effect on your
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: overall cicadian rhythm. You get a spike, or you aid
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: in this spike in cortsol. Because cortisol starts to rise
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: when your jew to wake up, so it starts to
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: go up, up, up, up up when you're due to
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: wake up. You wake up, and then it continues to rise.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: You want it to peak around an hour thirty minutes
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: an hour after waking. The sun actually helps it peak higher. Okay.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: So here we are. Here's all these experts saying, get
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: in the sun because it sets you not only your
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: circadian rhythm, but it spikes your quartersol. It actually aids
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: in that spike, which is what we want, okay. And
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: then it slowly starts to go down and down and
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: down and down and down. It is at its lowest
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: obviously at night when you are sleeping, and then while
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: you're asleep it stays low, lo low, and then thing
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: it starts to turn around and starts to increase increase,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: increase again, and then bang by the time your jew
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: to wake up. I had someone send in a question saying,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: my quarterzol wakes me up fifteen minutes before my alarm
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: goes off. That's an indication that you've got a very
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: healthy Cicadian rhythm. If you're waking up fifteen minutes before
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: your alarm naturally, that is for nominal I would never
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: complain about that's that's like gold right there, as long
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: as you feel like you've had adequate rest and it's
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: not an issue with an inability to sleep. But if
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: you're just waking up bang before your alarm goes off,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: that's that's great. Okay. Now, without a spike of cortisol
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: in the morning, you are not going to have sufficient
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: energy to get through your day. Okay, you might have
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: spikes of cortisol later in the day, but that's not
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: really what's going to help you get through the day.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: You want the major spike in the morning, and then
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have these little spikes throughout the day due
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: to all the things that you do, exercise, these that
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: r but you want the morning to be the strong one.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: That's what sets your body clock. Okay, and your body clock.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: It's not just to sleep at night and be awake
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: during the day. Your body clock takes care of so
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: many things within your cells, from sell to sell, from
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: like down to like the molecular level, and having this
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: clock going at the right pace is crucial for your health,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: your mental health, your mood, your just overall physical health. Okay,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: so when you think about circadian rhythm, it's not just
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: about sleeping at night being away during the day and hahaha,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: now you know I'm sleepy at night time in but
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: it's not just that. It's got to do with like
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: that clock determines a lot about your physical health. Now,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: there's something called the cortical awakening response abbreviated as CAR
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: or CAR, and this is this pronounced increase in cortisol
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: over the first thirty to forty five minutes in the
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: morning after waking. Now, the way that you encourage this
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: spike of cortisol, this awakening response because you want to
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: You'll get it naturally, but you want to encourage it
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: more is by getting into the sun. Okay, Now, when
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: we get now this is interesting, this is very interesting.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: We're talking about brain neural structures. Now, when we get
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: into the light in the morning as early as possible,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: and like I said earlier, nothing comes close to sunlight
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: as far as the benefits. So when you get into
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the light in the morning, there's an area called the
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: super chismatic nucleus within the brain that gets activated. Okay.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Now this area gets its name super chismatic, meaning above
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: the chiasm, super above chismatic the chiasm. So this area
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: is above the optic chiasm. Okay. Now, the optic chiasm
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: is an area in the brain. It looks like a cross.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: You can actually see it. It's one of the easiest
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: structures in the brain to identify. And when I was
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: dissecting human brains at UNI, fucking such a vibe. It
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: was so amazing. Anyway, when you dissect a human brain,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the optic chism is one of the easiest things to see. Okay.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: But it's a part of the brain where the optic
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: nerves cross. So it's where the bundle of nerves from
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: each eyeball go into a like one nerve, basically like
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: a bundle of nerves like a fibar. You get these
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: two nerves and then they cross in the middle of
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: the brain and then they go to the opposite sides
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: of the brain. So in this cross you get fifty
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: percent of the input from the left eye going to
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the right side of the brain and fifty percent going
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: to the left side. And then same goes for the
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: right eye. You get fifteen percent going to the right,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: fifty percent going to the left. Okay, so you get
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: this major crossover. The reason why that's so important is
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: that you're getting all this light bang, bang back ban
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: bank coming through the eyeballs. They're coming into these nerves.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: They're crossing at the optic iasm, and that opticiasm, the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: super chismatic nucleus is part of the hypothalamus, and the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: hypothalamus plays a key role in the circadian rhythm. So
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: you want to look at this super super chismatic nucleus
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: as like the pacemaker of cicadian timing, as it regulates
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: most of the cicadian rhythms in the brain. So its
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: location is so important because you've got everything that's coming
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: in from the eyeballs bang, You're getting all these signals
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: coming through that cross and that's in the high that's
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: located as part of the hypothalamus. And if you remember
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: the hypothalamus when I was talking about the HPA axis,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: that axis that controls cortisol, I said that the hypothalamus
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: is the part of the brain that produces corticotrope and
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: releasing hormone in response to stress and all other things.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: But it's that that stimulates the petuitary gland, which then
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: goes on to stimulate the adrenals and all of that.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: So it's really important that sunlight in the morning has
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: such a heavy influence on our cortisol production, okay, and
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: we want that and this sunlight exposure within the first
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: half hour or full hour of waking obviously enhances this
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: natural spike, but it makes your body alert. It aligns
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: your body with this circadian clock, and the more aligned
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: the clock is the better because it also affects your
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: melotonein production at night, and when you have adequate melatonin production,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: it's a lot easier for you to fall asleep and
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: then drop into a proper sleep. Okay. If there's one
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: thing you want to aim for when it comes to
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: your own overall health, it's to try your very best
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: to get your sleep right. Okay. This is one of
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the best ways to do it to ensure that you
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: get a good cortisol spike in the morning. Okay, So
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: those people that bang on, those fucking influences that bang
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: on are like, lower your quartersol in the morning. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: The cortisols should be high in the morning. You want
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: to get into the sun, you want to increase the
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: quartersol in the morning. What you want to be focusing
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: on is chronic stress. Okay, that's the problem. The problem
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: is not getting a spike of quarters on the morning.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: The problem is not and you'll be pleased to hear
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: this if you like coffee, and I'll be going in
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: depth in it the following episode. It is not the
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: coffee in the morning that's causing a puffy face. I
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: can bet my soul on that. Okay. Now, it also
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: explains why we do not want to have light exposure
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: at night when we're supposed to be winding down where
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: we're supposed to be going to sleep. Again, this super
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: super chismatic nucleus is, you know, the whole circadian clock,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: all of that. You want to make sure that you
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: are starting to dim the lights. Look, if the sun
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: is shining outside, there's no fucking problem having blue light
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: coming into your eyes. The sun is the biggest source
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: of blue light there is, all Right, so don't freak
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: out about that. I'm talking about Wow, it's bedtime, I'm
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: gonna be on my phone, I'm gonna be watching TV.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: If you're somebody that has really strong circadian rhythm, really
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: great melotone and production at night, fine, Okay, maybe don't
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: stress about it. But if you're someone that's like, wow,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: I really struggle to fall asleep, or that sleep latency
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the time from when you close your eyes to when
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: you actually fall asleep, if that's more than fifteen twenty minutes,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: and you're like, I'm just lying here and I'm not
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: falling asleep, then you should be looking at this kind
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: of shit because that is affecting you, okay, And then
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: that's going to affect your quartisol production. It's going to
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: affect your everything. It's all tied together. And the beauty
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: of the morning spike in cortisol if you do it properly,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: with the sun getting up early you're riding that wave
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: spiking at high for the day, is that it actually
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: reduces your levels in the afternoon as well. Okay, Now
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: let's talk about other things. The effects of cortisol on memory.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: So cortisol and acute stress actually amplifies the connectivity within
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: your hippocampus and it helps people remember things better. It
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: helps remember emotional experiences better. Notice that all the benefits
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: that talk about cordsols when we're talking about acute Okay,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: so please keep in mind that I'm saying acute. If
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: you're someone who's chronically stressed, this is not the case.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: And I'll go into that in a sect. So you
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: want to look at stress as an adaptive signal with
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: evolutionary benefits. Okay, So you adapt you can either remember
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: something better, you get stronger, or this or that, and
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: it's it's got all these benefits for you. Okay, short
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: term stress, Now, most of the time, increases in short
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: term stress, cortisol epinephrine are going to lead to improved memory,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: improved performance. The only time this is canceled out really
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: is if we're talking like about a traumatic event, and
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: that's going to be your brain is going to process
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: that differently. Now when you're talking about stress, a stress
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: that lasts for more than like four five days, that's
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: going to change this negative feedback loop that I was
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: talking about. So chronic stress in general. So when I
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: spoke about the HPA acxis and its ability to determine
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: the cortisol levels within the blood, and you're able to
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: then downregulate the production of cortisol because I've released the cortisol,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I've done what I need to do with it. Now
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: there's excessive amounts of it, I'm going to now reduce
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: the production of cortisol. That's all well and good, unless
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: we have chronic stress, like I said, where you're not
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: getting adequate recovery mentally or physically. Like I said, stress
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: is the same physical or mental, it's the fucking same
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: from a chemical standpoint. Okay, So if you're not getting
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: adequate recovery mentally or physically, if you're burning up mentally
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: or physically, then what happens is you're getting too much.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: If this relays too much, too much, too much, too much,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: too much, and after a few days of this and
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: you can eat only imagine what a few weeks or months.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: If it is your brain, then instead of turning it
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: into a feed a negative feedback loop, we then starts
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: to see a positive feedback loop. So that means that
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: we it changes, it actually changes how the brain is
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: operating in response to cortisol, and you start getting this
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: constant production of cortisol. But the issue with that is
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: is that you can't get the adequate, healthy spikes of
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: cortisol when you need it most. You're just getting this
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: higher release of cortisol chronically, and that's where it's affecting.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: You know, you're more irritable. It affects your sleep of course,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: because you're not getting an adequate dip in cortisol when
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: you should be when you're winding down at the end
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: of the day. It's affecting all these things within your life.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: It affects your memory. And then if you listen to
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: my episode that I did on stress and the impact
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: on the brain, such a fucking popular episode. By the way,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: you're saying that it actually reduces connectivity between brain regions
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: when you are chronically stressed, as opposed to increase activity
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: within brain regions or connectivity when we're talking about it
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: acute stress. Okay, So again, the body is so amazing
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: in when things are going the way they should be going.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: We're not designed to be chronically stressed humans in general.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: We're not designed for that. So when things are going
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: the way they should be going. The body is very
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: very good at regulating its levels. When we ignore the body,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: it eventually something's going to give, and in this case,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: it's the HPA access which is going to give, and
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: that's going to swing it in the opposite direction. You
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: get a positive feedback loop instead of a negative feedback loop.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: And that's really important to note. Okay, And then you're
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: seeing a whole bunch of other things. If you look
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: at stress. Another thing is that stress in the short
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: term blocks hunger. Stress in the long term increases hunger significantly.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: So always think short term versus long term? Is this
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: short term? Is this long term? Do I need to
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: worry about this? Do I not? Okay? Now, let's look
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: at fasting as well. Fasting is going to increase cortisol. Okay.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Eating in the short term suppresses cortisol. That's why when
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: you're intimittently fasting, it can actually improve your focus. That's
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: why a lot of people like to maybe not break
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: their fast until a few hours into their day because
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: they report increased levels of focus as well. Okay. And
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: this is very much a personal preference and it's not
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: necessary for you to do because there's many other ways
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: that you can get, like I said, the sunlight, whatever,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: there's many ways that you can get that beautiful spike
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: in cortisol that then drops down naturally. You can increase
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: your quartzol by certain breathing techniques. You can increase your
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: quartersol through like hit training, through ice baths, through There's
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: many things you can do to get that spike if
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: you want to have increased focus. But fasting is one
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: of them. And when you eat, you initially temporarily get
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: like a blunting of your cortisol response. So that's another
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: interesting thing to note about intimate and fasting. And if
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: you're someone that's like, well, I feel really alert, that's
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons why now I wanted to brush on.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: And I'm not going to go into detail with it
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: because I'm no way near to even being specialized in
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: this field. I don't have enough knowledge or expertise in
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: this area at all, But just to give you food
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: for thought for further research on your own, or to
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: go and speak to somebody about it. PCs and cortisol. Okay,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: So PCs has to do with insulin resistance, among other things,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: and in PCOS, the body becomes or might become resistant
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: to insulin. And when this happens, we see an imbalance
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: in hormones, and higher levels of insulin may often influence
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: this HPA access that I was talking about. So then
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: we see this imbalance, and we see an increased production
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: in cortisol. Okay, and then cortisol signals the body to
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: release glucose, which requires more insulin, and then we see
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: more of a release of cortisol, and then we see
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: this elevated insulin and so it's kind of like a
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: cycle that occurs. So if you are somebody that feels
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: that you have elevated levels of cortisol and you really
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: find it difficult to reduce your stress and you have PCOS,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: and this is something that you need to seek advice
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: from your doctor, and there's many ways that you can
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: manage it, but given that it's specific to PCOS, it's
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: something that you need to go and work through with
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: a health professional. Okay, this is not like general advice
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: that I can give, but I just wanted to mention
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: that because I did have a few questions come through
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: being like what about pcos and cortusol. So that's what's
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: happening on a very basic level, Like, that's extremely brushing
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: over it. But there are things that can be done
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: to reduce your cortisol levels in general, but you want
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: to be speaking to your doctor or specialist about that. Now.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: I had other questions. I'm going to go through a
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: few questions from listeners. The rest of the questions I've
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: already answered within the episode. So there were quite broad
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: questions that I've answered before I go into how we
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: can manage it all. Someone said I had a holistic
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: doctor take one look at me and said that my
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: adrenals are underactive? What do I do? Firstly, I don't
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: believe that it's right to tell someone that this is
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: the case with one look. You can't just have a
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: chat with somebody and know that their adrenals are underactive.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: That's like a big fucking call. And you can only
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: really know about that if you do tests. So, like,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the only real way to know if your cortosol is
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: high or low is to have your blood or urine
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: or saliva analyzed in a lab. Okay, and you would
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: need to Ideally you would want to be doing it
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: several times throughout the day, over a few days in
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: an ideal world, But that's not what happens. Even when
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: you do get it tested, you're not doing You're often
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: not going that extensive. But because cortisol levels very significantly
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: throughout the day and across days, it's not really easy
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: to really really get down to it. But this would
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: need to be done. You know, a doctor would need
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: to give you a referral for that, and they would
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: only suggest that you do this if they suggest that
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: you if they suspect that you have a problem with
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: your cortisol production, like the disease that I mentioned earlier,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Cushing syndrome, Addison's disease, that's not common. But if basically,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: if this holistic doctor is correct, you need to go
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: and get tested for this and see if you have
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: Addison's disease and which is rare. But if that is
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: the case, you would need to take hormones to replace
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: the ones that the adrenals are not producing. So that's
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: a whole thing that you've got to go down through
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: getting tested and all of that.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Someone asked, does doing high impact training or cardio workouts
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: in the morning increase cortisol and is it bad? So
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: hit training or just high impact training in general is
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: always going to increase cortisol no matter what time of
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: the day it is. And is it bad, No, of
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: course not, it's not bad. What we see with hit training,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: which is really cool, or just let's talk about high
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: impact training. What we see with high impact training is
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: that we get a really good spike in cortisol stress
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: response because you're putting your body uder stress, and then
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: you see a reduction in your overall baseline level of
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: cortisol the only time that that's not the only time,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: but because many people do this. But when this doesn't
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: happen is because you are not giving your body adequate
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: rest in between. This is where you are overtraining. And
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: overtraining happens when I mean obviously when you're not resting adequately,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: when you're doing way too many sessions for your body
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: not to recover. You can see there are people out
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: there that train so fucking hard and you think, well,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: that person can do it, but you've got to take
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: into account many things. You've got to take into account
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: that this person has trained to get to where they are.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: That's adaption. They've adapted to this way of being okay,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: number one, number two, and they've got the strength for it.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: So they're increased slowly increasing their strength, slowly increasing the
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: strength in a very healthy way. So what someone can
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: do what for you would be like, Wow, I fucking
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: die if I did that. But they're doing it and
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: they're fine. Doesn't mean you should go out and do
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: it just because someone else can do it. So that's
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: one reason. Another reason is often these people that can
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: do these really hard things, or these athletes have a
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: really great protocols around recovery and rehabilitation and things like that.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: You've got to make sure that your sleep is adequate.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: You've got to make sure that you know what are
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: you doing on your off days, how are your muscles recovering?
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: What is your diet like, do you have a proper
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: balanced diet, what are your macronutrients, micro nutrients. You've got
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: to take all that into account. So I don't want
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: you comparing yourself and oh but I just did like
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: three hit sessions, But this person's running marathons and they're fine,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: So why am I not fine? You've got to look
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: at the bigger picture and think, A, have I actually
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: led into this in a healthy way? B? What does
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: my overall stress look like? Am I trying to do
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: the right things for myself physically, but I'm under a
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: lot of emotional stress that could also cause problems with
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: chronically high levels of cortisol, okay, and chronic stress. So
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: HIT training independently with adequate recovery is actually very good
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: for you. Okay. You're getting a spike in cortisol, and
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: then you get the reduction, that nice drop, and then
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: you are sitting at healthy levels like as it should
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: be in your body, baseline levels of cortisol when you
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: don't need the spikes. Okay. So if someone has told
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: you that you need to stop HIT training because your
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: cortisol levels are too high, that has to do with
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: the fact that you overall have high levels of stress
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: in your life and this is one of the things
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: that is contributing to that. But you could also take
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: a look at your emotional stress. You could also take
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: a look at how you're recovering your sleep, all of that.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: There's a million things. But don't think that just removing
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: HIT training is going to be the answer to all
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: to everything. You've got to look at. Stress is stress, emotional, physical,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter. It's the same fucking molecule, right, Well, Cortisol
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: is at least, So let's talk about how we managing
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: all of this. How do we make sure this is
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: going to bore most of you because I've already spoken
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: about it a million times, but how do we make
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: sure that we have healthy levels of cortisols. So firstly,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: you want to look at the whole Cicadian rhythm thing,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: So you want the cortsol to be high in the morning. Okay,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: you don't want to try like suppress, suppress, suppress, I
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: don't want to don't go in the sunlight like that's
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: pointless and also beyond not only unnecessary, but why would
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: you want to do that to yourself? Why so we
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: want to ride that way? We want to fucking ride it.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be talking about coffee in the next episode,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: so I'm not going to bring it into this. But basically,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: you can have coffee in the morning, is what I'm saying.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: You ride the wave, you get the sunlight, bang, you
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: get the beautiful things. So this is one of the
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: things to help regulate. And then at night time, make
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: sure that you're not doing things that are spiking, so
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: you're not if emails stress you out to a point
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: where you ruminate to a point where you can't. It's
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: not acute, but it's chronic. Don't be doing that in
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: the evening. Don't do things that as you wind down,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: you're winding down in every sense of the word. Okay,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: you want to make sure that your sleep is adequate,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: the light coming in at night, all of that stuff.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: You've got a really good amount of sleep, You're eating
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: the right amount of things, but also hydration. You want
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: to look at reducing your emotional stress. What does your
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: emotional stress look like? Because I know it sounds basic,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: but this should be your priority. If you're in a
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: highly stressful relationship and there's no way of changing it,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: get the fuck out of it. I'm sorry, but there's
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: just no justification for putting up with that shit. You know,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: as far as your physical health is concerned, and your
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: brain health and connectivity between brain regions and all of that.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: When you've got chronic stress. Another good thing is to
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: learn coping mechanisms. If you're someone that spirals, maybe look
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: into cognitive behavioral therapy to be like, how can I
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: have coping mechanisms for these thoughts that just go out
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: of hand. I've got a whole bunch of episodes on it,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: but you can take it to the next level and
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: do CBT to help you really process these things. Also,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: learning how to listen to your body. We're so shit
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: at that. We're so fucking shared at listening to our body.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Do I need to rest today? Do I need to
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: go to bed a bit earlier? In general? You know,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: do I need to not go to that event because
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: my social battery is fucking flat today and I'm done?
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: You know, Like so often we'll get home from work,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: we'll be like, oh my god, I just I just
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: need time for myself, and then you're like, but I've
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: got to get up and got getady, and I've got
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: to go to that event tonight. Sometimes it's we have
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: to listen to well not sometimes we always should be
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: listening to our body, but we don't. So this is
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: one of the things that could very easily start to
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: help how your body releases and absorbs and all of
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: you know, the feed negative feedback and positive feedback loop,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: how it does that. And also in general, staying physically
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: fit and strong helps massively. So you don't want to think, well,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't exercise, because no, you really want to make
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: sure that you're physically fit, but that your recovery is adequate.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: That is how we create a really nice cicadian rhythm,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: a really good release of hormones in the morning versus
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: different hormones at night, different neurochemicals, all of that. It's like,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: it's a fine science that's going on in the body
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: that your body's so good at having it down. Pat
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: We are so good at fucking up what the body
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: had nailed in the first place by social media. First
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: thing in the morning, you know, depleting your fucking dopamine,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: getting blue light. We're trying to fall asleep, stimulate, stimulate, stimulate,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: no rest, to smash ourselves at HIT training because the
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: body is like, wholcunt, can you fucking relax? Like I've
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: got this down. All you have to do is just
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: eat a balanced dit, sleep eight hours, don't be under
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: too much emotional stress. We overcomplicate it for ourselves. Okay,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: So you've got to think less is more when it
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: comes to that kind of shit. Now I am going
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: to end there because the next episode is cortisol and coffee.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: There is so much I talk about sensitivity to caffeine.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: I talk about coffee on an empty stomach versus on
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: a like after eating, I talk about pre workout in
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: the evening or just pre work out in general. I
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: talk about how coffee can make you anxious. I talk
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: about tolerance levels to coffee. I talk about caffeine after midday.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: I talk about caffeine and ADHD medication. I go into
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: so much shit in the next episode. I'm really excited
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: for that one to come out as well. This will
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: be the next episode after this one. But yeah, thank
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: you so much for tuning in. I really really hope
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: that you enjoyed this episode. It was content heavy, but
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: so important to take in that information. And also when
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: you hear like trends on social media, just take it
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: with the grain of salt, because it sometimes stems from
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: the right idea, but then it gets blown out of proportion.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: I don't think that there's trends are malicious in any way,
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: shape or form, but I think that they one idea
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: will will arise from like a legitimate source, but then
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: it would just get like Chinese whispers. It would just
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: get like, you know, like it keep like warping every
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: time it gets translated again and again and again, and
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: then we've got a completely different thing that's being shared,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: and then that different thing is the one that goes viral.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: All right, So that is the episode of today. I
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: hope you guys loved it as much as I loved
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: to making it, because I love those kinds of episodes.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Put it into action, put everything you learn into action.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Listen to this episode again, Send it to people who
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: you thin I think might benefit from this episode, And
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: for my sake, for the podcasts sake, can you please
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: rate and review obviously five stars, Share it with everyone,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: Share it on your socials, as it helps me reach
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: more people with the podcast, And you guys are like
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: the real MVPs that have been the ones to help
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: grow the podcast the way it has, so I really
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: appreciate that. So keep doing what you're doing. Love you
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: guys so much. As always, remember becind to yourself, be
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: kind to your brain, don't text shit from anyone, and
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: especially don't take shit from yourself.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Dun't e