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 If you're waking at two or three in the morning, or you get a second wind at night when you're supposed to be tired, or your sleep just feels mistimed, like your body just doesn't know when to shut down, it's often a circadian rhythm issue. 


In this episode, I'm going to show you:

  • Why melatonin and other nighttime fixes often fail to reset your sleep timing
  • The hidden reason your sleep can feel mistimed — tired at the wrong hours and wired when you want to sleep
  • the 3 circadian signals that will reset your body clock naturally


00:00 Why Your Sleep Is Off

00:38 Client Story 

01:45 Cortisol and Melatonin Timing

03:18 Morning Anchor Light

04:32 Morning Anchor Food

05:50 Midday Reset Downshift

07:27 Evening Brake Routine

09:44 Three Step Summary

10:20 Finish Client Story

10:56 When To Test Deeper

11:24 Next Steps


Episode Transcript


[00:00:00] If you're waking at two or three in the morning, or you get a second wind at night when you're supposed to be tired. Or your sleep just feels mistimed, like your body just doesn't know when to shut down. It's not just stress. It's often a circadian rhythm issue. Most people try to fix that with melatonin, but if your internal clock is off, taking something at night won't actually help reset it.


In this episode, I'm going to show you what really shifts your body clock. The daily signals that quietly control when you feel alert and when you feel sleepy, and how to use them to reset your rhythm naturally.


I had a client who told me I keep falling asleep on the couch around eight, but then when I actually go to bed at 10 30, I'm wide awake. And he was frustrated because he thought that meant he couldn't sleep.


But when I look closer, this wasn't just random. He had been eating five or six meals a day 'cause he thought that was the healthiest approach. His blood sugar was [00:01:00] fluctuating way more than he realized.


He'd get that early evening dip drift off in front of the tv. And then by the time he got into bed, his body clock was totally confused. So he'd lie there thinking, why is this happening?


Now, to be clear, there were other imbalances going on in his body. We saw that in the testing. It wasn't just one thing.


But the foundation circadian signals weren't in place. His light exposure wasn't consistent. His meal timing wasn't anchored. His sleep window was shifting and really confusing to his body.


And until those foundations were stable, nothing else was going to fully click. We could try to fix all the other imbalances, but we can't skip the foundations.


Now, our circadian rhythm is all about cortisol and melatonin timing. So cortisol is supposed to be higher in the morning and gradually taper throughout the day. And be low at night so that sleep can happen. [00:02:00] Melatonin should be highest at night, but if cortisol is high at night, it's going to suppress melatonin, even if your body's making enough or if you're supplementing. This is why melatonin supplements often don't work. Even if someone does need melatonin support. 


So many people try to fix their sleep at night, but your circadian rhythm is shaped all day long, starting in the morning.


Your brain needs a clear signal that the day has started. If that signal is weak or inconsistent, the entire rhythm the rest of the day becomes unstable.


There were actually studies done where researchers went and lived in a dark cave for seven days in a row and they tracked their body clock and what they found is that no one has an exactly 24 hour body clock, even though that's how our day is set up. So some peoples are 23 and a half hours, [00:03:00] or 24 and a half hours. So what this means is that our body uses external cues to help us stay within the 24 hour body clock.


So this is why having cues throughout the day is so important. So we want to start with what I call the morning anchor. So the morning anchor is what tells your brain we are awake now. The day has begun, and the most powerful way to do that is with light and ideally not indoor light and not phone light.


It actually helps to expose ourselves to sunlight, or if that's not possible, if it's, you know, the middle of winter and days are long and dark, or it's really overcast or raining, or it's really cold out and you don't go outside, then what I call a happy light can also work. It's a light therapy lamp you can buy on Amazon for around $40, [00:04:00] and it can be a good substitute if getting natural sunlight isn't possible.


But what happens is when light hits your eyes in the morning, it sets the timing for your alertness, your cortisol pattern, your hunger hormones, and eventually your sleep drive later that night. If you skip that, or you wake up and go straight to a dim kitchen and a screen, your brain never gets that strong timestamp in the morning. Then no wonder you're tired at the wrong time or wired at the wrong time.


Now, the second part of the morning anchor is food timing. So when we eat is another really big cue in addition to light. So when you eat your first meal consistently and especially have enough protein, you're reinforcing that wake up signal and stabilizing blood sugar for the rest of the day, which is also going to help with your cortisol patterns throughout the day.


Now, I know a lot of my clients are [00:05:00] really into health and like doing intermittent fasting and skipping brakefast. But if your sleep is unstable, skipping brakefast and then eating most of your calories at night is often reinforcing the exact rhythm problem that we want to fix.


So there's something called circadian fasting instead where you're eating only when it's light out and not eating when it's dark out. So of course those times can change slightly throughout the year, but the idea is that we want to eat first thing in the morning, and so you can still intermittent fast, you could still go 16 hours without eating If, say you ate brakefast at 8:00 AM and your last meal was at 4:00 PM.


Then that's still technically fasting for 16 hours. It's just shifting the rhythm to earlier in the day to match what we want your circadian rhythm to be.


Now, here's the problem almost no one talks about if you're running on stress from the moment you wake up until your head hits the pillow, your body clock is [00:06:00] still going to struggle. But for a lot of busy people, this is what happens, right? They're pushing through the afternoon dip. They're overriding fatigue with caffeine or adrenaline or sugar, and so that means that you're staying on all day long, and then you want your body to just shut down at 10:00 PM after rushing around all day, but that's not how it actually works.


So this is where I teach what I call the midday reset. And this does not have to be long, but sometime in the afternoon, ideally before 4:00 PM you deliberately take time to downshift your nervous system.


So that might mean a 10 minute walk outside without your phone, a few minutes of slow breathing, stepping away from screens, sitting in natural light. Again, getting that sunlight throughout the day is also really helpful. Or even just pausing between meetings instead of stacking things back to back. So [00:07:00] when you do these things, you're telling your brain, Hey, we're not being chased, the day is not an emergency, and you're giving time for your nervous system to get into the rest and digest mode. When you don't give your nervous system that signal, it often saves that crash for nighttime, and that's when you can't fall asleep or you're awake at 3:00 AM just super alert with your mind racing.


And then there's the other end of the day, what I call the evening brake. So if the morning anchor tells your brain, Hey, we're awake, and the evening brake tells your brain, we are safe to power down now. And most people don't have one. So if you're eating your biggest meal, super late, if you're staying under bright overhead lights, if you're on screens, answering emails until you get into bed.


If you're falling asleep on the couch, then no wonder you're wired when you want to be trying to sleep. Your body [00:08:00] clock doesn't just need that strong start and the midday reset. It also needs a clear descent into rest.


So that means dimming lights at least 60 to 90 minutes before bed, and not just lamps, but actually reducing overhead lighting. It means if you're watching TV at night, which I like to do too, then it's wearing blue light blocking glasses. These things you've probably been hearing about for years, but it's easy to forget about how simple these foundations are.


And I'm not saying this is going to end your chronic insomnia problem because there are likely imbalances in your body if you're trying to do all these things and not able to sleep. But this is where we have to start.


So it also means having dinner earlier when possible and not making it your largest meal of the day. If most of your calories are coming in after sunset, your metabolism is still active when you're wanting your brain to start shutting down.


But if your [00:09:00] rhythm is unstable, then shifting more of your calories earlier, doing that circadian rhythm fast can make a big difference.


And then the last piece of the evening brake is consistency. So going to bed at widely different times confuses your clock. Staying up later on the weekends just makes it then harder to go to bed earlier on Sunday night.


So our bodies really love predictability and consistency. Again, because our body clocks aren't exactly 24 hours, trying to keep things consistent helps regulate and stabilize our clocks. So when our wake time, our meal timing and light exposure becomes steady, then your circadian rhythm can stabilize.


So to summarize this, if you want to reset your circadian rhythm, it comes down to three things. So your morning anchor, a clear wake time, morning sunlight, and a solid first meal to get started.


Your midday reset is a deliberate [00:10:00] downshift so that your body isn't just stressed all day long.


And then your evening brake. So dim lights have an earlier and lighter dinner, A consistent sleep timing, and that gives your body that clear signal that it is time to sleep. When those three pieces are steady, then your body clock has that structure it needs.


Now, remember Brad I talked about earlier, so he had other imbalances going on as well, and we addressed those, but once he stopped grazing all day, he stabilized his meals, he stayed awake until his actual bedtime and instead of dozing at night, his sleep stopped feeling random. So he wasn't lying there wide awake at 10 30 anymore.


His rhythm totally stabilized. So we didn't need to give him something to knock him out. We didn't need to override his body. He just needed to give his system these clear signals. And that's really the difference.


Now, if you put these foundations in place and your sleep improves, that is [00:11:00] wonderful. That means your rhythm just needed structure.


But most people with chronic sleep issues have more going on. , If you put them in place and you're still waking at two or 3:00 AM you're still wired at night, especially at bedtime, that's when it's time to look deeper. 'cause then your body's releasing cortisol for other reasons, and that's when it's time to test and figure out exactly what's going on.


Inside the Complete Sleep Solution Program, I use comprehensive functional lab testing to identify these specific imbalances keeping your nervous system activated at night. So whether that's cortisol, timing, gut health, blood sugar patterns, detox pathways, or neurotransmitters. Then I build a personalized plan to help you restore balance so your sleep becomes consistent again. If you're ready to stop managing sleep and actually find the root causes. You can schedule a free consultation at the link in the description. I'll look at your history, your patterns, and determine [00:12:00] whether the Complete Sleep Solution Program is the right next step for you.


And if you want to hear Brad's story, the client I've been talking about in this video, you can watch the next video.

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