If you’re tired during the day and wired at night, that means your cortisol levels are out of whack!


Resources mentioned on this episode:


Find out more about the Complete Sleep Solution program. 


Episode Transcript:


Have you tried everything from natural to pharmaceutical just to get a good night's rest? Join me, Martha Lewis, certified sleep expert and functional health coach as I unpack what's really keeping you up at night and how to change it. This is the Sleep Detective podcast and I'm going to show you how to sleep well so you can enjoy your life.


Hello. Hello everyone. Happy Monday. I hope that you all had a great weekend. It turned into winter where I live in Jackson Hole, so it was 25 degrees this morning. It snowed a bit during the weekend there. I'm just looking outside. There is a dusting of snow on the ground in town, so that's what we're dealing with, but I hope that you had a great weekend as well. So I just want to say that I'm talking about a topic every day this week, but you are also welcome to ask any questions that you have in the comments and I will get back to you as well at the end of what I'm talking about.


So it doesn't have to be related to the topic at hand, it can be anything about your sleep or about how I help people figure out their sleep. So just feel free to put your questions in the chat and I can answer those. All right, so today I want to talk about why you are tired during the day and wired at night. So many of my clients say this, and that's why you aren't able to sleep, right? It's like you're wired when you want to be sleeping and then you're tired all day. But what this means is that cortisol levels are out of whack. And before I explain how that works, I also want to talk about cortisol. I actually had someone respond to a post recently. What is cortisol? And I'm like, I guess I shouldn't assume that everyone knows what cortisol is and what it does.


So cortisol is a stress hormone. That's what it is most known for, but it's also the hormone that wakes us up in the morning and keeps us alert throughout the day. So we do want to be releasing cortisol at the right times. And cortisol also responds to inflammation. So whenever there's inflammation, cortisol, the body releases cortisol because it's an anti-inflammatory hormone. So that is partly has to do with why your body's releasing cortisol at night. But we want cortisol to be lowest first thing in the morning and then spike to its highest level within two hours of waking up and then gradually go down throughout the day. So I'm actually going to share my screen so you can see what that looks like right here. So this is the Dutch test that I use to look at cortisol levels and sex hormones and liver function and lots of other things.


But one of the great things about this test is that you take five samples in 24 hours so we can see your cortisol pattern throughout the day. So many people tell me that they got blood work done. Cortisol is normal, so that means that it's in range at that second in time. In the morning usually is when you take a fasting blood test and see your cortisol levels, but we need to know what it's doing throughout the entire day. Just because it's normal in the morning doesn't mean anything about what's happening in the middle of the night or what's happening at bedtime. So in this graph here, you can see the black lines represent the normal ranges. So there's the low range limit you can see at the bottom, and then the high range limit you can see at the top. So ideally cortisol levels should be in between those two black lines. And you can see how both of them, it's low waking, then it spikes and then it goes down throughout the day.


So that's the ideal ranges. Now the red line were actually my cortisol pattern when I wasn't sleeping. So you can see that waking, and I will say that waking also represents the middle of the night. That's how the test is measured. So if you wake up in the middle of the night, you actually take a sample in the middle of the night and then you take one as soon as you wake up in the morning. And then, so that is what this waking represents is both of those measures. So that shows this is a urine test, so it's showing how much cortisol was excreted in your urine throughout the night until the morning. So you can see my cortisol is super high in the middle of the night. It's higher than it is the rest of the day. It's way higher than it should be, and then it just goes down all day long.


So this explains okay, why I was awake in the middle of the night because when the body releases cortisol, cortisol is our stress hormone. So what it does is it gives us energy. It's literally preparing us to survive in the moment in that fight or flight response. And so it's going to give us energy, it's going to make our mind race or focus and concentrate because it's thinking, okay, what do I need to do to survive in this moment? It's also a painkiller, like I mentioned. It is an anti-inflammatory and it increases our heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature. So those are things that we don't want happening in the middle of the night when we're trying to sleep. So this is why I was waking up at three in the morning every night and it took me a couple hours to go back to sleep and then because I wasn't getting that normal spike. So again, it's supposed to be lowest in the morning and then spike within two hours of waking up, that is what wakes us up and makes us alert throughout the day. So instead, cortisol is just going down as soon as I wake up and I'm not getting that energy spike. So I just felt tired all day. And of course I'm also tired from not sleeping well, but it also has to do with cortisol levels.


So this is something that we want to be looking at, right, is why is the body releasing cortisol at night when it shouldn't be and why is that happening? And I will add, so some of my clients have trouble falling asleep at bedtime, and I will see the spike happen at night, which totally explains why they are having such a hard time falling asleep. So it can either be high at bedtime in the middle of the night or both then, but usually if you're then tired throughout the day, then it's really low throughout the day. All right, so I'm going to stop screen sharing here if I can. And so again, the reason why my cortisol was high at night was because of inflammation. So cortisol is an anti-inflammatory hormone. And so that is why I was awake because my body was releasing cortisol. Now what we want to know is why was my body releasing cortisol in the middle of the night?


Because yes, I can recommend a supplement to lower cortisol, but you don't want to be taking that long term. A lot of my clients come to me and they're already taking phosphol sine or cortisol manager, which has phosphol sine in it, and that helps lower cortisol directly. And sometimes I will recommend something like that for my clients temporarily, but we don't want to be taking something to force the body to lower cortisol for a long time without dressing why the body's releasing cortisol because the body's releasing cortisol for a reason, and if it's doing it to protect the body from inflammation, then we don't want to suppress that for a long time. So I don't recommend taking anything like that.


So the reason my body was releasing cortisol in the middle of the night was because I had a parasite. So that's where the other tests that I run. So this Dutch test, it's called to see what's going on with your cortisol pattern, what's going on with sex hormones, what's going on with liver detox. It also looks at B vitamins and melatonin. This one test gives me so much information, but then we need to figure out, okay, why is the body releasing cortisol in the middle of the night? One of the most common reasons is because of a pathogen in the gut. And I had a parasite that I had probably had for 13 years from when I traveled in Nepal and India and got really sick. And I see this commonly in my clients, especially if you're waking up at three or 4:00 AM pretty much the same time every night and it takes a couple hours to go back to sleep or you don't go back to sleep at all, it's likely because you have a pathogen in the gut.


So I use the GI map, which is a stool test to show what's living in the gut, including pathogens that interfere with sleep. And then some of the other common reasons why you might be waking up around three or 4:00 AM can be from blood sugar. Whenever your blood sugar levels drop too low, your body releases cortisol because again, cortisol gives you energy. It literally puts glucose back into your cells to raise your blood sugar. And then the third most common thing I see for waking up in the middle of the night and having that high cortisol is liver detox issues. So the liver is most active in the middle of the night, and that's when it's supposed to be detoxifying all of the toxins. And when there are more that the body can handle, then they build up, they circulate around, they cause a lot of inflammation, and that's why the body is releasing cortisol.


So that's what we also want to look at is, okay, what's going on with your cortisol pattern that's making you tired during the day and then wide awake at night? And then what is causing that? And then when we fix those, then your body has the normal cortisol pattern and then you can sleep well and feel alert and awake during the day as well. So in my complete sleep solution program, I run four different lab tests to look for all the things that could be causing your sleep issues, including looking at your cortisol pattern, liver detox, pathogens in the gut. I also assess for blood sugar issues, which again can cause those 3:00 AM wake up as well. And then once we have all those test results back, I give you a customized protocol that includes some diet and lifestyle changes, and also supplements that are meant to be taken temporarily while we get your body back in balance as much as possible.


At the same time, that's going to be the fastest way to be able to restore your health so you can sleep better and then you won't have to take supplements forever to sleep. And the benefit of the testing too is that then we know what your body needs. So instead of guessing that things like melatonin and magnesium and all the sleep formulas out there, we can see, yes, you do need melatonin or no, melatonin is not the issue for you. And even if melatonin is low, and that is part of it, it's still only one piece of the puzzle. So if you also have a parasite and cortisol is super high in the middle of the night, just taking melatonin isn't going to be enough to solve your sleep issues. So we need to find out all the reasons why you aren't able to sleep normally and why you're wired at night and then exhausted all day. So I will put the link to find out more about the complete sleep solution. And in the meantime, let me know if you have questions or comments, any questions about your sleep is totally fine. Any questions about how I help get to the root cause of sleep issues and help you fix that is also fine. But I am here to answer whatever questions you have while I put this link in here.


Alright, I saw that someone asked, looks like Fernando, I met a Fernando when I was traveling in Nepal. He was lovely. Yes, I don't sleep myself. Can you help me? Thank you. Yes, this is exactly what I do. So I use functional lab testing to find the reasons why you aren't sleeping. It's not just in your head, it's not just anxiety. Even if your doctor is telling you that. And a sleeping pill can help with the symptoms of not sleeping, but it doesn't produce natural sleep. They have side effects. And my clients don't want to be on sleeping pills forever. So when we get to the root cause by looking at the imbalances in your body that are affecting your sleep and fixing those, then you can sleep normally and naturally without needing a drug to sleep. So that is what I do with my clients every day, all day.


And what I love doing, I love going into detective mode and looking at the assessments and the lab test and finding what's going on and finding all the pieces of the puzzle that are causing your sleep issues. Alright, I don't see any other questions here, but if you have any questions about your sleep, feel free to enter them in the comments and I will be back tomorrow. Let's see, tomorrow I'm going to talk about one of my clients, Jay Paul, who is an architect and he lost 15 pounds. He got his energy, creativity, and confidence back by fixing his sleep. So I'm going to talk about what his tests showed, what I recommended for him to get better and how he was able to, he noticed a difference in his sleep in just a month of working together. So if you want some inspiration and to know what a case looks like that I'm looking at and how the lab tests show what's going on, then you want to join me tomorrow at the same time.


Awesome. Everyone. Oh yes. Okay. Will is asking how do I rid my body of parasites if found? Great question. So you can go to your doctor and get an antibiotic and antiparasitic. And of course we know that drugs like that, they can definitely kill pathogens, but they also kill the good bacteria in our gut. They also damage the lining of the gut. And so I mean, studies have recently shown that when you take antibiotics, your gut flora is still affected two years later. So as a holistic alternative health practitioner, I stay away from medications as much as possible. Definitely sometimes are necessary, but yes. So what I recommend are supplements, herbs and things like that to deal with a parasite. And I always recommend, and another reason I'll say that antibiotics aren't always effective is because parasites and other pathogens create what's called a biofilm around themselves.


This is a protective shield that keeps things from getting in and killing them. And so the first thing I recommend is what is called a biofilm buster or something to break down that biofilm. And then I recommend anti-parasitic herbs that can then get into where the parasite is because the biofilms been broken down and deal with the parasite. It's also really important to take what's called a binder while you are doing this. So as those pathogens die, they release a lot of toxins, which then your liver has to deal with. So a binder is something like activated charcoal or a zeolite or bentonite clay. I like to use something that combines multiple binders. So it's called a broad spectrum binder. And those binders pull or attach onto those toxins and pull them out of the body so that your liver isn't having to deal with them.


So that's an important part of dealing with a parasite as well. And why I don't recommend just taking a drug to deal with it. And then you also want to be restoring gut health at the same time that parasite has caused a lot of damage to the gut over time. And so we want to create a healthy gut so that when you're exposed to pathogens in the future, which we always are, then your body can fight them off and they aren't able to take hold. So it's also more than just killing a parasite. It's also working on gut health in general. And then it's also supporting liver detox, which I just mentioned, and realizing too that a parasite affects so many different systems in the body. And I actually did an entire blog post and podcast episode about this, about the many ways a parasite leads to insomnia, not even just the gut.


It also, let's see, it affects liver detox, like I mentioned. It ends up affecting our hormones because when the body's constantly releasing cortisol to deal with a parasite or stress of any kind, that takes resources away from our sex hormones. And so then those get out of balance. And so hormone imbalances also a piece of the puzzle that I'm looking at. And then when your gut isn't healthy because it's been damaged from a parasite, that affects the nutrients that you're able to absorb from foods. And so then minerals get out of balance. And then when minerals get out of balance, the body holds onto heavy metals because heavy metals can do part of the job of minerals, but not all of it, and they are toxic. But then heavy metals start building up. So there are so many different systems in the body that a parasite starts affecting that we also need to address for you to be able to fully get your body back in balance and restore your health so you can sleep normally and will.


Yes, you also ask parasites and PAC apnea, they can because cause inflammation, there are actually studies linking h pylori, which is a bacteria that lives in the stomach to sleep apnea, to obstructive sleep apnea. I'm not sure if there are specific studies linking parasites yet at this point, but I think I know that they can because of the inflammation that they cause sometimes obstructive sleep apnea is from inflammation. Everything's inflamed, and so that makes the passageways smaller. And so then it becomes harder to breathe and they can more easily get blocked when you're sleeping and lying down. So yes, parasites can impact apnea for sure. All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening and I'll be back tomorrow at the same time. Eight 30 mountain time, 10 30 eastern time. I hope you're all adjusting to daylight savings time. Well, and I will talk to you soon.

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