A normal cortisol rhythm involves high levels upon waking, a rise a couple of hours after waking, a fall in the afternoon, and low levels at bedtime.

“You want your cortisol high in the morning & you want it low before sleep.”

“Most* people want cortisol levels elevated in the morning & low evening & at night.”

“The typical pattern of cortisol in a healthy individual, and we really can say physically and emotionally healthy individual, is that cortisol is going to be somewhat high right around waking, and then is going to be highest as it ever will be in the 24-hour period, about 45 minutes post waking, not exactly 45 minutes, but about 45 minutes. And then it will drop gradually, such that by about 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon, which is actually when body temperature tends to start to drop as well, cortisol tends to be very low, and then remains low in a healthy individual, such that at 9:00 p.m., it's very low. And throughout the night as we sleep, it's very low.”

“and the basic Contour of a healthy pattern of cortisol secretion is  to have highest levels of cortisol in the morning  is actually part of the mechanism that's associated with waking you up”

“you would want generally something like a 50% reduction in the first hour in terms of cortisol concentrations”

“the first tool is to make sure that your highest levels of cortisol are first thing in the morning when you wake up”

“So the picture I'm trying to draw for you here is you want a really sharp spike in cortisol as you arise in the morning and then you want that to taper off somewhat gradually.”

“You want your cortisol high early in the day, shortly after waking, and you want your cortisol low in the hours right before sleep and in the first hours of sleep.”

“Having the cortisol pattern of high in the morning, low in the afternoon and at night is the cortisol pattern you want.”

“You want high levels of cortisol, yes, high upon waking, and in the first hours after waking.”

“Um, you know, I won't belabor this conversation with this because I've said it many times before, but you want high cortisol in the morning. It's why you wake up in the morning. You want your cortisol low at night before you go to sleep in the last hours before sleep. That sets you up for a lot of great things. And that's true for men and women.”

“So cortisol is circadian dependent as you know. I mean, in the like early morning of early hours of the morning, that's when you want it to peak, right? The part of the awakening response, like you”

“there is also a diurnal pattern for cortisol am cortisol cortisol should be highest in the morning that's part of our circadian rhythm and so you want to measure cortisol in the morning”

“do they wake up with a low level of free cortisol so do they wake up about here do they have a nice rise a couple hours after waking does it fall in the afternoon and is it down here at bedtime”