Andrew Huberman· PhD
You sort of want cortisol high in the early day, and then tapering off.
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You sort of want cortisol high in the early day, and then tapering off.
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You want it elevated early in the day and tapering off into the afternoon/evening.
High morning cortisol that tapers off across the day = daytime vigor, focus & great sleep.
But I should point out that a increase in cortisol each day right about the time of waking, and specifically right about the time of waking, is actually beneficial for our alertness and our energy. So having some increasing cortisol every 24 hours is a good thing, provided it happens early in the day. Late day increases in cortisol are associated with depression.
In fact, spikes or pulses in 9:00 p.m. cortisol are a fairly reliable biomarker readout of certain forms of depression and chronic anxiety.
Having an early day cortisol peak and a very low cortisol level late in the day, 4:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., is immensely beneficial. It's, reflects a properly regulated autonomic nervous system. It means being alert during the day. And your ability to sleep at night is tightly correlated to this viewing of sunlight in the morning.
it is advantageous to have your cortisol release high in the early part of the day and to taper off toward the end of the day
and of course there's a big increase in the morning especially if you view morning sunlight a healthy increase I should say in cortisol cortisol is not bad folks you you want cortisol but you want that Peak early in the day we know that
you want to have your cortisol elevated early in the day and then subside across the day that's the ideal pattern of cortisol release
If you're starting to get the picture that cortisol is something that you want high early in the day and that you want tapering off later into the day, great. Then you're getting the picture correctly.
you want your cortisol elevated early in the day and then you want to taper off end of day spikes or increases in in late day cortisol are associated with depression and anxiety work from our Psychiatry department at Stanford has shown that and others have shown that so you want that big amplitude and then cruising down out of that um cortisol release early in the day and bright light is one way to do it