Video

Transcript

so let’s talk about the relationship

between cortisol and your sleep

first of all what is cortisol it’s a

stress hormone and has a lot of

different functions with the immune

system for countering stress it’s a

survival hormone and if it’s too high it

can definitely interfere with your sleep

normally when you go to bed at night

ideally at 11 o’clock or maybe even

10:45 would be the perfect time because

that is when the circadian wave start

happening and I’m talking about the

sleep cycles so it starts over here

and you go through your different waves

of sleep through the night from a

superficial sleep which is the REM sleep

to the deeper levels which end up to be

the Delta wave sleep now

right around between 12 o’clock midnight

and - this is where you have the lowest

cortisol ideally it should be the lowest

amount of cortisol the highest level of

cortisol is between 6 8 and maybe 9

o’clock in the morning but what happens

cortisol can start going higher earlier

through the night in counter the depth

of deep sleep so what happens is you

might sleep but you’re not getting the

deeper restful rejuvenation sleep you

wake up feeling just as tired is when

you went to bed so the real problem

behind a lot of issues with sleep is

this darn high cortisol so I’m going to

talk about a little bit about how

cortisol is regulated in the body so you

have the hypothalamus up in the brain

it’s like the master gland then you have

the pituitary that is also in the brain

but it’s slightly lower and then you

have the adrenal so H P a it’s called

HPA axis okay so there’s a little tiny

group of cells in the hypothalamus

called the pbn para particular nuclei

that send a signal down the pituitary

okay in response to some stress reaction

and the communication between the master

gland hypothalamus and the pituitary is

called c ra just going to try to

abbreviate some of

hormones right now and then the

communication then goes from the

pituitary down to the adrenal gland and

that communication is called a CTA so

basically you can look at it like this

here we have the coach on the football

team then we have the quarterback and

then we have the players right here we

have two players you have two adrenals

they’re right on top of the kidneys

right deep true and the cortisol is a

stress hormone there’s a lot and so the

core salt is a survival stress hormone I

have a lot of videos and of course so I

put the links down below but here’s what

you need to know if there’s enough

cortisol being produced okay normally it

works like a feedback loop like a

thermostat there should be signals that

are sent back up here and over here to

turn off this production of these

hormones so the goal is to send the

signal we need more cortisol down

through here the adrenal complies with

that order produces cortisol and then

there should be a turn-off switch okay

in theory but what happens when this off

switch it’s busted then you have more

cortisol more cortisol more cortisol

becomes a chronic situation and if you

have too much of any one hormone the

receptors in the cells start resisting

that hormones and then you get cortisol

resistance just like you would have

insulin resistance so that makes

everything worse the body will start

making more and more course all because

the cortisol is being blocked so the

feedback signal never gets back up to

here so these guys never get the

information to turn off the flow of

course also it keeps producing more and

more and more the sleep mechanism is

composed of two things one is the locus

coeruleus and the other is the Rafa

Nikola a nice little on/off switches in

the back part of the brainstem work one

works to wake you up the other one works

to help you go to sleep and these

centers are greatly influenced by this

hormone

here okay because this here raises

noradrenaline and that would be a

similar hormone to adrenaline which will

wake you up but we don’t want it raised

in the middle of the night especially at

2:00 o’clock or even at 4:00 o’clock

we want it to be as low as possible so

we don’t want to stimulate this okay

there’s another player involved called

the amygdala and that is a little area

in the brain that’s similar to your

adrenals it’s kind of like the adrenals

but in your brain if you have a problem

with this right here you can even get

panic attacks so it really is involved

in a lot of stress responses so this is

also triggered when we have too much of

this communication too so we have a

problem with different parts of the

brain that are activated that’s going to

prevent you from getting the sleep all

because of this down cortisol will not

turn off because cortisol is also

supposed to turn off both of these as

well in the feedback loop but if there’s

a problem with it we never get the off

switch so question is what do we do with

this high cortisol you want to obviously

try to find out what’s causing your

stress in life and do whatever you can

to handle that if you’re in a situation

with people and they’re stressing you

out change that environment really quick

because it’s not worth it you really

need to create an environment that you

have a lot lower stress now there’s some

things that you can do one is go for

long walks and I’m talking about 45 to

60 minutes every single day not of high

intensity but long walks somewhere in

nature where you’re not listening to a

headphone you’re not on your cell phone

you need to disconnect you need to get

more space this is probably one of the

best things you can do especially since

most people sit behind a computer for 8

to 10 to 12 plus hours all day long and

then they you know go watch TV and then

they go to bed so we want to extract

yourself from that desk and get out

there and get some space acupressure

there’s a Do It Yourself acupressure

technique in which I show you how to

extract stress from your body

okay so that’s another thing you can do

now I want to talk about some other

things that you can take to reduce

stress now these two right here are

amino acids okay l-tyrosine in

l-theanine both of these help in the

regulation of noradrenaline okay so

these two will make you feel calmer the

other minerals that are involved in

supporting cortisol to make sure it’s

not too spiked be calcium very very

important magnesium as in calcium

magnesium that’s a really good remedy

also potassium you can get this from

vegetables you can get all of these from

vegetables right here and zinc very very

important in a lot of different things

especially sleep so these are the

minerals involved with regulating

cortisol there’s a neurotransmitter

called gaba which is another good one

and that is going to decrease that

little area of your body called the

locus coeruleus which is involved in

triggering this right here so when you

when you if you take gaba you can

actually lower the adrenaline and the

little center and hypothalamus that

starts the whole chain reaction so this

is why when people take gaba they feel

less anxiety calmer they sleep better

ashwagandha is one of the best herbs to

act as an adaptogen so it helps you

adapt to stress it increases your stress

tolerance and it has the ability to help

inhibit adrenal hormones okay Magnolia

Magnolia is another great herb that will

increase DHEA which is like the buffer

for cortisol it’ll help inhibit high

levels of cortisol and there’s another

remedy called NAC that will also limit

the noradrenaline as well and then

vitamin C when you go through stress

believe it or not your body dumps

vitamin C so you lose vitamin C and you

need vitamin C for the manufacture of

certain hormones so vitamin C is very

important in supporting an adrenal gland

that is stressed out so don’t forget to

take more vitamins you consume foods

that are high in vitamin C by the way

always take vitamin C and it’s complete

complex don’t take it as a synthetic

fraction of the vitamin C complex

because you need the whole complex but

this one is probably the most important

right here and it’s just simple b1 I

recommend getting it from nutritional

yeast

why because b1 is necessary to make some

of these neurotransmitters like GABA and

it also helps calm the autonomic nervous

system now and specifically the flight

or fight mechanism which is called the

sympathetic nervous system and also

you’re living off of coffee or tea with

sugar and alcohol these are the things

that will deplete b1 the tannins in

coffee and tea make b1 unavailable to

you so that’s a big blocker right there

and plenty of course sugar and carbs

especially refined carbs will deplete b1

and definitely alcohol will so of course

avoid these things right here but don’t

forget to take nutritional yeast because

that’s probably one of the most

important things that you can do so the

whole goal is not to keep cortisol at

zero but to have normalized cortisol so

you don’t have anything interfering with

these very important sleep cycles yet

you still have the function of course so

which is vital for all the survival

mechanisms including the immune system

alright thanks for watching so if you

want more knowledge on how to create a

healthy body subscribe now and get daily

notifications