Video is summarized in article below.
Dr. Lam: Sluggishness in the morning. Not getting up refreshed. Then you go through the morning, and it’s okay, and then you have an afternoon slump. Also, people can wake up refreshed, but then by mid-morning or early afternoon, despite having a meal which kind of perks them up a little bit, they start going downhill again.
What is this all about?
Dr. Carrie: Sometimes they also feel like they need to drink a coffee in the morning. If you’re that person, maybe you’re having low energy from an adrenal standpoint or you’re unable to produce enough hormones to give you the pick-me-up or to wake up. That’s why you feel the tiredness.
Dr. Lam: Yes, what is the hormone involved?
Dr. Jeremy: So, it’s basically your anti-stress hormone, which is cortisol. So, the body has to draw from its internal reserves, and this may lead to depletion and low energy. So, if you’re feeling tired in the morning, especially if you have good restful sleep, then adrenal fatigue might be the answer.
Dr. Lam: You see, the body produces a hormone called cortisol. It rises very early in the morning in order for you to even get up from bed. It hits a peak around six to seven o’clock or eight o’clock if you wake up later. Then it starts going downhill through the rest of the day, slowly and gently, like a ski slope, until you get to the evening when you go to sleep.
So, that’s a normal cortisol response. But some people can have a higher level in the morning, or a lower level in the morning, or they can have a reverse curve.
When the cortisol rhythm, or the circadian rhythm, is disrupted, then you’re going to have this kind of ripple turbulences we call them.
Dr. Carrie: So, what are you saying? Sometimes if the body doesn’t have enough cortisol to wake them up in the morning, they might feel really tired waking up?
Dr. Lam: Correct. Then you need food to be an extra boost. But then the cortisol is supposed to last you for the whole day, but it doesn’t. Therefore, you have an afternoon slump when you just run out of steam.
Dr. Jeremy: Yes. So, what you’re saying is also if you have stress for a long period of time, then your cortisol starts to run out in your body as well.
Dr. Lam: Well, that is unfortunately very common because cortisol is the anti-stress hormone. If you are exposed to chronic or acute stress, especially on an ongoing basis, the body’s output of cortisol becomes disrupted. When that happens, you can have adrenal fatigue. One of the most common signs of that is what?
Dr. Carrie: Is feeling tired in the morning and also feeling tired in the afternoon.
Dr. Lam: Unfortunately, we are socially taught to walk around with a cup of coffee with sugar or eat a donut, but this is actually not necessarily the best thing to solve the problem. It just kind of patches the problem up.
So, short-term, if you have this type of rollercoaster swing, sluggish in the morning and slumping in the afternoon, slow down first and try to learn to ask, “Hey, what is really going on? What is my body trying to tell me?" It’s not necessarily it’s broken, it’s the body’s signal, healthy signals to tell you, “Hey, let’s focus on the adrenals a little bit.”
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