Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2452: The Hidden Hormone That is Disrupting Your Sleep With Dr. Stephen Cabral

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

 The Hidden Hormone that is Disrupting Your Sleep with Dr. Stephen Cabral The 4 stages of sleep and how you can get deeper in them. (1:31) What sleep “aides” impact sleep the most? (7:55) The best tracking devices. (9:09) What are the most common reasons why people have sleep issues? (10:09) Is there a negative feedback loop with melatonin? (14:03) The cortisol curve. (16:52) Supplements for cortisol. (21:23) Revealing the guy’s Bedtime Cortisol (Poor Sleep) test results. (23:41) Doug. (24:31) Adam. (28:18) Justin & Sal. (32:17) Lifestyle improvements for better sleep. (36:06) Who is this test for and where can I get it? (45:03) Related Links/Products Mentioned For a limited time, Mind Pump listeners can visit here for a FREE “POOR SLEEP TEST” that shows the root cause of your sleepless nights by unveiling your night-time cortisol levels.  Visit NASM for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** $150 off any CPT (Certified Personal Trainer) package! ** Code MPM150 at checkout ** October Promotion: MAPS Muscle Mommy 50% off! ** Code OCTOBER50 at checkout ** Visit Brain.fm for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners. ** Get 30 days of free access to science-backed music. ** Visit Eight Sleep for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump Listeners! ** Use code MINDPUMP to get $350 off Pod 4 Ultra. Currently ship to United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia ** Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP for 20% off your first order (new customers) and double rewards points for existing customers. ** Effects of Withania somnifera on Cortisol Levels in Stressed Human Subjects: A Systematic Review How Daylight Saving Impacts Your Sleep and What to Do About It Use the 3-2-1 Formula for Best Sleep Results | Cabral Concept 2526 The Impact of Resonance Frequency Breathing on Measures of Heart Rate Variability, Blood Pressure, and Mood Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources Features Guest Dr. Stephen Cabral (@stephencabral) Instagram Website Podcast  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we had Dr. Cabral back on. He was checking out our cortisol levels. Great episode. In fact he's going to talk to you about the hidden hormone that's disrupting your sleep and it's

typically cortisol. This is a stress hormone right? If it's too high for too long it encourages visceral body fat gain. It reduces your ability to build muscle. So in today's episode we talk all about that and we actually took tests ourselves so he reveals the results of that. By the way if you go to stevencabral.com forward slash better sleep, Steven is spelled S-T-E-P-H-E-N, you can get a free poor sleep test. So this will show you the root cause of why your sleep is so bad. By the way this episode was brought to you by a sponsor NASM, this is the world's premier certification for personal trainers and fitness coaches.

And if you go through our link, you'll get $150 off any CPT package. Just go to NASMPT.com. We also have a sale this month on a workout program, MAPS Muscle Mommy is 50% off. If you're interested, go to MAPSFitnessProducts.com and then use the code October50 for the discount. All right, here comes the show.

Dr. Gural, welcome back again. It's always a good time talking to you. Yeah, it's great to be here. So today we're gonna talk about sleep. You did some tests on us, which we'll talk about towards the back half of the episode, kinda how we did. But let's start out with sleep and let's talk, everybody knows by now how important it is.

But let's talk about the phases of sleep and what we know that they do for the body and what is considered an ideal ratio of those different phases. Yeah, for me, my mission is to obviously spread knowable statistics about your own body through at-home lab testing, but it's also deeper in the education, meaning that just being in bed for eight hours a night does not mean

that you're actually getting restorative and reparative sleep. Yeah. And so for us today, I want to really talk about those four stages of sleep, what they mean, and then how you can get deeper into them. So the four stages are essentially, there's three non-REM, they just call them end stages and one REM. So as we are drifting off at night,

that's stage one, that's basically going from beta waves or alpha waves and moving into what's called theta waves. And we'll talk about weight of today because that's the brain signal that is moving into more of a quiet and calm state. And it's one of the issues why people can't fall asleep well while they have anxiety, while they have all sorts of issues is they're not actually able to bring down those gamma or beta waves to an alpha wave and then ultimately theta waves.

So that's stage one. So they have issues with stage one. So that's, okay, that's already interesting information to me because this also explains to why probably BrainFM is so like effective at helping you fall asleep is it's probably helping change the brain waves that would, because you're listening to a sound and music, right?

That could be, but you know, it's interesting. Yes, I think so. And also what I noticed with kids, you know, if you have little kids, you'll notice this when they're trying to fall asleep, they'll get more anxious before they fall asleep. And you got to help calm them down, either rub their back

or because all of a sudden there's like, they're restless. So it's like they're having trouble going to that stage, that first stage. A hundred percent. Yeah. And so like my two daughters, they're getting older now at 10 and 12, but if they get riled up

before bed, they just, they don't go to sleep for like an hour, right? It's like, it takes a while for them just to cool down on their own, but we're going to share tips as to how to, how you can make that happen within 10 minutes. Okay. So a lot faster, but brain FM, I'm assuming is that like a binaural beats? Yes. But, but far more, far more effective. So one of the ways that these things work, they actually entrain brain waves.

So you have one Hertz basically going in one ear and then another one in the other ear. And they, in the way, two waves come together from each year, they entrain and they bring down, let's say a beta state to alpha, which is constant relaxed thinking. Yeah, awesome. Makes a lot of sense. So stage one, you're going from conscious to unconscious.

Yeah, exactly, just going into sleep. Not quite sleep yet, you're just going in that light sleep. Then the second stage is light sleep as well, but now you're actually asleep. So now you're moving into what are called delta waves. And so you're starting to move to, it goes gamma, beta, and then it goes alpha. Those are waking stages. Gamma is really high problem solving. Beta is stress as well. Alpha is calm, relaxed thinking, focused work. And then we move to theta. That's the in-between stage that we try to get to when we're meditating between, um,

awakefulness and sleep. And then we move down to delta. And so as we're moving into the, the delta waves and stage two only lasts for like 20 minutes. And then you drop into stage three, which is deep sleep. Deep sleep is the one that we talk about the most because that is the one that's

restorative for the body. And so what happens is that we have two end stages, deep and REM. One is for the mind, REM sleeps more for the mind, we'll talk about that. And then deep is more for the body. And so we're in this state, we're in more of a delta wave state.

Our body essentially goes into this deep coma like state where it's very difficult to wake us. And that enables this deep coma like state where it's very difficult to wake us and that enables this deep restorative pattern that the body knows how to heal. So that's why we say is all of a sudden body temperature drops, heart rate slows and the body literally goes into a hibernation state. That's deep sleep, which is very different than REM. And then REM stands for rapid eye movement because they've identified that your eyes are moving under your eyelids.

Yes. That's more for the brain. It is more for the brain. And so I like to refer to that one as you're taking all of the different things that were you or you thought about or concentrated on for that day and filing them away. So that's a lot of what we know too, from REM based sleep. That's why when

you have dreams and dreams are happening during that REM stage as well, that you are processing information and at the same time, hopefully reducing inflammation in the brain as well. Now what's interesting about REM-based sleep is that when you're in a sleep lab and we're looking at the brain waves, you go back to an alpha and beta based wave state in REM sleep. So even though you're in your sleep. It's like you're awake in a sleep. That's right. And so the body then turns on its own paralysis mechanism

so that you don't begin acting out what your brain is actually thinking about. Now when that's dysfunctional, you get sleepwalking. 100%, yeah, or you start to literally twitch and move and all that in your sleep as well. So what is the optimal amount of time in each phase? It's a good question. So we look at total sleep per night,

and we wanna get about 20 to 25% of that as REM sleep, about 15 to 20% is deep sleep, the rest is light. Now that light sleep does matter. They used to think that it didn't matter. So if you only slept five hours and you were able to bang out two hours of, cause ideally, so there's 20 to 25%, but also that's based on eight hours a night.

So you really do want two hours of REM and about 1.5 hours of deep each night. And so that's why total hours matter as well, because your deep sleep is typically the first four hours of the night and REM sleep the last four hours if you're in bed for eight hours. Now it does come in stages. So essentially it looks like a cascading effect,

like a little waterfall. It goes stage one, stage two, move right into stage three, then stage four, and then come back out of them. Okay. That's a perfect world. We don't see that. We'll talk about sleep trackers and all that. We don't typically see that in the real world, but it's a perfect world. stage one, stage two, move right into stage three, then stage four, and then come back out of them.

That's a perfect world. We don't see that. We'll talk about sleep trackers and all that. We don't typically see that in the real world. We see more deep the beginning of the night, more REM the end of the night. So what this brings up for me is I know that certain compounds, one in particular that people use

to help fall asleep, cannabis, reduces people's dreams or that REM stage. In fact, one of the side effects or withdrawal effects of coming off that is just like tons of vivid dreams. Do you guys see that in the labs that you work with where you see people's REM go down from certain, you know, sleep aids or anything like that? Well, alcohol is the biggest. So, you know, unfortunately when people do drink alcohol, it's fascinating. If you have alcohol three to four hours and stop before bed,

seems to be okay, as long as it wasn't that much, maybe a drink or two maximum, if your body, you know, can tolerate that. But alcohol right before bed dramatically reduces deep sleep. Like under an hour, we mostly sleep for people, like 30, 40 minutes. And then it affects REM as well, but not to as much a degree because it's towards

more the end of the night. I see. And then THC affects people's deep in REM more than CBD. So typically when you're taking a THC based substance, it will have CBD as well. But the THC, which has the more of the psychoactive effect, you're right, does affect the REM sleep

more than just like a CBD. You mentioned tracking devices. What are the best ones now? What do they show? So previously there was only a couple that would actually show your sleep stages, but now most of them will show that. So I don't know if you work with any companies

right now, but Oura Ring and Whoopstrap are definitely the two leaders in the space. Apple Watch getting there. I still think that in the end they'll probably win, but right now not the best. And then there's Fitbit, there's also the mattresses that track it.

Eight Sleep. Yeah, exactly. Eight Sleep does it. Yeah, that's cool. So we're pretty agnostic about the Sleep Trackers. What we wanna do is we to look at the sleep stages. So are you getting two hours of REM? Are you getting 1.5 hours, 75 to 90 minutes of deep? And then are you moving through the metrics that we like to see that are indicative of

restorative sleep? Because you don't want to just go by your REM and deep. You want to say, what's your heart rate look like? What's your body temperature, your skin temperature look like? What is the breath rate per minute? We can go through all those as well that people can start to use as parameters. We're almost some of the most common reasons why people have sleep issues these days. They seem to be more and more common,

I would assume it has to do with- Stress, right? Less lack of activity, light exposure, the common ones. What are you guys saying? So stress is still number one, and the reason is that if you can't turn the mind off, those beta waves or even gamma waves,

you can't get down to theta. You can't get down to those. And so it's also why taking sleep-based medication like an Ambien or something like that still doesn't get you the quality sleep that you want. Yes, lights are gonna be out, but you're not getting the restorative sleep that you need in terms of your deep and realm.

We still don't even know how those work, do we? Those drugs. Not completely. They put you to sleep almost like an SSRI. We know that they can help certain individuals in certain cases after two years. Is it effective? Is it worse? So that we can debate about that. Same with sleep-based medication. They have an idiosyncratic way of working. Yeah. And there's some weird side effects with some of those people waking up and doing shit and not remembering. Stay away from Twitter.

Yeah, especially when they're mixed with things like alcohol or other substances as well, which people do. Of course. So what are some of the common reasons, because you'll hear this often, and sometimes this will happen to me too, where I know I'm tired, I can physically feel exhausted,

but I'm wired. So like I gotta go to bed, I know I need tired, I can physically feel exhausted, but I'm wired. So like I gotta go to bed, I know I need to go to bed, and I'll lay in bed and I'm just not falling asleep. That's gotta be the brainwave thing. And then I wake up and I'm tired. Well part of it is, if we, a lot of people, they work a long day in the exercise within a couple hours before bed.

So if that doesn't give you time to begin to reduce those stress hormones, it's not just cortisol. So cortisol is one of them, which we're going to talk about later. There's mineral corticoids like old Osteron that increased sodium and, uh, help you with an exercise, but not great for sleep. Uh, there's norepinephrine and adrenaline.

So you need time for those things to calm down. There's the blue light, like you spoke about. So if you have bright lights, well, your body thinks it's still daytime. And so it keeps cortisol levels high, melatonin levels low, there's the anxiety, there's the stress, temperature matters. So some people, I remember back in college, when I was in my dorm room my freshman year, it was literally a cinder block based room with three guys in this tiny bedroom and it was so hot, especially September, you go back to school. And I had terrible time sleeping just because

the temperature, the heat is so high. Remember your body wants to get to a hibernation based state. You need that room colder. And that's going to be one of the tips that we share with people as well. Like what temperature should you drop it down? You mentioned aldosterone.

That's the chemical that is released to prevent you from peeing in the middle of the night, right? That is, it's another one, not dissimilar to that, and that is antidiuretic hormone, angiotensin. Yeah, it's a little bit different. Okay, and the reason why I'm asking is- That's a supplement? No, no, this is something your body releases,

and Adam often talks about how he wakes up, like his whole life he has to wake up to go pee. Could there be an issue with production of that particular hormone? 100%, yeah. So if your cortisol levels remain elevated, it's basically like your body is still awake, even though when it's supposed to be asleep, your melatonin levels don't rise, and we'll talk

about that, the inverse relationship. And so you don't turn off the stress hormones, so you're not producing that same level of anti-diuretic hormone, most likely not getting into deep and REM-based sleep, because your body knows if you're asleep, it doesn't want to wake you for nighttime urination. So I've heard this before.

So my wife makes this argument where I was like, oh, I had to wake up to pee. She's like, no, you woke up and then you had to pee. That is true for a lot of people. Yes, you wake and then you have to pee. Yeah. And it's because of the production of the, or maybe lack of production of that.

As you rise out of sleep, cortisol levels can get a little bit of a bump. Now some people, it's a drop in blood sugar, or there is just, their mind has a lot of stress. And so you wake up, due to the stress of your dream, you wake up out of that REM sleep. Oh right, right, right. Now you're awake.

And so now that you're awake, the antideuretic hormone gets shut down. Now you brought up melatonin. It's one of the easiest, one of the most commonly purchased supplements for sleep, it's available over the counter. Is there a negative feedback loop with melatonin? Can I take melatonin and then my body not produce it?

Is it something I need to not be worried about? At high dosages, like I see people online and this stuff really kills me and I know that it shouldn't. But I see health people out there saying, oh, I'm taking 30 milligrams a day of melatonin, taking 50 milligrams. I'm like, what's wrong with you?

Like what's wrong with you literally that you're doing that. Second, why are you sharing that with the general public that this might be something worth doing? And it'll point to an obscure study. And it's all like the study is not true. Yes, these people with cancer or these particular conditions were using that.

That's not general population. Yes, that will completely shut down your melatonin production, could affect your thyroid levels and cortisol levels the next morning because your liver has to process all of that melatonin and get it out of your body within an eight hour period of time. That's insane.

So when you take, so in our practice, not for everybody, but the people who need it, we'll give two and a half milligrams of melatonin, like, and that's not going to shut down your production. What's it going to do? Taking 30 minutes before bed, what does it do? Cuts cortisol.

And so now, cause it has an inter inverse relationship. So cortisol levels are high, melatonin is low. If, uh, cortisol is low, melatonin is high. So what we want to do is give your body a little bit of the bump it needs to get melatonin in your system, which just say, melatonin is high. So what we want to do is give your body a little bit of the bump it needs to get melatonin in your system, which just say, oh, must be bedtime.

And the pineal gland, which is typically giving that signal, may not be getting that signal. And so you push it back. This is why that Luna product, that feels so amazing on me, is because it's what, two and a half milligrams? No, it's less, 750 micrograms. Yeah, but it's just enough to make me.

And some people, that's all they need. For kids, people are like, oh, I give a milligram. No, your child's waist, 30 or 50 pounds, and it should only be every once in a while. Kids should not have cortisol-based issues. But yeah, some kids do, because of various reasons. And every once in a while, if you use it with a child, what would you use?

0.25 milligrams? You'd use a tiny amount. So my issue with melatonin is if I take it, I'll get to sleep, then I'll wake up, almost inevitably in the middle night at some point and I thought it was because the melatonin ran out and so they make time release. Is this a thing? They do make time release. We don't use that in as many cases. We find that people will stay asleep unless there's other issues if we can get them to sleep. And so you taking melatonin, now keep in mind,

if your body doesn't need it, you're not going to react well with it. It's like taking a magnesium, believe it or not. So magnesium is going to work great for 80 to 90% of individuals. You give it to 10% of people, they actually feel terrible. They get massive brain fog, they get a lot of adverse. Because they already have enough. They have enough, they don't need it, or it's not

in balance with sodium magnesium or calcium magnesium. So it's always about that ratio as well. Wow. So when you're doing a test, so you did a test with us, you were testing cortisol. So through that, and so natural cortisol or healthy cortisol should be higher in the morning and should slowly taper throughout the day and be at its lowest in the evening before bed. So when we were in the morning and should slowly taper throughout

the day and be at its lowest in the evening before bed. So when we ran the stress minimatab, stress minimatab test with you guys before, we looked at cortisol all throughout the day. So upon waking, before lunch, before dinner, and then before bed. And so the goal is, you, healthy production of cortisol is about nine to 13 nanograms per milliliter or units per day, we'll just call them units. So in the morning you actually produce between, and should produce upon waking about 30 minutes later, it's called the cortisol awakening response, about six to nine units out of your nine to 13 for the day.

And that is what- Oh total, you're saying for the total total. So total for the day is nine to 13. Oh. Production in the morning should be between six and nine. So vast majority of it in the morning. So vast majority is within. Oh, total. You're saying for the total total. So total for the day is nine to 13. Oh. Production in the morning should be

between six and nine. So vast majority. So vast majority is within two hours of waking, six to eight AM typically. And we'll talk about the rhythms of the body. Then after that, before lunch, it's about two. Before dinner, around one to 1.5. Before bed, you want to be below 0.6.

And so when you look at it, it's this curve and it's called the natural diurnal rhythm of humans. So we're meant to have higher cortisol upon waking and then it slowly drops through the day. So by five to 6 PM, it's much lower. And then by 9 30 PM, we have our greatest drop. Typically, again, it's seasonal based. Yeah.

If the sun's out until nine o'clock at night during the summer, all right, yeah, cortisol production will last a little bit longer in the winter. It'll be a little less depending on the season. How often do we see that inverted? Uh, because I, I'm thinking right now how many people need caffeine in the morning to wake up and alcohol at night to calm down. Fully inverted like high at night and then low in the morning.

So this is what we'll typically see. And we call that tired and wired. A lot of people have it. I used to have that, you know, back in the day when I had Addison's disease and a lot of other issues is that you'll be below a 0.6 in the morning. So if you wake up and you, sorry, a six, if you produce less than six units in the morning, typically more inflamed, brain fog, you feel like a walking zombie. And that's because your body didn't give you its own natural caffeine based boost.

But it's also those individuals that typically also have thyroid issues. fog, you feel like a walking zombie. And that's because your body didn't give you its own natural caffeine based boost. But it's also those individuals that typically also have thyroid issues. And that's because cortisol starts to be produced normally around 6 AM, even a little bit before that, but right around 6 AM. So 5, 6 AM, cortisol begins to increase somewhere between 6 and 8 AM, it's going to peak out. It does depend a little bit on when you're

waking, but it really depends on time of the year as well. And then it falls. Well, thyroid production gets started around 3 AM. And so they have, they work together and we'll often see low thyroid production. So lower T3 along with that low morning.

Now at night, we'll see it sometimes at a 0.8 or a 1 or 1.2. We already know before people come in what their symptoms are going to be. Tired in the morning, feel like a walking zombie until they're caffeine or until around lunchtime, and then at night can't turn off their mind. So they could basically take a nap any time of the

day, but they can't fall asleep at night. And so it's very interesting. Frustrating. Yeah, very frustrating. And how common is that? And very difficult to heal. Well, if you're talking about in our practice, it's quite common because we're seeing people with-

Self-common-inspired. ... you know, population, 50%. Wow. Yeah, wow. It's a little speculation here that we talk about on the show, but could somebody with cortisol issues then inadvertently seek out cortisol producing lifestyle things like- Of course. Because I've noticed this,

we always call them cortisol junkies, but these were clients who just constantly making themselves stressed out because they weren't producing enough cortisol. Is that a viable theory? That and dopamine. Yeah, there's some really interesting studies. So we'll just talk about the initial ones.

So caffeine, energy drinks, anything that will get the body stimulated, so anything stimulating. And sometimes there's healthy versions of that, which we can talk about based on kind of body types, but then there's also correlations between people that are low in neurotransmitters. So, exeditory neurotransmitters would be norepinephrine and dopamine. Yeah.

And so those people, there's actually good studies that show they trend more towards alcohol and other substances because it gives them the dopamine and the excitatory neurotransmitters, unfortunately, that they're looking for. So oftentimes when we're working with people, maybe with substance abuse or maybe with certain addictions, we're immediately looking at their

B vitamins, we're looking at their dopamine, we're looking at cortisol levels as well. Okay. Supplements for cortisol, the two most common ones that I hear about that are quote unquote supposed to help with the growth of the body, don't mean we're looking at cortisol levels as well. Okay. Supplements for cortisol, the two most common ones that I hear about that are quote unquote supposed to help with high cortisol, ashwagandha and phosphatidylserine. Yes, you're correct.

Are those the two ones that we see the data and research supporting? So I just did a podcast on a very large meta-analysis on ashwagandha. It was really well done. It looked at like 12 of the largest studies. I don't know which podcast it was, but it showed on average a 30% reduction or up to 36% reduction in cortisol with 400 to 600 milligrams of ashwagandha per day. Interesting. Wow. Yeah. So like legitimately works, does what it says it's going to do. And the problem is that when you look at a lot of nutritional supplements,

it might have a hundred milligrams. And so that's not a clinical dosage in order to work, but it also shows you when should you take it? Well, you take it the latter half of the day. Do you do that Doug? Yeah. Ashwagandha, are you using that? Well, I've been using your adrenal soothe. Adrenal soothe. That's got it in it.

So adrenal soothe has a, soothe, yeah. That's got it in it? Mm-hmm. So adrenal soothe has all of them in a clinical dosage. So adrenal soothe has L-theanine, ashwagandha, rhodiola, phospholus serine, aluthoro. So it has some adaptogens for the adrenals. And the phospholus serine directly counteracts cortisol as well. So if your cortisol is low, those are the last things you want to take. That's correct. Because that could cause you to make feel more crappy. Yes. And so what happens if you have low cortisol? are the last things you want to take. That's correct. Because that could cause you to feel more crappy.

Yes. And so what happens if you have low cortisol? First, there's two parts to this. So one, sometimes your cortisol is low in the morning because you're exhausted and you have been under chronic stress. And so you don't want to do things that would boost that.

What you actually want to do is take your adrenal soothe, magnesium, other things at night, plus do a lot of the tips that we're going to give you. To get better sleep. To get better sleep, restorative sleep. But for the people though, who naturally produce a little less cortisol, they're healthy,

but they produce less cortisol, workout in the morning, cold plunge in the morning, those types of things can actually be very beneficial. They will spike norepinephrine, they'll spike cortisol. Now typically, so that's why you have to know who you are. Healthy body, robust, recover really well, sleep well,

you could do those things in the morning. For people that are burnt out, that's just burning you out even more. Well I remember that when we did this last time, you had recommended Doug that he doesn't cold plunge because he's already got the higher levels. That's right. Yeah.

So this test that we did, what's the name of the test and then what were we looking at? So this is our bedtime cortisol test, sometimes called the poor sleep test. And it's one tube of saliva, that's it. So a little saliva sample before bed, looking at your cortisol levels. Because if your cortisol levels are elevated,

the likelihood that you have strong melatonin and get good sleep is quite low. Okay, so it's a pretty good predictor. Justin still hasn't been able to figure out how to do that without slobbering all over himself. That's really tough to do. It takes my test time. It takes my time.

I drooled in there. Let's hear the winner. All right, so we've got here, so again, the goal is to be below.6. .6. Yeah,.6 nanograms per milliliter. And we'll go, you wanna go worst to first? Yeah, go worst again first.

Worst to first. So, gotta know you guys a little bit. The last couple years. Did you guess all these first? Already knew coming in. I'm like, who's gonna be worst to first? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was not totally correct on first and second.

That's because there was a tie. Oh. But anyway, I'll give it to you. So remember, some people are going to have to continue to work on this their whole life. Yes. Doug. Yeah, that's me.

You were 2.6. Yes. Now I know that there was some extenuating circumstances. You can share that. Because remember, this is one snapshot in time. But on this night, your cortisol levels were very high. Yeah, overachiever. Yes, you're overachieving your cortisol levels were very high. Yeah. Overachiever.

Yes, you're overachieving on cortisol. I think Adam yelled at him right before. Probably. I did say though, I did have an excuse. I was really jet-legged, but yeah. Oh yeah, that'll do it. That's my message. The circadian rhythm will be all over the place. That's right.

Yes. So it does matter. It does matter. And so typically we would say, take it on an ordinary day, you know, an average day. Not like your worst day, not your best day. This is just a normal day. This is like, because the earth's are,

just like blood work, it's a snapshot in time. And so that does matter, but also know that, you know, an individual's proclivity towards high cortisol will always be there, or towards high testosterone, and like, so if your numbers matter, which means for Doug, for you, a lot of these things, we can't just do supplementation alone. We need to work on the whole lifestyle

and just know that you're gonna always lean more towards a lot of that high evening cortisol. Now, could this mean then his cortisol might be lower in the morning? Or does that not? You know, I don't have that stress-minimum metabolism test in front of me, but it'd be interesting to see. Because some

people are high producers of cortisol. Now, how do you know that it's affecting you? It starts to lower your testosterone numbers, starts to increase- He's got the highest natural testosterone in the room. So maybe- So you are a high producer of sex hormones and stress hormones.

You're a hormone machine. You can't overdo it. I mean, they can burn you out over time. Um, but this is also then go back to, are you getting two hours of REM? Are you getting 90 minutes of deep? I'm not. So I do track my sleep and it's rare that I hit

my, uh, deep sleep numbers and sketchy on my REM sometimes too, even if I'm in bed for eight or nine hours. Yes. And I'm in bed for eight or nine hours. Yes. And I'm getting, you know, it's rare that I actually hit eight hours of sleep, even if I'm in bed for nine hours. And yes, a lot of times I just don't hit my REM

or my deep sleep. Well, it's interesting because you and I, we both attract sleep and I'm actually very similar to you, but it just shows you, you know, to your point that there's this, you're unique, right? That I, my sleep looks like yours and I'm probably less consistent with supplementation. You're better with both those and I even probably abuse caffeine compared to you, yet I probably still score a little bit better than he does. And yet that just shows you how much you have to work on. That's crazy because you do more work, I think,

than any of us do. And his testosterone's not affected. Right. It's through the roof. Interesting. Yeah, it's wild. Yeah. My free testosterone, though, has been an issue.

So I don't know if that would be part of that. No, it matters because the additional stress or heavy metals or inflammation will take your total testosterone and somewhat block it by increasing sex hormone binding globulin, which then lowers your free testosterone. So these things do matter. If we've worked together a bunch of lab tests, the number one thing that you could do is dial in your sleep. Yes. Diet's good, everything. All these things are good. Sleep is the number one thing that will allow you

to just keep doing what you're doing and live the same lifestyle for the next 20, 30 plus years. You got to stop watching anime before bed. what you're doing to live the same lifestyle for the next 20, 30 plus years. You got to stop watching anime before bed. So yes, 2.6 we're going to work on that. I know there was some jet lag. It does matter, but we want to really reduce that to a 0.6 or less. That's, that's the goal. All right. Number two was Adam and Adam was a 2.1. These guys trust me the fuck out, man. I tell you, right?

He's elevated. And so again, if I was guessing just based on previous labs, based on all the different things, I would say Doug and then Adam. And part of it is to be able to shut down the mind. It's a big part of it is just saying, can I make the switch from this is the day to now, OK, how can I turn that off?

Took me many years to do that. This is what him and I share in common. I can always count on Doug answering the phone at midnight if I text him because he'll be up probably just like me. Now does something like this affect mood? Like in other words, it makes you cranky or... Cranky. 100%.

Yeah. Oh, okay. Producing high levels of adrenaline and like, you know, you're always amped. You're always on. What was your cortisol? What was it? 2.1. Oh, so I'm not even that much better than Doug. No, it's high. That's, we don't typically see it maybe above two like that. That's, those are

high numbers. Oh, now I, I, so, so I definitely know that some of the things I'm like the caffeine, I'm high, right? I'm consistently, especially lately, I'm like 600 milligrams of caffeine a day. Now I'm good about shutting it down, right? So I've shut it down already by 11 o'clock or 10.30. You had 600 before 11? Yeah. That's a lot of caffeine. Holy Toledo. That would give me a heart attack.

That's my peak, right? So I normally allow myself to peak to 600 and then I try and taper back. So that's probably a big issue. And then of course, like Doug, I'm probably up at night thinking about work and doing that stuff. Which is such, this is the hardest part about this is that's when I do my best work.

And so it's like there's this kind of give and take of like, man, that's when I feel like, I know and some people are the opposite. Like some people are like, oh, I love to get up at four o'clock in the morning cause no one's awake and I do my best work. I've tried that shit, it just doesn't work for me. So it's a tough thing to balance.

It's like, that's when I feel my most creative, my most focused on the business, but I know it's the worst thing to balance. That's when I feel my most creative, my most focused on the business, but I know it's the worst thing for me in my sleep. And how do your deep in REM numbers look? Like Doug's, I have a real hard time hitting those. Because usually I would say, well, if you're showing high numbers before bed,

but you turn it off pretty quick once you fall asleep, you're able to downshift from beta to alpha to theta real quick. No big deal deal because you're getting your 90 minutes deep in your two hours REM, but most likely when you have these numbers, you're not able to shut it down. So he was at two, so Ashwagandha in the evening, probably what, around five, six o'clock with dinner would probably be great.

So the stack that we use, it's not the full stack, but the stack out of the gates is full spectra magnesium at dinner, adrenals through that dinner. So the stack that we use, it's not the full stack, but the stack out of the gates is full spectrum magnesium at dinner, adrenal soothe at dinner. So magnesium, Conorax, a sympathetic nervous system. Adrenal soothe, which has the ashwagandha, phosphorosurine, L-thenine, all those, calms the cortisol levels.

And then before bed, we use liquid melatonin, which is in and out of your system fast, so you're not groggy in the morning. And so that seems to work really well. And for you, I would take it 30 to even 60 minutes before bed for both of you guys because it might actually take a little bit of time to get there. But I'm going to give you some lifestyle things too to start to make that shift away. Okay.

It took me forever. I was a complete insomniac through essentially all of my 20s and maybe even until like 30, 31. Yeah. And then I implemented these things. Now, I mean, I use Aura, but again, there's a lot of good companies. Every quarter it gives you your stats. My average sleep is eight hours and 12 minutes. It's two hours and 12 rem. It's right about 90 minutes for the deep sleep.

Your heart rate comes down within four hours. Like it can be done. And I, but I still use adrenal C, the dinner, full spectrum magnesium at dinner. And I still use just two to 2.5 milligrams of melatonin before bed. And it was a game changer for me. Okay.

Yeah. Wow. And it will like acute things, bother it too, like a business partner is not paying attention to meetings and so with that, will that cause me to really spike really bad too, or not?

What did you say? Well, I mean, don't get me wrong. There's still be like one night per month where somebody is on my mind. Yeah. And it's just, it's not as great a night's sleep. It still happens because we still live life. Just don't think about me before. We'll go, we'll go over some of those tips in just a minute. Um,

so if I had to guess, I would have said in order and then I would have said, sound, then I would have said Justin, but both of you guys were 0.3. Yeah Really great numbers Significantly better. Okay. Why he just doesn't care What do you sleep in me Yes, I still have it like it's always sort of body type wise and all of that the low cortisol You would actually benefit from the workout in the morning, the cold plunge in the morning.

Most likely that's more of your body type and it would not harm you or your central nervous system. It would probably help you. A little caffeine in the morning, I'm not a proponent of 600 milligrams a day. But it's probably a- It's gone crazy for, yeah. But 100 to 200 milligrams could be crazy. Yeah.

Yeah, I could call plunge. Yeah. I've been actually considering that. Now I work out probably cold punch. I'm like Doug though, right? Should not. Should not. That's probably not, not until we can get down because it'd be interesting to see if your total cortisol is above a 13, which it probably is if you're, cause you're not like you're low energy. Yeah. And if you're drinking that much caffeine, it's definitely spiking those levels. It's just, it's adding more fuel to the fire. And even though you feel good when you get out of it,

cause it just spikes adrenaline, norepinephrine, it's not the only thing that does. I don't want to say that, but it does do that. And so we want to be careful with that. So what about, how beneficial would the infrared sauna be for me and when would I do that if I use that? So that's super beneficial. So using the infrared sauna or sauna in general, the heat will induce parasympathetic nervous system tone, which is the opposite of sympathetic,

opposite of fight or flight. So a great thing to do. Now I'll tell you. So one of the tips I want to say is that a warm, hot bath before bed, like an Epsom salt bath, can be fantastic. I'm not a big bath guy, but what happens is when you get out of the heat, your body then naturally starts to cool, and that is a signal actually to induce sleep. That is so funny to me. It's always interesting to me how we do these things,

I mean this is the animal in us, right, that like just we naturally, like the big joke, I take a bath all the time at night, I don't know why, I don't care, like I'm like whatever, I've always done that, time at night. I don't know why, I don't care. I'm like, whatever. I've always done that, and I do Epsom salt in it. And I guess it's just one of those things I've gravitated to, and it's probably positively impacting me,

and I don't even realize it. Because why do I like that so much? What about the bubbles? That doesn't help. Bubble baths, Epsom salt, everything. No, the Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate. So that's magnesium, which is great. You absorb that to your skin?

Small amount, but you still will. OK. Yeah, you still will. I'm not dissimilar to like a transdermal magnesium spray, which is magnesium chloride versus magnesium sulfate. But the warmth as well calms the body. It's very calming where cold will excite the body.

Yeah. And so you get the blast of the GABA, the serotonin. Serotonin is a precursor to melatonin. Yeah. Now I'll tell you, it doesn't work for everyone. So if I do a sauna close to bed or a steam, it will amp my body up too much. Same here, I can't sleep.

Yeah, so it's just based on the individual. Yeah, so I work out in the morning, but not because I like it, just because of my lifestyle, my family. So I've been doing that for years and it is better. I have reduced performance, but it is better, I think, overall for me. Do you do it fasted?

Yes. Okay, yeah. Because fasted will increase most likely cortisol levels to a greater degree than non-fasted workouts. Now, cannabis also raises cortisol, doesn't it? I don't know. I don't know if there's definitive, have you seen definitive research on that?

Yeah, initially. Yeah. Because I can see it going both ways. You get a spike in cortisol initially from, from what I'm told, from what I've, uh, what I understand. Cause it's, I mean, at least with CBD and THC as part of that, your body has the CB1,

uh, CB2 cannabinoid receptors, which ultimately should calm stress in the body. Yeah. But, uh, you know, I, I, I don't, I haven't seen enough definitive research on that. Very interesting. Interesting. Okay. So lifestyle things, what can somebody do to help themselves out

in this situation? So developing a sleep routine is the number one thing that you can do. And the thing that ultimately helped me the most was going to bed within 30 minutes at the same time every night. So my body knew like, this is when you eat, this is when you work out, this is when you go to bed. It really does help for people with cortisol based issues. And so whether that is 11 p.m. for an individual,

12 a.m., it's not ideal. You really want to get to bed around that 10 p.m. time and wake up around 6 a.m. Again, it is somewhat seasonal, but you want to go to bed and turn things off when it's dark, turn things back on when it is light. That is the ideal thing to do. And now you need to mimic that in your own home. It's so interesting because we're gonna do this episode, I'll bring up some notes here. I actually read about some of

the issues with daylight savings time in people's health and they found some pretty remarkable things on there. It's worse for production, health, the immune system, every time they switch the time, because, and it's only switching an hour. Yes. Do you notice this in some of your patients where they'll come in and just report like, I'm not feeling so good.

For most people, it takes a good week to two weeks to be able to make that shift back. Even for jet lag, the older people are, the more disrupted that circadian rhythm becomes. So it's like, well, as a kid or in your twenties, it took a day, you know, to adapt. As people get older, it can take a week to really shift back. What about, I mean, you mentioned jet lag. I've talked about this on the podcast, where people go to bed later on a

Friday night. They sleep in Saturday, late Saturday night, Sunday, maybe normal time, sometimes usually later. Monday they're jet lagged. And this is the reason why people hate Monday so much is that we jet lag ourselves every single week. It's one of the top three reasons I can say as to why I wasn't able to fully heal, even when I was doing a lot of the right things.

Is because I would go out Friday night with my buddies and Saturday night with my friends and, or, and, or like date, whatever it might be. But Sunday then I couldn't fall asleep. So Sunday night like was a disaster. So if you go out until 2 AM, you know, when you're in college or early twenties or maybe it's thirties, forties for individuals, it's difficult to then go to bed at 10 PM on Sunday night.

Cause you probably slept until 10, 11, 12 individuals. It's difficult to then go to bed at 10 PM on Sunday night, because you probably slept until 10, 11, 12, your body's not ready to go to bed, you know, 10 hours later. And so it's a huge thing is to, I ultimately had to say no to the going out late in order to be able to heal my body. We have to, we have to explain to people,

cause obviously we have a lot of listeners that are care about aesthetics and performance, the gym and stuff like that. How much does that play a role in someone's weight loss journey or building? Oh man, I'm eating the macros, right? I'm training and stuff like that, but then they're not seeing the results. Is this many times the culprit is because they just can't get this straight and this is throwing them out of balance. Ultimately elevated cortisol in the evening when it should be low, not as much of an issue in the first half of the day.

But when cortisol is elevated at night, you're going to see lower levels of testosterone, higher levels of estrogen in men and women. So the conversion is just gonna be greater as well as lower progesterone in women. You're gonna see poor thyroid function. So it could be elevated TSH, maybe only like a three, three and a half.

Your doctor doesn't really catch it, but your free T3 is low. So now your metabolic rates lower. When your sleep suffers, you're going to have higher facet glucose levels in the morning. So you're not burning body fat as well. So you have poor recovery from the lower testosterone and the additional inflammation.

You don't want to train as hard or you feel worse. You feel more groggy, more tired. You take in more caffeine, which also depletes you of more minerals as well, and B vitamins too. So all of these things over time are dramatically detrimental. And then I imagine so many clients would exacerbate that by also increasing the intensity of their training

and increasing the running and all this other stress on top of that. The data on sleep. Thinking that that's gonna solve it or help me. Feel better temporarily. So if you do a hard workout. That's the cortisol junkies we talk about. I feel great though after my workout.

Yes, you do. Sport it out some cortisol. Norepinephrine and cortisol, that's right. Also the data will show lack of sleep will contribute to impulsive behaviors. You're more likely to be irritable and your cravings for hyper palatable food goes up. So just downstream, it affects everything

that would affect how you look for people who are motivated by that. Sugar, salt, and fat is what your body wants when you are tired. And the salt increases, it's a mineral corticoid, so it increases the sodium, right? Sugar is a fast fuel source, and the fat just makes it more hyper palatable.

And so when you look at it, well chips, pretzels, like people want those easy salty foods that gives them that little bit of a boost. Yeah, is that why the Taco Bell at 2 a.m. sounds like such a good idea? There's multiple reasons. There's two reasons. That's right.

Awesome. So could other things be contributing to this as well, like poor gut health or anything like that? So cortisol always has an underlying root cause reason as well. Maybe it is stress, but it could also just be that you screen time before bed. So we send the call the three, two, one formula.

Multiple people have spoken about this before, but three hours before bed, stop eating. Again, it really is that important. Now I know a lot of people, they want to maybe put on weight, put on muscle. Well, there are certain things that affect you more than others. So anything that's hard to digest right before bed, your body shifts now, energy towards digestion rather than towards reparative and restorative sleep. Would a shake be better than because it's pre-digested? Yes, it'd be much

more beneficial, easy to digest, very simple. Okay. And then two hours before bed, no liquid, so that, because although your body does produce the antidiuretic hormone, if you have a full bladder, ultimately you're going to have to urinate, like no doubt about that. And then one hour before bed, this might be the most important, is the no screens. So it's really reducing all the blue light.

You can wear blue light blocking glasses, which I was actually going to wear, you know, for the show, I just forgot to put them on. Um, but that's when it's most important. Like you don't need to wear blue blockers all day. You can, if you're staring at a screen, you can use, um, a lower percentage one. But before bed, 30 to 60 minutes before have to stop within that and then shift over to more of the, you know, the analog based things like reading a book,

working on breath work. One of the best things that you can do is something called resonance breathing. I think we talked about it a little bit before in the show, but it's like box breathing. That's rhythmic, right? So it's kind of box breathing might be four in, pause, four out, pause, and then repeat. Well, resonance breathing is rhythmic. Literally you're staring at a circle, like on your Apple watch or anything like that. I've seen this. And you breathe in when the circle expands and you breathe out as it contracts. And so all it is, what is it doing? It's readjusting your nervous system.

That's all that it's doing. But when you're doing that, heart rate variability increases, it's another metric to look at. If you are consistently lower on your heart rate variability, sleep is suffering, restorative, your body is not repairing, it's not rejuvenating. Now, if HRV is consistently higher over baseline, your body most likely then is lower cortisol, not repairing, it's not rejuvenating. Now if HRV is consistently higher over baseline,

your body most likely then is lower cortisol, it's producing proper sleep hormones. Now I know certain labs typically you want to do with other labs and there's, you know, on the other hand there are labs you can do by themselves. Is this one of those where you're like, okay, we're going to measure your cortisol before bed, but we probably want to test these other things along with that. So the bedtime cortisol test, which we just ran, is a great entry-level lab. I love that, it's an easy way to get started.

The stress-mood metabolism test, the one that you guys have run before, is the full picture. So when you look at that, it's estrogen progesterone, testosterone, DHEA, cortisol four times throughout the day, free T3, free T4, TSH, TPO antibodies for the thyroid, vitamin D3, insulin, hemoglobin, A1C. Now that's a lot of numbers, but why does it matter? Because you start to see cortisol's

effects on the sex hormones and the thyroid before it ultimately becomes low itself in the morning. So if we see DHEA drop below a six, we know like, listen, this stress has been chronic. It is affecting your immune system. It's affecting the virility, the strength of your body, your constitution. And unless you do something now, you're just going to start to see this gradual decline or a

really quick decline. If a major stressor happens in your life, which is sometimes financial, sometimes it's like job career, sometimes it's relationship based. Those are often triggers for disease because it's like job career, sometimes it's relationship based. Those are often triggers for disease because it's a greater stressor that just further depletes you, but you were already depleted before.

Like I got really sick when I was 17, I ended up with rheumatoid arthritis, Addison's disease, you know, POTS, type two diabetes, all sorts of issues, but it's because for three years before that, I was stressed in high school, no doubt about that, but I was taking antibiotics twice's because for three years before that, I was stressed in high school, no doubt about that, but I was taking antibiotics twice a day for three years. Right? So it's like there was things preceding that and then yes, my senior year, taking my SATs, trying to be a perfectionist, trying to get a scholarship to college,

all those things was too much and my body just broke. And so there's always a preceding reason. Okay. Who are the people that should take this test? Anybody who knows right now that they are suffering in performance or low mood, low energy in the morning, you actually want it before bed. It really does matter because if your cortisol is elevated before bed, it's what affects your mornings. So poor performance, poor sleep that you know of, if you're not getting the REM and deep sleep and you're tracking right now, this is an important one to look at. I mean, I feel like that would be a way to, right away,

is like all these tools are so available, right? Use one of these tools. If you see you're missing those numbers, you gotta go take this test and get to the bottom of what's going on. Right, right, right. So are you, so you always are always so gracious you offer some tests or hook up our audience.

Are you doing something like that with us? We are. So this one's at stevencobral.com slash better sleep. So our goal is to help people improve their testosterone levels naturally, uh, reduce their inflammation levels, improve restorative sleep. This is the same test they'll see at that page, uh, which is just again, my website, stevencobral.com slash better sleep. And which we typically do for your audience is the first 100 of those per month

is free and they just pay shipping. Oh, appreciate it Dr. Braul thank you so much. It's great always good talking with you guys. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes mapspumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes maps and a ballic, maps performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming

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