Pod Insights Change Wired Energy Is Everything: how to fix your "up and go" in the morning and strong sleep drive at night. Hacking cortisol. Energy Is Everything: how to fix your "up and go" in the morning and strong sleep drive at night. Hacking cortisol. Change Wired
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About this episode Let's unlock the secret relationship between your biology and psychology that determines your energy levels, mood, and ability to create meaningful change in your life. How's your energy each morning? Before coffee? Your ability to have a great sleep most nights? Without meds, Netlix or booze? THAT determines your quality of life more than anything. Discover the science-backed morning ritual that naturally optimizes your energy without caffeine or sugar. This simple practice signals your brain's internal clock to produce the perfect cortisol pattern: high in the morning for sustained energy and gradually decreasing to support restful sleep. Learn why most people experience the opposite pattern (low morning energy, high evening alertness) and how this disrupts everything from immune function to cognitive performance. You'll also learn surprising energy hacks including the proper timing for melatonin supplementation, how grapefruit naturally extends cortisol effects, and why morning hydration and movement amplify your energy activation. This episode bridges cutting-edge neuroscience with actionable steps anyone can implement immediately. Whether you struggle with morning grogginess, afternoon slumps, or evening insomnia, these biological interventions create the foundation for optimal performance, mood, and fulfillment. Ready to charge your biological battery correctly? Your brain, body, and goals will thank you. Want to transform your energy cycle? Try Angela's seven-day protocol and experience the difference. Connect on Instagram @AngelaBrainBodyCoach or email [email protected] to continue your journey toward optimal energy and meaningful personal growth. Let's dig in! Text Me Your Thoughts and IdeasSupport the showBrought to you by Angela Shurina Behavior-First Change Leadership & Culture Transformation ConsultantEXECUTIVE & OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE COACH
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Sharina, I'm your host, I'm your executive transformation, health, body, work, meaningful work coach who helps you navigate personal and collective change, transformation, self-improvement, growth. We are talking about tools, we're also talking about strategies and science. We are trying to always be evidence-based and if we are having some wild ideas, we're gonna say so. We also hear about interesting conversations and people who do
0:43 Speaker 00 amazing work in the world trying to make a positive impact, improve, create growth, positive kind of growth for all of us. So this is what all, this is what Change Wired is all about. And today's podcast episode is actually about our health, our biology. And believe it or not, guys, without you taking your biology on a ridge, so to speak, or understanding how your biology contributes to your ability to change and improve and grow, without you understanding your biology, you can't really become as good with change, improvement and development and
1:26 Speaker 00 just creating the life path, life journey that is fulfilling and meaningful. You can't be great and the best at it if you don't understand how your biology influences your psychology. Today specifically, by the end of this episode, you learn one of the fundamental things to use your biology to fuel your psychological and life and sometimes business change. Today, we're gonna talk how you're gonna adjust your energy levels that you experience throughout the day. Energy levels which affect everything from your thinking to your mood to the actions you take and ultimately to the direction of your life.
2:10 Speaker 00 When you are in high energy state, you know, like you wake up sometimes, you're like, oh, the king or queen of the day, that kind of energy when you feel it. Don't you agree? Just sit with me here and reflect on when the last time you felt that way. And if it was a long time ago, definitely listen to this episode, so stay tuned. But when you're in this high energy state, you feel unstoppable and you're so much more likely to take positive action, to try new things, to work on things that might not have been working for you for a while and still give it another chance. You're also so much better at learning and your desire to learn and improve grows almost exponentially.
2:53 Speaker 00 So, energy, I always say, energy is the currency of life. And when I talk about my three pillar system for unlocking human potential, I always talk about body, mind and work, systems for delivering value into the world. But body is like your charging station. I always have this saying as well. Charge, drive, deliver. And charge is for the biological systems. It's where your battery, so to speak, and without that battery, your laptop or operating system in the game of your life wouldn't function. So, energy is literally everything.
3:36 Speaker 00 Energy changes how you think, how you feel and what you end up doing in the world. And if you didn't know that, for example, but people with depression, there is more and more evidence showing that the way people think and feel, especially in depression, but also in healthy individuals, it depends on your energy state as well. And there is a huge body of research showing that depressed people have fundamental problems with energy metabolism in their mitochondria, which fuels.
4:13 Speaker 00 Your brain's capacity to do its work, how neurons are able to communicate between each other to get anything done. So, energy might be, very well, the issue with other thing that goes wrong in a human and in our lives, and the fuel that makes everything go right when it does. So, energy is so very important. And today, I'm gonna just tell you a few new findings and tools that are very helpful, effective, and work across the board for everyone, to help you modulate your energy levels throughout the day, so you are higher on energy during the day, and then, so your energy slowly goes down, and you are able
4:58 Speaker 00 to fall asleep peacefully and fast, so you can recover, recharge, and get back to feeling your best, and approaching your day with this like zest and enthusiasm, which again fuels pursuit of excellence, or anything that you wanna do with your life. So, energy is everything. First, there is really great evidence, it is undoubt that your cortisol, and stay with me for a while, you might not care what cortisol is, but what I learned, not so long ago, actually, that cortisol is a major hormone that, yes, helps you to activate yourself for dealing
5:40 Speaker 00 with stressors, and sometimes people even think that too much cortisol is a stressor in itself. But actually, the main purpose of cortisol is to help your body release energy for you to do anything in your life. And so, what is actually important, to have your cortisol fluctuate in the right kind of way, being very high in the morning to release that energy, to ramp up all of your systems, so you have that energy to get up and go. And, over the course of the day, your cortisol needs to slowly go down, and by the time you sleep, it should be very low, so you're not activated by, but deactivated, so to speak, and then you can
6:21 Speaker 00 Peacefully and again fast transition to sleep state where you recover recharge. And for a lot of people, this cycle of cortisol being very high and then slowly going down towards the end. And then also just like not having optimal levels of cortisol during the day, that what makes a lot of people, puts a lot of people into trouble. Like you're sleepy in the morning and then you try to drink coffee and over stimulate your system, which caffeine is also a psychoactive drug that disrupts your sleep at night if you consume too much and too late. But the whole thing started in the first place because your cortisol cycle was out of sync with natural rhythm of the day, so to speak,
7:05 Speaker 00 driven by 24 cycle of day and night. And that's why you started using caffeine and very often you might start using sugar or other stuff that pumps you up. But then down the line, it creates a negative cycle and more negative side effects, like whether you overeat sugary stuff and too many stimulants, trying to bring that energy up and function in the world. And then at night you can't fall asleep. And then again, that further disrupts that cortisol cycle. And also you don't sleep well at night and your sleep ends up being all over the place and you wake up not energized. And that's where you
7:47 Speaker 00 start using different stimulants, among which might be caffeine and sugar and other stuff. And that cycle just keeps going. But also with that disrupted cortisol cycle and energy levels, it doesn't come for free. What I mean by that is also your immune function. It pretty much everything in your body gets dysregulated and nothing works. And so you get a lot, a lot more and more negative consequences as the time of your life goes by. So how to interrupt that cycle and how to make your cortisol cycle more natural to what it's supposed to be, more beneficial to all processes in your body, how to restart
8:31 Speaker 00 it or shake it up or put it where it's supposed to be actually very simple.
8:38 Speaker 00 Uh. Simple, not always easy. And during the transition time, while you are getting back to normal cortisol cycle, it doesn't mean that, you know, you do the things that I proposed to you to do, which are very simple. And everything just becomes balanced again and you feel one hundred percent. First of all, the transition time. Second of all, depending on how long it was out of sync and what other problems it already caused. There might be other interventions that I needed, whether that some supplements or some medications or some other interventions. And it might take longer again, depending on how long it was out of sync in the first place.
9:22 Speaker 00 And what's the also perhaps some pathology underneath it. But until you try the things that you're about to learn, don't expect your cortisol cycle to be normal. If you don't do this on a regular basis, what I'm about to tell you, then until you do this, don't try all the other stuff. Because all of the problems in your life with energy might actually be because you just don't follow a routine that needs to be in place in order for your energy cycle, your cortisol cycle to function well. So say that to put into practice what you're about to learn again, based on science, current science, which is unquestionable.
10:05 Speaker 00 Some of it I learned in New Scientist Magazine, very good one that brings new research, but doesn't hype it up and always tries to keep it balanced, based again on current scientific research and understanding. And then also some of it comes from neurosciencenews.com, which reports different findings in neuroscience and their practical applications. Some of it comes from my favorite podcast, Huberman Lab. And just like Andrew Huberman, Professor Andrew Huberman, I always try to tell you like when it's a hype and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but something you can try or sometimes it's something that just works. Like, for example, seeing, viewing natural light outside
10:50 Speaker 00 in the first hour of waking, ideally, Andrew Huberman says, the first thirty minutes of your waking type, time, literally when you wake up. Get outside to spend some time with sunlight getting into special receptors in your eyes. So the internal clocks that you have in your brain and in all of the cells of your body, get the signal that they need to ramp up your cortisol levels in the morning to give this burst, this huge wave. So you get this great energy in the morning and yeah, basically for the rest of your day,
11:32 Speaker 00 which if you do it later, let's say ninety minutes after your waking time, doesn't work like that after all, after that. So that's what I learned from Andrew Huberman, for example. And he says that this is what's current understanding and what he undoubtedly believes based on all the research. But anyhow, the practical takeaway, if you don't go out first hour in the morning, first hour of your waking time and don't see daylight consistently, it means that your cortisol cycle might be disrupted.
12:12 Speaker 00 Now, other things to bump up that cortisol levels, that is the bump up that is needed to then create this natural cycle of high and low cortisol. So your energy goes up in the morning and fuels your day and then goes down at night. So you can go to sleep and rest and recover. There are other things that help with that as well, like drinking water in the morning and
12:41 Speaker 00 speaking of which, I've just hydrated. So when I wake up, I drink my half a liter of water with some salt. And then I do some breathing exercises and then I go out and I spend about twenty minutes outside, whether that's cloudy, it still works, or it's cold, it still works. Just don't wear sunglasses because your eyes are the ones that need to get that signal. If you wake up and it is still dark, which happens during winter, especially if you are closer to to the poles, whether North Pole or South Pole, you might not always have the light as I experienced for majority of my life during some winter months. So purchase a lamp with 10,000 LUX or LUX,
13:26 Speaker 00 which are available on, in almost all the online retailers these days. So use one of those lamps, put it by your computer, wherever you are, maybe where you have your coffee, you have your water. So get that exposure for about 30 minutes. I believe when you buy one of those lamps, which are, which now have become so affordable and in so many different varieties, the ones that you can travel with. I always recommend to my clients to get one of those if they can consistently go out the first hour of waking. Like ideally, you would wanna do that. Yeah, if in winter it's not possible, then get back to it as soon as possible. So that light in the morning is very crucial for your cortisol system.
14:11 Speaker 00 So if you can't, again, get outside, but please do not be lazy if you can. Get outside, get that sunlight. If you can't, get the lamp, spend the first half hour with that lamp. But again, the best is get outside, get that sunlight, which gives your cortisol this bump up. And then you experience higher energy levels without any caffeine in the morning and throughout your day. And that also helps you to have lower levels of cortisol because there is some negative feedback loop in that system. So the higher your cortisol goes up in the morning, believe it or not, guys, this is how our biology works. The lower it goes at night and the easier it is for you to fall asleep at night.
14:55 Speaker 00 And if in the morning, your cortisol doesn't go all that much up, you have it higher later in the day, which doesn't allow you to fall asleep, recover, rest, and then in the morning, you end up again with lower cortisol, lower energy levels. And here we go again with more caffeine, more sugar, higher energy levels at night, and then you don't get to sleep well. And you, your thinking, your positive mood, your get up and go kind of energy, just. Becomes nonexistent. So the first thing you gotta do in the first hour of waking, ideally first thirty minutes, drink some water. Water is also, water also helps with bumping
15:38 Speaker 00 up that cortisol levels, plus starting up all of your systems that need water. Dehydration is a thing, guys. Nothing functions well in your body when you are dehydrated and the brain is especially sensitive to hydration levels. Even 2%, they say, will result in measurable cognitive impairments. Basically means you are not as cognitively sharp and able. So drink your water, get outside. What I do, I drink my half a liter of water, do some breathing exercise, do some stretches, etc. And in like about twenty, twenty-five minutes, I'm out of the door to do my walk, listening to my podcast, whatever else I
16:20 Speaker 00 might feel like doing. But I do that even if it's cold, even when it's raining, no matter what. Another thing that helps to bump up that cortisol level is movement, is exercise. Obviously, if you go for a walk, you're already getting some movement. But specifically, some intense exercise, maybe jumping rope for five minutes or doing full-blown workout, also help to elevate that cortisol level, which again gives you the energy for the day, makes it cortisol level lower, closer to your bedtime, allows you to fall asleep to recover well. And then, in the morning, again, have great energy levels and without caffeine or sugary stuff, be ready to go. So the first and most important thing you
17:05 Speaker 00 wanna do, wake up and get outside and get your walking in. If you can't go for a walk, then you get your Lambo's ten thousand, like spend time with it. But then, what is recommended is to get your exercise in water for sure. Get it first thing in the morning.
17:27 Speaker 00 That's how you start your day, right? And again, experiment with that for, not experiment, but do it for at least next seven days and see how your energy levels truly will change. They will improve no matter what, but obviously if you have some underlying conditions already, that effect might be different. But I tried it with countless clients. All of them have this boost of energy. So go for a walk, view that sunlight and you get the movement. If you can do some working out, some jumping jacks or a jump rope, that will also help to bump up that cortisol to have an amazing day and sleep well at night.
18:11 Speaker 00 But besides that, to keep your cortisol low late at night so you can fall asleep and rest and recover, so your melatonin also can be released two, three hours before your sleep time as it's supposed to, to make you fall asleep fast and make the whole sleep experience optimized. So what you want to do, and my parents, I'm staying with my parents at the morning for a couple more weeks. And they are laughing at me. It's like everyone is crazy in their own way. And they are referring to the fact that at least two hours before bed, usually three, four hours, I'm becoming obsessed with not getting into any bright light.
18:53 Speaker 00 Like if there is bright light in the room, but my parents are there, I'm telling them to turn it off or use some other less disruptive, less bright light. Like on the sides of our room, there is also, there are other sources of light that are less bright, more orange. I ask them to switch that in order for me to get into the room to spend some time with them. And the reason why I'm doing this is because that bright light in the evening, your eyes and your brain are especially insensitive to any sources of bright and blue light, but any source of bright light, which actually goes your cortisol, makes your cortisol go
19:33 Speaker 00 up, makes, destroys a lot of your melatonin, which makes falling asleep and your rest at the very least, very challenging. And that's one of the reasons why falling asleep again and resting well might be so hard, because that light affects your cortisol levels, affects your melatonin levels and not in a good for sleep way. And that is based on really solid research. And that is the another side of the coin. If you want to modulate your energy levels optimally throughout the day and at night. What you wanna do is not just see that bright light in the morning, but also avoid
20:17 Speaker 00 two, three hours before your bedtime, all bright sources of light, blue light, also my computer screen, my phone. Have special protection, I use F lux, F dot L U X, a free app. We changes the intensity of light and the color, like if I look at my screens at night, they're deeply orange, closer to red and very not bright, which for the eyes at night still feels like it's bright. Because your light becomes more and more sensitive to any source of light at night. So that's the another side of the co- coin.
20:56 Speaker 00 If you want to optimize your cortisol levels, having it high in the morning and having it low at night. So you can have optimal energy levels in the morning throughout the day and then at night to fall asleep well. So you can recover, restore and get back into this routine of getting things done and feeling happy and energized during the day. So these are two things you wanna do. First hour, first half an hour of your waking time, get outside, get that sunlight. And then even if it's cloudy, even if it's raining, it still works. It just when it's raining, you wanna be spending a little bit more time. So instead of a couple of minutes or five minutes, that might be enough in the morning.
21:38 Speaker 00 You would wanna spend twenty to thirty minutes if it's cloudy and raining. So and then at night, you wanna avoid, even to the point of being called uh crazy and obsessed by your loved ones, you wanna avoid bright sources of light, which usually come from your environment and things like your tablet, your laptop, your phone.
22:05 Speaker 00 A lot of devices have this blue light. So you wanna make sure that you either have a software that adjusts it or some sort of internally created mechanism that makes this happen. A lot of TVs, actually, guys, check this setting out. It is somewhere in the section of light adjustment. So a lot of modern TVs actually have this night setting, which at least to my knowledge decreases the intensity of that bright light in your television, which also again might be pumping up that cortisol, stealing your melatonin and makes falling asleep so much more difficult
22:49 Speaker 00 and also decreases the quality of that sleep.
22:53 Speaker 00 All that to say, guys, that light is important. And if you wanna improve your energy level, so you wanna optimize them for your function during the day and sleep at night, that's what you wanna do. Get up and go in the morning outside, get that sunlight or at the very least get that lamp. And at night, decrease your exposure to any bright light, blue light especially, blue, green, the ones that you see in the morning or during the day, but also any bright light as well. What else? I think the, a couple of things that I noticed with my clients that you might not be aware of. If you decide to use melatonin to help you
23:37 Speaker 00 regulate your sleep-wake cycle and your cortisol cycle faster, or for example, you're traveling, you need to adjust your sleep-wake cycle faster. A lot of people use melatonin not in the right way. So a lot of times you would see people taking melatonin right before they wanna fall asleep or an hour before, which actually not based on research. What research says, if you wanna fall asleep that's faster or earlier, you would wanna take your melatonin four to six hours before that time that you wanna fall asleep, not right before or not a couple of hours before, but four to six hours.
24:20 Speaker 00 So if you might have been doing your melatonin wrong.
24:25 Speaker 00 And if you wanna fall asleep later, because maybe again you travel, or maybe you need to stay up for a meeting, or you need to stay up for an event or for a call, whatever that might be, and you need to stay up and fall asleep later, you actually wanna take that melatonin right after you woke up in the morning. Might not, you know, always create optimal functioning for the day ahead, but your sleep-wake cycle will be delayed. And so that night, you will go to bed, you will get sleepier later. So that's just a couple of things. I noticed my clients don't always know and take the melatonin all day in all the wrong way and then wonder why it doesn't work exactly.
25:10 Speaker 00 It can also not work because the amount that is in there is off, which is also very often the case for many supplements.
25:19 Speaker 00 And one interesting thing that is also based on very solid science. Grapefruit increases your cortisol levels by preventing certain enzymes that break down cortisol in our system. So the, this stuff in grapefruit makes cortisol breakdown slower or not happening, inhibiting it. And that makes the cortisol that we do create stay longer in our system. So what I'm gonna be trying is trying using grapefruit in the later morning to make my cortisol be prolonged,
26:01 Speaker 00 specifically in the early afternoon when I tend to get sleepier. So I don't necessarily wanna do that, but because grapefruit is not some sort of stimulant and it doesn't stay in your system long. So it might be that perfect bump up that you need to get through your midday smoother and then still be able to fall asleep and have your chill evenings to recover well and wake up energized to start another day. So these are a couple of other things that I'm gonna be experimenting with. Not eating late at night, let's say three hours before bed is recommended.
26:40 Speaker 00 It's important to have good sleep experience and then regulate your cortisol well, your caffeine as well. Don't drink it too late, which for most people will be after 2 P M. You should not be consuming anything with caffeine, whether that's coffee, energy drinks or too much dark chocolate. And other substances that might contain caffeine. So those are a couple of minor things, but the most important thing you want to understand, get your bottom outside to view natural light. First hour of your waking time, if it's not possible, use the lamp, but if it's possible, don't be lazy.
27:20 Speaker 00 And then two, three hours before your bedtime, be very mindful and maybe even obsessed and crazy about different light sources which disrupt your cortisol and melatonin cycles, which disrupts your sleep and disrupt your energy levels, the energy that you need to get anything done in this life or to even just to feel good. That's it for today, guys. Hope you found this useful and you're gonna take proactive steps to modulate your energy levels. So again, you can be effective during the day, can create more positive impact, can change yourself and others in a more profound way.
27:59 Speaker 00 If you found this useful or you need more help resources, don't afraid, don't be stopped and reach out. Angela, no, info at yourbestculture.com. That's my new email address or find me on Instagram, Angela Brain Body Coach, all one word. There is also a link in the show notes. You can even send me a text there, which goes to my podcast provider. But all that being said, don't forget to share, to review, to teach others about what you learned on this podcast. Share it, share it, help us reach more people to improve the energy levels of the entire world, so we could all live better and create more positive impact.
28:42 Speaker 00 Until next time, sleep well, wake up energized and keep growing.
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