If you are finding it impossible to wake up in the morning it’s a strong sign that abrupt alarms are exhausting an already depleted cortisol reserve. To fix it, set a quiet, gentle alarm that starts about 30 minutes before you actually need to get up. Give your Cortisol Awakening Response a chance to do its thing naturally, no rushing, no forcing. Your cortisol will thank you later in the day.
Why? It's a common social media myth that we need to lower our cortisol levels, but for many of us we need the opposite! Rising cortisol is exactly why we can wake up and tackle our day, and for many that “stress” feeling is not from high cortisol, it’s actually the body’s overwhelm from not having enough.
Every morning, around 6–8 AM, our cortisol naturally spikes, this is called the cortisol awakening response (CAR). Think of it as our body’s built-in alarm clock:
- Gets you out of bed
- Boosts alertness and energy
- Supports blood pressure and blood sugar
- Preps us to handle whatever the day throws at us
Waking cortisol should peak over approximately 30 minutes and then supports a balanced cortisol response throughout the day. Abrupt awakenings disrupt the daily cortisol output and make it more likely that levels oscillate throughout the day.
Without enough cortisol in the morning, things get rough: severe fatigue, blood sugar crashes, low blood pressure, and even bigger health issues. This is worth taking some simple steps to shift.
The wellness world has made cortisol into a villain. But the truth? Your body’s cortisol isn’t broken and your goal should not be to lower cortisol, it’s balanced cortisol: high when we need it, low when we don’t.