Running on fumes each AM?
Then it might be time to tuneup your CAR.
That is… your Cortisol Awakening Response.
Good, Alice.
’cause once you also see how it plays into you feeling less White Rabbit and more Red Queen every morning, it’ll make you wanna change a few habits. You see, this CAR system’s essentially an intrinsic one we’ve all got wherein cortisol (you know – that hormone that both affects stress and helps us bad azz through the day) kicks in each morning. What generally happens is that it comes on kinda soft – slowly pulling us out of our sleep pits, like a weak cup of Wawa coffee. Then… Bam! A wave of it impales our final remnants of slumber like an adrenaline needle to the cardiac cavity. Then, that’s it. We’re up. Awake. Hitting the ground like Fred Flintstone would in his own car. That is, for “normal” people. For some of us though, the motors in our CARs are slow to start each morning. And why? Because we’re feeding our body automobile the wrong kinda fuel – and while sometimes that metaphor means the obvious (like eating bad shiz) – it can also mean what we’re feeding our brains during the day. Like extra stress. As mentioned, cortisol does indeed play into stress and sleep. For example, if we’re stressing ourselves out of all day, then cortisol will run high right up until bedtime. What happens then? Essentially, an attempt to compensate for it – compliments of your body machine. Because the hormone’s been high all day long, your CAR gets stymied by sunrise. And, for you, that means a sluggish departure from dreamtime.
So how can we recalibrate our CAR?
How can we make it more reliable? So it can better get us around til sundown?
According to the experts – there are a few things you can do. Firstly, as mentioned, food is indeed crucial. Flavanoid rich eats, for example, can help curtail cortisol’s climbs during the day which are effing up your engine. Need a diesel grade recommendache? Try on for size a breakfast of berries and green tea. (Peppered with protein, of course, if you’re an A.M. aerobic rat, like me.)
And even before that, as you get out of bed, try some light. ’cause natural photon exposure can kickstart your consciousness too. Sure, things like dawn simulating alarm clocks have been suggested. So has the idea to “check your phone” (because of the faux light exposure it also imparts). As for me personally? I champion the old-fashioned way: getting off ya azz and opening the blinds. Half of what you want is to wake up, yes? So why not make like you are by getting out of bed and acting alive?
(Also: Far too easy to get stuck in bed lost in emails and interaction after you “just check your phone”.)
As a yes-and to that, something that might inspire you to do that moving is another personal fave:
Having a mission.
Per research done in Psychoneuroendocrinology, consciously prepping for “big days” issues a boost like none other for people coming outta their nightly coma. And, much like the healthy breakfast suggestion, I can attest to this one. I’ve never felt more awake and ready to go than the morning of my first race a couple months ago. (In fact, I’m pretty sure I was up a couple minutes before my alarm even went off. But that might just be because I’ve started to hate the sound of it so much that my subconscious developed next level chronoception to beat it to the punch. I digress.) The real lesson here? We should make every morning matter. If you have a job where people hold you accountable, then great. That’ll help heaps. But if you’re suffering because you work from home only, do what I do on days when I write from my own abode (a tip which I acquired from people smarter than I am): set a day itinerary the night before. And schedule it around something interactive. Whether it’s a yoga class in the morning or Toastmasters meeting at night, knowing that you have somewhere to be can help rev your dawn o’ clock engine and make you more productive in the interim.
And then, finally, know when to stop being productive. An hour or two before jumping under your covers, it’s suggested that you eschew work and wind down. The logic here is that if you’re doing things that are excessively stimulating, then those cortisol levels’ll spike anew at night – inducing the same thing that happens when you’re stressed out all day: a suppressed CAR come wake-up time. (I tend to think that staying up late and watching titillating dramas can’t be helpful either: Hashtag: Guilty. Hashtag: IntoTheBadlands)
All of this advice that comes from the pros is excellent. However, unlike an actual car, when it comes to our CAR, there’s a relevant disparity. And that’s the fact that we’re all blessed with unique cerebral-somatic connections that tell us what’s right or wrong for us respectively. So my advice (which for once I’m going to take myself) would be for you fellow fuel guzzlers coming up short in the mornings to try one or two of these things at a time for several weeks. See if they work. And if they don’t? Then throw ’em out and try filling your tank with the next grade o’ energy petroleum. Still got problems? Maybe take that whip your spirit lives in to a health specialist.
Best of luck, bishes.
See you at the starting line.