Trouble sleeping at night and low energy levels during the day?

Trouble falling or staying asleep is NOT an Ambien deficiency. Cortisol and Melatonin are the two hormones involved in our Circadian Rhythm or sleep/wake cycle. Cortisol (produced in the adrenal glands) is what wakes us up in the morning which is triggered by light and stress, and melatonin (produced in the pineal gland and the gut) is what helps us sleep and is triggered by darkness. Cortisol peaks around 6 a.m., starts to decline throughout our day and bottoms out around 9:00 p.m. Melatonin kicks in at around 8-9 p.m. and peaks out at around 4 a.m. This is the the normal sleep/wake cycle. Identifying and working on improving the underlying cause, rather then treating the symptom is key to having optimal levels of these two hormones and feeling energized throughout our day.

If some type of stressor is triggering the release of cortisol before bed then we will have problems falling asleep and staying asleep and if the adrenal glands are becoming fatigued because of chronic stress then we will have low energy during the day. A stressor could be some obvious things such as finances, marital problems, loss of a loved one, sleeping with the TV on, computer or caffeine before bed and so on.....It is the less obvious ones that seem to be the most problematic. Some examples are, poor diet, alcohol at night, eating foods that spike insulin levels before bed (blood sugar problems), medications, gut problems (bugs, yeast, virus). All of these stressors can spike cortisol levels at night making sleep a problem.

What steps can you take to help alleviate difficulty sleeping and having energy throughout the day? Start by finding out where your cortisol and melatonin levels are through specific testing. Find a practitioner that does saliva testing to measure cortisol levels at these different times of the day and at night. With saliva testing, cortisol is measured upon waking, at noon, afternoon, nighttime, and total daily output. It is important to look at this pattern of cortisol in order to identify the underlying cause of the elevated cortisol or lack of. Most doctors use blood testing which tell us little about cortisol or melatonin levels. It is one measurement of total cortisol at that moment the blood is being drawn and most people get stressed at the site of a needle which will give a false reading anyway.