Circadian Rhythm Hacks for Muscle in Menopause

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What are you waiting for? Good night. What if we could give you some hacks to improve your sleep and your energy throughout the day by just talking about the timing of the food, the fuel, the exercise that you do? If you are up for something that will improve your energy level all day and night, this is it.

I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness in menopause and beyond before you knew to ask them. The goal to help accelerate your results with science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman. And it's not just about you, but the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology and industry subject matter expert and an international speaker to founder of the first and the only exclusively made for menopause and beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the scenes and the science of optimal hormone balancing fitness and longevity and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy that you want, need, and deserve.

Hey, this is Debra Atkinson and Moses, and he's like, who are you talking to? You're not talking to me. So first of all, apologies for my co-producer. He may be noisy. I have taken all the noisy toys and put them in what we call noisy toys. Away jail. And this episode is all about circadian rhythm. We're going to get to that in a second, but I'm sure some of you have experienced this. So I am not in my usual studio. I'm at home, which is odd, but in my office, I've got a slight tech problem with some of my software, hardware, external drives. And so whatever it's doing in there, it's doing it for days. I'm giving it privacy. So I don't have the microphone. I don't have the usual bookcase in my backdrop. I probably have a little bit of an echo. I'm going to apologize for that in advance. And now I'm all done apologizing and we're going to move into this. We are talking circadian rhythm and let me just tell you exactly why and what you're most going to get out of it. Time of day that you do specific types of exercise. Is really important for women over 40. So over 40, over 50, over 60, and over 70, this becomes more important. Probably once you get to 70, it matters a little bit less, but by then you will have established lifetime habits that are probably, again, still going to impact it. And you want to continue what's working and/or fix what's not. And here's what we're going to do. We have to uncover a lot of other things that impact your circadian rhythm. And talk about, first of all, even before we talk circadian rhythm hacks, we have to define what circadian rhythm is. So shall we start at the beginning? And I promise you, before you get off this call, you will understand why we start and lead with, spoiler alert, are you ready? Intense early and light late. So we will be talking about doing the intense exercise that you do in your routine first and earlier in the day rather than later. And we'll talk about why. So let's define circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythm— it's yours, is natural. It's an internal process that follows a 24-hour cycle, regulating your sleep-wake patterns, your hormonal release, and other vital bodily functions. Now, interest Interestingly enough, I, a couple years ago, interviewed Alisa Vitti, who's written more than anyone else about the rhythm of a woman. So although men naturally, 24-hour cycle, boom, boom, boom, fine. But for us, especially if you're in reproductive years or you're in the middle of the chaos that is perimenopause and that menopause transition, we're on more of a monthly cycle. So our 24-hour cycles change every 28 days. And every single day, every week is slightly different. So, you know, talk about ginger dancing backwards in heels. I mean, compared to what Fred had to do, that's what we're doing every single day. So, defining these rhythms, it regulates your sleep-wake pattern, your hormone release, and other vital bodily functions. Now, that's to me like the words natural flavors on an ingredients list. And you know, if you trust the resource, it's natural flavors, should probably put you at ease. But if you don't, you might want to dig into that. It's similar here. So let's dig and unpack that a little bit more. Your circadian rhythm is the pattern your body follows on that 24-hour-a-day process. It's the name given to your body's basically your internal clock. Yours can be off. Anybody ever had a baby? Yeah. Or potentially you had to do shift work, even if you chose it for a short period of time. I would be willing to bet that we've all done that. Like, that is not a time of day that I would like to do that. I actually had a meeting at 7:15 this morning. Now I'm 60 and I'm comfortable in my own skin. So I was in my bathrobe and pajamas. And I don't care, but we have the meeting. So what you need to realize is this affects other body processes like your hormones. And so if your sleep cycle is altered because of, say, travel, jet lag, you stayed up later than you wanted to or had to get up earlier, or heaven forbid both, right? You're probably impacting your sleep and your wake cycle, your digestion, your elimination, your body temperature. And you've got this tiny conductor inside of your body, you're orchestrating this 24-hour symphony of biological processes. But if one gets off, it's an integrated process. So you really got to look at how do you do this. For those of you who are listening, and you have struggled with sleep with insomnia, I want you to stay tuned to the very end, because I have seen that both up close and personal several times. Not myself, but someone that I lived with, loved with, and shared a bed with for a long time, and other friends and clients over the years who've struggled. But I've also seen dramatic and positive changes that can come from changing the right thing. Your body— mine— your body sets your circadian rhythm naturally, guided by your brain. But outside factors like light can affect your rhythm. And for example, when light enters your eye. So I'm in front of a 4-pane sliding glass window looking out and the sun is starting to come in. It's not going to come directly here because it's overshadowed. It's Arizona, so we don't want that to happen. But I'm getting sunlight slightly indirectly. But earlier today, I actually went outside and saw the sunrise during my meeting. That is a signal that I can stop producing melatonin because I'm now awake. It's wake-up time. And if you don't have that, if you're in a northern climate, it's not functioning quite as well, and/or you may need exposure to light on purpose. So I always recommend in the middle of the night, never, never turn on the lights full blast, you know, leave that nightlight to guide you. Really important. Similarly with a baby, like, I remember, you know, this was 30 years ago, but Brading off, like getting up in the middle of the night to go and get him or change a diaper. I'm like, do not turn on the light. Do not do it because then the baby wakes up and thinks, oh, it's daytime. Right? So you want it to be dark. And similarly, puppy, you know, training a puppy same way. It's like, no, no, no, this is dark. So it's important that we get this on a regular basis, melatonin production when it's dark, when it's dark out, your body will naturally produce it. I noticed that probably during perimenopause, menopause transition, I was probably in my early 50s when I really noticed this because I'd been so busy in my 40s, but didn't notice it quite so much. Don't think I went to movies, but going to a movie in the middle of the afternoon, it would get dark. And even though it might have been a great movie, if I wanted to close my eyes, I could have gone to sleep in the middle of that an adventure movie. But that's just an example of what happens and how you can change things if you want to, for your better, or if you're not careful, for your worse. So what can affect your circadian rhythm aside from light? Light and dark have the biggest impact on it for sure. So utilizing light in your house, utilizing lights correctly at the right time when you do want to be awake, But a lot of these things also, like food intake. So if you want to support your circadian rhythm, you will think very consciously about that. And I know fasting is very popular. However, you might want to look at how well is it working for you. Your stress level impacts your circadian rhythm. If you've got that monkey mind going on, your circadian rhythm is going to be probably not cooperating really well with your sleep-wake cycle. Physical activity, and we're going to dive deeper into this one. So of course you're here. I'm a menopause fitness expert. We train menopause flipping 50 menopause fitness specialists and have since 2018. And this is one of the things that really is— it's number 2 on a list of 10 things that really supported, and we developed 11 years ago for women, but intense exercise early and light exercise late. And the reason behind that and what really is involved. We'll talk more about your body temperature. I've often suggested things like taking a bath 90 minutes before bed. And we're talking a bath because you're encompassed, you're surrounded by it, as opposed to a shower. Although a shower would be better than nothing. You can amplify that by— I will often do a sauna before. You're going to earn the shower because you're going to sweat, but I will do a sauna, an infrared sauna. Followed by an Epsom salt bath. I mean, that's like a really luxurious spa day, but pretty awesome for sleep and getting some power sleep. But your temperature goes up, and here's what you want to think about— hibernating bears. So if your temperature goes up, what goes up must come down. So as you're— yes, you elevate your core temperature, but then as it comes down about 90 minutes later, It's a cue to your brain to sleep. So think about if you live in a northern climate or if you've ever been to one in the wintertime. Yes, it's dark more hours of the day, but as it's cold, the inclination for many people is to get cozy and comfortable and to sleep. And what do we do when we want to sleep really well? And I know in an overly hot room, it can be easy to get sleepy as well. But when you want to sleep really well, you don't crank up the temperature in your home or leave the air conditioning off when it gets to be 105 in Arizona. You turn the air conditioning way up so that it's like 68 degrees and you sleep better when that's true, or you open up the window just a little bit in the wintertime. Temperature really matters overnight or off-hour work shifts can really destroy you. I know this one firsthand, and I've worked with people who do shift work. And, you know, after a very short time in working with one or two women, and that was about it, because after that I really learned, like, the best thing that you could do for your health right now— I mean, the health right now and your health for the next 40 or 50 years— is quit that job or figure out a way to get yourself back on days, because the night shift is killing you, you know. And that would be probably true for men as women, but for women it's even worse because of the way we opened. You're not just on a 24-hour circadian rhythm, you're on a, you know, that changes, you know, every week, every month if you're in those productive years or reproductive years. Hopefully all our years are productive. That's not necessarily true for all of us, but those off-hour work shifts can also destroy you. I worked while I was in college, kind of in latter years. I think my senior year in college, I took over for a friend, a grad student friend who had been teaching. She moonlighted two jobs that were just like waitressing, bartending at a really nice restaurant in town, and she was also teaching fitness classes at the end of shift work. At 3M. So 3M, big company, around the clock, right? So some people were getting off at 11 while some people were starting at 11. Some people were working, I think it's starting at 3 and then off. I mean, it was a mess. But to clue you in, I was teaching aerobics classes that started at 11, right? Or 11:05 when They got off right before they went home so that they could unwind, go to bed, and get up and do it all over again. And, you know, so I would go home. I'd be driving away from that back home, you know, so 12:30 in the morning, I'm getting in bed to go to sleep. And at that time, I believe I also was shortly after that taking on a job where I closed and the business closed at 11. So you had to do everything for shutting down. And I had about a 45-minute drive to get back to my home. So again, same situation. And I'm a morning person, so that was really wreaking havoc with me. So finally I was like, I can't do this. I'm going to have to move to this new city so I don't have the commute coming home. Still, closing at 11 was a killer for me. So I really wanted to get off much earlier, you know, and have some more normal hours. But it took a while. And so if you're doing off-hour work shifts, especially if they fight, they're not compatible with your normal— some of us are more morning people, some of us are more night owls. By the way, you can change that within 3 days. You can. If you set your alarm clock, you start getting up by the 3rd or the 4th day, your body naturally is going to start waking up at that time. And you can do that. And there are others who will say to you that you can't change it, that if you're a night owl, you're always going to be a night owl. And that's not necessarily true. So you've got to really look at where are you functioning the best and can you flip things based on the habits that you've got. Travel can wreak habits. So of course it's travel. That, you know, not if you're going north and south is not so bad at all. But if you are going across time zones, that could really be a killer. And there are a couple hacks for that too. We're not going to quite get into all of those. Certain medications can change things up. So something that winds you up slows you down. Mental health conditions, if you've got anxiety and/or depression, those can definitely have an impact, especially if you are somebody who ruminates. On challenges and problems. And I would say of our two genders, notoriously women do tend to ruminate. We think about things, we get in there and we wallow in it a little bit longer. It's a little different than men. So if that's you, learning to deal with that, and/or if you've got a mental health condition, learning to cope with it is not just about improving that in your day-to-day, but potentially your circadian rhythm. That is your overnight, your sleep-wake cycles and quality of sleep will determine the quality of your days. Health conditions that involve your head or your brain, so similar to mental health conditions but not necessarily exclusively that, might be headaches, migraines, and then poor sleep habits, just not prioritizing it. And a lot of us potentially got away with that when we were younger. I would have to say I am potentially the only purist among us. I don't know about you, but So many people I've talked to, you know, they stayed up late. They stayed up late in high school or they stayed up late in college, you know, and had those all-nighters. I never did. I didn't have all-nighters for studying. I can think during my college education, I never ever in grad school for part of the reason I just discussed. I got up and I had to teach fitness classes during my entire grad school. Experience, um, 4 days a week, um, at 6 AM. And that meant, you know, I had to leave my home, you know, generally by 5:30, leave the apartment so that I could get to campus, get from my car to the, you know, and be ready. So, you know, I had early mornings and often was waking up at 4 AM, you know, to do some of those. So a little bit of studying, be ready for the day or whatever happened next. So it was challenging. I didn't stay up late, but even in college, I can remember I may have done one all-nighter, one, literally one, and it was during a finals week, but it was not because I was studying. It was because I was working on a drawing. I think it was a gift, a Christmas gift, right? So it was not a party all night long. It was not nothing. Thing like that. So, poor sleep habits, though many of you have shared and relayed that you either did shift work, you know, in healthcare, where it's probably one of the hardest jobs you've got, you know, not only the care that you're giving to other people, but the shifts that you have to do. And we have to cover healthcare around the clock, don't we? So for those of you who are doing, you know, overnighters or doing, you know, long shifts, and then you take on extra we know you, we know you. First of all, thank you. But, you know, the havoc that wrecks on you can be really catching up with you later. But many people then also, you know, don't take it seriously and they'll get up really early. And because we got away with it— it didn't work for us, by the way— but we got away with it when we were younger, there is that risk that then we will just keep going until something breaks. Rather than listen.

Hey, this is Debra Atkinson, and there is one thing you can't do in the gym at your age, and that's get all the protein that you need. You've got to do that in the kitchen. To make it easy for myself, not only to get the protein but the fiber, the fruits and vegetables I want daily, I started drinking a smoothie a day 30 years ago. But when I realized all the junk, the sugar, and the extras that you don't want, that I don't want, hiding in most protein powders, that's when I finally caved in after years of saying I will never ever ever sell supplements. Stop skipping, skimping, and sabotaging yourself in the morning after workouts by always being prepared. Look, yep, I agree, real food first. But it's just not convenient to carry a turkey sandwich. Sometimes the protein— and don't forget the fiber— they kill cravings and they boost satiety. And you've got to make it easy to do the right thing. You can use code PODCAST for 10% off your first order at Flipping50.com.

Today, so many of us, you listening, may feel, think, say, I wish I'd have known that, you know, quote unquote, that, you know, 30 years ago. But I have stopped myself and said, gosh, I wonder if my 30-year-old self would have listened And, you know, that's the question that sometimes you just have to— you're not going to do anything about it. Something that you hear isn't good for you if you're getting something from it. I mean, that's really an important distinction to make. So it makes sense if all of these things impact our circadian rhythm that we can create circadian rhythm hacks or havoc. It goes either way. In menopause, that will accelerate our aging or will reverse it. Because let's just agree, we're not like sitting on the fence. We're either aging in reverse, our biological tissues are improving, or we're making them worse. And we know both are possible. So the overview of menopause and circadian rhythm disruption. So let's just say you punched your ticket, you're a woman over 40, Menopause itself can disrupt your circadian rhythms due to the hormone fluctuations leading to sleep disturbances and metabolic changes. So we no longer produce as much melatonin. We no longer have as much estrogen, which stimulates our lean muscle mass. We no longer have as much progesterone. So we often don't chill out, relax, get as deep a sleep. And all of that will impact our lean muscle mass, our bone density, our brain function, or fog, depending on which side of the fence you're on. So let's talk about your circadian rhythm. So first of all, it's controlled basically by something in your brain, your hypothalamus. Your circadian rhythms synchronize with environmental cues. So you can create those environmental cues. You don't have to be a victim to them. And menopause alone, right, can alter sleep patterns, your circadian timing, and affect your overall health. So let's deal with that. The biggest gap then comes from sleep. So the light and dark cycle. So the sleep challenges come from, you know, the drop in melatonin, estrogen, progesterone that I've talked about. And then if we're not sleeping we're not getting the growth hormone and testosterone release that happen overnight. And what we are getting is wonky— I know, highly technical word— wonky cortisol. So our cortisol level the morning after just one night of disrupted sleep, our blood sugar levels are worse because cortisol is elevated, and we function like somebody whose blood alcohol content, like we were on, we were drunk, right? We're not impacting, by the way, our blood alcohol content. But what we are is functioning like them. Like doing a test, we would probably not pass as well. So you get up in the morning and you're going to boot camp and you're doing your agility drills, might not be a good idea on that day. You want to do those things, yes, you want to practice things that will challenge your balance. Maybe you want to go to pickleball, but you might just get smacked. And because you're going to miss the ball because your hand-eye coordination is not as good when you're sleep deprived. It's significant generally at about 2 hours. So, think about that. You may not think that you've lost 2 hours of sleep. But, if you go to bed an hour later than usual because you were stuck watching, you know, whatever, River, The movie series. I don't watch movie series. You could tell you're stuck watching it and you can't get unglued. Okay, so you're an hour late to bed by the time you fall asleep. And what if you have to get up early in the morning to go and do something or take a kid somewhere? 2 hours. Boom. It's really pretty easy to be that. 4 hours and distinctly, I mean, you are like, we're gonna lock you up. It's that bad. So you're hopping on a treadmill. You should probably think twice about that. Might be a better day for you to go out for a walk, at least be on ground, not on a moving belt. So think about how do you keep yourself safe. And yes, you probably do want to exercise and move so that you can get better sleep the next night, but you want to be careful and cautious because you're not going to be doing good if you're hurt, you're injured, and/or you're going half— pardon my French— half-assed at it. All right, so common issues during menopause: insomnia, You know, the night sweats, hot flashes that occur that keep you awake. So it's not necessarily it's insomnia. It's like, oh my gosh, this is disrupting me. Frequent awakenings. And that can be due just to your own hormonal fluctuations. So you and I, if we are the same, we live alone. For those of you that live with spouses or with dogs, get a new puppy is a bad idea during menopause. I know, I know this person, right? There is a reason we don't do this. But you also want to think about old dogs, right, in your room. So most of us, by casual pull, would kick our spouses into the other room or sleep in another room, but we would not kick our dog out because they need us and there's nothing they can do. So those kinds of things that disrupt you or Many of you have college or high school kids, they're still coming in and out, and or you need to be somewhere, you need to go pick them up, and you have that one ear open until they're in the house and safe. You know, maybe you have aging parents living with you, and it's very similar for you that way. So there are a lot of sleep challenges during menopause, number one, related to menopause, and then those that are related to the midlife moment. That you're there. But the consequence of poor sleep is you're elevating your cortisol levels. You impair glucose metabolism when cortisol is up and or when it's down. By the way, those of you that have low, I see you out there. There's impaired glucose metabolism. There's an increase then of insulin, and that puts you in fat storage. Your body will do everything it can to preserve you, and that is unfortunately one of the backlashes. How do you optimize sleep? And I'm going to also share a link to a resource that I wrote several years ago, and it came out of the chapter on sleep in You Still Got It, Girl, the book. Still relevant today. We're changing the title of this book. Originally was Sleep Yourself Skinny, and I now cringe at that, that I was actually leaning into the whole idea that that's really what you wanted. It's really what my community and audience wanted. However, that book cover, we're changing to Sleep Yourself Strong because it's really the goal now. And for so many of you, for women now who are in their 40s, they're gonna, they're gonna come through this menopause transition so much better. And this new millennial group of people called the Millennial Pause, this group of younger women who will know and hopefully arrive and go through this transition far better and know what their choices are if they do struggle. That is going to be huge. But this Sleep Yourself Strong, you know, is a book that you can grab and that will highlight almost up to 20 different things that you could be doing and highlight how you would be doing them. Evening routines, limiting blue light exposure, and engaging in calming activities. So we're talking screens. So I'm on a laptop right now, your iPad, your laptop, your desktop, Having your phone and getting exposure to that without blue-blocking glasses, not a good idea. Even better, just put it down at least 90 minutes before bed. It's like, what are you doing, right? So the one exception I will make for people is a TV across the room. But, you know, don't watch something that's going to make you stay up all night, that's stirring you up. Watch something that is happy and relaxing for you and put a limit on that. Don't necessarily keep watching to the end. If so, don't start something too late. Nutritional considerations are also something that you can do. Consuming a balanced diet, of course, and avoiding stimulants, caffeine, but also depressants, meaning alcohol. If you eliminate those two things or far reduce them, keep your caffeine to early morning and limit the amount of it that you're taking, you're probably going to sleep better if you're struggling. But also inviting carbohydrates to dinner can be very helpful. And a lot of women have taken keto to some kind of extreme, and they're not fueling their exercise as well as they're limiting the quality of their sleep and potentially disrupting digestion or elimination more pointedly. So fiber is contained in carbohydrates. So, you know, consider, do you need more fiber? And are you going on a regular basis at least once or more a day?. And, and that might give you a little idea. So an ideal dinner, what might that look like? Might look like, you know, a medium sweet potato. That's actually 2 servings of carbohydrates. I don't count the calories. I don't like counting calories. I know some of you are obsessed with it. That's exactly why I don't count. I will have someone take a snapshot, and I'll do that for myself because you think potentially most women think they're consuming a lot more calories than they are. They think they might be getting a lot more protein than they are. So doing a spot check can be really important. If you're interested, I will share with you Macros First is now the app that I will use. I have it on my phone. I've used it once potentially in the last 5 months, and it was just last week because I was like, okay, I have time today during this holiday break while I'm recording this to and I want to take a spot check. And I was shocked. So I was, you know, it was a late— later in the day, and I was plugging in what I was going to have for dinner. I was like about 1,350 calories. I'm like, whoa, that's not even enough. Like, I've got room for 1,000 more. You know, I'm not going to overeat at dinner to make that happen, but I'm doing better tomorrow, right? I can go ahead and I can have that extra thing that I want, not to blow it, like not outside, but I can have an extra serving of, you know, high protein dessert if I want it and have room for it because I can stand those calories. And I did better, you know, the next day because I'd taken that shot. But I will tell you, after 41 years of working with clients, both males and females, notoriously those that come to a plateau and can no longer lose weight, it's because they've stifled their metabolism by eating too little, not just too little protein, but too little overall. So if you've been skipping or skimping and it's become a lifetime habit for you, you have slowed your metabolism and you can get it back, but it will take time. You need to build your calories back up, not create more deficit. And so first, you know, doing a spot check can be really, really important. So considering, you know, what is your diet? Are you eating high-quality foods? And, you know, getting an adequate protein, being full but not, you know, overfull. 2 to 3 hours between dinner and bedtime will really help. So one of the things to reset a circadian rhythm that may not be working for you right now, try to stick to a daily routine. You know, go outside, get exposure to light, sunlight. If you can't get outside because it's like -20 degrees. I know you in the Midwest, but get close to a window even, or window light, or get a light box so you can actually get that exposure. 15 minutes early in the day is very, very helpful. Treatment using light occurs, you know, usually in the morning. It's very good. But if you're traveling somewhere, you land in the afternoon, get outside, get exposed to sunlight, because that sunlight exposure in your eyes Yes, stops melatonin production, but it also is a way to say when it's dark, start producing it. So you're sending two signals at the same time. Foster a really good sleep environment. And I want to come back right now and spend a little time on exercise. So morning versus your evening workouts, your morning workouts, even into early afternoon, but the later the day goes and the more sensitive to poor sleep you are, the less you want to do any high-intensity interval training, anything getting you breathless, any longer duration, even if it's low exercise, because intensity can also come from duration. I'm gonna say that again for the people in the back. Let's say you love going for walks, but you've turned that 30-minute walk now into, okay, well, I have to escalate it. I have to do more. I know you. Okay. We could be sisters. We have to catch ourselves doing that. But if you're now like, I'm— I walk 4 miles every day, twice a day. I walk 5 miles, you know, and I walked 5 miles yesterday, so I'm doing 5 again today. You're just like going down a vicious circle, and potentially you're not actually enjoying it. So it's not necessarily going to improve your sleep. So if you are getting intensity from the amount and the duration increasing. That can even happen if you're going for a hike, especially if you're not in condition and not used to it, or you're under-fueling. Those of you, again, low carbohydrate diets, you swear my body loves this. You're just losing water weight. So unless you're looking at the scale, you're gaining muscle and you're losing body fat, it doesn't love it because that's what should be happening if you have weight to lose. So that's the biggest question, right? Do you have weight to lose? I'm not talking to you if you have 2 or 3 pounds and you just can't lose them. It's probably not for you. But what I'm talking about is those of you that do have 20 pounds or so to lose. If you are really shutting down your metabolism by not eating or not eating carbs, so you're not fueling, but you're doing far more, going for longer hikes, I'm doing my HIIT, I'm doing my strength, I'm doing, doing, doing, but you're not fueling, fueling, fueling. You've got to change that or it probably will never happen for you. You've got to turn it back on. Exercise does stimulate a positive circadian rhythm. You will sleep better if you're exercising, period. However, if you exercise in too stimulating a way close to bedtime, too high intensity, too rigorous in terms of even strength training, may not get your heart rate up, doesn't get you breathless, but it can tap into the need for cortisol for fuel. That's our energy hormone as well. But if you don't have cortisol— and late in the day we should not, it's highest at 8 AM, it should be lowering all the rest of the day, so it's at its all-time low at 2 AM. So we're not awake with energy looking at the ceiling, we're sleeping and recovering so that it naturally will wake us up in the morning. But when you need cortisol to do anything. So remember the adrenaline rush, right? So what is that? It's like when women lift cars off of their children, right? And they do superhuman things. That's adrenaline. Well, adrenaline and cortisol are just— they're like this, right? So that's your adrenals pumping out cortisol. And if you needed to do high-intensity interval training, you need it for really hard strength training workout, your body will convert a different hormone into that. So you've got it, and you'll say, okay, well, that worked fine. But later, when you're trying to get to sleep, that hormone should be converted to something else to help you relax and get a deeper night's sleep. You no longer have anything over there in that account because you wrote checks on it for the cortisol late in the day. So working with your hormones can be far more effective. And that's not to say that you and I don't get stressed in the afternoon, and maybe our cortisol rises because we have an argument and/or we are getting really stressed because your computer in there is not cooperating and you needed it. And it's true that we can have a spike in our cortisol naturally because of those things. However, what you need to be aware of is going for a walk is probably a better way to purge that. You know, doing yoga, but actually going for a walk or doing some really just short an exercise snack. We're talking 20 to 30 seconds, just do a burst of activity to get that out and then be done and over it. So you purge that in a very different way than starting from scratch, like the end of a long day. And I didn't get a chance to work out today is probably not the best time to do a HIIT workout. So intense early. Light, late, really your mantra for improving your circadian rhythm, particularly post-menopause, meaning when you enter perimenopause. So let me say that again, not that you've entered post-menopause in your 50s and 60s, but that you've entered perimenopause, that place where your hormones begin to take that roller coaster ride. You want to keep things as positive as you can hormonally with your exercise and It's proven. So studies that I began sharing in 2013, 2014 shared, you know, yoga compared to like a muscle conditioning class where you would go and you would do sets of exercise for the arms and the legs and the core. And you know, the muscle conditioning butts and guts classes comparing like 8 weeks of yoga versus that, you know, the yoga decreased cortisol levels more, improved cognitive function. And think about it. The two are not unrelated. When you are not stressed, we're thinking better, right? Because when you're stressed, I mean, you kind of have this one track. You're thinking about the thing you're stressed about and increasing the stress and not increasing problem solving. So yoga can be very, very effective. But I also wanna suggest to you that if you're struggling and you wanna burn fat and you're thinking, but, but Debra, but Debra, I have to burn more calories. I wanna burn fat. The truth is that you won't burn fat while you have high cortisol and you have blood sugar elevated, which increases insulin, puts you in fat storage. Your body with high cortisol is breaking down muscle, putting you in fat storage as well. Not a good combination. You have to remove the roadblock. You can't just, oh, I want to start burning fat though. Remove the roadblock. And the roadblock is the cortisol. So get it out of the way, reduce it, put it back at a more optimal level. Now you've made it easy to release the weight, not to even have to go chase it and burn it or earn it. All those things that we typically have told ourselves we need to do. There's a study with, and it was a long-term longitudinal, so long-term over, you know, a decade, for instance, is a longitudinal study. Following a group reported significantly higher morning cortisol levels and reduced sleep quality after there was overtraining in a postseason compared to preseason in female soccer players. So after the season is over, you know, and training really doesn't take place during season because, you know, strength and conditioning coaches like myself, we would say, okay, all the energy and the focus We have worked on your strength and your power to get you here. Now go use it, right? So we want them using all the energy, all the strength, all the power in the game, in the shots, taking the shots, making the points. And then after, you know, there is a point where, okay, now it's time, you know, for the next 9 months, you know, outside of season, we're going to focus on that again. But they specifically had them overtraining and/or it was their habit to do so. And there was significant morning cortisol levels were even higher than they normally are. And we want to be with this Goldilocks, not too low, because if you're low in the morning, you're getting up saying, I'm hungover. Like, I didn't have the fun, but I feel sluggish and I'm not waking very easily. And the alternative then is, you know, if you're too high, the other negative is like you get up and you're like, ready to go and you're off to the races, but you may be crashing shortly after or later in the day, and it doesn't stay up as a sustained. What we want is we do wanna be a little higher in the morning, and then you can use that optimally. You're probably functioning really well. I get up and I will write articles and I will proofread things and I will do things. I won't have meetings, you know, I won't necessarily meet with groups and do coaching or meet with clients and do coaching cuz that interactive work I can do later in the day, but I cannot do the very careful, you know, proofreading and writing and research and just extracting from research what we need, what makes the most sense. That work happens early in the morning when I'm focused because of cortisol. Then I'll go work out, you know, and then you kind of get a recharge from the energy when you work out while you have higher cortisol in the morning. Make no mistake, your cortisol will go slightly higher, but if you're working out appropriately, not too long, not higher than you personally should be, and you recover in between, say, those interval training sessions, those short sprints, and/or between sets of exercise, your cortisol is doing what it should during the workout. It goes up, comes down, goes up, comes down. And after a workout, also in a bigger picture, your cortisol should have a corresponding downward trend the rest of the day. So, you're stable. You're actually coping better and more resilient to stressors that might come at you because you've exercised. If you're feeling that's not the case and you are— need a nap after exercise, like immediately you could lay down, it's not serving you. Like you have somebody else's medication you're taking right now, or yours for another period of time, but it's not working now, probably making you more sick. And if you feel the rest of the day you're more tired, or you find your couch compensating, like the rest of the week, like, I can't do another workout for days because I, I was so tired. When someone mentions that, I'm like, it's not working right now. We have to pull you out of whatever you're doing, and we need to figure out, do we need to work on your circadian rhythm around your sleep and your wake cycles? Do we need to work on your nutrition? Is there adequate nutrition? What's your micronutrient level like? You know, are you doing any supplementation and should we test before we do that? What do you want to take a look at first? So those things we've got to pull back. We call that number one rule: restore before more. So the impact of exercise on cortisol and circadian rhythm, right, is really what to take away here. For women in midlife, in menopause. Exercise will induce cortisol release. It's used as fuel during the exercise, and then it varies based on intensity and timing. If you go really long, you go for a 4-hour hike, your cortisol over time is probably also increasing, by the way. And you may offset that by how you eat during that period of time. Like your energy level may stay good if you position fuel and hydration appropriately, and you may not feel the need to totally recover afterward. You already may be bouncing back, but if you're not fueling, you're not fueled when you come into it, potentially that's going to be detrimental for your cortisol levels. Blood sugar is going to be off, and you're in fat storage. So a lot of people will notice this. I personally noticed it. When I was 56. So I was training for an Ironman, and by the way, that is like the antichrist of what you should be doing in menopause. And I knew it, I knew better, but personally, I love endurance exercise. I'd had 7 other Ironman training experiences, loved it, love the community. I love the solitude when it's that, or the group rides swims, you know, and runs in nature, and it's a way I deal with stress. Obviously, it's also a way to cause stress, so you've got to be open to, to both sides being true. But that was the year I hit menopause. I'd also been exposed to mold. I was having to move suddenly, loved the house, you know, in the area I was in, and moved away and out of state from family. So lots of major stressors during that year, but I continued to train for the Ironman even though I knew it was going badly. So I gained about 12 to 14 pounds of inflammation, really. It wasn't necessarily fat, but it was definitely inflammation. And somebody kindly said, oh, it's probably muscle. I was like, no, no, no, it's not. I mean, in endurance exercise, you have to be absolutely sure you're monitoring your muscle mass so you're not losing it. Because for a woman over 40, you very easily could. Over 50, it's even more true. And over 60, even more true. If you lose muscle mass because you're doing endurance exercise, you really have to— you really have to look at, do you value longevity? That's a question I have to ask myself that because I really want to do another Ironman, you know. So stay tuned. I am registered for one in 2025. I was to do it this year. I deferred it. But my better judgment, she's in there somewhere. She doesn't come out every day, but she's in there and she tells me, no, no, you really don't. Like, why would you want to do that? Like, your energy is good, your sleep is great, your lean muscle mass is good. Why would you want to do that? And then, you know, stubborn little me is somewhere in a corner stomping her feet. So stay tuned, right? Because intelligent women do dumb things. Be the first to put my hand up. So short-term evening exercise, could you get away with that? You know, going for a walk, doing yoga, those kinds of things. Yes. If you did strength training later in the day, one of my suggestions would be to you, don't do it after dinner because you really should be beginning to wind down. If you can't do it prior to, say, after work and after work period of time before dinner, doing short strength training workout may be okay. My preference would be short-sheet yourself on a sleep by in the morning by getting up 30 minutes earlier to get it in then, or an hour earlier, you know, in order to get it in, you know, get the shower in, get a little time before you actually lift in. But that would be smarter. So circadian rhythm tended to alter even with short-term evening exercise or high-intensity high-intensity exercise didn't have a significant effect on sleep quality. Doing high-intensity interval training can be done, but that is for, by the way, those of you who are not already suffering from adrenal stress. So please agree with me, and I know we logically, we can say this, so ask for a friend maybe, right? If you have a friend who's already exhausted and tired and you see her trying to do high-intensity interval training to lose belly fat, would you or would you not suggest maybe you should rest first, like, and make sure you have energy and then, you know, start it? That might be a good suggestion. So said gently, we don't always listen to the best advice even though we can give it. Important for you to consider. So the impact of, you know, exercise on cortisol and cortisol on exercise— we have to look at things both ways. So the recommendations I've got For morning exercise, engage in your moderate to higher intensity workouts in the morning can enhance your alertness, can align with your natural cortisol peaks. In the evening, lower intensity activities like yoga or going for a walk, stretching, you know, those things would promote relaxation and reduced muscle tension without disrupting your sleep. And especially effective to do those things if you can, you know, followed by a warm shower, Epsom salt bath, so that you can really relax truly afterward. Nutrition is also something that I want to touch on here. So your meal timing and circadian rhythm, if you have a high protein meal in the morning, you are breaking down the cortisol breakdown that occurs overnight while you're fasting. Having that high protein sets you up for a day that is more optimal in terms of fat burning and fat storage. This is so, so very important for you. So thinking about that, especially on the days that you're exercising in the morning, not fasting till noon, certainly don't fast and exercise. Feed yourself, fuel yourself before exercise. If you exercise first thing, even just coconut cream in your coffee or matcha is calories. And then make a point that you are eating immediately afterward. So eating in the evening, consuming your larger meals later in the evening, not close to bedtime, but just sitting down to a meal with higher carbohydrate can, can help you sleep. Leave 2 to 3 hours between your last meal and your bedtime. Get daylight exposure, moving as much as you can. It will help you sleep. Even 10 minutes in a self-report of sleep quality, it improved for older adults by 33%. Just 10 minutes, self-guided, self-selected intensity. It wasn't hard. It just was whatever they wanted it to be. But moving for 10 minutes improved their sleep quality. So think about light management later in the evening. Start dimming the lights so you're preparing yourself. And overnight, you know, nightlights, make use of them. Try to keep your screens away from your bed. All of the little things matter. If you're struggling with sleep, we'll put the resource in the notes that are for Sleep Yourself Skinny, a.k.a. we're changing that in 2025. Sleep yourself strong. Giving you some ideas. Taking magnesium as a supplement can be helpful. The type you want to choose is kind of dependent on what else you might be needing it for. So I ask some questions in there and lay out how I would start it if I were doing it for myself or doing it as an experiment with a client to find out where your sweet spot is for them, because it's not the same for all of us. This, you know, and going through at least two dozen other, almost two dozen other resources and steps that you might take to prioritize your sleep and your wake times. And the biggest one is realize sleep and wake times you can control, that ideally you manipulating them will make the biggest difference. So it's not, you know, sleep in, catch up on sleep whenever you can. Set some very, very clear rules. So you'll find the resources in the show notes. And until then, I wish you all a very good night's sleep, because that will depend or determine how good your next workout is and the optimization of your lean muscle and of your body composition.

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