#333 Nervous System Dysregulation: What It Really Means and How to Heal It with Dr. Kelly Livingston

And so, yes, I agree.

It's so helpful.

And to know that... cortisol, when it's either too high or too low at different times a day, it then throws off the other systems.

Like you're saying, it can throw off estrogen and progesterone.

It can throw off your gut.

So let's go into that a little bit.

What do you-

Yeah.

I gave a lecture this past spring at the CNPA on rhythms in perimenopause and menopause, and essentially it was on the HPA axis and cortisol and and essentially exposing our bodies to light.

And then of course I wove in mindfulness-based stress reduction and all of these things.

So a great example would be, yeah, so say we see someone has a blunted cortisol curve or they have low morning cortisol and they're really struggling to get started with the day.

Maybe they're describing burnout and then they're also struggling with sleep because they're not having that drop off from cortisol being higher.

to lower at night.

And so maybe they're not making as much melatonin because our body does a little dance with cortisol and melatonin production.

So I'm going to say to that woman, okay, well, we're going to go outside instead of looking at our phone, right? When we wake up, we're going to go outside and expose our eyes to light.

And that light exposure to our retina actually communicates with other organ systems.

So it's going to impact your hunger cues throughout the day.

It's going to impact your ability to fall asleep that night.

And so showing them that curve and then having a habit that's as simple as literally just going outside.

And if you can't go outside, I'm lucky that my bathroom looks out where the sun is rising.

And so if it's freezing cold, I am not one to want to go outside.

Personally, I admit that to patients.

So I sit basically on my toilet and I let the sunlight, I open the window and I let the sunlight come in my eyes.

And I do that for a few minutes before I do anything else.

And maybe if that patient, like we're giving the example, has that low cortisol, I'll use licorice extract.