we get sleepy, and even how our temperature and hormones shift throughout the day and night.
Between 2 and 3 AM, levels of cortisol — the body’s main stress hormone — naturally begin to rise. This increase is supposed to be gentle, nudging you awake a few hours later around sunrise. But if you’ve been under heavy stress, that cortisol bump can spike instead of drift upward. Instead of waking up slowly at 6 or 7 AM, your brain hits “full brightness” at 3 AM, leaving you restless in the dark.
Think
