The Weekly Thread: Proper Caffeine Timing, Sleep Hacks, A Natural Beauty Hack, and Remember, You Were Built For This

EFFECTIVELY TIMING YOUR MORNING CAFFEINE CAN MAKE YOU FEEL SUPERHUMAN, AND EVEN HELP YOU SLEEP BETTER

Caffeine can be a very useful tool that helps you get more stuff done, and help you stay focused and alert for longer periods of time. 

Have you ever heard someone say something along the lines of, “You don’t want to know me until I’ve had my coffee”, or “I’m not me until I’ve had my coffee”?

Maybe this person is even you. 

This is not ideal. 

We’ve all evolved to be amazing, vibrant, high-energy human beings without caffeine, we’ve just gotten away from that lifestyle.

The truth is, we’re all “morning people”, regardless of how much you may have convinced yourself that you’re not.

Some of us just need to unlock the true “morning person” within, which means more properly setting your Circadian Rhythm.

By better understanding how the human body truly “wakes up” in the morning, can you then harness that to jumpstart your body more naturally, and then, then you can make caffeine your ally that works with your body’s natural energy to take you to superhuman levels.

I’ll explain how. 

It begins by better understanding your Circadian Rhythm. 

Your Circadian Rhythm is a 24-hour cycle that is part of your body’s internal clock. It kind of runs on its own, “in the background”, and carries out essential processes and functions, most notable of which, cause your body to naturally wake in the AM, and naturally fall asleep in the PM.

So, if you have trouble waking in the AM, or trouble falling asleep at night, (oftentimes they go hand in hand), your Circadian Rhythm is off.

In short, you want to consume your coffee, or any kind of stimulant only AFTER your Circadian Rhythm has been properly set to start the day.

I understand we don’t live in a perfect world, and you may not always be able to do this, however, I’m here to help you focus on what you CAN control, when you can control it, and offer up the tools and knowledge to empower you to do so. 

So let’s learn more about properly setting your Circadian Rhythm in the AM.

Your body wants to pulse a plethora of endogenous hormones and chemicals (“endogenous” meaning “produced within”) in the morning, ideally around 6-7 am.

If you don’t pulse these endogenous hormones and chemicals early enough, it has the potential to throw your energy off for the entire day, and can even be the reason you don’t fall asleep as well that night.

Your Circadian Rhythm is an internal clock that works in cycles, so the longer it takes to go through its AM cycle, the later it then goes through its PM cycle, where it then pulses all the endogenous hormones and chemicals that cause your body to fall asleep, and recover through the night, such as melatonin, testosterone, and growth hormone.

In the AM, you pulse hormones and chemicals that help energize you and allow you to get stuff done while constantly burning energy all day, such as oxytocin, serotonin, and cortisol.

We’re going to focus on cortisol, and its relationship with exogenous caffeine (“exogenous” meaning “it enters the body from outside”, or the opposite of produced within).

Cortisol is known as the “stress hormone”, and because of that, it gets a bad reputation, as high cortisol is associated with negative effects on our health.

But it’s not cortisol’s fault we produce so much of it, which then has a deleterious effect on our health. Quite frankly, it’s a combination of our modern environment, lifestyle, and our own doing, that we have a poor relationship with cortisol.

Cortisol is a very essential hormone, otherwise, the human body wouldn’t produce it, and want to pulse it every morning between 6-7 am.

In an ideal scenario, which is what we’re trying to create here, your body will naturally pulse its daily dose of cortisol in the morning, between 6-7 am, providing you with the necessary hormonal support your body needs to tackle all the stressors that will come your way that day.

Cortisol provides you with energy, reduces fatigue, and is basically your body’s way of saying, “okay, I know we’ve got stuff to do, so let’s go get it done!”. Cortisol helps with all of that.

The rub is that your morning cortisol pulse is part of your body’s Circadian Rhythm, and needs around 12 hours to run its course regardless of when it pulses. If you don’t set your Circadian Rhythm more properly, it can take much longer to pulse your cortisol, but still takes 12 hours to run its course for the day.

Meaning, you have much more cortisol in your bloodstream later at night, which then negatively affects your evening Circadian Rhythm pulse of hormones like melatonin, testosterone, and growth hormone, causing your body to enter its sleep cycle much later, which of course can cause sleeplessness and restlessness throughout the night.

You also don’t want to cause an artificial pulse from consuming things that can artificially trigger a cortisol response from the body before your body has gone through its natural cortisol pulse for the day.

Namely caffeine and artificial light.

This is the key to timing your caffeine intake like a pro.

Caffeine we’re discussing now, and artificial light we’ll actually touch on in the next segment.

If you consistently consume caffeine before your body naturally pulses its cortisol for the day, which many of us do, you begin to train the body to think that it needs to rely on the caffeine consumption for cortisol, rather than doing it on its own, causing a dependency.

Thus, “You don’t want to know me until I’ve had my coffee”.

On a consistent basis, this throws your entire Circadian Rhythm out of whack, which then negatively impacts energy throughout the day, creating a greater dependence on stimulants, and negatively impacting your sleep.

If you time your caffeine consumption in a way that it’s consumed only after your body has naturally pulsed its cortisol for the day, the caffeine will be more effective, as it will work with your body’s already existent cortisol pulse, and not be the reason your cortisol has pulsed.

The caffeine you consume then will be even more complimentary to your personality, provide cleaner energy, and its effects will last longer.

Through practice and personal accountability, I now have a Circadian Rhythm that is well trained, so much so, that I no longer use an alarm clock to wake up in the morning, unless I need to wake up extra early, before my normal Circadian Rhythm (if this is you consistently, I’ve some great tips and hacks in the next segment to trick your body into this).

In the morning, I immediately drink a glass of hydrogen enriched spring water, I go through a quick morning routine, and then consume my caffeine only when I can tell my Circadian Rhythm is set for the day. This is something you’ll be able to get a feel for over time with practice, and becoming more in tune with your body.

An easy tell is that if you feel your body is still dragging, you haven’t pulsed your cortisol yet, and are still probably metabolizing the rest of your nighttime hormones and chemicals out of your bloodstream. It may take some getting used to at first, and you may have some slower mornings where you don’t consume caffeine for an hour or even more after waking, but with time and some consistency, your body will right the Circadian Rhythm ship, and you will begin to wake more naturally, more quickly, allowing you to time your caffeine more early and still yield optimal benefits.

For me, this is typically 15-20 minutes after waking.

Now, let’s discuss more about the most important factor in setting your Circadian Rhythm, and thus, improving sleep…light exposure.

 CONTROL LIGHT EXPOSURE

Probably the most critical factor in properly setting your Circadian Rhythm both in the morning and evening, is controlling your exposure to both natural and artificial light. 

Which makes it probably the most important factor in hacking a better quality night’s sleep. 

The key is to control your exposure to natural light by getting as much as possible to start the day, and eliminating as much exposure to artificial light as the evening wanes and your body wants to begin its nighttime endogenous hormone pulse. 

Remember, we did not evolve with artificial light. In fact, it’s only very recently in human history that we’ve had artificial light at our fingertips. 

We used to have no choice but to make natural light exposure upon waking, our first light exposure, and then even at night, lighting a candle, or any kind of flame, is also a natural light wave that is recognized by the eye and brain, and does not cause an excess cortisol response at night when that’s the last thing you want. 

Basically, the human body doesn’t know what to fo with artificial light, and it stresses the body and brain out, causing an unnecessary cortisol response. 

This is no way to start your day, nor end your night. 

Let’s start with the AM. 

The key to jump starting your body’s natural Circadian Rhythm is to get natural light exposure as immediately as possible upon waking. 

No scrolling through your phone.

Don’t turn on any light switches. If the sun is up, even if it’s cloudy, there’s enough natural light coming in that you don’t need to flip on any light switches.

Do you routinely wake up before there’s any natural light? Or have to in those winter months with shorter days?

Keep reading, as I’ve got some cool hacks for you. 

Just get your butt outside, rain, snow, sleet, or shine. 

If you can, get your bare feet in the grass. 

Natural light exposure as your first light exposure of the day will trigger a natural cortisol pulse, whereas artificial light exposure as your first light exposure of the day will cause an artificial cortisol response, not in line with a Circadian Rhythm. Couple that artificial cortisol response from artificial light exposure with near-immediate caffeine intake and you’ve got a double whammy.

Drink a glass of water, and if you can, get outside and go for a walk, or do something to get the body moving. Ideally, you want natural light exposure immediately upon waking, and at least 30 minutes of natural light before noon. If you can get that minimum of 30 minutes in right away to start the day, even better. 

Eliminating artificial light in the PM. 

As discussed above, in the evening, your Circadian Rhythm controls a pulse of nighttime hormones that put your body in a natural restful state that prepares you for a quality night of restorative sleep. 

This is usually around 10pm. 

If you have too much cortisol in your bloodstream still from the day, due to an improperly set morning Circadian Rhythm, and/or excessive stress, your body cannot transition into this nighttime pulse of hormones nearly as well. 

To do this, you want as little cortisol in the bloodstream as you approach that 10pm hour. Which also means, you definitely don’t want to be doing anything that can cause a cortisol response such as exposing your eyes to artificial light. 

As I type this, it’s 7:30 pm, and the sun is now long set for the evening. It’s definitely not ideal to have my face in a screen with artificial lights on all around me. As I said, we don’t live in a perfect world, so I’m making the decision to have my face in a screen at less than ideal times, to ensure I deliver this “Weekly Thread” on time to you, rather than avoid all the artificial light. We are all faced with decisions like this every day. 

Rather, knowing how the body wants to operate, once finished typing for the evening, I will take immediate measures to eliminate artificial light to help my body begin its evening Circadian Rhythm. 

Red Light When No Light 

I told you I had some tips and hacks that can help you have more control over artificial light exposure when there’s no natural light. 

If you wake up before the sun rises, whether it’s every now and then (as I do), or quite consistently, having your house armed with some lights that have amber incandescent bulbs in them can provide you with enough light to move around and get stuff done without turning on the bright lights, and will also emit a lightwave that more closely mimics the light of a sunrise, which helps your body more effectively transition from pitch dark to the natural light of the day. 

Using these lights at night is also effective, as it also mimics the light of a sunset, or fire. But, you may also have family who isn’t as accommodating, so you can also throw on a pair of blue light blocking glasses to block artificial, cortisol inducing, blue light waves.


If you get a pair of blue light blockers, do spring for a quality pair (as with most things), as many of the cheaper brands may use cheap lenses from China that aren’t as effective. 

I personally use Ra Optics, They also sell daytime glasses with lenses that block many of the harmful artificial light we typically get exposed to throughout the day.