In order to understand the darkness, sometimes we have to study the light. In naturopathic medicine, we often discuss the determinants of health. This includes the following considerations:

• Inborn (genetics, maternal health);
• Lifestyle (including environment, lifestyle choices, emotions and self-love);
• Environment (air and water quality, light, toxins, occupation, surroundings, etc);
• Diet (elimination, nutrition, digestion, hydration, etc);
• Physical (exercise, adequate rest, mobility, and strength);
• Stress (physical and emotional);
• Socio-economic (culture, friendship, community, satisfactory employment); and
• Illness (pathogens, surgeries, suppression, traumas, injury, addictions, etc).

We strive to help patients to enhance those aspects of their lives that determine health, and reduce those habits that are harming them and leading them towards disease.

The health of the Circadian Rhythm that is inherent within every mammal is key for many of the determinants of health. Looking closer at two hormones will demonstrate why this rhythm needs nurturing every day and night of our lives.

Melatonin, is the hormone that we secrete in high doses every night and is known as a chronobiological molecule. Melatonin is made in response to the lack of light that does not enter our eyes, where a nerve send signals to a neural pathway that tells the pineal gland to make melatonin. The cells in the pineal gland act as a circadian pacemaker and release melatonin with proper rest in a dark room. When we do not get proper rest at night in darkness, the neural pathways are disrupted because they receive different information (light, for example) that leads to late, absent, or low levels of melatonin secretion.

Once melatonin is released into the body, it acts on the brain and various tissues as a free radical scavenger and antioxidant, a cell protector, an immunomodulator (helps to balance your immune system biochemistry), endocrine modulation (affecting all of the glands in your body that secrete other hormones), oncostatic (preventing oncogenetic mutations leading to cancer), thermoregulation (thus affecting the rate at which you burn calories and stay within normal temperature limits) and can act as a therapeutic agent in many systems in the body overall.

Cortisol, when it is secreted in its diurnal (daily) rhythm, however, it is naturally released at high levels in the morning, and drops by mid-afternoon, continuing to decline for the remainder of the day. It is a hormone molecule that is made from cholesterol like many steroid hormones, and is made in the adrenal glands that sit on your kidneys. This hormone is known as our "fight or flight" hormone, and is usually reserved for times of great distress like the classic example of "running from a bear". Even though it is not responding directly to light in the eyes, it is downstream of the signals that do receive light, as well as other sensory information that we may perceive as stress. Physical stressors like being cold, fasting, starvation, blood loss, surgery, infection, severe exercise, pain, and emotional traumas can elevate cortisol levels. Cortisol aids our body to deal with the stress by increasing the production of energy through raising blood glucose. It is known to aid in tissue repair and wound healing, immunomodulation, and enhancing nutrient release when needed by the body. Chronic less severe stressors, however, reduce the threshold for release of cortisol, and eventually, little bits of cortisol are released all the day long. This is counter-productive to the beneficial releases of its diurnal cycle, as well inefficient when needed for its intended purpose of the fight or flight response. As we age, and due to being under chronic stress, it is likely that our diurnal rhythm of cortisol secretion is less than optimal, and that we are using up the building blocks necessary to make cortisol over time. This is the adrenal fatigue that most of you have heard about. Low morning cortisol levles are indicative of poor health outcomes. Cortisol imbalances can cause atrophy of lymph nodes, decreases in white blood cells, insulin resistance as glucose is chronically elevated, high blood pressure and possibly ulcers.

In short, lack of sleep and chronic daytime stress leads to disease. The balance between these hormones in the body is really vital to health and well-being.

So what can you do? I often recommend to my patients to really take a step back and look at their own daily routine. Making small steps to alter the evening routine can lead to better sleep and a more satisfying morning. Daytime routines are also going to affect relaxation, perception of stress, and sleep by altering the biochemical and neural signals we send to our brain as we attempt to sleep.

For more tips on optimizing your health routines, read the articles below and stop in and see us!

We also offer salivary cortisol testing, urinary melatonin testing, male and female hormone testing and more.