02/18/2026
You have been explaining away your afternoon for years now.
Stress. Poor sleep. Just what happens when life gets full.
What if I told you it is none of those?
The glucose-cortisol loop does not show up in standard bloodwork.
It shows up 90 minutes after lunch. In cravings that feel random. In brain fog that makes thinking feel harder than it used to be.
You are not declining.
Your cortisol is compensating for unstable glucose. And because your labs look normal, you keep pushing through and assuming this is just how your body works now.
It is not.
Dietary disruption, stress physiology, and circadian misalignment all create the same crash. But each one requires a different fix.
Treating the wrong variable is why the protocols you have tried have not worked.
So I want to ask you: which pattern did you just see yourself in?