The Most Overlooked Rhythm Driving Your Sleep, Mood, and Hormones

During my FNP program, I hit a kind of burnout I didn’t have words for at the time.

I was teaching full-time at the university, working long shifts in the ER, and raising three young boys on my own. Some nights, I’d get off work after midnight and be back on campus by 8 a.m. to lecture. It was the only way I could make it all work—but my body started sending signals I couldn’t ignore.

I couldn’t settle at night. My thoughts kept spinning. My body was tense. Even when I did sleep, it never felt deep. I’d wake up groggy and already bracing for the day ahead.

At the time, I thought I just needed to push through—nap whenever I could, try to get to bed sooner, chug another caffeinated drink, and be more disciplined. But looking back, the issue wasn’t willpower. My internal rhythm was shot. My body didn’t know when to be on or when to turn off.

I see that same pattern now in the women who sit across from me in my practice. They’re showing up and doing their best—but they still feel off. Wired at night. Crashing in the afternoon. Waking up unrested, no matter how many hours they sleep.

More often than not, it’s not a broken system. It’s broken rhythm.

Your Body Runs on a Clock, Even If You're Not Aware of It

There’s a part of your brain that keeps time. It’s constantly scanning your environment for cues (light, food, stress, movement) to figure out where you are in the day.

And based on those cues, it sets your internal schedule for:

• When to release hormones

• When to digest food

• When to wind down

• When to repair tissue and regulate inflammation

• Even when to feel hungry or clear-headed

This is your circadian rhythm... your body’s master clock.
When that rhythm is in sync, everything else tends to work more smoothly.

But when it’s off?
Even the most well-intentioned habits can start to feel like they’re not working.

When the Rhythm Gets Disrupted

It was late fall, one of those times when everything hits at once.

Flu season was picking up. Students were stressed about finals. I was juggling night shifts in the ER, working from 1 p.m. to 1 a.m., then turning around to teach nursing students first thing the next morning.

We were wrapping up clinicals, finalizing grades, and trying to get everything squared away before the holidays. It felt like trying to squeeze six weeks of work into three.

And in the middle of it all, I was a single mom—getting my boys up, packed, and out the door before I even walked into work. I was doing all the mental prep and emotional labor to make sure their day ran smoothly, while mine hadn’t even officially started yet.

I kept pushing through, like most women do. Telling myself it was temporary. That I could handle it if I just tried harder.

But the truth was, my body was stuck in survival mode.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I wasn’t just exhausted.
I was completely out of rhythm.

You're Not Broken. Your Rhythm Is Off.

This is one of the most important things I teach. People often assume anxiety, insomnia, hormone shifts—those are just things that happen as we get older.

But I don’t believe that.

Do things change with age? Absolutely. But there are ways to support the body so it can still function the way it was designed to.

Your body is built to adapt. But if the signals it's getting are scrambled—if your days are unpredictable, your meals scattered, your light exposure reversed—your body does the only thing it can: it stays on guard.

That doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means your system is responding to what it’s being asked to carry.

The body is like a perfect machine. We just overwhelm it.
But if we give it what it needs, it will do what it’s supposed to do.

And what it needs most is consistent, repeated cues.
That’s what rhythm really is.

How This Shows Up in Real Life

I had a client recently who was doing all the right things—clean meals, strength training, high-quality supplements, mindfulness practice, the whole routine. But every afternoon, she hit a wall. And most nights, she’d wake at 2 a.m., unable to settle.

So we looked closer.

She wasn’t getting outside until noon most days. Dinner was around 9:30 while she finished emails. Bedtime involved blue light, spreadsheets, and last-minute scrolls.

The habits were solid.
The timing wasn’t.

We started shifting her rhythm. She began getting morning light within an hour of waking. She moved meals earlier, dimmed the lights in the evening, and swapped her late-night scrolls for a soft bedtime routine her nervous system could trust.

And within a few weeks, things began to shift.

Her sleep deepened. Her energy evened out. She felt more present in her body again—not because she changed everything, but because she gave her body the signals it had been missing.

How to Start Getting Back in Sync

You don’t need a perfect routine to feel better.
You just need to work with your rhythm, not against it.

When I work with clients, we don’t overhaul everything overnight. We start small and build consistent signals the body can trust.

Here are four places I usually begin:

1. Light first, screens later
Get outside within an hour of waking—even if it’s cloudy. Morning light helps set your circadian rhythm and signals your brain it’s time to be alert.

2. Dim the lights in the evening
As the sun goes down, your home should too. Switch off overheads, use warm, low lighting, and avoid screens for at least an hour before bed (or apply a blue light filter if needed).

3. Shift meals earlier when you can
Your body digests best during the day. Try to eat your bigger meals earlier, especially if stress is high. Late-night eating can throw off sleep and blood sugar regulation.

4. Keep sleep and wake times within a one-hour window
Your body thrives on consistency. Even small variations can disrupt hormone cycles and energy balance. A stable rhythm builds safety and predictability into your system.

Healing Begins When Your Body Knows What to Expect.

If your body feels out of sync—like no matter what you do, something still feels off—this may be the missing piece.

We’ve been taught to believe that aging means feeling worse. That fatigue, brain fog, and insomnia are just part of getting older. But that doesn’t have to be the case. The body wants to heal. You just have to give it the space and the rhythm to do it.

That’s what I do with my clients—not just treat symptoms, but figure out what your body’s been trying to say and how to help it reset.

If this feels familiar and you're ready to approach things differently, I’d love to walk through it with you.

If your body’s been sending signals you don’t quite know how to read... let’s decode them together.

Book a Discovery Call below, and we’ll start there.