Doctor’s Insight: Use your natural stress cycles to protect your focus and energy.

Dear Andrea Csilla,

A few years ago, a coaching client of mine—a brilliant, overachieving manager—told me she had stopped scheduling important tasks before noon.

“I'm too distracted in the mornings,” she said. “I need to warm up with emails and meetings.”

But she was exhausted by mid-afternoon and struggling to finish projects on time.

As a doctor, I recognized what was happening:
She was wasting her best neurological window for focus.

🧠 What Is Cortisol, and What Does It Have to Do with Productivity?

Cortisol is your body’s primary stress hormone, released by your adrenal glands. It follows a natural daily rhythm, peaking in the early morning to help you wake up, focus, and act.

This spike is called the Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR), and it plays a powerful role in cognitive function—especially in alertness, memory, and concentration (Fries et al., 2009).

Here’s the catch:
If you spend your cortisol peak on Slack messages and email threads, you’re squandering your brain’s prime time.

📉 Chronic Stress vs. Productive Stress

While short bursts of cortisol help us perform under pressure, chronic elevated levels (caused by poor boundaries, multitasking, and long-term overload) lead to:

• Impaired memory

• Difficulty concentrating

• Poor decision-making

• Sleep disruption and fatigue

Chronic cortisol elevation is one of the earliest biological markers of burnout—often detectable before emotional exhaustion sets in.

💡 Doctor’s Tip: Guard Your Cortisol Window

Try this for the next 5 days:

✅ Identify your first 90-minute window of focused energy in the morning
✅ Block it for deep, uninterrupted work
✅ Delay email, meetings, or phone calls until after

Protecting your morning focus time isn't a luxury — it’s a biological necessity if you want to do deep work without burning out.

🎯 Don’t Let Stress Steal Your Focus

You can’t eliminate stress. But you can work with your stress hormones, not against them.

Protect your focus. Protect your health.

👉 Book a 30-minute Team Productivity & Well-Being Strategy Session— and I’ll help you design your ideal week around energy, not just effort.

📚 References

• Fries, E., Dettenborn, L., & Kirschbaum, C. (2009). The cortisol awakening response (CAR): facts and future directions. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 72(1), 67–73.

• McEwen, B. S. (2006). Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators. New England Journal of Medicine, 338(3), 171–179.

Have a productive day!

Andrea

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