I woke up before my alarm clock this morning - which meant I got to see the sun rising at a point I don't normally do. It was beautiful and I loved it. But there are also physiological benefits to that... so I thought: why not share how that helps with our health? Our sleep is heavily influenced by the time we wake up. Interesting, right? That's because when we wake up, we start our biological clocks. We're basically sending a signal to the brain and every tissue in the body that says: 'the day is starting, so get on with your tasks.' And this signal is important. Because in a complex machine like your body, no process, cellular function, or hormonal production happens at random - or at least it shouldn't. Different biological processes happen at different times of the day, responding to different stimuli that arrive at different times. Let's break it down a bit. Cortisol is a hormone that mobilises glucose into the bloodstream, promotes alertness, and prepares your body to move and perform. It's only problematic when chronically elevated, but in its natural rhythm, it's expected to rise and fall throughout the day. Its biggest natural rise happens when we wake up - that's our body preparing itself to think, act, and perform. If you trace it back to our ancestors, daytime is hunting, fishing, gathering, moving around time. Cortisol is one of the hormones that helps with that. And then when the day is ending, its secretion reduces and gives way to an increase in melatonin, which signals the opposite. 'It's time to wind down.' But why was I telling you the story about waking up early this morning? Because sunlight, or the absence of it, is one of the main signals your body uses to start that biological clock and trigger that natural cortisol rise. We have specific receptors in our retina that recognise different light wavelengths, and through that detection, they know what time of the day it is. The orange, red, and yellow wavelengths of sunrise and sunset indicate that the day is starting or ending. A higher presence of blue wavelengths indicates the sun is at its peak. Their intensity also plays a role.