Stress was waking me up at 3 a.m. — until two of the world's best sleep doctors shared 5 fast fixes to lower my cortisol at night

The image shows a young woman sleeping peacefully in bed. Inset, another woman lies in bed awake and checks the clock - it's 3 a.m.

Picture the scene: your to-do list is spiralling and you can't switch off. But you're so severely sleep deprived that you fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow... only to then wake up at 3 a.m. on the dot.

This used to be my nightly reality, a nightmarish space where stress, anxiety and middle insomnia punctuated my sleep. As arguably the world's two best and well-known sleep doctors, Dr. Michael Breus and renowned Ted Talk superstar Dr. Matthew Walker, have now explained to me, stress-related cortisol is the main culprit.