This was not the first night during which one or more of my youngish offspring and friends had wild plans, but it was possibly the worst worry night ever for me. Check out my son in the photo at the top of the page where he, along with my daughter and son-in-law, were making their way around an abandoned mine. They were 8 hours ahead of me in the south of Spain, and way too high above that river valley. I was stuck in Denver, middle of the night, and there was no way I was going to sleep until I got the ‘all survived’ alert. And yes, he’s on a rail, sporting beat-up Vans shoes without socks, and clipped to a very thin safety wire. I knew they had a guide, but that did not slow my tachycardia nor stop my pacing.
Other trying times:
“I'm spending the night at V’s house.” said the cheery voice. V’s mom, next morning, not cheery, “I thought they were spending the night at your house!”
The phone rang at 3 AM, the voice said “I can’t find my f**king car.”
The lump in the bed was two pillows.
“That empty liquor bottle is not mine; I’m saving it for a friend.”
Two 20-somethings plus a brand new puppy set off on a road trip. A call from the middle of nowhere in Big Bend National Park: Mom! “The hood flew up while we were driving, what shall we do?”
Well of course these middle-sized glitches send your blood pressure up and your tolerance down. Your cortisol, produced by the adrenal glands, generally surges upwards in the AM and lower in the PM. If you’re lucky, it awakens you around 7-8 AM, and it’s there for you increasing your energy for all you should do while feeling upbeat and ready for action. But cortisol is definitely a stress hormone among other duties. It sets off the steps to get glucose in your bloodstream for the fight-or-flight or do the taxes or other aggravations. It can give you the fortitude needed to deal with kids at any age…or you could just choose to bite your lip, wring your hands, and lie awake for hours. Cortisol also can act as an anti-stress and anti-inflammatory hormone as well.
A healthy curve begins with cortisol levels highest in the morning, but not hours before dawn. Cortisol levels are normally lowest around 3 a.m., then begin to rise, peaking around 8 a.m. If you routinely wake up hours before dawn in a state of anxiety, your cortisol is overachieving and spiking too early. Experiencelife.lifetime.life
It's elevated when we experience heightened anxiety or stress, and it's lowered when we're in a relaxed state. This first graph shows, perhaps, that your uppity teen has had a rousing CAR (cortisol awakening response) that resulted in an AM amplified surge for you. A phone ringing middle-of-night is my cue for a cortisol rush that peaks in the way too early AM hours. Last night, I awoke abruptly to a brief but noisy sound of a power drill. Heart-racing, knees weak, I raced downstairs to make sure no one was stealing the cars (my fallback worry when there are unknown sounds in the air). Forty-five minutes of high alert later, I realized the sound was me snoring, crazy big snoring. Cortisol levels receded slowly thereafter.
Cortisol spikes in response to stressors like work deadlines, tax returns, kids not home yet, and inadequate sleep. This may be triggered during the day raising a PM surge [not pictured here as the unwanted red line just keeps on recording high levels of cortisol]. This all day high level of the hormone can be caused by too much coffee, a lack of carbs throughout the day, or an intensive focus on schedules. If cortisol levels stay elevated, you’re wired but your adrenals are getting tired, and so are you. Experiencelife.lifetime.life (with a few add-ons from me).
Now to answer—yes, no, or who knows—the headline question: Do your children muck with your serenity? A 2020 study published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology examined how parents and their adolescent children’s cortisol patterns are associated across days, and if there are bidirectional associations between parent and child cortisol. In other words, young’uns on psychological uppers or downers may pass it on to you, or your peaks or valleys can influence their hormone levels. Who makes whom crazy with an unwanted tsunami of cortisol? Prior trials concluded that bidirectional CARs between parent and child are the norm.
This research group set out to see if the cortisol changes between parents and kids are indeed bidirectional. Participants collected two samples from both the adults and their children who participated—including a daily diary study recording their feelings— in a diurnal salivary cortisol levels collected on four study days. Teenagers had steeper AM CAR that was significantly associated with parental responses showing steeper CAR the following day. Adolescents’ higher bedtime cortisol levels were also significantly associated with parents’ higher bedtime cortisol levels the following day. Their conclusions:
We found that adolescent cortisol patterns predicted their parents’ cortisol patterns the next day.
When adolescents had unhealthy cortisol patterns (steeper morning rise and higher bedtime levels), their parents were more likely to exhibit these same patterns following day.
However parents’ cortisol did not predict their adolescents’ cortisol patterns the next day.
The models support a primarily child-driven process of stress transmission in families.
This study is part of a growing body of evidence that adolescents have important effects on their parents and extends this to include parents’ cortisol patterns.
Their final conclusions? “Interventions to reduce adolescents’ stress and parents’ reactivity to their children may benefit parents’ health.”
P.S My dear mother always declared when she was in a high place (Empire State Building, Royal Gorge Bridge, etc.) that it felt like her uterus would fall out. That was not my cortisol surge; I was experiencing my own weak-in-the-knees but no falling uterus at the same time. Worst ever was being on belay on a steep rock face trying to impress my then boyfriend.
I love the smiling lower picture - “I’ll bet Mom’s worried sick seeing us climb” this post had me laughing out loud. Been there - - - my older son forged my name on a permission slip to go rock climbing in high school - he told me after he got home. One of your best posts.
Love this!