It turns out that cortisol has a predictable daily pattern: it’s high in the morning to help wake you up and get you ready for the day and then gradually decreases, reaching its lowest point in the evening, just when you need to go to sleep. As a result, it’s possible to determine if someone’s cortisol pattern is disrupted. Fisher and Bruce found that children who had experienced maltreatment had higher overall cortisol levels as well as a disruption of the normal daily pattern of cortisol secretion. The morning peak wasn’t quite as high and the daily decline was not as steep, leading to
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