Home/Cortisol 101/Cortisol for biohackers

Built for self-quantifiers · Ships Q4 2026

Measure it.
Stop inferring it.

You have data on sleep, glucose, HRV and training. Cortisol is the one input your stack still estimates. The Curve reads the hormone itself, every two minutes, and hands you the raw numbers.

Reserve a unit See the method
720 readings a day 14 days per sensor Full data export

Every other input is measured.
This one is still a guess.

Glucose has a continuous sensor. Sleep has staging. Heart-rate variability has beat-to-beat intervals. Cortisol has had a lab slot at 8am and a saliva tube in the post, which is why it is the one variable most self-experiments quietly leave out. What cortisol actually does →

How do you run an n=1 experiment on a hormone?

Step 01

Baseline before you change anything.

Cortisol varies enough between people that a population reference range tells you very little about you specifically. Two weeks of continuous wear gives you your own curve first, so anything you change after that has something to be measured against.

Two weeks · 720 readings a day

Your band, after 14 days
Step 02

Change one thing. Watch the curve.

You already change one thing and watch what happens. A continuous read gives that method two things a controlled study has: repetition, and samples fixed to the clock. It cannot give you a control day, so a shift in your own curve is a lead worth following, not proof. And choose the input carefully — of the five inputs in our evidence guide, four have put people in hospital.

One variable at a time · measured, not inferred

BEFORE / AFTER One protocol, two weeks apart
Step 03

See the awakening response, not just the wake time.

Cortisol climbs sharply in the first 30 to 45 minutes after you wake. That rise has a shape, and a saliva kit samples it two or three times. A continuous read gives you the whole curve, every morning, without setting an alarm to spit in a tube.

The CAR, measured daily

PEAK 30-45 MIN Cortisol awakening response
Step 04

Take the raw numbers with you.

Every reading is exportable. Pull the series out, join it to your sleep and glucose data, and run whatever analysis you were going to run anyway. It is your data, and it leaves in a format you can actually use.

Full export · your data, your tooling

06:02 1.8406:04 1.91 06:06 2.0606:08 2.21 06:10 2.34 Every reading, exportable
Step 05

One band. More analytes over time.

Cortisol is the first sensor, not the only one. The electrode card is the consumable and the band is the platform, so the hardware you buy once keeps working as the chemistry underneath it grows.

Sensors from CA$24 · subscribe and save

The Auromone Curve, a slim matte band worn on the wrist. Electrode array · 14-day card
In the app

Your curve, your trend, your file.

Enough interface to read the day at a glance, and a clean way out when you want the numbers themselves.

The Auromone app showing today's cortisol curve. The Auromone app showing a multi-day cortisol trend.
Straight about it

What it will not do.

The Auromone Curve is a general wellness device: it monitors cortisol continuously, and it does not diagnose, treat, or cure any condition. A number outside your usual band is a prompt to look, not a result to act on alone. If something in your data worries you, that is a conversation with a doctor, not a protocol change.

It cannot
  • Diagnose a condition, or screen for one.
  • Tell you a single reading is abnormal.
  • Replace testing ordered by a clinician.
  • Tell you which protocol to run next.
vs
It can
  • Measure the hormone itself, not a proxy for it.
  • Do it every two minutes, for fourteen days at a time.
  • Build a baseline from you rather than a population.
  • Hand you the raw series to analyse yourself.
Straight answers

Questions from people who track everything.

How do I get a continuous cortisol reading, the way a CGM works for glucose?

That is what the Curve is built to do, with one difference worth stating first: a glucose monitor is a regulated medical device, and the Curve is a general wellness device that does not diagnose. The architecture is the shared part. A glucose monitor reads interstitial fluid through a filament under the skin; the Curve reads cortisol from passive sweat at the surface, so nothing breaks the skin. Both give you a series rather than a single point, which is what changes what you can learn.

How long does it take to establish a cortisol baseline?

Longer than you would think, and we are not going to pretend there is a validated number. Cortisol swings on a daily rhythm and responds to sleep, illness and stress, so a two- or three-day sample mostly measures the days you happened to pick. We suggest fourteen because that is the span one sensor covers and it puts two of every weekday in the same window. That is a practical choice, not a clinical threshold.

Can I export the raw data?

Yes. Every reading is exportable, and the export is designed to be joined to other series rather than read on its own. It is your data.

What should my cortisol awakening response look like?

Typically cortisol climbs sharply in the first 30 to 45 minutes after waking, then declines through the day. The size of that rise varies a lot between people and from day to day, which is exactly why a single measurement is hard to interpret and a repeated one is not. More on the awakening response →

Does morning sunlight raise cortisol?

In laboratory studies, light does. Petrowski and colleagues (2019) gave healthy men bright versus dim light for the hour after waking and measured a significantly larger awakening response under bright light, and larger again under blue or green light than under red; a dawn-simulation study of 12 people found more total cortisol across the first 45 minutes. Those were controlled light boxes under lab conditions, which is not the same as stepping outside. Whether your own curve moves is something you would have to measure, and one morning’s before-and-after is a lead, not proof.

Keep reading

Before you change anything

The awakening responseWhat the first 30 to 45 minutes after waking actually look like. What moves cortisolCaffeine, alcohol, exercise, fasting and cold water, by the numbers. Cortisol supplementsWhat the research says about ashwagandha and the rest.

Add the input you have been estimating.

The Curve measures cortisol continuously, on your wrist, and gives you the raw series. It ships Q4 2026, and reserving is free.

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