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The Scoop on Cortisol Drama: Why You Can't Keep Your Stress to Yourself

The Scoop on Cortisol Drama: Why You Can't Keep Your Stress to Yourself

Plus, 4 simple rituals to de-stress.

Sol TV
July 18, 2024

☕️ Why You're Always Tired and Moody (Hint: It's Not Just Caffeine Related)

😴 Cortisol: The Misunderstood Villain of Stress

😠 How Cortisol Impacts Your Emotions

🤹 Your Body’s Secret Balancing Act

⚖️ The Surprising Link Between Cortisol and Your Emotions

🤯 Sol Bites: 5 Tips to Tame Your Stress (and Cortisol)

🎁 Bonus: 4 Simple Rituals to De-stress

🎥 Video Bite: Beatrice Etzold on Reducing Stress

📜 Words of Wisdom

Why You're Always Tired and Moody (Hint: It's Not Just Caffeine Related)

Feeling exhausted and irritable? Your hormones could be majorly to blame for your bad day. Hormonal imbalances can be triggered by stress, poor diet, lack of sleep, and even underlying health issues, making them more common sources of problems than you may have imagined. And when these imbalances affect your mood hormones, your emotional balance takes a major hit.

One hormone that generates a lot of buzz is cortisol, often called the "stress hormone." But there’s a lot of misinformation out there. Let's dive into the real science behind cortisol and how it impacts your emotions.

Cortisol: The Misunderstood Villain of Stress

The media is flooded with "cortisol coaches" promoting magnesium intake and other quick fixes to help with hormonal balance, overcoming fatigue, and weight loss resistance. But cortisol is more than just a stress hormone to be suppressed. While excessive cortisol can wreak havoc on our bodies, managing it is not as simple as popping a supplement to make it disappear.

How Cortisol Impacts Your Emotions

Wellness influencers tend to oversimplify the cortisol imbalance issue. While certain supplements and diet changes may offer some benefits, they're not a magic bullet. The reality is that managing cortisol levels requires a more holistic approach.

Why Is Cortisol Called the Stress Hormone?

Cortisol isn't just about stress; it powers your body's survival instinct. Your adrenal glands (which sit on top of your kidneys) produce cortisol, working with your brain to manage the process. Imagine your ceiling was about to fall —you'd prioritize running for your life over everything else, right? That's your survival instinct kicking in, and cortisol is the key player. It floods your bloodstream with sugar for energy when it's under attack.

The Body’s Secret Balancing Act

Your body is constantly working to maintain balance, a state called homeostasis. It's like your internal thermostat, keeping you at the right temperature no matter what's happening outside.

Cortisol plays a major role in this balancing act. When you're stressed, your energy demands spike and cortisol ensures enough sugar is available. It also helps regulate your immune system and fight inflammation.

The Surprising Link Between Cortisol and Your Emotions

Cortisol isn’t just a negative "stress hormone"—it also coordinates essential bodily functions throughout your body. If you miss a meal or feel anxious about a presentation, cortisol, barks “stress, stress, stress” to keep you alert and pumps sugar into your bloodstream. A problem can arise when the stressor disappears but your cortisol levels stay high—a common issue for people with chronic stress, such as caregivers or those in debt.

Even memories of stress can keep cortisol elevated, leading to high blood sugar, inflammation, and belly fat. Chronically high cortisol also blocks the feel-good hormones, serotonin and dopamine. That can make you edgy and reactive, like a ticking time bomb.

The key is balance. You need cortisol to function, but it's crucial to bring it back down at night so melatonin can help you sleep.

Sol Bites: 5 Tips to Tame Your Stress (and Cortisol)

Here are a few ways to lower your cortisol level by stimulating the vagus nerve, the longest nerve in our body that helps control digestion, heart rate, mood, and how we respond to inflammation. This nerve acts as a communication pathway between the brain and body that helps regulate stress and activates your body's ”rest and digest” mode.

1) Prolonged Exhalation

Inhaling activates the 'fight or flight' response of the sympathetic nervous system while exhaling engages the calming 'rest and digest' functions of the parasympathetic nervous system. Whenever you feel stressed, focusing on exhalation can help. Simple acts like blowing out a candle, gargling, sighing, singing, or humming stimulate the vagus nerve, which helps reduce cortisol.

All of those activities involve naturally prolonged exhalation, which your subconscious mind recognizes as calming.

2) Winding-Down Rituals

We're used to gearing up for things—exams, meetings, parties—but we rarely think about winding down from them. Creating and consciously engaging in rituals at the end of the day or after an event will signal to your body that it's time to relax. Write down three things you can do to help yourself wind down.

3) Love and Touch

Oxytocin, the "love hormone," is an antidote to elevated cortisol levels. It’s often released when we touch and hug other people. Kids, for example, gain comfort by holding their parents tightly (and baby animals do the same with their mothers). During Covid, stress levels soared partly because we lacked so much physical contact. Nowadays, many of us are still working remotely, which means less social engagement, less oxytocin being released, and more stress. Sometimes, when we're really stressed, just being with one person who makes us feel at home can bring our stress levels down. Good relationships and group activities are essential to keeping cortisol levels down.

4) Sharing Your Burden

While therapy often encourages talking about trauma, repeating your story to many people can be retraumatizing. In those cases, your brain can't distinguish between imagination and reality, reinforcing the memory—and the stress—and increasing the amount of cortisol being released in your body. Of course, holding it in can also be detrimental. If you’re dealing with a painful experience or trauma, the key is to share the story with someone you trust and with whom you feel safe. It can be incredibly healing—and calming.

5) Spending Time in Nature

Walking barefoot in the sand or on grass, strolling through nature, and spending time in the sunlight can also help lower cortisol levels—even when you're not stressed.

When your cortisol is balanced, your brain listens better. Everyone needs a little cortisol to function, wake up, and get on with their activities. But excess cortisol makes us edgy, reactive and irritated and leads to health issues. Keep it in balance, and you’ll feel happier, healthier, and more relaxed.

4 Simple Rituals to De-stress

Read this to find your calm anytime, anywhere

Video Bite

Want to feel calmer, stronger, and healthier? Join Sol TV Creator Beatrice Etzold as she shares simple yet powerful methods to reduce stress and strengthen your immune system in minutes.