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Cortisol has gotten a bad reputation in the health community and is often a misunderstood hormone. Do we need to fear cortisol, or does it help us? While we don’t need to fear cortisol, the answer is always somewhere in the middle. We need a proper balance of cortisol to feel good and be healthy.
What is Cortisol?
Cortisol is a steroid hormone produced by the adrenal glands. It helps your body respond to stress and helps regulate inflammation and metabolism. Even after reading that definition, we can see a little bit more of the big picture here. Cortisol helps us mobilize stored energy in the form of glucose and even fat so we can run, jump, perform harder, and, more importantly, protect ourselves from danger. Think running from a bear or a burning building. We need cortisol in these instances. It wakes us up, helps us feel more alert, and prepares us for action.
However, too much cortisol or chronically elevated cortisol can continue to amp up an already over-stimulated nervous system, leading to blood sugar dysregulation, hormone imbalances, and increases in anxiety and mood disorders. This can, in turn, negatively impact body composition. Too much of a good thing isn’t better when it comes to hormones. Like all hormones, we need a proper balance.
Key Ways Cortisol Affects Our Health, Goals, and Hormones
Cortisol Awakening Response and Energy
Cortisol is a natural part of our circadian rhythm. In an ideal world, cortisol levels will be highest in the morning upon waking. It helps us stay alert throughout the day and should slowly taper off through the afternoon and evening.
Cortisol also allows us to be stronger and more explosive during our training. Learning how to improve your cortisol awakening response can actually be advantageous to your training goals. That said, most of us live in a society with constant “inputs” that may contribute to dysregulated cortisol patterns, leaving us with an overstimulated central nervous system and chronically elevated cortisol levels—or with cortisol levels that peak and dip at the wrong time. This is a dysregulated cortisol awakening response (CAR). The result for many of us: sleepless nights, dragging ourselves through the day, and a state of constant stress and exhaustion.
Cortisol & Insulin
When we think of hormones, cortisol and insulin are at the top. They are the “queen bees” in terms of regulating our other hormones such as melatonin, estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and thyroid hormones. If we have imbalances in any of these hormones, we have to look at cortisol and insulin first.
Cortisol and insulin are closely related, and an imbalance in one can cause an imbalance in the other. Cortisol increases insulin and blood sugar levels. This is by design to protect you. Remember, everything comes back to a biological need for survival. In a survival situation, such as running from a burning building, we need fast energy. Cortisol mobilizes stored glucose and fat from our muscles and liver so we can move fast and get ourselves out of danger. However, you can see how this may be a disadvantage to an individual who is chronically stressed and living off of iced coffee…
In situations like this, learning how to manage our responses to daily non-life-threatening stressors is crucial. Along with, of course, eating balanced meals with an adequate amount of protein, carbs, fiber, and fat, this can go a long way in improving cortisol and insulin balance.
Cortisol & Cravings
If you are in a dieting phase or trying to improve your overall body composition, managing cortisol by managing life stressors will go a long way in helping you stick to your goals.
Cortisol and stress, in general, have been known to increase our desire for highly palatable foods—think foods high in carbohydrates and fats, like cookies, donuts, cake, ice cream, etc. When cortisol is high, it affects the reward centers of the brain due to a reduction in dopamine and reduces the desire to stick to a goal. Eating these calorically dense foods gives us a quick and short-lived hit of dopamine, making us feel good temporarily. This doesn’t last long, but we often continue to go back for more to get that feel-good hit again. This is one way cortisol can affect our ability to stick to a caloric deficit or eat balanced meals.
On top of that, cortisol shuts down the hormone signals our brain needs to know that it’s full and should stop eating. This makes it harder to control hunger and much easier to overeat. From a survival standpoint, this makes perfect sense, but not so much in our modern-day lives where food is abundant and stress is high.
Cortisol & Thyroid Health
Our thyroid is essentially the thermostat of our body and is known as the control center of our metabolism. The thyroid affects every cell in the body. A healthy thyroid leads to a healthy metabolism. We can’t ignore the impact that cortisol has on the thyroid. Like Goldilocks, we don’t want cortisol too high or too low. Cortisol that is too low will downregulate thyroid function, and when cortisol is too high, it can block the conversion of inactive thyroid hormone T4 to the active hormone, T3.
This is one of the many reasons why managing stress is crucial to improving not only thyroid function but also metabolic health.
How to Improve Cortisol Levels
So we know cortisol itself isn’t a bad thing, but it needs to be managed properly so we can feel good, train harder, have energy throughout the day, sleep well at night, have proper hormone balance, and better achieve our body composition goals. We want cortisol in the right amounts at the proper times.
- Keep a consistent sleep/wake schedule and get at least 7 hours of sleep each night. Keeping your circadian rhythm in check will go a long way in helping you feel well-rested and improving your cortisol awakening response.
- Manage your stress. This is always easier said than done. Check out our YouTube video on stress management for great tips on implementing stress management techniques into your daily life.
- Eat an adequate amount of food and stop intermittent fasting. This can often increase cortisol levels, especially in women. Start eating a balanced breakfast with an adequate amount of protein, fiber, colorful fruits and vegetables, and fats.
- Stop drinking coffee on an empty stomach. This taxes the adrenal glands further, increases cortisol, and causes blood sugar imbalances. Eat some carbs and protein before coffee.
- Eat balanced meals. We can’t live off of iced coffee and muffins. Eating to balance our blood sugar will go a long way in improving cortisol.
- Do things that bring you joy and make you happy. Plan time for fun and relaxation. This isn’t just a luxury—it’s crucial for your mental and physical health, leading to happier hormones, better cortisol awakening responses, and improved body composition.
By making these adjustments, we can optimize our cortisol levels, support our hormones, and ultimately improve our overall health and well-being.
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