CORTISOL
In this blog post we will be covering cortisol.
What it is. Why it matters. And how to manage it.
what is cortisol?
Routine, positive habits positively regulate cortisol. When cortisol is “out of control” it’s a direct reflection of bad habits.
Cortisol is the body’s main stress hormone. It’s there to protect us.
Secreted from the adrenals, it’s a steroid of the family glucocorticoid.
Cortisol’s main purpose is to stimulate gluconeogenesis. Gluconegensis a process that converts proteins (and possibly fats) into glucose for immediate energy.
When there’s talk of cortisol being an issue, this is actually incorrect. Cortisol is not the issue. The lifestyle factors that cause it are the issue.
Hormones are not intuitive. They react to the situations or environments your body is exposed to and you need to give them direction and good information to guide that reaction.
Your objective isn’t simply to lower cortisol. It’s how to better manage it.
HOW TO MANAGE YOUR CORTISOL
Leverage cortisol to your advantage by focusing on these three things:
Better sleep
Lowering overall stress
Lowering inflammatory foods
The point of this article is to provide you with the tools to manage your cortisol. Especially in a day and age where most people let it run rampant.
When your body is perceived under threat and thinks it needs to create energy, it starts this negative feedback loop of not being able to sleep. This creates more of a stress response and instead of repairing muscle tissue, it will actually break it down.
Eventually, this leads to increased insulin, insulin resistance, and adipose levels. Just as poor sleep feeds back into unruly cortisol, proper sleep is a great regulator.
How to regulate cortisol: Sleep
What does proper sleep look like?
Going to bed at the same time (establishing and adhering to a strict circadian rhythm)
Removing and avoiding: blue light, stress, stimulating things in preparation for bed is also key.
You not sleeping well, or sleeping inconsistently limits your body’s ability to use testosterone effectively and regulate itself.
How to regulate cortisol: Training and diet
How often you train makes a difference in how cortisol affects your body.
If you are constantly training with no conscious thought of recovery, you’re in a constant cycle of needing cortisol to stimulate the inflammatory response due to constant injury without adequate recovery.
What does this mean? It means cortisol is a natural and healthy part of the exercise-induced stress response, however there are limits to this. Too much of anything is a bad thing.
As far as diet…
When we take in inflammatory foods – or autoimmune inducing foods such as wheat, soy, and/or dairy –we create similar inflammatory response causing cortisol to spike as well.
In an indirect way, these poor food choices also can exacerbate the sleep and training problem. You can see how poor habits can quickly snowball and lead to excessive cortisol levels.
SUMMARY
While too much of anything is a bad thing, you physically need cortisol to survive.
Cortisol isn’t inherently the enemy.
You just need to manage lifestyle factors such as sleep, training, and diet, to keep cortisol in check.
The end result will be a a multitude of positive outcomes from better mood, libido, and usage of things like testosterone, which will lead to increased recovery and results in the weight room.