324-SYNCPodcast_CortisolBadRep
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[00:00:00] [00:01:00] Welcome friends to this episode, the Sink Your Life Podcast. Today we’re diving into the topic of cortisol, also known as our stress or survival hormone. The truth is cortisol has a bad rep for being problematic in women, especially in perimenopausal women. But I wanna set the record straight that cortisol isn’t all bad.

It is, however, a great indicator of our overall health. So let’s dive in. Cortisol is our survival hormone, like I said, also known as the fight or flight hormone. It’s produced by the adrenal glands, which are teeny tiny little glands that sit atop of our kidneys. Cortisol follows what we call a diurnal curve over the course of our 24 hour day, also known as a diurnal or circadian rhythm.

Cortisol is highest in the morning, within 30 minutes of waking, remains high through about noontime, and then slowly tapers off throughout the afternoon and evening to lower levels. Which is alternatively when we start to see melatonin start to rise for sleep at night. Now we could digress and we could talk about the importance of this circadian rhythm when it comes to our health, and we have several times on the podcast, so I’ll link those up for you in the [00:02:00] show notes.

Things like earthing or grounding and getting more natural light and less artificial light. These are all things that can help us align with proper circadian rhythm as human beings. But for today, let’s keep it to its reputation. Which is its identity as a belly fat cause stress induced, and ultimately reason for fatigue.

The truth is imbalanced. Cortisol is usually a direct reflection of stress in our bodies. This stress can be emotional, physical, environmental. It can be a result of over exercising trauma, relationship issues, environmental toxins. The list goes on.

Typically, when our body endures stress, cortisol rises to accommodate. It’s there to keep us alive after all. But over time, under chronic stress, over exercising, marital trouble, work stress, we start to see cortisol go from altogether high to very, very low. This, in functional medicine terms, is often deemed adrenal fatigue, commonly ignored by modern medicine.

Of course, there are also diagnosable conditions related to cortisol, [00:03:00] such as Addison’s disease, where cortisol is extremely low, or Cushing’s disease when it’s too high. But for today’s purposes, we aren’t talking about these extremes. So let’s talk about some of the myths around cortisol imbalances.

Perhaps the best place to start is in the concept of perceived stress. I like to use stories to create analogies. I know that’s how I like to learn. So let’s do that here as well. If I were to ask you to stick out your hand on the table. And then I were to whack your hand with a giant sledgehammer. Of course, we would spike your cortisol.

Your body would go into fight or flight and pain. Cortisol would surge in hopes of helping you outrun the bear. Now, what if I asked you to put your hand out on the table and I grabbed my sledgehammer and I threatened? To hit your hand with it? Well, if you answered the same response in cortisol, you would be correct.

You see, it’s not necessarily the pain, stress, but the perception of the pain that can trigger cortisol release. Think about this in your day-to-day life. I know most women, including myself, are dealing with a lot of perceived [00:04:00] stress at the time of this recording. My oldest daughter had to get off the road this morning onto a field trip.

My husband took her. On the way to school, he’s going on the field trip. My youngest has picture day. I have a full work schedule planned, and you could say my perceived stress for the day is high. I haven’t even lived the day yet, but I’m feeling a sense of stress about getting through it. Women tend to be more stressed about the little things, getting dinner on the table, lunches packed everywhere.

Everyone where they need to be, house cleaned, errands, run. We spend a lot of our days on the go making sure everyone else is taken care of, often living through hours of perceived, and maybe even actual stress. So as a brief interjection about this, before we move on to another cortisol myth, know this, finding ways to center yourself throughout the day through things like transition moments.

Breath work, even just sitting down for meals. These are all things that can actually help you quiet those cortisol responses and stabilize your stress. It’s like a little quiet voice that tells your body you are safe, and safety is [00:05:00] key for our health. It goes without saying that stress is ultimately what ages us.

While inflammation is the root of all disease, stress is the root of nearly all inflammation. Another myth behind cortisol and its bad rep is within the realm of exercise. As someone who teaches cycle sinking fitness, I hear every single day from women who are afraid of spiking their cortisol with high intensity workouts.

You see the cycle sinking world of Instagram leads women to believe that we can only lift heavy weights in the first half of our cycle. And we