Understanding Cortisol–The Stress Hormone
What is a hormone?
I want to begin by giving a brief description of what a hormone is. A hormone is a messaging substance that flows through bodily tissue like blood in humans and sap in plants (plants also have hormones).
What is Cortisol?
Cortisol and adrenaline are our main stress hormones. You have probably heard of “fight or flight.” This means that our bodies were designed to either fight to the death or run like crazy from a life threatening situation. Tammi Sweet jokingly refers to a “saber-toothed squirrel” that would cause our ancient ancestors to live in fear.
“Fight of Flight” versus “Rest and Digest”
Imagine walking through the primordial woods. It is close to dusk. You are hurrying home. You hear a sound in the bushes. You have two choices–fight or run. I think I would probably choose run most of the time. Adrenaline is a short term hormone that allows you to narrow your vision and focus. It also shuts down some of the normal bodily functions like digestion and floods the extremities and heart with extra blood and energy.
But the problem is in the modern world we don’t experience stress like that anymore, at least most of us likely never will. In the above scenario we either get home or killed, either way we stop stressing. If we made it home after a bit of time to calm down we enter what is referred to as the “rest and digest” stage. This allows our body to digest that found and rebuild from all the energy it just expended. This is the stage we were designed to live in most of the time.
When we stay in “fight or flight” mode for long periods of time it takes a heavy toll on the body. This is where cortisol kicks in. Eventually even the adrenals will be exhausted from producing all that cortisol. We are not able to digest our food, fight off infection or rebuild our bodies. We need all these functions for for optimal health. There is also of course the heavy mental toll it takes on us.
Early on in the pandemic people used to joke about the 10 pounds they put on. Most of us did not see the pandemic stretching into the 2nd year and that those 10 pounds could double or triple while we tried to manage our stress.
Gigi Stafne of Green Wisdom School of Natural and Botanical Medicine mentioned that she would love to loose some weight but knew that a first step was to get stress under control.
I think a lot of us shrug our shoulders and just assume that stress is something that cannot be avoided and just a by-product of modern life and that was before COVID. But it is of absolute importance that we figure out how to reside more in “rest and digest” and only occasionally experience stress.
Ideas for helping to manage stress
- A media cleanse. Thich Nhat Hanh says that diet is anything we put into our body including the information from print or media sources (which go to our brain). Just as you wouldn’t eat cake all day don’t live on a diet of stress. If there are current events that you really want to stay informed on pick a time–ideally mid day–to check in on the news, then don’t do it again for the day. Make sure the media you consume in the evening before bed is of a relaxing nature whenever possible.
- Identify where your stress comes from and make an action plan. You need to be able to literally escape your stress and arrive at a place you can rest. You can utilize visualizations if necessary to arrive at your safe place.
- Take deep breaths. just the act of breathing deeply will bring peace and calm.
- A journal is a great way to explore these topics. Ask yourself “When do I feel safe?” “How can I feel that way more often?”
- Speak with a therapist. Having a POSITIVE person not involved in the situation is a key. You don’t need more negatively heaped on you.
There are enough foods and herbs that can help support our bodies as we deal with stress to write a book about. What I want you to understand is that Cortisol is the hormone we experience during periods of long term stress. We should not perpetually live in this state and every effort must be taken to get out of it when we find ourselves there. Your life depends on it.
