This Hormone Imbalance Could Be Causing Your IBS, Fatigue, Anxiety and More…
What are hormones?
Hormones are chemical messengers that are secreted directly into your blood, and are then carried to the organs and tissues in your body, so that they can exert their functions. There are many different types of hormones within the body, and each acts on their own different aspects of bodily functions and processes.
What role do hormones play in our body?
Hormones affect the growth and development, mood, sexual function, reproduction, and metabolism functions within the body. While each and every hormone is equally as important to your overall bodily functioning, there is one hormone that is seen as the most important in the nutrition world. And that is the cortisol hormone.
What is cortisol?
Cortisol is a steroid hormone within the body that is made in the adrenal glands, and is used for a variety of bodily functions. Some of these functions include:
Blood sugar regulation
Inflammation reduction
metabolism regulation
Cortisol is also known as the stress hormone because of its role in the body’s stress response. However, it plays a much bigger role than just being a stress response or a regulator within the body.
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What does it do for our body?
Cortisol, as a hormone, is meant to spike in the morning to give you a surge of energy that will allow you to be productive throughout the beginning of the day. As you enter the afternoon though, cortisol will begin to dissipate in order for the other hormones to rise. This decrease in cortisol will allow you to begin relaxing, so you are able to sleep at night. However not everyone’s body allows this natural balance of cortisol, and some can experience abnormally long periods of high levels of cortisol.
When we live in a society like we now do, where doing and consuming and producing is held at such a high value, caring for our body often comes last. This lifestyle can often be the cause of cortisol levels being out of wack, wreaking havoc on your body and even causing a number of unwanted symptoms.
What happens when our cortisol levels are off?
When your levels of cortisol are off balance and out of wack, it effects the body’s entire system. Often times, an imbalance of cortisol is one of the causes behind certain underlying issues you might have been experiencing. These underlying issues might have seemed mysterious in how they came to be. But once you recognize that your imbalance of cortisol levels is what’s causing these symptoms, you’ll be one step closer to alleviating them.
These underlying symptoms could be causing you to experience one, or all of the following:
Fatigue
Stress
IBS
Anxiety
When cortisol levels are off, it can cause more damage to the body than just experiencing a few underlying symptoms. It can also have an effect on your emotions, sleep, weight and everyday functioning. But there are ways to help your body decrease these high cortisol levels as naturally as possible.
Ways to decrease your cortisol levels
When we talk about decreasing cortisol levels, we always want to try and do this as naturally as possible so that the body can start to re-regulate itself. Once your body begins to re-regulate itself and can lower its cortisol levels naturally again, you might find your underlying symptoms beginning to disappear. Here are some natural ways to help your body decrease its cortisol levels in the evening.
Get on a regular sleep schedule
Getting yourself on a regular sleep schedule means going to sleep around the same time every night. While this may seem difficult at first, one way to make getting on a regular sleep schedule easier is to create life boundaries for yourself. These boundaries could be emotional or technological, and when we set them we say to ourselves, “I’m not going to receive or allow into my energy sphere anything that’s going to charge me up.” For these boundaries, try to not use your phone after 5pm.
Eat more nutrient dense foods
There are a variety of nutrient rich foods, but the main ones to focus on when naturally decreasing your cortisol levels are the following: (All of these foods are Low-FODMAP approved!)
Vitamin B foods
Diary (milk, cheese, eggs)
Vegetables (potatoes, kale, spinach)
Fruits (oranges, bananas)
Meats & Fish (chicken, red meats, tuna, salmon)
vitamin c foods
Vegetables (Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli)
Fruits (cantaloupe, kiwifruit, strawberries)
omega fatty acid foods
Fish (cold-water fatty fish like salmon and tuna)
Nuts (walnuts and flax seeds)
Breathwork exercises
When your body is experiencing high levels of cortisol, it causes your breathing to speed up and increases your pulse and blood pressure. Breathwork can help reverse this response, relax your body, and even help to naturally lower your cortisol levels. Here are some breathing exercises to try:
Alternate nostril breathing
3 part breathing
4-7-8 breathing
Low intensity exercise
Often time when we experience stress, we want to go hard when we exercise, but this actually has a reverse effect. When we are doing high intensity workouts, our body believes we’re in danger, and then in turn releases higher levels of cortisol. Low intensity workouts are a great way to naturally lower your cortisol levels, while still allowing you to exercise. Here are a few you could try:
Yoga (try yin yoga)
30 minute walk
Try adding these low intensity exercises in at least a few days a week.
Some additional ways that could help naturally lower your cortisol levels are eating regular meals at least every 4 hours, and limiting your caffeine intake to before noon.
Lifestyles more susceptible to increased levels of cortisol
While anyone can be susceptible to being unable to lower their cortisol levels naturally, there are certain lifestyles that are more likely to attract these abnormal levels.
Poor nutrition
Those who suffer from malnutrition, such as an eating disorder, are likely to become more susceptible to experiencing higher levels of cortisol more frequently. With those who are suffering from an eating disorder, cortisol is usually released in higher concentrations during periods of high stress. And when periods of high stress are frequent with eating disorders, this could make lowering their cortisol levels seem difficult. However, difficult doesn’t always mean impossible.
what can be done instead?
Try practicing gratitude meditation. By getting in touch with the abundance in your life, whether it’s the people, things, or attributes, you can become much less dependent on food to bring that feeling of comfort and safety that many who have eating disorders look for.
Chronic stress
When you have chronic stress, your body can't gauge the seriousness of a stressful situation. So something as simple as a traffic jam, would kick-start your stress response system if you suffer from chronic stress. Cortisol is meant to give you that surge of energy in the morning and then dissipate as the day goes on. But when you’re under constant stress, cortisol doesn’t always decrease like it’s supposed to.
What can be done instead?
Try to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness-based practices like yoga or meditation can help reduce anxiety and stress. These practices can also help improve your cognitive function and overall wellbeing. Try integrating a mindfulness-based practice once a week in the beginning.
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When your cortisol hormone is out of wack, it effects your entire body system. From your emotions and sleep to your weight and your everyday functioning, cortisol can even create underlying issues such as IBS, fatigue and anxiety. While it can be hard to keep your cortisol levels in check, there are always ways of making it easier on your mind and your body.
Extra tips to help lower your cortisol levels
Developing hobbies can promote feelings of well-being, which translate to lower cortisol. Find something that you love to do, and try to do more of it.
Relationships with animal companions can reduce cortisol levels. Interacting with an animal companion can also reduce stress and pets benefit from positive relationships with their humans as well.
Learning to forgive yourself and others can help to reduce cortisol levels. Feelings of shame, guilt or inadequacy can lead to elevated cortisol levels. So through resolving guilt, you can improve your life satisfaction and decrease your cortisol levels.
