Social media readily delivers sooo much information on, well, pretty much anything and everything! This is great in many different ways.
However, the format doesn't truly allow for long-form, nuanced information.
This is where cortisol enters the chat.
There are a lot of people discouraging women and menstruators from partaking in high-intensity cardio, like HIIT.
In Canada, most women do NOT get adequate physical activity. As in, >50% of women do not meet the minimum recommended guidelines for exercise.
We CANNOT be discouraging women from exercising! Our lives depend on it (I'm not exaggerating!). Heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in women. One of the most important lifestyle factors that contributes to this risk (along with sleep, stress, and nutrition), is PHYSICAL ACTIVITY!
The guidelines for adults in Canada are:
Cortisol, your stress hormone. It gets villainized online. This is despite the fact that you need cortisol for, well, life!
It's what gets you going in the morning, it's an important part of your immune function, it's crucial for your emotional regulation, and it's an important part of you adapting to exercise. Cortisol is a hormone that's simply doing its job under times of stress. It's not the hormone that causes the stress.
It's normal for it to fluctuate. It's normal for it to go up when you have any kind of stressor on the body, like an infection, a physical injury, mental-emotional distress, and EXERCISE!
The goal is NOT to avoid cortisol fluctuations. Exercise will cause cortisol to go up temporarily--it's SUPPOSED to do this.
The goal is to make sure you're well-resourced so you CAN exercise and so that you can RECOVER FROM exercise.
The very natural physiological adaptation response to exercise over time actually requires cortisol. Also, exercise improves long-term cortisol regulation. Also, exercise improves your capacity and resilience to manage stress better over time.
The biggest problems we face in the female hormone health-exercise-cortisol triad (a name I'm making up) are:
I see it all the time in my naturopathic practice in Newmarket: when we diversify exercise, work on your symptoms and health (address iron and vitamin D deficiencies, improve PCOS symptoms or perimenopausal symptoms, work on insomnia), and add more fuel, women and menstruators FEEL better and can DO MORE!
Yes, hormones are complex and there's a lot of interplay, but the basics--the foundations--pretty much always apply.
Work on eating enough to feel well and to fuel your workouts, sleep, build in stress management and fun and social connection, diversify your exercise type/volume/frequency. And then get the care you need for YOUR health as an individual whether that's endometriosis, PMS, PMDD, menopausal symptoms, etc. These are the factors will make all the difference.
Physical activity helps with:
So, get moving, dear reader. Something is better than nothing at all. 2 minutes is better than zero... one step at a time.
There are so many health, wellness, and fitness accounts online. It can be difficult to discern who to trust and follow, especially since scientific research can certainly be taken out of context and cherry picked. The best practice is to take things with a grain of salt. Anyone who is super rigid in their approach should raise a red flag.
The things that work for your hormonal health and longevity are MOSTLY going to be the foundations of your health like eating a balanced and diverse diet, giving your body adequate fuel, regular physical activity, good quality sleep, social connection, and anything else YOU individually need based on your health status (like, iron supplementation for iron deficiency, treatment for your thyroid disease, hormone therapy for your perimenopausal symptoms, inositol for your PCOS, etc.).
When it comes to exercise, do it regularly! Start where you are, but increasing the challenge is how you actually build capacity and improve your resilience over time (mental, emotional, and physical). As long as you can recover from it, you're good to go. If you're under-resourced during a season of life, then you can scale back; but don't worry about your cortisol (unless you have Addison's or Cushing's or something along those lines!).
If you're looking for a naturopathic doctor in Ontario (virtual or Aurora-Newmarket area), feel free to book an appointment--I LOVE working with women on their hormonal and overall health! More info here.
