Cortisol.
Over the last few years, it’s become pop culture shorthand for simply existing in a stressful world ... thrown around kinda like therapy-speak, blamed for everything from abdominal weight gain ("cortisol belly") to water retention ("cortisol face"). In case you didn't get it from the quotation marks, these are sciency-sounding buzzwords!
The social media wellness space makes it really easy to blame cortisol for ruining your health, body, and life(!). I support women across Ontario and many of them tell me, "I think I have high cortisol."
Before we get into this topic more, let me say this: Women tend to have a HUGE amount of responsibility--invisible labour, perfectionism, navigating personal and professional life, grind culture, patriarchal beauty ideals, etc. We're often under-resourced and over-extended.
Blaming one single hormone oversimplifies a much bigger (and more nuanced) picture. Sooo, let's talk about this hormone that's painted as the villain ... and I'll use some of the conversation I had with my colleague and mentor, Dr. Jordan Robertson, ND, on an episode of Phase to Phase: The Hormone Health Show.
Yes, cortisol is your "stress hormone".
Most of the time, it's simply up and down because it's doing its job.
Cortisol is designed to help your body mount a response to the demands of your body:
As Dr. Jordan put it: Cortisol is part of your body’s buffering system. It's present during times of distress, but it isn't CAUSING the stress.
Put a different way, cortisol is simply around, doing its thing. It's normal for it go up when we encounter a stressor of some kind, whether that be physical, immunological, mental/emotional, and even hormonal. Then, it'll likely return to baseline.
If we took the word "cortisol" out of the online conversation and replaced it with "under-resourced" or "allostatic load" or "low capacity", we would be much closer to the truth.
Allostatic load refers to the cumulative wear and tear on the body when exposed to repeated stress. Think of two athletes doing the exact same training program: one athlete thrives, while the other loses their period and gets frequent colds. Why? Because the second athlete's capacity for that stressor was lower; this could be because of under-fueling, poor sleep, life stress, or other factors.
Your brain is constantly calculating if it has the resources available to deal with the demands placed on it. When you're under-resourced (running on four hours of sleep, skipping breakfast, and pretty much running on fumes(!)), your capacity shrinks.
If we tie this back to hormones, this same background capacity is part of what might contribute to your sensitivity to the hormonal fluctuations of perimenopause and your luteal phase (think PMS, PMDD).
Chronic stress can definitely impact your cortisol, but the thing we address in your health isn't the cortisol itself, but YOU, your capacity, your reserves, and your resilience.
For the most part: no.
You might think testing your cortisol is the logical next step if you're stressed out or feeling like your nervous sytem is in need of TLC. However, for the average person who doesn't have an outright adrenal autoimmune disease (like Addison’s or Cushing’s), testing cortisol is rarely helpful.
Cortisol fluctuates wildly.
Dr. Jordan gave this example: If we put 100 people on a stage to give an impromptu public speech, we would get 100 completely different cortisol readings. Because the inter-individual variability is so high. Not only that, if we asked those same people to an impromptu public speech the next day, even then, the cortisol readings will be different and all over the place.
Testing can still be appropriate, but more for the things that affect your baseline resilience, like:
I regularly hear women in my practice say, “I love running, but I’m worried about my hormones, so I stopped.”
It is heartbreaking that we have demonized a beautiful, beneficial form of movement.
Myth: high-intensity workouts "worsen your cortisol" and should be avoided.
Fact: Intentional stressors like exercise of any kind (weights, biking, running--ideally a combination of strength-building and cardio) are how we build long-term cardiovascular health, longevity, and physical resilience. Exercise is beneficial for your long-term cortisol regulation!
You can exercise as hard and as often as you can recover from. Unless you're dealing with severe caloric restriction, physical trauma, or significant mental/emotional distress which is affecting your recovery and capacity, the average person is rarely ever exercising to the point of hormonal suppression. We want you to move regularly and intentionally! This is the only way you can build your physical capacity (and have benefits to your mental/emotional capacity as well!).
When you're super stressed, it feels like you are living inside a tiny electric fence. Every small stressor like running up the stairs, your kid falling ill, a busy day at work, a challenging conversation, they zap you, further depleting your capacity.
Wellness culture often tells women that the solution is to avoid all stress, do less, and just lie on the floor. And, don't get me wrong, these can totally be part of your recovery! I love lying on the floor doing nothing!
But the actual way to build resilience and increase your capacity isn't by avoiding discomfort forever; it’s pushing that electric fence further out so you have more room to live. This way, you have more savings and reserves in the account so you're not constantly going into overdraft.
Building these capacity requires you to have strong foundations:
Once these foundations are set, then we want to make sure we're mixing in intentional stressors or intentional hard things, like pushing your physical body, taking on a new hobby or challenge, etc.
None of this is meant to be dismissive of the unfair load you might have, especially when we're in a cost of living crisis and there are so many things vying for our attention. You deserve care that helps you thrive.
Listen to the full podcast episode on cortisol with Dr. Jordan Robertson, ND here--she shares some great reframes.
If you're feeling unwell, if you have unexplained fatigue, weight gain, and nervous system dysregulation that's affecting your day to day, get some support! I help women with their hormonal and overall health in my clinical practice regularly--in Innisfil, East Gwillimbury (Sharon!), and virtually acoss Ontario. You can book an appointment here.
