The Psychology of your 20s - 268. The hidden impact of cortisol

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Cortisol is the 'it' hormone of the moment. So many people are talking about cortisol face, cortisol weight gain, cortisol anxiety, but what is cortisols actual function and role and why are many of the myths that surround it, simply not true? In today's episode, we talk cortisol and our stress response, including:  Why cortisol isn't all bad The evolutionary function of cortisol   How cortisol levels become dysregulated  The link between cortisol and exercise The impact on weight, sleep, creativity, even emotional intelligence Why a supplement won't save you  The 4 best tips from doctors and endocrinologists  Listen now for your cortisol 101 lesson!  PREORDER MY BOOK: https://www.psychologyofyour20s.com/general-clean Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast For business: [e-mail] See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here back for another episode. as we of course break down the psychology of our 20s. Today we're going to be talking about cortisol. We're going to be talking about the hidden and in-depth impact that this stress hormone has on our bodies, on our minds, our cognition, and even things that you might not think about, like your emotional intelligence, our creativity, our relationships. You have probably been

hearing a lot about cortisol recently and your interest may or may not be. be peaked. So I want this episode to be a bit of a 101 psychology guide to A, what cortisol is, B, what it does and why it's important. See what happens when it becomes dysregulated. And more importantly, how to sustainably manage your stress response and lower your risk of chronic stress so that dysregulated cortisol hopefully doesn't become a problem for you. There is a lot of stress to be experienced in our 20s. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that because, you know, this period of our life is so uncertain and at times unstable, but it also feels very unnecessarily urgent, as if we have to have it all figured out right now, this instant, and all of these expectations in this

external, but also internal pressure, creates the perfect conditions for us to be in emergency mode. maybe more often than we need to be. And so understanding what happens to our bodies when that's the case or also when we experience great environmental stresses, like illness, like a breakup, like something terrible or traumatic, it's really important to know what's going on behind the scenes when it comes to your stress response. So that that doesn't become the dominating state for you.

There's also a lot of misinformation online about cortisol that I want to break down. Some of the myths I've heard recently are that cortisol is always bad for you, that you shouldn't do intense exercise because it increases cortisol. Your cortisol levels, you know, they can be controlled by processed sugar. You need to cleanse. You need supplements, et cetera, et cetera. But I think that the answer is a lot more simple and the more you know about just the very basics of cortisol, the more you can make informed choices. So that is our plan for today. let's talk all things cortisol and the experiences you may or may not know are associated with

this widely talked about but often misunderstood hormone, but also how you can manage your stress levels in the most simple, basic ways in your 20s. All of that and more on the psychology of cortisol. Without further ado, let's get into it. Let me start out by saying something maybe rather obvious and that is that cortisol gets a bad rap. Truly, it is demon and, it is demon by people for so many things, especially online, where people talk about cortisol face, cortisol weight gain, how to reduce your cortisol using oranges or some secret herbal recipe that only they can sell to you. I even saw a video the other day titled How to Get Your Cortisol Levels to Zero, which

honestly, it made me laugh. I sent it to a few friends because that is the complete opposite of what you want. You know, there is just so much misinformation around this hormone. So let's quickly myth bust this idea that cortisol is singularly bad for you. Cortisol actually plays a really essential role in your body, a vital one. Obviously, it's known as the stress hormone because of its part in helping us feel alert and energized and able to respond to danger, like a car racing towards you or a vicious dog, or some deadline or even internal stresses, like repetitive thoughts.

and, you know, a fear of failure. Cortisol's association with stress, which we typically see as bad, is probably why it gets a bad reputation and, you know, why it's demonized. But it actually is really important in helping us handle the big, scary, nerve-wracking things that we encounter in our daily life. And without it, we would not be able to act or respond to really anything in our environment in a way that was appropriate. some people often the second misconception is that adrenaline and cortisol are the same because they

do work pretty closely together when it comes to arousal and our stress response but the main difference is that adrenaline is what triggers your flight or fright response it is the first responder it is the police car at the scene it gets your heart pumping your pupils dilated your blood pressure up but cortisol is what comes in as backup it's the paramedics it's the ambulance your cortisol is there for the recovery, it's there for the long game, it's there to make sure that your response to whatever situation is alarming you is sustained. So really what it's responsible for is the long-term stress response. So your hypervigilance, making sure you are still alert to potential new threats,

making sure your body can get enough glucose and can use that glucose, helping your body break down fats, protein, carbs, which essentially is what allows you to have energy, not just in the aftermath of a crisis, but during your day-to-day. So what I'm really trying to say is that we really actually need it. Let's imagine you did lower your cortisol levels to almost zero, as that video I saw the other day was suggesting,

you know, if you didn't have enough cortisol available in your body, to really just put it, quite frankly, you would die. Like, that's it. It's called adrenal insufficiency. and it's life-threatening. Like you would go into shock, you wouldn't be able to move, you wouldn't really be able to respond to anything. So you do need cortisol, plain and simple. Even though it has that negative association with stress, we also know that stress isn't wholly bad either.

But the problems begin to occur when your body cannot regulate the level of cortisol. We'll talk about what that does to your body in a second, but we need to discuss why it happens. So the biggest culprit here is chronic stress because it causes our cortisol levels to remain high even when the thing in our environment or the internal stressor has passed. So chronic stress is like a rather broad descriptor here. It contains many events, situations, things, but I want to give you some examples of what could cause us to be in this state. A big one is long-term financial problems maybe. There was a study from 2013 that found that,

financial strain increases daily cortisol output and, you know, a lot of us are experiencing the cost of living crunch that's likely making our baseline level of stress increase. If you have a demanding high-pressed job, that's also going to contribute or even not having a job at all on the other side of the spectrum. You can see why that sometimes might feel tricky to navigate. What's another few examples? Tense and difficult relationships, whether that's romantic, platonic, familial that can bleed into your mental health and increase cortisol levels because you feel

stressed in response to your emotional and social environment, even health problems. Like if you have a chronic illness or a serious injury that has impacted your physical functioning, that's going to increase cortisol and major life events. So death, divorce, a breakup, all of those have a lingering emotional impact that can disturb our emotional homeostasis. So the one important thing to remember is that stress, although it sometimes helps motivate us, it helps us get shit done, it is not meant to be experienced constantly. And when it is, this means that the system in our body responsible for secreting all types of hormones,

it's called the HBA access, it remains overactive. And it's not necessarily getting the cues from our body to slow down, to pump the brakes, Over time, what this does is it desensitizes cortisol receptors and it disrupts the body's natural feedback mechanisms. So a feedback mechanism is basically there are little, I don't know how to explain it. Like there are little watchtowers, little gates in our body that are meant to be like, oh, okay, we've got too much here. Send it back. Send it back. Lower it down.

Increase, like almost like little markers, little test areas that your body is able to use. to respond to levels of cortisol. But when they become too desensitized or whatever it is, they don't start giving the right feedback. So that can either result in something called hypersecretion, so too much cortisol, or the opposite, low levels, which is hyposecretion. So hyper versus hypo.

How I really like to imagine hypersecretion, which is really what we're focusing on today, it's like you're behind the wheel of a car and your shoe gets jammed over the accelerator. and you are trying really hard to keep your eyes on the road, you're going so many miles an hour, you're trying to navigate traffic lights, navigate, you know, navigate stop science, and there's a bus full of children, you want to avoid that, there's a lake, you don't want to fall into it. You're trying to keep your eyes focused on what is actually happening,

whilst also trying to get your shoe unjammed. And that's the impossibility of dealing with high cortisol induced by chronic stress. you have to both deal with the impacts of high cortisol whilst also trying to reduce the stress at the same time. You have to try and keep your eyes on the road, but also, you know, look down to try and get the shoe off the pedal. So some other causes of high and dysregulated cortisol include an overactive pituitary gland. This one's actually very, very common. Sometimes it can be due to like tumors or growths, but also medications like steroids, also some form of birth control. I actually looked into this because I hadn't heard of that before.

I hadn't heard about the relationship between birth control and cortisol. And there definitely needs to be more research done on it. But there was a 2024 case study conducted by a doctor at UCLA that found that some oral contraceptives increase cortisol level in patients. He measured this by testing cortisol levels before and after the use of an oral contraceptive for two months and found that there was an almost three. 100% increase, 26 milligrams over the normal range after this person began to go back on their birth control. So it doesn't mean to like go off your pill right away or that your pill is making you stressed, although I think a lot of women would tell us, like there are huge emotional differences that I notice because the pill is influencing hormones and that is what cortisol is. But again, yes, not about trying to convince you to just go cold turkey on something that's very, very important for your health and your reproductive health in other areas, but it is an important factor to really think about.

If you have just gone on the pill and you've noticed anxiety spiking, could this be a contributor? But also, if you are already prone to chronic stress and you're already work in a really intense industry, you're drinking three to four coffees a day. you can only really unwind with alcohol, all of these things are going to be compounding. They're going to be compounding factors on your mental, emotional, cognitive state. And the reason why is because of the influence they have on cortisol and the influence they have on how our body responds to stress. Some other factors that contribute to high cortisol, conditions like depression and anxiety have also been associated with elevated cortisol levels.

However, it's important to note the direction of this relationship. It's kind of hard to pin down, right? How do we know whether you are anxious because you have elevated cortisol or your anxiety is causing cortisol levels to spike, right? It's very hard to tell. Most researchers would say, actually, it's a very intertwined system, anxiety, high cortisol. Although we don't know the relationship, we do know, they often go hand in hand. This is kind of a very quick summary of what contributes to a spike in this stress hormone.

And it's important to note that there is no way of escaping the impact this will have on your body. Humans are very strong creatures, but we are also still creatures. And no creature can survive under conditions of acute stress for a long period of time. Health does decline. Mental well-being does decline. You even see small things like hair and skin quality start to fade. Like you start to see someone's skin become quite grayish. Their hair starts to fall out.

All signs of like a sickness. And that sickness in this instance is coming from stress. Obviously those are some intense examples. Let's talk about what the hidden impact of excessive cortisol might look like on a smaller scale. Firstly, I'm going to touch on some of the non-obvious effects that you may not have heard about yet. The first big one is that high levels of cortisol dampen your emotional intelligence. So you're less able to respond not only just to your own emotional states, but also you're less able to recognize and appropriately respond to others. It's why you may become snappy.

You may suddenly realize you're saying things you don't mean and you didn't quite realize that you were saying them, that you're just exhausted and tired and sad and if someone asks you why you can't tell them because you haven't been able to see or notice any cause and effect between situations and your emotions because your emotional intelligence has been compromised. Here's another interesting impact. There was a 2014 study that found that elevated cortisol actually shifts our response to risk so that we become more cautious and guarded when it comes to anything from financial decisions to career to relationship decisions. It can make it so that when we see opportunity,

we feel like the likelihood of that opportunity being realized is reduced. So we're less likely to take risks. We're less likely to bet on ourselves. It's why people who are in chronic stress states find it harder to, you know, take the leap to start a business or to go back to school or to try something new. stress intertwines not just with health but with decision making as well. Here's another kind of scary realization or impact of high cortisol that makes us more pessimistic and it makes us less creative. So if you are someone who loves making art, you love creating

things, that important creative process and that ability to come up with new ideas spontaneously and execute them, it will decline when you are in a stressed state. because you cannot thrive during acute stress. It's why the secret to being more creative is and always will be, rest and novelty over discipline and routine and overworking. Because in the former lander conditions, there is just not enough room for your brain to explore different areas of itself. So those are some of the impacts you may not have heard of,

but here are some of the ones that you may already have a sense might occur to someone who's experiencing high cortisol levels. The first one is rapid weight gain. So high cortisol levels triggered by chronic stress, they increase our appetite and cravings for high calorie fatty foods by stimulating the release of appetite, regulating hormones. So let's talk about why this is the case. Obviously cortisol is released in response to stress. And if the body is stressed, it's thinking this is an emergency situation. This is a situation that we want to endure and survive. and if we're going to survive it, it means we should have as many resources as possible, including the energy stores that are necessary.

How do we bulk up or increase energy stores as a resource by eating more? So your body is literally saying almost like, almost preparing for like not the, not hibernation, but the opposite, like preparing to fight, to run away, preparing to hunger down and endure whatever chronic stress is currently playing out in your life and on your mind. It can also lead to what we call food noise. This is like an intrusive, constant thought about food because your body is, of course, trying to consume more energy and trying to find a way to motivate you or influence you to do so.

Here's another, a third effect of this. A third reason why people who are experiencing chronic stress often complain about weight gain. It's that cortisol promotes. fat storage, especially in the abdominal region, by increasing insulin resistance and altering how fat is distributed in the body. Again, your body is saying, we need this. This is DefCon 1. We're in an emergency situation. Let's get our stocks up. Elevated cortisol levels also slow down the metabolism. So together, these effects create a cycle of stress-induced weight gain. It's so hard when I hear

people or see people talking about their experience of just almost suddenly gaining weight for no reason and in such an unfair way like they're doing everything that they think they should be doing they're really healthy people they eat really well they have a really active lifestyle and they're still gaining weight in a way that feels like their body is working against them and you know weight isn't a terrible thing. It's not a bad thing. It's not something that should be avoided at all costs. But when it just appears to happen sporadically and spontaneously and nothing about your lifestyle has changed, it can be rather frustrating. It's why anytime I see someone like getting trolled on Instagram or TikTok for weight gain, you best believe, like I'm leaving a comment on their behalf because you really have

no idea what's happening in their life to cause that, let alone suggesting that, you know, suddenly they should feel a shame because their body is responding to perhaps a really intense situation or an emotional or external environment of intense stress or loss or grief or whatever it is they're going through. The human body is so much more complex than just calories in and calories out. And I don't know when we as a society will really start to understand that. You may also experience this kind of in the similar vein a bit different. increased inflammation, especially in the face. And this is this idea that you may know of as moon face.

That's where this has come from. So moon face is kind of like a colloquial way to describe the puffiness and appearance that our face gets when cortisol has just regulated, has been dysregulated for too long. So you often will begin to lose definition and features. It looks like your face is literally swelling up and looking like a big, round moon and this occurs because our body is holding onto more fluid and salt because cortisol is not properly regulating these deposits or is not properly regulating our insulin levels which is causing us to hold onto fat in these stores in our face again this can become a big point of

insecurity for people especially since you know our face is often the first thing people see and so when we can't recognize it anymore and we experience a drastic change that can cause a lot of insecurity, sometimes even a bit of an identity crisis. I don't think that's a vain thing to experience. Our physical form and our characteristics do help us define ourselves. So when they suddenly change without us really realizing how or why and we get this puffiness, we can really struggle. Those are just some of like the first consequences or impacts that come to mind.

I'm going to take a quick break here because I feel like I've just been throwing information at you. When we return, we're going to talk about some of the further impacts on things like sleep, like our relationships, like our, of course, anxiety levels, but also how we can address this and some of the lifestyle changes that may be floated to you by a doctor or by a psychologist. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%. I break. down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more,

to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships. and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's TWO% on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, I want to touch on one final

consequence or impact of high cortisol that we may notice in ourselves before we get into my tips and advice. And this big consequence is the impact of high cortisol on sleep. Specifically something we call morning anxiety. Morning anxiety has to be one of the worst forms of anxiety. You know, all of them are actually pretty bad. But morning anxiety, you know, if I had to choose my favorite or my least favorite, it definitely takes the cake. So imagine you're restful, you're in bed, you're cozy, you're dreaming nice dreams, you're asleep, you're just feeling very, very peaceful. And then suddenly you are wide awake, heavy breathing, racing heart.

You instantly feel uneasy for no particular reason. And it's like, okay, here we are battling through another day of this. That is morning anxiety, is going from being restful to just being completely anxious and, I don't even know how to explain it. Like you wake up and your body is almost shaking. And it feels like you're just waking up to a completely energized body that you had no awareness of. And suddenly you're like 50% dipped into like a boiling pot of water and you have no idea

how you got there. That's what morning anxiety feels like. And being alert when you wake up isn't a bad thing. In fact, that's one of cortisol's useful functions. It's meant to actually peak or. spike in the morning to help you get out of bed and to help you get up and active and ready. But sometimes that cortisol awakening response can become skewed and not work properly. Chronic stress obviously contributes to that.

It leads to elevated cortisol levels at night because we feel like we can't switch off, which then has lingering effects till the morning. So not only are you not going to get good sleep, but you're also going to feel a sharp cortisol spike. cortisol spike right before you wake up. And that's going to create, not just take that natural alertness that you're meant to feel in the morning and turn it into anxiety. And of course, like the ball doesn't even stop there.

2018 study found that when you have a bad night's sleep, you already are at risk of higher levels of anxiety the next day, which you guessed it is going to make it so much harder to sleep the next night. And it just becomes a cycle of, okay, I can't sleep. I'm anxious, but then when I finally get to sleep, my sleep isn't any good, and then I wake up really anxious the next morning because those cortisol levels have carried over, but also because I had a bad night's sleep. So I'm extra anxious. How do you think that's going to help you or help your body? It doesn't, and it honestly has such lingering effects in all other areas of your life.

You're cranky, you have that mild feeling of irritability constantly, you can't process information as well, you feel slow. In a study from 2013, researchers observed people's IQs after a good night's sleep versus a terrible night's sleep where they periodically woke up their participants. Those who had been woken up, their IQ dropped on average 10 points the next day following sleep deprivation. It might seem small, but if that is a consistent impact that you are noticing caused by high cortisol, it's just going to feel like everything else is just a little bit harder.

this really does go to show it's not just about feeling more anxious. It's not just about feeling more stressed. It touches everything else in your life. It is in everything disorder or on everything experience. And I think I really feel, you know, I really feel for people who start to piece that together and realize that all of these interactions and things that are happening in their body link back to this stress response they can't control.

So we're going to talk about how to, navigate that, whether you're experiencing just low levels of stress, slightly elevated cortisol, or extremely high levels of cortisol, what are some of the lifestyle adjustments that might be recommended to you? I think if you're going to get tips on how to lower cortisol levels, the first people you want to talk to or hear from are doctors or an endocrinologist, basically that's a doctor who specializes in hormones and the endocrine system, hormones like cortisol. But before you get to that step, I do actually want you to make sure that what we're describing applies to you. There is a difference between

heightened levels of stress, you know, that's short term and chronic stress that is causing elevated cortisol. And if you think that this applies to you, please go and see a doctor. They will be able to diagnose it for you. They will be able to really see what's happening below the surface through blood tests, through saliva tests. But I really think that cortisol dysregulation is not something you can say, oh yeah, I have that. That describes me. And I'm just going to go. with that diagnosis. Also because it can be linked back to really serious, serious problems like Cushing syndrome or tumours or problems with your pituitary glands. So if you are hearing this description being like, that's me. Oh my God, that's me. That's totally me. Go and speak to your doctor.

I think whenever something blows up online or on social media like this idea of, you know, cortisol face and cortisol weight gain and is it high cortisol, we really do find it very easy. to see ourselves represented in people's descriptions. It's very easy to see something and say, oh my God, that's totally me. And that's because that's intentional from them. Like, they want you to engage with their content, so they're going to make it as general and broad as possible. And I'm sure their intentions are pure. And if they're trying to sell some tea or some supplement, maybe it did work from them. But your health is really such a valuable investment. And, you know, if you wouldn't want your mom or your sister or your brother or your partner getting all their

health advice from people on social media, don't do the same for yourself. People sharing their experiences is so valuable and it does help us become more educated about things that we didn't know about the human body or ourselves. But for something like cortisol dysregulation, make sure you get a doctor to confirm that. And with that in mind, that's where I sourced all my information from, specialized professionals because I understand cortisol from a psychological perspective, but how it impacts us biologically and how an endocrinologist or a doctor would recommend we address that, that really reigns supreme for me.

Besides from addressing underlying medical conditions that are causing elevated cortisol and addressing those through a medical intervention, which Dar would be the first step, the biggest piece of advice I received for lowering stress and therefore lowering chronic over exposure to cortisol is to pursue balance, not extremes. Often, extremes are what cause chronic stress in the first place. Extreme work hours, extreme exercising in some instances, extreme relationships, extreme sleeping patterns. Your best bet for reversing the impact of high cortisol or chronic stress is to try and

return to your factory setting. to return to how you were made to operate as a human, as best as you can given your circumstances. What that means is get back to the most simplest foundations of health. Sleep, nutrition, safety, connection, outdoor time. Let's focus on sleep first. Obviously, we spoke about that morning anxiety and how sleep can be very heavily impacted by cortisol. But the tip that I heard that I thought was really, really amazing is that even if you are not asleep, try and be in bed for eight hours a day.

Don't scroll, don't get up and watch TV just because your body isn't listening to you. Yes, you may have to lay in bed until 2 a.m. in the morning, but you're giving your body the best chance at rest it has. Around 40 to like 40 to 60 minutes before bed as well, reduce your exposure to bright and blue light. I personally did this. I was finding that I had my phone in my bedroom, so if I couldn't sleep after the first 10 minutes, I would get my phone. or I would watch Parks and Recreation or something like that. But I have since bought like an old fashioned alarm clock and it's been a game changer. It's been incredible. I spend less time in bed in the morning and my room is now associated with sleep.

It's not just like some fun place to hang out. Like that's not where I go to scroll. That's not where I go to watch movies. Like that is my restful place and that is all that I want it to be kind of used for. Another basic to get back to is regular movement and movement in a way that you enjoy, not in a way you think you should be enjoying it or doing it. Now, there has been a lot of information going around that high intensity exercise should be avoided if you are trying to manage stress, mainly because of a finding from a 2008 paper that essentially claimed that intense exercise increased cortisol levels. Now, that paper was correct.

It did increase cortisol levels. and it was actually published in the Journal of Endocrinological Investigation, so their findings were accurate. But those levels of cortisol actually ended up fading and reducing over the next four to six hours. And that's because exercise is a form of stress. It is stress on our bodies, but there is a difference between short-term stress and chronic long-term stress. Exercise triggers short-term stress, which does cause cortisol levels to rise, But actually, when we keep up with that regular movement and exercise, our body learns how to regulate those spikes and cortisol fluctuations. And so it becomes better able to regulate cortisol in general.

So although, yes, you might experience a small spike in cortisol after you exercise, you'll also experience a spike in endorphins. You'll also feel more relaxed. And so it actually is for the better. obviously if you are exercising at 90% effort seven days a week you are not giving your body a chance to repair and balance things out but pursuing the kind of movement that our ancestors would is really beneficial moderate exercise movement in whatever form works best for you walking lifting the way we would have lifted fallen trees children rocks like i know it sounds so rudimentary and basic but if it's gotten us to where we are as a species where we are now and if that's how our bodies were designed to operate. I'm just assuming that that kind of movement is really what our body is asking for. The next focus is what we're putting into our body. The biggest one being caffeine. I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear, but truly, caffeine is not doing you any favors. So I haven't drunk coffee or really caffeine really for almost four years at this point. Maybe I'll have the occasional

diet coke because I can't be helped but I noticed such a huge shift in alertness, energy levels and anxiety. I was so reliant on caffeine to make me alert and then I would basically just allow it would make me alert and then I would obviously it would fade away and I'd feel less alert and then I'd make myself alert again and you know by the time that I was ready for sleep hopefully the caffeine had faded like it was really controlling my energy levels and And with that, it was artificially controlling my anxiety and stress levels. Like the times that I felt most stressed in my day or in my week were the times when I had consumed the most caffeine, thinking that it was going to help me be more productive.

But actually, it just made me feel more jittery. It made me feel more, almost like unstable in a way. Like every single thought just felt a little bit too loud and a little bit too urgent. And when I eventually quit, I found that I was so tired. for the first two weeks. Like I cannot explain how tired I was. But then I was actually able to regulate energy using routine and actually utilizing like the natural circadian rhythm and flow of my day and my wakefulness versus sleepy hours

and noticing like peak kind of like peak hard work times or like peak inspiration, motivation, focus times for myself and it was a really important change. A 2008 study also showed caffeine stimulates cortisol secretion. No matter how much caffeine you consume as well, you were never able to build up a tolerance enough that it would stop cortisol spikes from happening. So if you are sitting there being like, I'm so stressed, I'm so anxious and you have not cut out caffeine, if you haven't gone teacath, if you haven't gone for a tea, if you haven't cut down to just one coffee a day, please, before you consume a supplement, before you try and do

crazy ice plunges for your anxiety, just try it and see if it works. The next best tip that you will hear is to spend more time outside. Nature is where your stress response is meant to operate, and so it is there that it will be best regulated. I'm going to say one more time, nature was where your stress response was meant to operate, so it's there that it can be regulated. Time and time again, you will see studies showing us that nature has a positive effect on stress by reducing cortisol levels, even if it's just for 20 to 30 minutes a day. That's the time it would take to eat your lunch outside. Or if it's really cold where you are, eat your lunch next to a window so that you can just see nature,

even if you can't be in it. Some scientists like to call it the nature pill because they have suggested that outdoor time, like what we used to have as children, should be something that they can prescribe to people. You know, people who live very busy urban lives could be prescribed, like a 30-minute nature prescription the same way that they would be prescribed antibiotics or painkillers. Hopefully, so they take it seriously. So they finally realize that it should be a priority, that this will help you, that this is actually a researched and necessary medical intervention.

One study found that people who made nature a daily priority for themselves saw salivatory cortisol levels and self-reported stress dropped by almost half from what they were previously experiencing. But it is a practice that we largely ignore because we have become so detached from our natural habitat as mammals and as humans. Another resource that you have at your disposal right now, much like nature, is your breath. It is the tool of meditators worldwide for good reason because controlled breathing helps stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system. That's known as our rest and digest system compared to our fight or flight system, and our fight or flight system is what activates cortisol release.

So activating your rest and digest system is the counterbalance that you need. You have probably already heard of a lot of the breathing exercises that people recommend belly breathing in particular. If you've done a yoga class, you'll be for. familiar with this. It's the four in, hold for four, six out kind of breathing. So breathe in for four, hold your breath for four, breathe out for six, where you're kind of focused on feeling your body expand, like there's a big cloud filling up that space. So if you feel your, you know, energy levels and your stress levels rising in response to a deadline or something in your environment or just something you can't put your finger on, try this technique and try it as a way to get in front of

your stress and then later on respond more appropriately. There are other natural remedies as simple as nature and breathing itself that are important. Laughter, tending to your spirituality, spending time alone, giving yourself silent and alone space and time. All really important for chronic stress. Looking after a pet, looking after others. Great for managing. anxiety and worry. Mainly, I think that what I would want to impress on people, particularly those of us in our 20s, is that we are told, especially in this day and age,

that pushing ourselves, being disciplined, sacrificing for success, is going to give you the happiest and most fulfilled life you could ask for. It's going to give you wealth, it's going to give you accomplishment, praise, achievement. And yes, pushing yourself, maybe we'll get you those things, but if your body is under immense chronic stress in order to get there, I don't think one part of it will be worth it.

You won't be able to enjoy it. You won't feel good. Your body will literally become sick. It will crumble. It will feel terrible. You will feel miserable because you have neglected your physical and mental health to get to that point. I think what's even more important to notice that high levels of stress from lifestyle factors like overworking, they are going to make it harder for you to focus.

They impact executive functioning, mental clarity, brain. health, motivation. So pace yourself. Go slow. Take time for rest and to nurture your body. And I actually think that it helps you get to the place or to your achievements in a more sustainable and therefore faster way. And in a way that by the time you get there, you can actually enjoy them rather than feeling like just everything around you is crumbling. And suddenly you've gotten to where you want to be and you have to take time off just to get the basics down pat and look half to yourself. So I don't think anything should cost you your health. It's not worth it. It's so hard to recover. So take care of yourself and recognize chronic stress as just as of a

risk to your health as anything else that you would be scared of, as smoking, as loneliness, as dangerous driving even. So I hope this episode has helped you. I hope that you have learned more about the impact, the hidden impact of cortisol. We've myth busted some of the beliefs that some people hold about cortisol being bad, that you shouldn't exercise intensely, that you shouldn't eat certain foods because they're bad for you that this can only be cured by supplements, whatever it is. Hopefully you have a better, more clear understanding. If you did enjoy this episode, make sure you follow along on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, leave a five-star review, leave a comment as well if you made it this far.

I love engaging with you guys all that way and get in to respond to you all and see what you've felt about this episode and make sure you are following us on Instagram at that psychology podcast to see further tips behind the scenes stuff and also some infographics about this episode. Until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself, manage your stress and we will talk very, very soon. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hardway with your favorite therapist and host Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that, you're listening to

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