How to Use Functional Medicine to Balance Cortisol

A Functional Medicine Approach to Cortisol

What is Cortisol?

Cortisol is your body’s main stress hormone. Your lifestyle and stress levels affect the daily rhythms of cortisol in your body.

We need cortisol to function, as it is an essential steroid hormone; but it needs to at the right levels, at the appropriate time of day.

Many people, especially women, are struggling with cortisol imbalances and don’t even realize it. They write off their nagging health issues as “normal” or they just ignore it, push through…but things continue to get worse.

Your health habits, diet, environment, and even your thoughts influence your cortisol levels. Too much or too little cortisol can have a negative impact on your blood pressure, blood sugar levels, immune system, sleep, mood, memory, and more.

The good news is that there are natural, safe, easy ways to achieve optimal levels of cortisol and rebalance the production of cortisol in your body! In Functional Medicine we use a different approach to balance cortisol (more on that below!)

What does Cortisol do?

Cortisol is a hormone produced and released by your adrenal glands, little triangle-shaped glands that sit on top of your kidneys.

Cortisol is one of your body’s “fight-or-flight” hormones (adrenaline is the other). When you experience a stressful or frightening situation, your adrenal glands start pumping out cortisol as a safety mechanism, preparing your body to take immediate action.

Cortisol pumps glucose into your bloodstream for fuel, increases heart rate and blood pressure, and shuts off digestive and reproductive function so you have more energy to dedicate to surviving whatever stressor is threatening you.

Outside of the short-term stress response, cortisol also regulates your body’s daily functions. It helps control your blood pressure and heart rate to keep you in homeostasis (a state of healthy balance).

Cortisol also helps to control your sleep-wake cycle. It increases in the morning, waking your body up and making you alert enough to start your day.

In conjunction with the hormone insulin, cortisol also regulates the way you break down food and utilize for fuel.

Other factors that influence cortisol levels include movement, exercise, light exposure, the season, day length and the timing of meals.

Your body controls cortisol release through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, a feedback system involving your hypothalamus (a part of your brain) and your pituitary gland. This feedback loop adjusts your cortisol levels up or down depending on the time of day.

Chronic Stress and Cortisol

Unfortunately, if you live a fast-paced modern lifestyle without proper stress management, your body can stay in more-or-less constant fight-or-flight mode. High chronic stress levels have also been linked in studies to cortisol dysregulation.

Dysregulation can mean your cortisol does not peak or drop at the right times: instead of a high spike in the morning, you may have a flat curve, or a cortisol spike at inappropriate times (such as higher nighttime cortisol levels leading to insomnia). More on this below! Cortisol dysregulation from chronic stress is associated with higher risk of type 2 diabetes, depression, high blood pressure, and other health problems.

High Cortisol Levels

Symptoms of chronically elevated levels of cortisol include:

Anxiety, mood swings, depression, overwhelm
Lack of vitality, drive and motivation, low “zest for life”, apathy
Digestive issues
Brain fog, trouble concentrating, lack of clarity
Sleeping troubles
Elevated heart rate, blood pressure
Increase in lipid, glucose & insulin levels
Sugar and fat cravings
Weight gain, specifically in midsection
Poor recovery; feeling sore, stiff, water retention

Pregnenolone Steal

woman in red t shirt looking at her laptop

Pregnenolone is the raw ingredient for all steroid hormones in your body (male and female sex hormones, as well as adrenal hormones).

When your body is under a lot of stress, it will take energy away from creating other hormones such as DHEA & progesterone to create more cortisol, also known as the “pregnenolone”.

This shows how important managing stress is and how it will affect multiple systems in the body!

Low Cortisol Levels

Some people suffer from low cortisol after years of living with chronic high stress levels.

Excessive stress all the time elevates cortisol, but as time passes your body may learn to ignore the stress signals from your hypothalamus and pituitary gland. Over time this can lead to low cortisol levels (feeling of “burnout”) where cortisol never peaks during the day.

Typical Symptoms might include:

Fatigue all day
Dizziness and low blood pressure
Weight loss
Lack of appetite
Nausea, diarrhea, and other gastrointestinal issues

Cortisol Dysregulation

Cortisol dysregulation is when you release cortisol at the wrong times throughout the day. Even if your cortisol levels over 24 hours are acceptable or “normal” on average, your daily rhythm of cortisol can still be out of balance

When your body is working the way it should, your cortisol blood levels are highest in the morning, about 30 minutes after you wake up, then drop during the day. They reach their lowest levels between 6 pm and 12 am, allowing you to relax and go to bed, then they begin slowly climbing at night and peak again the next morning.

Cortisol dysregulation takes several forms:

Low morning cortisol levels
High evening or nighttime cortisol levels
Impaired stress response
Exaggerated or prolonged stress response

Low morning cortisol levels make it hard to wake up. They’re also linked to feeling depressed, unfocused, and unmotivated.

High evening and nighttime cortisol levels result in insomnia and poor sleep.

A Functional Medicine Approach: How to Test Cortisol Levels

If you think your cortisol is out of balance, particularly from chronic stress or burnout, it’s worth getting a cortisol test. The four top best functional medicine options include:

Saliva
Urine
Blood
Hair

Cortisol Hormone: The Takeaway

Cortisol plays a vital role in your body’s stress response and daily functioning — but if your cortisol is too high, too low, or dysregulated, your mental and physical health will suffer.

Some of the functions include:

Releasing glucose (sugar) in “fight-or-flight” scenarios, so you have more energy to deal with immediate threats
Controlling your immune function
Limiting short-term inflammation through anti-inflammatory mechanisms (after you work out, for example)
Setting your sleep-wake cycle
Counteracting melatonin, a hormone that makes you sleepy, to help you wake up in the morning or stay awake during an emergency

All illness and chronic disease can related back to cortisol imbalances.

If you are suffering from a cortisol problem, you can enhance your health by testing your levels and experimenting with safe, proven methods for reducing and rebalancing cortisol.