How to Balance Your Cortisol and Stress Levels

If your cortisol isn’t at optimal levels, you won’t be feeling, functioning or looking your best. Do you have imbalanced stress and cortisol levels? Make sure to check out my article here for more information on that!

I always recommend we need to 1. Start by acknowledging where the stress is coming from and then 2. Use a functional medicine and lifestyle approach to remove/reduce stress and then rebalance.

Try using some of these tools to help you manage stress and get your hormones where they should be!

Mindfulness and Stress Reduction

Mindfulness and other methods of stress reduction reduce cortisol almost immediately. They’re easy and they cost you absolutely nothing!

If your cortisol is high all the time, or if your cortisol feedback loop is imbalanced, stress reduction is the best place to begin.

Consider Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Techniques, which focus on the basic principles of becoming more aware of your thoughts, attitudes and actions. What are some of your triggers? How does your body and mind respond? Are there specific environments or things that are patterns for you?

The more you can become mindful of where, when and how you have stress, the better you can be to PAUSE and implement some of the other tactics below.

Deep Breathing

Slow, deep breathing reduces cortisol and improves your mood and cognition[*].

It’s easy to do — just sit still and breathe deeply into your belly, slowly inhaling for an 8-count, then exhaling for an 8-count. Repeat for 15 minutes.

It works immediately, and if you do it daily for a couple months, you’ll see a major decrease in your overall stress and cortisol levels.

Meditation

Meditation is another excellent way you can reduce cortisol and better cope with stress.

Multiple studies have shown that all types of meditation were found to lower cortisol, reduce stress levels, and improve other stress markers like blood pressure, heart rate, and even heart health[*].

Many styles of meditation are effective, so you can experiment to see which method you prefer. Headspace, Calm and Insight Timer are two of the most popular mobile guided meditation apps.

Similar to deep breathing, you need to make a daily habit of meditation to get the full range of cortisol balancing benefits.

Yoga

In terms of cortisol levels, blood pressure, heart rate, and other stress markers, yoga offers similar benefits to deep breathing and meditation[*].

You can do yoga solo or as part of a group, but for stress reduction, stick with more relaxed yoga styles, as opposed to power Vinyasa.

Positive Social Connections

You should also strive to keep a positive support system: friends and family, co-workers, even online support groups can help! Prioritize having a connection with others who understand, who care and are willing to listen to your worries and give you their perspectives. The payoff is lower cortisol levels and improved mental and physical health. You are not alone!

Physical and Emotional Intimacy

Being emotionally and physically close to a romantic partner is another excellent way to cope with stress[*].

A cortisol spike can reduce your libido, but even a small, intimate, nonverbal gesture — like a hug or a kiss — will increase oxytocin (the happy endorphins) and naturally reduce cortisol responses in men and women in stressful situations. Touch also improves recovery time after a stressful event.

This is good to know if you’re around someone who’s scared or stressed out, too. Put a hand on their arm or shoulder, or (if you know them well enough) give the person a hug; it’ll help them relax.

Environment and Stress

If you’re feeling stressed out all the time, you can also try changing your environment. Here are three proven ways you can balance cortisol production by altering your environment:

Go outside in nature
Get more sunlight and less artificial light
Develop effective morning and nighttime routines

Get Out in Nature

Living in an urban area can stress you out, but time in nature helps reverse the effect.

Japanese studies on “forest bathing” show that taking a walk outside in the forest helps reduce cortisol and related stress markers, whereas going for a walk in the city doesn’t have the same benefits.

A 13-year study with over 27,000 participants found that cortisol was lowest in summer, next-lowest in spring, higher in fall, and highest in winter[*]. The three major seasonal factors that affect cortisol are sunrise time, sunlight exposure, and length of the day[*].

Your body is built to spend time outside. Being indoors all the time results in disconnection from nature.

Get More Sunlight

To reconnect your body to nature and reduce your cortisol levels, go outside and get sun on your skin and in your eyes, no matter the season.

Morning sun is especially valuable to wake your body up and rebuild a healthy diurnal cortisol rhythm.

To maintain healthy circadian rhythms and prevent cortisol dysregulation, avoid artificial light whenever possible, especially at night. Artificial white or blue light at night confuses your body, disrupting the natural circadian rhythm of cortisol and melatonin[*].

The photo to the left is from a trip to Hawaii (!!) from a few years back. Talk about getting into nature!

Expose as much skin as possible when you’re out in the sun, and skip the sunscreen.

Instead, spend 10-30 minutes in direct sunlight (depending on how dark your skin is), and then put sunscreen on after that.

Develop Daily Routines

To harness the power of light and circadian rhythms and positively influence your cortisol levels and stress response, design healthy routines around waking and bedtime:

Stick to consistent sleep and wake times
Get natural sunlight on your skin and eyes in the morning and throughout the day
Eat during daylight hours
Avoid artificial light at night and consider blue-blocking software or apps and glasses
Avoid mobile devices and other electronics 1-2 hours before bed

Consistent morning and nighttime routines will lower your cortisol levels, fix cortisol dysregulation, enhance your metabolic health, and help you sleep better.

Because poor sleep is another cause of cortisol problems, anything that improves your sleep quality is helpful to solve cortisol issues[*].

Exercise and Movement

Working out can also help you regulate your cortisol levels[*]. In the short term, exercise acts as a stressor and temporarily elevates cortisol levels, but pays off by improving your overall resistance to stress[*].

If you have high cortisol levels, begin with light to moderate exercise. As you become more fit, your cortisol response will improve during and after exercise[*].

Cortisol and Caffeine

If you’re stressed out, don’t reach for coffee or energy drinks. Caffeine can increase cortisol levels, resulting in even more stress[*].

Sleep pressure is an automatic physical process that makes your body sleepy as night approaches. Caffeine disrupts sleep pressure, making it harder to get proper rest even when you need to sleep[*].

If you have high cortisol levels, dysregulated diurnal cortisol rhythms, or a degraded cortisol feedback loop, consider cutting back on caffeine or avoid it altogether.

Interested in learning more about how to manage your stress and optimize your cortisol levels?

Let’s Chat! Contact me here for a complimentary consultation, where we can talk about your concerns, goals, stressors and how I can help!

CONTACT ME HERE: allisonbergstromfitness@gmail.com