Tips for Natural Cortisol Reduction - Ask a Nutritionist

Transcript:

Alyssa: Hi everyone, and welcome back to “Ask a Nutritionist”, our weekly mini episode of Dishing Up Nutrition. I'm Alyssa, Registered Dietitian with Nutritional Weight & Wellness. Today, I'm diving into the topic of cortisol. You have probably heard cortisol called the stress hormone and may feel like cortisol is your problem.

However, there's more to it. Cortisol itself is not a bad hormone. You need cortisol. In this episode, we will cover what cortisol is, signs your cortisol might be dysregulated, and most importantly, strategies you can use to support bringing cortisol back into balance.

What is cortisol?

So first, what is cortisol? Well, cortisol is a steroid hormone produced by your adrenal glands, which sit on top of your kidneys. It's part of your body's natural circadian rhythm, playing a key role in keeping you alive and functioning. A well-functioning circadian rhythm, cortisol peaks in the morning within about thirty to forty-five minutes of waking up. This helps you feel alert and awake and gets your brain ready to focus for the day.

Then cortisol naturally lowers throughout the late morning and afternoon. You should feel steady energy without big crashes or cravings for sugar and caffeine to stay awake. Cortisol continues to lower throughout the afternoon and is at its lowest point in the evening before you go to bed. Lower cortisol levels in the evening allow for melatonin, your sleep hormone, to rise.

You should feel sleepy, not wired, before you go to bed. Even though we often refer to cortisol as the stress hormone, it's a natural part of our daily wake and sleep cycle.

Problems that can arise when it comes to cortisol 

Problems can arise when cortisol stays chronically elevated, which is common in our stressful modern lifestyles. Cortisol helps to supply the body with energy to respond to stressful situations. It gives you the energy to run away from what you perceive as dangerous. This can be a good thing.

However, with prolonged stress, cortisol may cause blood glucose levels to be elevated longer than they should be, which can stress the pancreas to produce more and more insulin. So how do you know if your cortisol might be dysregulated and running too high?

You may experience feeling tired but wired, especially at night before bed, having trouble falling or staying asleep, increased anxiety or irritability, sugar or carbohydrate cravings, weight gain, especially around the abdomen, brain fog, poor concentration, frequent illness or weakened immune system, and for women, hormonal imbalances like irregular menstrual cycles. If several of these resonate with you, your body may be stuck in a prolonged stress response.

Strategies to manage elevated cortisol/stress

Now let's talk about strategies, what you can do, starting with food. If you're a regular listener of Dishing Up Nutrition, you know we talk about eating in balance. One of the biggest reasons for this is that maintaining balanced blood sugar takes stress off your body.

When you can eat consistently and adequately, you send your body an important message. First, energy is available. Your battery is charged. You can stand down. You are safe. I've worked with many people, especially women, who feel they are eating well during the day, and then when we zoom in on their eating pattern and schedule, we may often find they start their day with only a very light breakfast or they skip breakfast altogether.

Lunches are frequently delayed. Overall, they might be having a very low intake of carbohydrates during their most active times of the day. They may be fasted during intense exercise sessions and eating the majority of all their day's calories in the evening time. Subtle undereating can spike cortisol.

Your body notices stress, and cortisol is part of the response. It's like how your phone goes into power saving mode. If the battery charge starts to get too low, it adapts and continues to partially function, but not have optimal performance. Have you ever forgotten to eat a meal, and then you feel more stressed, shaky, or unable to focus?

That's your body's stress response signaling you need to eat. Provide your body with consistent energy, eating balanced meals that include all three macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates with fiber, and fat throughout the day, and cortisol does not have to compensate.

When it comes to supporting a healthy cortisol rhythm with food, most important thing to remember is following an eating pattern with adequate intake for your needs. It feels supportive eating regular balanced meals generally every three to four hours during your day. Each time you eat, you include in your meal foods with protein, fiber-rich carbohydrates, and beneficial fats.

Eating in this way supports keeping your blood sugar stable and helps manage stress. Start your day with a balanced meal for breakfast. A great breakfast option can be a protein-forward meal with fiber-rich carbohydrates and some healthy fats. A popular choice is a couple of eggs and egg whites or chicken sausage paired with vegetables like asparagus, mushrooms, and potatoes, cooked with a little bit of olive oil, and fruit to be enjoyed on the side.

A more grab-and-go breakfast might be a pre-prepped Greek yogurt parfait. Choose a lactose-free variety if you're sensitive to lactose, and top it with fiber-rich fruit like diced pears, maybe some raspberries, a bit of cinnamon, and a mixture of nuts and/or seeds for texture, crunch, healthy fats, and more fiber.

This will fuel your brain and your body. It supports regulated blood sugar levels and a well-functioning cortisol rhythm for your day. If you're not used to eating breakfast that has protein and fiber, start with something small to begin to train your gut. Give it a try and see how you feel the rest of your day. With consistency, you may notice your body is better able to handle daily stress that comes your way.

Don’t fear carbohydrates

The next strategy to practice is practice not fearing carbohydrates. If you're unsure how much carbs you need, work with a dietitian and we can help you determine what your daily needs are and what that's going to look like on your plate.

Carbohydrates provide your body with energy and fiber to support digestion. Think fruit, vegetables, including starchy vegetables like potatoes, peas, beans, lentils, along with whole grains. Low carbohydrate diets can increase cortisol in some people, especially women. We want to eat enough to adequately fuel for our lifestyle and energy needs.

Include carbohydrates throughout the day at each meal and snack. Whole food sources of carbohydrates, those non-starchy vegetables, starchy vegetables, beans, lentils, fruits, whole grains like quinoa or oats, they provide energy, fiber, and a variety of micronutrients. These carbohydrates support a healthy gut microbiome, serotonin, and a calm nervous system.

Limit excess caffeine

The next strategy is to limit excess caffeine. Caffeine raises cortisol, especially if you're drinking it on an empty stomach. Try limiting caffeinated beverages to one or two a day before noon and have them with a meal. Drinking caffeine on an empty stomach can increase stress in your body. A major concern for many people is more body fat around the belly linked to cortisol.

When cortisol stays elevated for too long because of prolonged stress, your body is more likely to store fat, especially around the abdomen. So prolonged stress can become a roadblock when it comes to weight management and losing weight, even if you're trying to eat a healthy diet. To reduce this, remember what we first discussed, consistently eating an adequate amount of food to match your energy needs and supporting balanced blood sugar is going to make the biggest difference.

Get adequate sleep

Besides food, prioritize sleep. It's essential. Getting less than six hours of sleep a night can significantly affect cortisol levels throughout the day. Even one night of poor sleep increases cortisol the next day.

Incorporate daily movement

Next, incorporate daily movement. It'll help support a well-functioning daily cortisol rhythm, where it peaks in the morning and steadily decreases until it's at its lowest point before bed. Your body's meant to move. Find ways to add more movement into your life, walking, yoga, strength training, dancing.

Whatever movement you enjoy doing is what you'll be able to stick with. Doing something, even a brief walk outside every day, can help you lower and manage your stress. Movement doesn't have to be a huge, big time commitment. Consistency will make the difference.

In fact, too much intense and under-fueled exercises can backfire and increase your stress and risk of injury, especially if you're sacrificing critical sleep to get that intense workout in first thing in the morning.

Specific nutrients that can help with stress

Now let's move on and talk about a few specific nutrients that can help with stress. While there's no single deficiency necessarily that directly causes cortisol dysregulation, there are several nutrients that can play a big role in regulating and supporting cortisol and stress.

First is magnesium. Magnesium is a mineral which helps calm the nervous system. It's important for relaxation, sleep, and lowering stress response. Foods high in magnesium include carbohydrate foods like leafy greens, nuts, seeds, and whole grains. Many adults tend to not always meet daily magnesium from food alone and can benefit from supplementation.

B vitamins are also essential for the stress response. We get the highest amount of B vitamins from animal proteins, along with some smaller amounts in our legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds, and some fruits and vegetables. If you're eating a real food-based diet, you should be getting an adequate amount of B vitamins to meet your minimum requirements.

However, under high stress, your body depletes B vitamins more quickly. So supplementing with a good quality multivitamin or B complex can give you the extra boost to replenish daily Bs needed to better handle life stressors.

And let's not forget vitamin D. Low levels of vitamin D are linked with higher stress and inflammation. Vitamin D, a fat-soluble vitamin, is one I recommend supplementing for almost everyone. If your diet is deficient in these essential vitamins and minerals, your body has a harder time managing stress effectively.

In addition to of adequate intake overall for calories, energy, and those micronutrients, sometimes we will recommend a specific supplement to support cortisol, such as ashwagandha. It's a popular herb that helps regulate cortisol levels and improves resilience to stress.

L-theanine is another one of our options for go-to brain calming support. It's an amino acid that's naturally found in green tea, and it promotes calm focus without tiredness. This is a great option that can work well to help you manage life stressors.

Lastly, I often recommend omega-3 fatty acids to supplement for support of overall brain health and reduce inflammation that's linked to stress.

If you're not sure where to start with food, supplements, it's always a good idea to meet with a registered dietitian, such as myself or one of my coworkers, who can work with you and guide you to help meet your needs with food you enjoy and we’ll come up with a plan.

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Wrapping up, remember, cortisol isn't the enemy. It is essential, and it's part of a healthy working body. The goal is not to eliminate cortisol. It's to bring it back into balance to have a healthy cortisol rhythm throughout your day. Biggest wins come from eating enough food in balance and regularly throughout the day, supporting and managing blood sugar levels, supporting your body with key nutrients, and prioritizing sleep, movement, recovery.

Small, consistent daily habits and actions will win over extreme changes that you can't always maintain long term. Thanks for tuning in today. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who might need it. And if you haven't already, join our Dishing Up Nutrition Facebook group to connect with other listeners, ask questions, and suggest topics for upcoming shows. I'm Alyssa, and I'll talk to you next time.

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