Balancing Cortisol: The Hidden Key to Hormonal Health

Foreign.

Not just a word. Welcome to the Synergy Podcast where myself, Lori Essery and Kelly Engelman shed light on powerful tools and topics that nourish your body and most importantly, feed your soul.

Well, as you've noticed, we have changed the platform. We're now to you on video, and if you're used to listening, continue listening. But if you want to see our smiling faces, join us on video.

We love having you here to thrive in community together. And we get to talk about a really fun topic today. Kelly, are you ready for this one?

I know, you know, we get to talk about stress and resilience and you know, I would dare say that the average American female does not go unscathed with the, you know, byproducts the result of chronic stress over time. By the time we hit perimenopause, things can get a little ugly for some of us who haven't been paying attention. Right.

Itchy, bitchy, sweaty, sleepy, bloating, forgetful, all dried up.

All of those things. Right, all of those things. Those are the seven dwarfs of perimenopause and menopause. I mean, who wants to live like that? But unfortunately, so many people are, you know, and this has been a topic that's been near and dear to our hearts for many, many years, helping both men and women through transitions of life. And it's hard to watch someone go through this stage of life unsupported or not hormonally balanced. It can lead to all those things Lori talked about and we're gonna dig into those.

Yeah. And I think sometimes, Kel, don't you think that, you know, our focus as, maybe as providers of care, but even as patients, is typically on the sex hormones, like if you're feeling those things that must be estrogen, progesterone. And I think what we fail to realize, particularly patients fail to realize, and at one time, I think even as us as early providers, right. In our naive early years of practicing functional medicine, is we went after those downstream hormones, failing to go aggressively at those upstream hormones. That. Cortisol.

Yes.

And recognizing the power of that and recognizing that you're not going to see improvements in your sex hormones if you don't address cortisol first. So what is cortisol, Kel?

So cortisol is a stress hormone made by the adrenal glands. And the adrenal glands sit right above your kidneys, little bitty, tiny almond shaped glands that pack a powerful punch. Cortisol is your natural anti inflammatory. So it's meant to protect you Cortisol's gotten a bad name. We talk about high cortisol being bad, and it can be bad if it's uncontrolled. But we need cortisol. We need cortisol to live. It's what helps support blood pressure and all the things that we need to walk around and do life. So cortisol is a very, very powerful hormone. Cortisol and insulin are best friends. When you see cortisol balanced, you see insulin balanced. When you see insulin balanced, you see cortisol balanced. And so everything that we teach our patients, Lori, in our practice and in your practice is centered around getting control of those two primary hormones. And that feels really good because we know we're helping patients way beyond just the typical, oh, here's your estrogen, here's your testosterone, you're going to feel better in a couple of weeks kind of conversation, Right?

For sure. Yeah. So what, you know, when we. I love what you said about that whole high cortisol, low cortisol, you know, cortisol has gotten a bad rap in some respects. And, you know, I always like to say, good thing gone bad, right? Good thing gone bad. When you do, when you've been running that superwoman pace, you know, go, go, go, fighting the tiger, running from the tiger, you can only do that for a period of time. But in that time where you. Because we. Our ability to adapt is our ability to do just that. We were, our bodies were int. To run from that tiger for short periods of time or adapt and overcome for a short period of time. The problem is, is when we get stuck in that cycle and what happens, I heard an analogy one time that just really resonated with me is kind of like the fire extinguisher.

Right.

And that's what cortisol is. It's kind of that, that fire extinguisher, it's putting out fires. And we all have fires every day. A fire could be ingesting a food that we are intolerant to. It could be, you know, it could be infection, a low grade infection. It could be. There's lots of, lots of different fires and we need the ability to put that fire out. But when there are consistent fires and we're not doing a great job of identifying them and going after them, eventually high cortisol, to your point, leads to high insulin, and high insulin leads to things like, unfortunately, brain fog and problems with circulation. And we know about midsection weight gain.

Yes. Yeah.

And that's one of the main symptoms that people walk in, particularly women walk in the door to our practices every day is with those with those symptoms. So.

So Lori mentioned some physiological things that can show up. Low grade infections being one of them, eating foods that you're intolerant to, things like anemia, all those things can drive cortisol. But I want to paint a picture of just a standard American lifestyle. So we wake up to an alarm clock and that alarm clock surges our stress hormones. Right. Then we stumble into the kitchen and we get a cup of coffee. And coffee, if you're already inflamed and have dysregulated cortisol, it's just fueling dysregulation of cortisol. And then we skip breakfast or we grab something in a hurry that's high sugar, you know, because we're in a hurry. Right. We don't have time to sit down and actually eat and digest the breakfast. So we're grabbing something sugary that's feeding cortisol and then we get in our area on Lakeland drive traffic or I55 traffic in your area, I'm sure it's the turnpike or something like that, but we get into traffic, we're time crunched and then we get to our job and you know, by the time we've just started our day, we have set a pattern of cortisol dysregulation that no matter what we do the rest of the day, we're not gonna capture control.

Yes. And I might add, on top of it, for those that are morning exercisers, maybe you already have lots of fires going on and you're doing high intensity training and you got up in the morning and you went on a 10 mile run, right?

Yeah. So all the things that we do, and the thing is, doing that one day, not a big deal, but doing it day after day after day sets a pattern. And that pattern is a pattern that decreases metabolic reserves. So it depletes what you have in your gas tank to respond to a stressor and it sets a pattern of dysregulation. And so what that can feel like is by 10 o' clock your energy has tanked. And then you kind of pick yourself up back at noon and then by 3 o' clock your energy has tanked again. And then when you get ready to go to bed at night, you're wired and tired. You're tired as you can be, but you're so wired that your brain can't settle down for rest and recovery. So if that sounds familiar to you, you are listening to the right podcast. Listen up. You don't have to live that way. That's what I'm here to say is you don't have to live that way. And the first step in really getting control is understanding, like what are the things you're doing day to day that could be driving dysregulation and cortisol? And then what are the things that you need a functional medicine provider to help you with identifying those occult infections, identifying those food sensitivities, identifying if you are anemic, you know, identifying, do you have insulin dysregulation so that the things that you implement on a day to day basis are most impactful in making that change?

Yeah. And one of the things that you said, I want to go back and kind of just make sure that everyone's connecting the dots here, is that this cortisol abnormality really does create that domino effect. Right. And it affects your brain, hypothalamus, pituitary. Then it affects, you know, your, your estrogen hormones and thyroid hormones, and all these hormones in the body become dysregulated. To your point, again, in the repetition of that, if we get stuck in that loop, eventually hormones don't act alone.

Right.

You know, so basically all your hormones become dysregulated. And maybe how that shows up in you could be hair loss, dry skin, like we said, waking. Absolutely. That brain fog. And even if we stay stuck here too long, even the hippocampus, which is your memory center, if you do it for no other reason, if you don't adapt, you know, you'd have these changes for no other reason. The one main reason I would really encourage you to do is to really think about it from the perspective of your memory, because your brain is very sensitive to these levels, these prolonged high levels of cortisol.

So let's talk a little bit more about the hippocampus, since you said the big word. The hippocampus is a little bitty tiny structure in the brain that allows you to store memory. And what happens when we have high cortisol is your brain is really smart in that it understands that cortisol is very destructive and it'll start doing dendritic pruning of that hippocampus. So the hippocampus actually gets smaller. It shrinks to protect itself. It's self protecting your body is amazing. It's protecting itself, but it gets smaller. And so for you, you people that are struggling, and I say you people because I've done this before myself with memory, you know, like you're just not Processing memories very well, that's the hippocampus kind of going into survival mode. So I would say decrease word finding, not being able to say the word that you're trying to say, not remembering names. You know, those are early things that happen when the brain is showing signs of hippocampal shrinkage. And so being attentive to that, like, don't dismiss that to say you're just spacey or that's just how you are. If that is a change for you, take heed in that and learn some things that you can do to help protect the brain and protect that hippocampus. Because as we know, Alzheimer's and dementia is on the rise, exponentially on the rise. And there's a reason for that. Chronic stressors in the lifestyle are contributing to that. And those we have power and control.

Over, and I'm going to say that again, we have power and control over them. So it sounds like it's just, it's, it's arduous. It's just, it's so much like, what if I'm there, You know, what if I am already having all of these things? Is it possible to reverse it? And I just want to assure you, if you're listening and you're feeling that way and you feel like you're stuck right here, yes, you can get out of it. It's a matter of taking some steps. So let's talk about some strips, some steps that we can all take to improve cortisol balance. So number one step, eating a meal within an hour of waking. We always say break the fast breakfast, right? So eat a meal within an hour after waking, wake up and enjoy a good, nutritious meal. So as Kelly mentioned earlier, sometimes it's that grab and go. And that grab and go is really high in sugar. And so it is very, very important to make sure that when you are grabbing, grab something. If you have time to sit and make it, it's always best to sit, stop and eat. But we recognize that's not always possible. When it is, please do it. But when it's not, making sure that you have some grab and go things that are higher in protein. Protein is the building block. If you think of the amino acid structure that builds. That's what a protein is. Amino acids. Right. And those amino acids are very important for all of your neurotransmitters. Norepinephrine, epinephrine, dopamine. You've all heard us talking about those before. But those neurotransmitters are basically Allowing you to adapt throughout the day. So that is number one. Kelly, what do you.

Yeah, I would say my number one is not waking up to an alarm clock. You know, kind of train your body to wake up in a different way. There's a lot of technology, again, out there where you can have a timer or have a way for your lights to come on to wake you up gently instead of waking up to an alarm clock. If you do have to wake up to an alarm clock, you have it on a setting that's not so alarming. It's a sound, but it's not going to jolt you out of bed. I think waking up maybe music, maybe music, maybe something else. But I really say do away with the alarm clock as best you can. The way that you set your morning is so profound in setting that cortisol response. So be very thoughtful. You mentioned breakfast at smoothies. I love smoothies for breakfast for that reason, because we can pack them full of protein. I would. You do need to chew. So I do like to add something that you have to chew into the smoothie, whether that's a couple of nuts or whether that's a couple of blueberries that just forces you to chew. But chewing is really important. So I don't want to get people into the habit of not chewing their food, whether they're doing a smoothie or something else that's easy and convenient and easy to digest. But getting that protein, and I'll second that first thing in the morning or within an hour of waking, I think is really, really, really.

So, Kelly, elaborate a little bit on what you just said about chewing, because that might be something that people have not heard before.

Yeah. So when we chew our food, we are stimulating our digestive system to go into action and producing key digestive enzymes that help with the breakdown of our food and the absorption of our food. And when we're not chewing our food, we do not get that benefit. And so, you know, a lot of people have. They love smoothies and they just get in habits of doing maybe two smoothies a day and then they're not chewing. And we wind up seeing deficiencies in enzyme production with lack of chewing. So chew. Chew your food, even your smoothies.

Definitely. And I'm going to say also, you know, skipping. We talked about sugar, but also skipping those processed foods. A lot of those grab and go foods are processed. And unfortunately, as we know, those processed foods contain ingredients that, whether it be food coloring, whether it be just the preservatives in them, there's just a lot of things about processed foods will just further enhance, unfortunately, cortisol not aiding in cortisol repair. And so when we think about things that we can do strategically to improve cortisol balance, because really that's what we're doing. We're not trying to lower cortisol.

Right.

I want to just always say that anytime we're talking about hormone balance, I just want to reiterate. We're always talking about hormone balance. Balance, that's a key word. So cortisol balance. So if we are trying to really go after and create that cortisol balance, skipping processed foods, we know sugar for sure. I know some of my favorites are, you know, fresh air, a walk on the beach. That's always nice for me. You kind of, you know, you talked about sleep already, but not underestimating the value of your superpower, which is sleep. And that is your superpower.

It is my superpower. And it's always distressing to me if my superpower gets disrupted. But again, that's back to resilience. We need to be able to bounce back if we have a night of disrupted sleep. But sleep is truly your time to restore and repair. So honoring that sleep time, having a sleep routine is also very, very important for cortisol. And then, you know, your bedroom should be for sleep and sex only. So, you know, keeping that sanctuary sacred in that way. Cause we're training our body when to respond to what, when to respond with what hormones. We're training our body to do that. So if we have our sanctuary set up for sleep, we're training our body to respond in a very nice way. Whereas if that's our workplace, if that's a place, we have arguments. If that's a place, you know, we're training our body to produce stress hormones, which is going to create more stress. So I would say keeping that sleep, sanctuary sacred also is super important. And then, Laurie, you mentioned high intensity exercise, and I want to go back to that, because high intensity exercise can be helpful. It's about the balance of. And so short amounts of high intensity exercise followed with some stretching, relaxation, deep breathing can be extremely powerful. So it's not that you would never do that, but you wouldn't want to do that daily. If your cortisol is dysregulated, it's not going to help you get your cortisol back into balance. So.

And I remember a time, you know, Kelly, when you and I met years ago, we won't. We won't speak, we won't say how many years ago yes, but marathon runner had gone through a lot of life change and I was extremely cortisol dysregulated and I was, you heard me say, a marathon runner. And I was, you know, that was my get. You know, you just. I could go to that place in my head with running that just. To me it was, it was relaxing. I know it sounds crazy, but to those who have run and distance running, you know what I'm saying? And I do. In order for me to heal, one of the hardest things that I had to do was to stop that for a time. And I always say, young and dumb, right? We all go through different seasons, you know, and I've learned to integrate different types of exercise for just like a dietary prescription of sorts. You should have an exercise. Yes, yes. So there are different types of exercises that are more restorative and there are other types of exercise that are not as. But maybe they're muscle building or they are cardiac intensifying, improving overall health and well being. Takes all of those at different times. So really, to just reiterate, yes, it is all about the right amount of exercise in the.

At.

At the right time for the right reason and just making sure that you're checking back in and making sure that you're making the progress.

Right?

Because it's very easy to say, I could never stop that. You know, that is my piece, that's my out. And I get it. Like, I honestly get it. But had I not been willing to take a hard look at that and change it, I don't think I'd. I honestly don't know if I'd be here today. I know that's pretty strong, right? But I was at a very bad place.

So a lot of people, as they're processing this information and thinking about all of the things that they're doing in their daily schedule and how that's impacting their stress response, you know, how do we help them set up a lifestyle of resilience that helps support proper cortisol balance? Right. And sometimes it's just starting with one thing. We've named off like seven or eight things that you could be doing to help with cortisol balance? But I say start with where you are. You know, what is the most impactful thing of the things that we've mentioned today? What is the most impactful thing that you can do that's gonna make the biggest impact in the ability to control for cortisol? Remember, cortisol is a hormone that is produced based on patterns of what you're asking your body to do. So think about the patterns that you've developed. Think about your day, how you've structured your day, what the demands of your day are, how they ebb and flow, and what are the things that you could be changing in a powerful way to dampen that stress response.

And I just want to reiterate, starting with something that you feel like you could easily accomplish. Don't go after the one that's like, you know, I can't imagine not waking up with an alarm clock. Like, I'm going to be afraid I'm not going to wake up. Then don't start there. You know, maybe it is starting with just changing up what your breakfast looks like. So definitely make that list. Think of one or two things and to Kelly's point, the most impactful things that you could do. Because once you maximize those, once you figure that out, you're going to have more energy, more brain space, you're going to feel better and you're going to want to do more.

You know, I will say before we close, there are, there is a time and space for adaptogens and nutrients to help balance Cortisol for sure, 100%. We use them every day in our practice. So measuring those cortisol levels, we like to measure those over the course of the day. Doing a serum or a blood test on cortisol gives you a little bit of information, but oftentimes we can miss really what's happening in the pattern if we're not looking at the complete pattern throughout the day. So we like to measure that morning time, noontime, afternoon and then before bedtime. Right. So we're looking at the pattern throughout the day and based on the pattern would dictate what we would suggest in the way of perhaps supplementation. Sometimes based on what we would recommend even for lifestyle change is dictated by that pattern. How we would structure exercise. So tests don't guess, don't just go by how you feel. Gaining that information. Learning your body in this way is one of the most powerful things that you can do for yourself in understanding what is the biggest lever that you have in making those lifestyle changes.

So we're so glad that you joined us today for this really intriguing conversation on cortisol. We hope that you join us again. You can learn more about synergy by going on our website. It's Synergy for Life. That's S Y N E R g e e the number4life.com Our Facebook is Senergy Connect and remember to follow us on your favorite podcast platform so that you can receive notifications. Notifications? When new episodes are released. We hope to see you soon.