The case with CORTISOL
How are you doing this week? I’m back again this week to talk about how rest is so underrated. During my eating disorder recovery, I was forced to rest. That means I had to completely stop all kinds of exercise to reduce the level of cortisol I had in my body. Cortisol is your body’s natural stress hormone.
Why am I talking about cortisol? Cortisol level plays a big part in how healthy you are — because this hormone controls your mood, motivation and fear. One example is during the pandemic, many doctors advice that you manage your stress level — because it impact your immunity. This is where cortisol plays a large role in maintaining your immunity, how your organs function and a measure of your health. As cortisol is most often referred to as “fight-or-flight” hormone, it is never too good to have high level of cortisol 24/7. In fact, a person whose body cannot regulate cortisol level usually is diagnosed with Cushing Syndrome. Cortisol can be created from a emotional, mental or physical stimuli.
Why is regulating cortisol level important in eating disorder recovery? Eating disorder patients usually put their body through extreme situations; constant under eating, overexercising — which then leads to more severe health conditions such as anxiety, insomnia and more. In fact, research has suggested that people diagnosed with anorexia nervosa are mostly likely to have high cortisol levels.
This is why it is important to rest and feed during eating disorder recovery. Working out puts a tremendous amount of stress onto our body. For a long time, I wondered why I was unable to sleep well, have lack of menstrual cycle or lose weight. I was putting my body under extreme amount of stress 2 to 3 hours each day through exercise. On top of that, I work in a high-stress environment and this ultimately led to cortisol imbalances.
During the first few months of recovery, I was still doing HIIT exercises that. One of the indications that my cortisol level was still high was the lack and irregular menstrual cycle. After realizing that my menstruation was not optimal, I was adviced to stop working out completely. I started sleeping in more , sometimes for 9 to 10 hours per night. I also started eating more, fueling myself with food loaded with nutrients.
After about 3 months, I started getting my period regularly with a much heavier flow. I felt more energized and started to experience lesser mood swings. Some of the ways to check whether you have high cortisol level is to go to an endocrinologist. What they do will be to measure your hormone levels by doing a blood test. Unfortunately, this is not something accessible to many. However, the symptoms of cortisol imbalances are usually:
Reduced libido
Mood changes
Depressive or anxious thoughts
Trouble sleeping
Short-term memory issues
Headaches
Exhaustion
Lack of menstrual cycle
There are many benefits to managing your cortisol. In the world today, we live in a high paced, stressful environment. We cannot completely remove stress but we can learn how to properly manage stress.
In next week’s post, I’ll provide practical tips on how I managed my stress level. If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to share it with your friends.
See you next week!