The 3 Areas In Your Life Increasing Your Stress Levels (And How You Can Fix Them!

YOU CAN’T OUT-SUPPLEMENT YOUR LIFESTYLE 

Stress is an unavoidable part of life. Whether it’s from financial problems, work issues, or relationship pressures, stress can never be fully eliminated from our day-to-day lives. When we encounter a stress trigger, our bodies react with a spike of the stress hormone cortisol, which puts us in a heightened state so we are alert and ready to deal with that problem. Once the event has passed, the cortisol levels slowly drop and then we return to homeostasis, which is our balanced ‘normal’ state. However, whilst small doses of stress can be easily tolerated in this natural cycle, if we are exposed to constant stress triggers we aren’t able to return to homeostasis and are left in a persistent stressed state. This persistent stress, more commonly referred to as ‘chronic stress’, means that our cortisol levels stay consistently at a higher level without the opportunity to return to a normal level. As the body is not designed to deal with this level of cortisol in the body, its ability to regulate it then becomes compromised which in turn fuels the cycle of constantly increasing stress hormones in the body. The solution may seem as simple as trying to avoid stress altogether, but the reality is that it’s highly unlikely that we won’t be exposed to stressors every day. There’s no magic silver bullet either - supplements won’t cure cortisol levels! Research indicates that the self-regulation of stress is the most beneficial way to reduce cortisol levels in the body. This means building resilience to stress through understanding your own reactions, from the psychological to the nervous system, and working to regulate your responses to the stress triggers. Attempting to suppress our reactions to stress, or avoid dealing with stress at all, whilst may appear to ‘work’ at a surface level, will actually have minimal effect on cortisol. By acknowledging stress as a normal part of life and building coping strategies, we can become better equipped to face triggers as they occur. 

STRESS, SLEEP, HEAL, REPEAT: CORTISOL AND YOUR SLEEP CYCLE

We’ve all heard the saying ‘make sure to get a good night’s sleep!’, but what actually is a good night’s sleep, and why do we need one? Our natural sleep cycle has a strong relationship with the levels of cortisol in our bodies. It’s also a great example of the positive role that cortisol plays and the benefits of regulating it correctly! To wake us up from sleeping in the morning, our bodies naturally release cortisol into the system to activate the brain and encourage us to get up and out of bed. This large spike of cortisol then slowly begins to lower over the day and is replaced by another hormone, melatonin. Melatonin is known as the sleep hormone and forms the part of the sleep cycle that makes us sleepy and indicates when the body is ready to rest. It relies on the decreasing levels of cortisol to activate. In turn, the increased presence of melatonin triggers the release of another hormone, the growth factor hormone. Whilst the name suggests that its main function is to grow and build muscles, the growth factor hormone is so much more than that! Growth hormone is a fundamental part of the body’s ability to heal and repair itself at a cellular level. It allows the body to perform a large range of functions, like organ detoxing, tissue repair, cell building, and brain processing, all whilst we are asleep. As demonstrated, each hormone and stage of the sleep cycle relies heavily on its’ predecessor to release and reduce in a specific way. If at any point this doesn’t occur correctly, the cycle is interrupted and compromised. When cortisol levels are poorly managed, such as when we are suffering from chronic stress, the amount of the hormone remains at too high a level to allow melatonin to be released which leads to poor sleep or sleep disturbance. This is often seen in patients with insomnia or sleep avoidance, and can also be brought on by increased stress at bedtime. Working late, digesting large meals after a later dinner, and increased screen time produce more cortisol and inhibit melatonin. To avoid prolonging stress levels, improving your nighttime routine can make a significant impact on your sleep. Building a strong ‘sleep hygiene’ routine of early dinners with limited screen usage, alongside meditation and other calming techniques, allows for cortisol to decrease as needed. This means the other hormones can work efficiently, leaving you with that ever-elusive good night’s sleep. 

THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF SUGAR CRASHES AND CORTISOL SPIKES

Diet and stress levels aren’t always an obvious correlation, but blood sugar and cortisol work in close proximity and function in similar ways. Much like cortisol, blood sugar levels spike and drop over the day (you’re probably familiar with the 3pm sugar crash at work!). When the body is running low on sugar availability (for example, when we’ve been fasting, or haven’t eaten in a while), our cortisol levels spike to provoke a release of blood sugar from the stores in our body to compensate. Often people feel the symptoms of the cortisol spike, such as dizziness and sweating, as an alert from the body that sugar levels have dropped. Our brain relies heavily on the sugar in our blood system - if we’re without it for even 30 seconds, the impact on its activity is dramatic. As the body is unable to produce sugar by itself, its only source is the sugar we provide from our dietary intake. However, you can have too much of a good thing! Modern diets often contain incredibly high levels of sugars, especially in ‘junk food’. Alongside snacking, this means that there are large bursts of sugar that are constantly being released into the system. These big spikes of sugar are then followed by larger-than-normal crashes. This is because the excessive amount of sugar takes our levels far higher than usual, leading to a greater distance from our baseline. This cycle of large peaks and troughs causes strain on our body, which then attempts to compensate by regulating to a more steady state. It does this by releasing cortisol in response, to increase our storage release of sugar and in turn increasing our baseline so the effects of the large sugar intake aren’t felt as dramatically. But this isn’t a long-term solution - this leaves the body with constantly excessive sugar, and therefore we become resistant to it. Insulin resistance, or type II diabetes, is affecting an increasingly larger amount of the population as our diet becomes more and more processed and filled with sugar. To prevent this from occurring, greater thought needs to be taken with how we approach our diet. By choosing balanced foods at regular intervals, and avoiding snacking and high-sugar foods, we can aid our natural regulation of blood sugar and in turn our cortisol levels. Not only this, but it also enhances our metabolism and encourages healthy weight loss, and other wide-ranging health benefits. 

MORE FROM LUMINOUS BODY

To listen to the entire Luminous Body podcast episode ‘The 3 Areas In Your Life Increasing Your Stress Levels (And How You Can Fix Them!’, you can play on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For more inspiring stories and messages, head to the Luminous Body website or book a consultation with Dr Jaxson or Dr Hilary.