How to Lower Cortisol Levels Naturally (And Why You Should)

The human body relies on more than 50 hormones to help it function efficiently (1). One of those hormones is cortisol. The problem is that sometimes cortisol levels can get too high, which can have negative health impacts. 

As a personal trainer, it’s important to know the effects that high cortisol can have both on yourself and your clients. We also share what causes this hormone to increase, signs of elevated cortisol, and how to reduce it naturally. The latter begins with understanding what cortisol is.

What Cortisol Is

Cortisol is a steroid hormone that helps regulate the body’s stress response. Because of this, it is often referred to as a stress hormone. 

When in a stressful situation, we often have a “fight or flight” response. This response is intended to help ensure our survival by getting us ready to defend ourselves or flee from potentially dangerous situations. Cortisol is the hormone that produces this response.

Cortisol has other important roles as well. They include:

• inhibiting inflammation

• blood pressure and blood sugar regulation

• controlling the sleep cycle

• helping the body convert macronutrients into energy

• regulating metabolism

Cortisol production occurs in the adrenal gland. We have two adrenal glands. They sit directly above the kidneys.

While the body strives for steady cortisol levels, sometimes this hormone can become elevated. When this type of cortisol imbalance occurs, it can have negative consequences.

What Happens If You Have Higher Levels of Cortisol?

Excess cortisol can impact you in several different ways. One is that it can lead to weight gain. Remember that cortisol controls the fight or flight response. As part of this response, the metabolism of both fats and carbohydrates is stimulated. This leads to an increase in appetite. It also often triggers unhealthy food cravings—think salty foods, sweets, and foods high in fat. Give into a stronger appetite and food cravings and it’s easy to gain weight.

Another effect of elevated cortisol levels is high blood pressure. The American Heart Association reports that, in a study of over 400 adults with normal blood pressure, those with high stress hormone levels were at a greater risk of seeing blood pressure increases over the following six or seven years (2). It adds that there’s also a connection between high cortisol levels and an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. 

Research has revealed that cortisol levels can even impact mental health. Research published in 2021 indicates that cortisol secretion fluctuations are common in psychiatric disorders (3). But when the levels are stabilized, it often leads to improved patient health.

If cortisol levels remain high over time, it can contribute to the development of Cushing syndrome. While rare, this syndrome can lead to several complications. The Mayo Clinic shares that these complications include (4):

• increased bone fractures due to bone loss

• loss of muscle strength and mass

• high blood pressure

• type 2 diabetes

• frequent infections, or unusual infections

Factors That Can Contribute to High Cortisol Levels

What’s behind high cortisol? A lot of the time, it’s a result of high stress levels. When the body is under chronic stress, it continues to produce higher amounts of cortisol. The fight or flight response remains constant. This can lead to adrenal fatigue. Adrenal fatigue occurs when the adrenal glands are so overworked due to long-term stress that they can no longer keep up.   

Past studies have also found that hormone replacement therapy can lead to high cortisol too. One such study involved 43 post-menopausal women (5). Those who received estrogen replacement therapy had significant increases in their cortisol levels.

Additional factors that can lead to high cortisol include adrenal gland disorders or tumors, as well as taking a lot of steroid medications.

Signs You May Have High Cortisol

Various tests can be used to discover whether you have an elevated cortisol level. Two options are testing the amount of cortisol in the blood or urine. A third option is a salivary cortisol test, which is the easiest since it only requires a swab of the mouth. 

Without a test, there are a few signs that could signal that you have high cortisol. They include:

• increased appetite and/or more food cravings

• weight gain or trouble achieving weight loss

• increased heart rate or blood pressure

• unexplained muscle weakness, especially in the upper arms and thighs

• frequent bone fractures

• high blood sugar

• for females, excessive hair growth

How to Lower Cortisol Levels Naturally

Fortunately, there are several things a person can do to achieve a healthy cortisol level. Here are a few to consider. 

Reduce Stress 

Finding ways to regularly de-stress can help lower stress hormone levels. If you’ve had a rough day, go for a walk after work. If stress is high at home, talk to a friend that you trust. Journaling is also a good way to release stressful thoughts. 

Stress reduction isn’t always easy, especially if you’re facing a major issue such as death or divorce. But in times like these, stress management is even more important. 

If you’re struggling to reduce stress, talking with a therapist can help. They can teach you a variety of stress reduction techniques, which helps lower your cortisol while making you feel better.

Work on Your Relationships

If you don’t feel that you’re getting what you want or need out of your relationships, it can cause your feelings of stress to rise—taking your cortisol levels with it. One way to counteract this is to work on improving these relationships. 

This generally begins with communicating how you’re feeling. Setting expectations for the relationship can help as well. In some cases, the best way to improve a relationship is to set (and enforce) stronger boundaries.

Love on Your Pet

Johns Hopkins reports that just petting a dog is enough to lower cortisol levels (6). This makes time spent loving on your pet as good for you as it is for them. So, make it a point to spend at least five minutes per day engaged in this action. And if you don’t have a pet, you may want to get one.

Get a Hobby

Engaging in a hobby can also lead to reduced cortisol levels. It works, in part, by helping to reduce your stress. When you’re engaged in an activity you enjoy, you start to forget about what’s bothering you. This allows cortisol levels to go down.

If you don’t already have a hobby, find one. Or maybe you did have a hobby but haven’t participated in it for quite some time. Now is a good time to revive that hobby once again.

Practice Relaxation Techniques

Another way to reduce stress is by using proven relaxation techniques. A simple one is relaxing breathing exercises. Breathe in and out slowly, noticing how the air enters and exits your body. Other relaxation techniques include:

• meditation

• mindfulness

• massage

• yoga

• art therapy

Make Sleep a Priority

When you’re tired, it becomes harder to deal with stressful situations. Your patience is reduced, as is your ability to effectively problem-solve. Yet, when you’re well-rested, life becomes a bit easier to handle. So, aim to get 7-9 hours of sleep per night. This may require going to bed earlier than you do now, but when lower cortisol is the result, the payoff is there.

Eat a Balanced Diet

The foods we eat can also impact our cortisol levels. For instance, consuming more polyunsaturated fats and vegetables helps with cortisol regulation according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (7). Eating a balanced diet also gives the body the nutrients it needs to better deal with stress while reducing the risk of weight gain that tends to come with elevated cortisol levels.

Take a Dietary Supplement

If you want to lower your cortisol, it may be beneficial to take a dietary supplement. Henry Ford Health shares that magnesium is “the most important mineral” for regulating cortisol levels (8). Other supplements that can also help include:

• vitamin B12

• vitamin C

• folic acid

Limit Caffeine

Caffeine intake has been linked to increased cortisol levels. However, this doesn’t mean that you have to stop drinking this common morning staple. Instead, the key is to limit your consumption. Have a cup or two to wake up, then switch to water. Not drinking caffeine later in the day can also help reduce cortisol by making it easier to sleep at night.

Quit Smoking

If you smoke, you are likely driving your cortisol levels higher. But here’s the good news: research has found that quitting tobacco leads to lower cortisol levels (9). That’s in addition to the other benefits of quitting smoking, such as reducing your risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Exercise Regularly

Regular exercise is another effective way to reduce cortisol levels. A 2021 study found that both moderate and vigorous exercise help reduce a person’s subsequent reaction to stress (10). Less reactivity means lower cortisol levels. Exercises that can help reduce stress include walking, yoga, kickboxing, and running.

How Can Personal Trainers Better Help Clients with High Cortisol Levels?

If you are a personal trainer and want to help your clients achieve lower cortisol levels, your main way to do this is via training. You can work with them to make exercise a regular habit, which can reduce their cortisol levels directly. It also has indirect effects, such as lowering stress.

Providing other advice for reducing high levels of cortisol can fall outside your scope of practice. One way to increase your scope is to become a health coach. Health coaches teach clients how to make healthy lifestyle changes. They also work with the clients to overcome the obstacles they face.

If this is of interest to you, ISSA offers Health Coach certification. In this course, you learn how to help clients develop healthier habits. It also teaches you how to work with clients who have a chronic health condition, helping to improve their health and wellness.

References

1. Hormones: What they are, Function & Types. Cleveland Clinic. (2022, February 23). Retrieved February 17, 2023, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22464-hormones 

2. Elevated stress hormones linked to higher risk of high blood pressure and heart events. American Heart Association. (2021, September 13). Retrieved February 17, 2023, from https://newsroom.heart.org/news/elevated-stress-hormones-linked-to-higher-risk-of-high-blood-pressure-and-heart-events 

3. Dziurkowska, E., & Wesolowski, M. (2021). Cortisol as a biomarker of mental disorder severity. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 10(21), 5204. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm10215204 

4. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. (2021, April 30). Cushing syndrome. Mayo Clinic. Retrieved February 17, 2023, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/cushing-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20351310 

5. Edwards, K. M., & Mills, P. J. (2008). Effects of estrogen versus estrogen and progesterone on cortisol and interleukin-6. Maturitas, 61(4), 330–333. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2008.09.024 

6. The friend who keeps you young. The Friend Who Keeps You Young | Johns Hopkins Medicine. (2021, September 22). Retrieved February 17, 2023, from https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-friend-who-keeps-you-young 

7. Stress and health. The Nutrition Source. (2023, February 2). Retrieved February 17, 2023, from https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/stress-and-health/ 

8. How to lower your cortisol levels. How To Lower Your Cortisol Levels | Henry Ford Health - Detroit, MI. (2020, May 12). Retrieved February 17, 2023, from https://www.henryford.com/blog/2020/05/how-to-lower-your-cortisol-levels 

9. Wong, J. A., Pickworth, W. B., Waters, A. J., al'Absi, M., & Leventhal, A. M. (2014). Cortisol levels decrease after acute tobacco abstinence in regular smokers. Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental, 29(2), 152–162. https://doi.org/10.1002/hup.2382 

10. Caplin, A., Chen, F. S., Beauchamp, M. R., & Puterman, E. (2021). The effects of exercise intensity on the cortisol response to a subsequent acute psychosocial stressor. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 131, 105336. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2021.105336