Cortisol seems to be everywhere at the moment.
Open social media and before long you’ll find someone talking about cortisol face, cortisol belly, cortisol weight gain, cortisol detoxes, supplements to lower cortisol, morning routines to control cortisol - and somewhere amongst all that noise, it would be quite understandable to start wondering whether cortisol is yet another thing in your body that you need to worry about.
So I thought this week we might have a much gentler conversation about it, because cortisol isn’t something to fear.
It isn’t a toxin.
It isn’t a hormone we need to eliminate.
And having cortisol in your body certainly doesn’t mean you’re doing stress, health or life badly.
Cortisol is part of a beautifully intelligent system designed to help us meet the demands of being alive.
It helps us wake in the morning.
It helps make energy available when we need it.
It plays a role in blood pressure, metabolism and immune function.
And when something requires our attention - whether that’s a genuine emergency, an important presentation, a difficult conversation or simply running for the bus - cortisol helps our body rise to meet the moment.
The difficulty isn’t that our bodies produce cortisol.
Sometimes the more interesting question is:
How often is my body being asked to rise to the moment, and how often does it get to come back down again?
When the stress doesn’t quite end
Our bodies are beautifully designed to respond to challenge.
Something happens.
We mobilise.
We deal with it.
And then, ideally, we settle again.
But modern life isn’t always quite so neat.
The stressful meeting ends, but we replay it in the car.
We get home from work, but there are people who need feeding, listening to, organising or worrying about.
The difficult conversation finishes, but our jaw remains tight.
The phone stops ringing, but our brain is already thinking about tomorrow.
And sometimes there isn’t one big stressful thing at all - it’s actually the culmination of a lot of little stresses.
The mental load.
The notifications.
The rushing.
The decisions.
The responsibilities.
The things we haven’t quite processed.
The things we don’t have control over.
The things we do.
The body doesn’t necessarily distinguish neatly between all of these.
It simply keeps responding and over time we can begin to lose that lovely contrast between activation and recovery.
We become very good at being “on”.
And perhaps a little less practised at coming back down.
What might that feel like?
This is where I want to tread gently, because social media has created enormous lists of supposed “high cortisol symptoms”, and it’s very easy to read one and diagnose yourself before you’ve finished your morning brew..
Bodies are much more complicated than that.
Poor sleep, hormonal changes, nutritional deficiencies, illness, medication, emotional strain and dozens of other things can create similar experiences.
So these aren’t diagnostic signs of a cortisol problem.
They’re simply things worth becoming curious about.
Perhaps you’re exhausted in the afternoon but strangely wide awake when you finally climb into bed.
Perhaps you wake in the early hours and your brain immediately starts producing a list.
Perhaps your shoulders seem permanently tense.
You feel more irritable than you used to.
You crave quick energy when you’re tired.
Your digestion isn’t quite as happy.
Your head aches more often.
Your libido has quietly disappeared somewhere.
Or perhaps there isn’t one obvious symptom at all.
You simply don’t feel particularly settled inside yourself.
Sometimes that’s the word that matters most.
And then hormones join the conversation
This can become particularly interesting during perimenopause and menopause - and at other times when our hormones are shifting.
Because hormones don’t live in separate little boxes.
Oestrogen isn’t doing its thing over here while cortisol quietly gets on with something completely unrelated in another corner.
They’re part of an interconnected endocrine system, influenced by sleep, nutrition, stress, movement, age, health and the world we’re living in.
As oestrogen and progesterone change, sleep may change too.
Temperature regulation can become more sensitive.
Our emotional responses may feel different.
Our energy can shift.
And life itself may simultaneously be asking rather a lot of us.
Careers.
Teenagers.
Parents.
Relationships.
Money.
Bodies that don’t necessarily recover in quite the same way they did twenty years ago.
It can create a particularly interesting cocktail.
And sometimes a woman who once seemed able to absorb enormous amounts of stress suddenly finds her body saying: Actually, I’d like a different rhythm now.
Not less life.
Not a smaller life.
Perhaps simply a little more recovery between its demands.
Before asking “What can I take?”
This is the part of the cortisol conversation I find particularly interesting.
When something feels out of balance, we’re understandably drawn towards finding the thing that will correct it.
A supplement.
A vitamin.
A tea.
A powder.
Something tangible that says “Take this and feel better.“
Now, sometimes supplements absolutely have their place but before adding something else, I think there’s a wonderfully empowering question we can ask - “what might my body need more - or less - of right now?”
More sleep?
More nourishment?
More daylight?
More movement?
More laughter?
More time outside?
More support?
Less caffeine?
Less rushing?
Less responsibility?
Fewer things squeezed into every available space?
One conversation we’ve been avoiding?
One boundary we’ve been frightened to draw?
This is where understanding our own bodies gives us something far more valuable than another wellbeing rule.
It gives us choice.
Not control over everything.
Life will always contain stress but perhaps more choice about the conditions we’re asking our bodies to live within.
Five gentle ways to support your stress response
Not a cortisol detox.
Not a perfect morning routine.
Just five things that can help remind the body that it doesn’t need to stay ready for everything all day long.
1. Give your morning some daylight
Our cortisol rhythm naturally changes across the day, generally rising around waking and reducing towards night.
Morning daylight helps anchor the body’s circadian rhythm - the internal clock that influences sleep, alertness and hormone patterns.
Open the curtains.
Stand outside with your first drink.
Walk around the garden.
Take the dog out.
It doesn’t need to become a sunrise wellness ritual - just let your body notice that morning has arrived.
2. Nourish the body you’re asking so much from
Sometimes we inadvertently add physical stress to an already busy system.
We rush through breakfast.
Forget to drink.
Run on coffee until lunchtime.
Then wonder why we’re shaky, ravenous and irritable at 3pm.
Food and hydration don’t need to become another thing to perfect.
Simply notice whether you’re regularly asking your body to meet a demanding life without giving it enough fuel to do so.
Care can be remarkably ordinary.
Eat.
Drink.
Pause.
3. Let stress move somewhere
Stress isn’t only something we think, it’s also something we feel in our bodies.
The clenched jaw.
The raised shoulders.
The tight chest.
The restless legs.
The urge to pace.
Sometimes the body doesn’t need us to analyse stress.
It needs somewhere for that energy to go.
Walk.
Stretch.
Dance while you’re cooking.
Shake your hands and shoulders.
Practise Qi Gong.
Breathe out slowly.
Put some music on and move however feels good.
Not exercise as punishment.
Movement as release.
4. Collect moments of safety and pleasure
We’ve talked before about noticing what safety feels like in the body.
This is where that practice becomes particularly powerful.
The friend around whom your shoulders drop.
The chair where you naturally curl your feet underneath you.
The song that changes your mood within seconds.
Trees.
Water.
A cat asleep beside you.
A hug.
Laughter.
Pleasure isn’t frivolous.
Connection isn’t an indulgence.
Rest isn’t what happens after you’ve finished being productive.
These experiences are part of the information your nervous system receives about the world it is living in.
Give it some lovely information too.
5. Ask what you could put down
This one may be the most important because sometimes we respond to stress by adding more things.
Meditation.
Yoga.
Supplements.
Journalling.
Breathwork.
A better bedtime routine.
Another appointment.
Another podcast telling us how to optimise ourselves.
And suddenly reducing stress has become another job.
Perhaps before adding anything, ask instead “what could I stop carrying”?
One expectation.
One commitment.
One unnecessary responsibility.
One standard you’re holding yourself to.
One thing you’re doing because you’ve always done it.
You don’t have to restructure your entire life.
Sometimes removing one small weight creates more space than adding five new wellbeing practices.
And where does happiness fit into all this?
Right here.
Because supporting our stress response isn’t really about achieving a beautifully low cortisol number.
It’s about what begins to return when the body doesn’t feel quite so relentlessly under demand.
Energy.
Patience.
Curiosity.
Desire.
Creativity.
Connection.
The ability to notice the sun on your face.
To laugh properly.
To become absorbed in something.
To feel excited about plans rather than immediately wondering whether you have the energy for them.
To feel present in your own life.
Perhaps that’s why the things that bring us joy matter physiologically as well as emotionally.
We aren’t machines whose bodies need optimising.
We’re human beings.
We need pleasure.
We need connection.
We need meaning.
We need rest.
We need moments when absolutely nothing productive happens.
A little reflection for this week
Rather than asking yourself whether your cortisol is “too high”, I’d invite you to ask something gentler “where in my life does my body get to come down?”
Where do you exhale?
Who makes you feel calmer?
What helps your mind become quieter?
When do you lose track of time in a lovely way?
And perhaps most importantly - “is there enough of that in my life at the moment?“
Don’t turn the answers into another action plan.
Just notice.
Your body has been talking to you for a very long time.
Perhaps this week you simply listen.
A gentler way forward
Perhaps supporting cortisol isn’t really about trying to force anything down. Perhaps it’s about helping the body remember that it doesn’t have to be ready for everything, all of the time.
More moments when nothing needs fixing.
More nourishment.
More laughter.
More movement.
More connection.
More rest.
More opportunities for the body to receive the quiet message “you can come down now - there’s space here for you too.”
And perhaps that’s one of the quieter routes back towards happiness.
Not chasing it.
Not manufacturing it.
Simply creating enough space that we can begin to feel it again.
If you’re looking for a lighter way...
This is exactly the kind of conversation we have inside The Lighter Way Collective.
Not another collection of rules about how women should eat, move, sleep, think or take care of themselves.
A gentler space to understand your body, your hormones, your nervous system and yourself - and discover the small changes that might help life feel softer, lighter and freer.
If that sounds like something you need right now, I’d love to welcome you.
You can find out more about The Lighter Way Collective here.
When the body has been carrying too much for too long, sometimes even the things that are supposed to help us begin to feel like more things to do.
The massage we cancel.
The walk we can’t quite get ourselves out for.
The hair appointment we’ve been meaning to make for months.
Even the appointment we know usually leaves us feeling better.
Why on earth do we do that?
We’ll have that conversation next Monday.
Until then, go gently.
🧡
#HalcyonDays
