Why Excess Cortisol Is Dangerous (And What You Can Do)

You likely have some understanding of the relationship between stress and cortisol. Stress goes up, then cortisol goes up, and you want to bring them down. Cortisol levels should return to normal once the stress has passed, but many of us live with constant pressures, both big and small, that keep the hormone running high. Therefore, we’ve got to take action to reduce our cortisol and restore balance.

But reducing your cortisol isn’t as simple as cutting it out of your life, because your body needs it for carrying out important functions and helping to ensure your survival. 

The solution, then, lies in limiting your cortisol to healthy amounts. To do that, we need to familiarize ourselves with its role in our evolutionary past and its place in our day-to-day living.

What is cortisol, and why do we have it?

Cortisol is a hormone produced by the two adrenal glands, which are located above the kidneys. Specifically, it’s a type of steroid hormone called a glucocorticoid, and because nearly every human tissue and organ has glucocorticoid receptors, cortisol’s effects in the body are broad. 

Most of us know that cortisol rises in response to stress (it is, indeed, known as the “stress hormone), but probably fewer people realize that it also:[1] 

• Corresponds to your sleep cycle: Naturally fluctuating throughout the day, cortisol levels are typically highest at around 8 o’clock in the morning and lowest in the wee hours after midnight.[2] 
  
  
• Helps maintain your blood pressure: Elevated cortisol levels directly correlate with high blood pressure, and decreased cortisol levels with low blood pressure.
  
  
• Provides you with bursts of energy: Specifically, cortisol works in coordination with your pancreas to increase your blood sugar, the body’s main source of fuel.
  
  
• Supports and regulates your immune system: Cortisol limits the inflammatory response in the short term. Inflammation, too, serves an important function in the body’s ecosystem, but chronic inflammation is associated with metabolic, cardiovascular, and autoimmune disease processes.[3] 

Considering these functions, you can surmise how each one relates to some form of stress and how cortisol has helped humans stay alive. 

Imagine you’re an early Homo sapiens circa 150,000 BCE, living in the wilderness. When the sun rises, your body’s natural rise in cortisol motivates you to start searching for food and evading predators. You encounter prey, and with the stress of the situation intensifying your heart rate and blood sugar levels, you have the strength needed to execute the hunt. Then you encounter a predator, and the same mechanisms aid you in overcoming the threat. The two encounters have taxed your body, but the cortisol flowing through you makes it so that your immune system’s inflammatory response is enough to help you recover but not to damage healthy cells.

So, from an evolutionary perspective, cortisol has been an adaptive power. Like how the Hulk’s strength increases in proportion to his rage, so too does your body’s cortisol allow you to meet the demands of stress triggered by a threat.

Modern risk factors for high cortisol levels

When threats are constant, your stress levels remain high, and so too does your cortisol, with no opportunity to drop to a more normal level. 

That’s the condition that we live under today, essentially. The ever-present pressures of school, work, relationships, society, and technology are all little threats that our bodies respond to with cortisol. We don’t really need the extra blood flow, blood sugar, and alertness to deal with most modern-day problems, but the endocrine system doesn’t know that. It has the same answer to a hounding debt collector or looming deadline as it does to a prowling mountain lion.

Illustrating the oversize effect that an ordinary stressor can have, a 2018 study of healthy medical students found that cortisol levels in subjects were nine times higher on the day of an exam than they had been a few weeks earlier.[4] Now think of all the similar stressors you have in your life, and imagine the cortisol spikes you experience every day.

Stress isn’t the only thing that can raise your cortisol, either. Elements of your lifestyle — smoking, drinking, a bad diet, and a lack of exercise — are also known cortisol-raising risk factors.[5] So are certain health variables, like pituitary tumors and the use of corticosteroid anti-inflammatories (oral, intravenous, and even topical), because they interact with the body’s mechanisms that lead to cortisol production.[6] [7] [8] 

The dangers of excessive cortisol

Excessive exposure to cortisol is called hypercortisolism. If you sustain this high exposure, you have what’s known as Cushing’s syndrome. In either case, cortisol’s broad influence on your body means that having chronically high levels subjects you to a correspondingly wide-ranging constellation of health issues:

Inflammation

Even though cortisol is supposed to suppress inflammation, having too much cortisol can, paradoxically, cause you to become over-inflamed. It’s because your body, in some sense, gets “used to” having elevated cortisol levels, so its anti-inflammatory effect ceases to be as effective as it once was.[1] The result is what researchers have described as an “unmodulated inflammatory response to physical pathogens, unrecognized proteins, or psychological stressors,” leading to cell death, accelerated aging, tissue degeneration.[9] 

Skin problems

Your skin is one of the many organs that have glucocorticoid receptors. It’s also the body’s most visible organ, so the effects of high cortisol are glaringly apparent. That increased inflammation we mentioned can escalate into acne, itchiness, or psoriasis; and systemically, you may become less resistant to infections and slower to heal wounds.[10] 

Poor cognitive functioning

In reviews of scientific literature, researchers have found a connection between high cortisol levels and cognitive disabilities, including poorer memory, processing speed, and executive function. Even in cognitively healthy people, this correlation may contribute to an increased risk of cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.[11] 

Weight gain

Because cortisol increases your body’s immediately available energy, its corollary effect is that your body feels it needs to replenish the energy it was supposed to have used. So your appetite increases, and your body tends to direct unused energy toward fat storage.[12] Meanwhile, the psychological aspect of stress might have you reaching for calorie-dense comfort foods, which exacerbate the issue.

Irregular menstruation

The biochemical process that regulates a woman’s menstrual cycle starts in a region of the brain called the hypothalamus. That’s the same place that kicks off cortisol production. When the body is flooded with cortisol, it disrupts the connection between the hypothalamus and the ovaries, resulting in delayed or absent menstruation.[13] 

High cortisol has a cascading health effect, too, since each of these problems can lead to further issues down the line. The cognitive, menstrual, and skin problems are quality-of-life diminishers that can worsen your stress state and send you down a vicious cycle of hypercortisolism. And with inflammation or weight gain, you could eventually face a high risk of joint problems, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, or cancer.[3] [14] 

You can see why it’s so important to manage your cortisol levels.

Simple ways to manage and reduce your cortisol

If your hypercortisolism stems from having a pituitary tumor or using a corticosteroid, you’ll probably have to cut them out of your life to bring your cortisol back to normal levels. 

If it stems from stress, however, the solution involves making some changes to your daily life. 

Limit your caffeine intake

Generally, the more caffeine you consume, the more cortisol your body produces. This interrelationship is due to caffeine’s stimulating effect on a hormone that signals the adrenal glands to pump out cortisol.[15] Just one cup of coffee can raise your cortisol level to 50% above baseline.[16] 

We’re not saying cut the caffeine out of your life. Just take it easy, and maybe swap your morning’s last cup of java for tea, which contains an amino acid called L-theanine that modulates caffeine’s cortisol-raising effects.[17] 

Prioritize healthy sleep

Limiting your caffeine intake can have a secondary effect of promoting better sleep, a crucial preventive against elevated evening cortisol.[18] Adhering to a sleep schedule, avoiding screen time in bed, and creating a relaxing bedroom environment can help you consistently obtain 7-8 hours of high-quality rest.[19] 

Exercise

Stanford Lifestyle Medicine describes exercise as a “dress rehearsal” for cortisol fluctuations: it not only trains the body to more efficiently return its cortisol levels to baseline after experiencing stress, but also lowers baseline cortisol over time.[20] Both easygoing aerobics and high-intensity interval training are effective options to that end, as is strength training.

Do the things you like

That is, engage in your hobbies. Taking pleasure in the day-to-day helps you ventilate the stress you’ve built up. Indeed, a 2009 study found that people who more frequently participated in enjoyable activities had lower total cortisol levels, as well as lower blood pressure, waist circumference, and body mass index.[21] 

Incorporate mindful activities

We’re talking about activities that require slowing down and self-reflecting. Making art, for example, has successfully reduced cortisol levels to statistically significant degrees in experimental studies.[22] So have journaling and meditation.[23] [24] 

Make a point of being kind to others

It feels good to do good. That’s because performing acts of giving or charity tends to give us a boost of self-esteem and self-worth, which can alleviate much of our daily stress. There’s even a study on this. In 2018, research published in Innovation in Aging indicated that people who volunteered had lower cortisol output on their days of duty compared to other days.[25] 

Supplements for reducing cortisol

On top of everything else, taking the right combination of dietary supplements can help nip cortisol in the bud by softening the impact that stress has on you. 

Earlier, we mentioned L-theanine for its counteraction against caffeine, but even by itself, and especially in 200mg doses, it has a calming effect that may help you deal with your stressors more collectively.[26] 

And there are numerous other supplements with similar or adjacent characteristics:

• Ashwagandha: Ashwagandha is one of the best-known and most widely studied anxiolytics, or anxiety- and stress-reducing substances. Doses of Shoden (the most potent branded ashwagandha extract) as low as 60mg have significantly reduced both cortisol and self-reported stress levels.[27] 
  
  
• Lactium: This branded version of casein hydrolysate, a milk protein, has been shown to decrease serum cortisol levels at doses of 200mg and 300mg.[28]
  
  
• Lemon balm: Commonly used in the branded form Relissa, lemon balm in 400mg doses has led to significant improvements in mood, anxiety, stress, and overall well-being.[29] 
  
  
• Saffron: In 30mg doses, saffron has been capable of reducing depressive symptoms.[30] 
  
  
• Rafuma leaf: In Japanese research, 50mg of the branded rafuma extract Venetron has successfully helped study participants initiate and maintain sleep.[31] 
  
  
• Astaxanthin: In people with depression, 12mg of daily astaxanthin has led to improved sleep.[32] 

Separately sourcing these supplements would hardly be practical. What you want instead is a complex that combines them, along with supporting ingredients, at clinically proven doses. A supplement like Innerbody Labs Sleep Support is a great example: a powerful third-party-tested product that can help you cut stress while gaining quality rest without any next-day grogginess. It contains every one of the ingredients listed above and more, all at clinically relevant doses.

Many of Sleep Support’s ingredients are also found alongside other potent nootropics in Innerbody Labs Focus Support, a cognition-boosting alternative if you’d rather keep a calm, steady focus throughout the day (with a little boost from an espresso’s worth of caffeine).

With some mindful measures on your part, either (or both) of these well-formulated supplements can help you balance your cortisol levels and enjoy a smoother quality of life.