Easy Ways To Regulate Your Cortisol Levels in the Morning and Have a Stress-Free Day
And that's life: Certain trends and topics of conversation are cyclical, and right now, what we're interested in—given our stressful lifestyles—is lowering cortisol levels. Especially when you live in a big city, leave home in a hurry, and get into a crowded subway car: Frankly, it's hard not to arrive at work stressed, exhausted, and with levels of this tricky hormone skyrocketing. But cortisol is necessary to be able to function and move through the world. As psychologist Brenda de la Peña tells Vogue: 'Every morning when we wake up, our body generates a natural cortisol spike that helps us to get up and running. The challenge here is to keep it stable and sufficient for the whole day, preventing it from spiking more than necessary or staying elevated all the time.'
So: The goal is to keep cortisol stable and regular, but without beating ourselves up about being emotionally stressed. What it is about, says de la Peña, 'is to raise awareness about the tendency to activate the automatic pilot, [which we do to] save cognitive resources. We live our day to day lives in a fairly automated way, exhausting ourselves, and reacting to things that happen around us. In reality we can simply choose to let them pass. Our energy is limited, and stress does not exactly play in our favor.'
'We must establish a strategic and firm commitment to the habit of consciously choosing what we decide to spend it on,' she adds. '[We must] foster a state of inner calm that allows us to listen to what we need. We can make the small day-to-day decisions with a firm and calm attitude, instead of an anxious one.'
What happens when cortisol is high or unstable?
An established and consistent early morning routine is so important for avoiding your cortisol skyrocketing before you even arrive at the office. And if your mornings are chaotic and stressful? You can expect symptoms like constant exhaustion, irritability, pain, muscle tension, digestive problems, or even hair loss as signs of high cortisol levels. These vary from one person to another, but it's what should usually raise the alarm about the need to respond differently to everyday life.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
44 minutes ago
- Fox News
Morning workouts can boost weight loss if one key habit is followed, experts say
Exercising first thing in the morning can be beneficial for mental and physical health. In terms of weight loss, previous research suggests that early morning may be the best time to exercise, according to the CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The research, published in the journal Obesity, recorded the activity levels of 5,285 participants, taking into consideration the time of day they exercised. Those who consistently engaged in morning activity, between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., were found to have a lower risk of obesity than those who were most active in the midday or evening. The morning exercisers also had a lower average BMI (body mass index) and waist size. Certified fitness trainer Alissa Mosca with Planet Fitness in New York agreed that morning workouts are a "great way" to start the day. "When the day begins with a morning workout routine, the body releases multiple different chemicals, which aid in our overall functionality," she told Fox News Digital. "This includes chemicals like endorphins and dopamine, which are the chemicals that make us feel good and help us move forward with positive energy. Additionally, we wake up our muscles, stimulate the brain and prepare to take on the day." Sleep and wellness expert Todd Anderson, co-founder of Dream Performance & Recovery in Nashville, Tennessee, emphasized the importance of striking a healthy balance between exercise and rest. 22The first couple hours of exercise in a week are "insanely impactful," Anderson said — and it doesn't have to be strenuous activity. "Our bodies are meant to move," he said. "Getting two hours of movement or exercise in a week should be very high on the priority list." While it might seem that morning exercise is cutting into sleep time, Anderson pointed out that regular exercise could actually result in a higher quality of slumber. "The sleep you're getting will be more impactful," he said. "Getting two hours of movement or exercise in a week should be very high on the priority list." But for people who hit the gym daily and don't get sufficient shuteye, Anderson said he considers it a "no-brainer" to opt for adequate sleep over an early-morning workout. "When it comes down to body composition and weight loss or just fitness in general, you'll probably have a better outcome from that hour of sleep when you're already at a pretty decent level of activity," he said. "When you sleep, it allows you to respond effectively to the stress from the workouts." Mosca agreed that proper rest and recovery requires seven to eight hours of sleep, which allows the muscles to have the greatest amount of repair and growth. "If someone is going to bed at 12 a.m. to 1 a.m. nightly and then trying to wake up for a 6 a.m. workout, the progress will stall and the effects of the hard work that is put in will take that much longer to come to light," she told Fox News Digital. "Getting on a regular sleep schedule, unwinding earlier, putting the electronics down and focusing on calming the mind will allow someone to recover faster, have more energy in the morning, and release those happy brain chemicals that make us feel accomplished." The trainer stressed that morning workouts are not for everyone, and there are certain factors that can prevent success. For those considering a morning workout, Mosca recommends that they ask themselves the following questions. "Did I get enough sleep the night before?" "How was my nutritional intake?" "Am I overly stressed?" "Do I keep hitting snooze when the alarm goes off?" "If we find that the answers to those questions [aren't] on the positive side, consider an afternoon mini-workout: 15 to 20 minutes after work or on break, to get the muscles moving and stimulated," Mosca suggested as an alternative. "The body adjusts the more that it moves and the more it is in a consistent routine. Taking the right steps to change the routine is crucial, so we don't overload the body all at once." For more Health articles, visit Mosca reiterated that sleep and recovery play a "crucial role" in fitness journey success. "If we shorten the timeframe for our bodies to recover, they will constantly be trying to play catch-up, but never reaching that finish line," she said. "We want to set clear goals and reasonable expectations."
New York Times
44 minutes ago
- New York Times
You Don't Have to Be a Doctor to Understand This
I don't know exactly when I was infected with Ebola. As a doctor in a treatment center in Guinea in 2014, I faced hundreds of potential exposures during the outbreak there. If I had to guess, the virus probably breached my protective gear while my colleagues and I cared for a young woman in the final moments of her battle with the disease. Each time she vomited or soiled herself, we changed her linens, gently laying her listless body back onto clean, burgundy floral sheets. I knew this ritual wouldn't save her life. I also knew it carried substantial personal risk. But I refused to let her die without dignity. I know there are many who would do the same. You may never find yourself in a treatment center halfway across the world, but when suffering is close enough to touch, most of us feel the same human instinct to offer a helping hand, to not turn away. America's leaders are increasingly casting aside empathy and compassionate care as dangerous liabilities. Elon Musk has called empathy 'the fundamental weakness of Western civilization,' and the Trump administration governs as if that is a guiding principle. The growing philosophical backlash against empathy overlooks a deeper truth: America's strength has never come from isolation or indifference, but from an instinct to care beyond our borders. If we allow the Trump administration's assault on empathy to define our global health agenda, or ourselves, we won't just be turning away from the world — we'll be turning away from who we are. The belief that we have a responsibility to others isn't shortsighted sentimentalism; it's the moral foundation of a meaningful life. Historically, the United States has strongly supported — strategically, financially and philosophically — the individuals and organizations carrying out this kind of care. I've worked alongside health care providers responding to crises abroad because they recognize it's where their skills are most meaningful and others who do it because of a spiritual duty to serve the suffering and uphold human dignity. Collectively, we were driven by the conviction that it was the morally right thing to do. The United States government, and perhaps many Americans, no longer view global health in the same way. This is despite the fact that American involvement has helped eradicate smallpox, halved malaria deaths in many countries and prevented an estimated 26 million deaths through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. All told, U.S. global health support saves 3.3 million lives a year — or at least did, before its recent and rapid dismantling. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Standstill nation: America was getting up — then the pandemic sat us back down
Growing up in Harlem, Tazzarie Washington was always strolling to the park to meet with friends or play basketball. His weekdays in class were broken up by walks to various rooms or buildings, to school and back home. In those days 'I was a smaller kid,' Washington tells Yahoo. In 2019, he was 'pretty much active every day.' Then in March of 2020, the pandemic hit the United States. Suddenly, Zoom school replaced Washington's classroom shuffle. COVID lockdowns in New York City meant that going to see friends or play basketball with them in the park was out of the question. 'I really wasn't getting much activity because we couldn't go outside, and the house I was living in was pretty much packed to the brim, so it was hard to even move around there,' says Washington, who was 14 at the time. 'Every day I'd wake up super sluggish, and I just wanted to lay in bed,' he says. With him stuck at home, Washington's physical activity dropped to nearly zero. He was 'borderline depressed' and eating lots of sweets to cope. Over the next year and a half, his weight rose to more than 300 pounds. Washington is among many children, adolescents and adults whose activity levels dropped precipitously when the world effectively shut down. Between 2013 and March of 2020, the average amount of time Americans spent sitting was actually falling, decreasing by more than an hour, according to a recent JAMA research letter. And the share of the U.S. population spending six or more hours sedentary fell from nearly 55% to just over 35%. But the pandemic stopped the trend in its proverbial tracks. It's now been over five years since the pandemic put the world — and us — on pause. Gyms and parks are open again, but some vestiges of that time, like Zoom school and grocery delivery, never left. So where do things stand now? Are we on the move again or still stuck to the couch? We investigated. Experts credit one phrase for much of the trend. In 2014, leading obesity expert Dr. James Levine dubbed sitting 'the new smoking' in a research paper and then a book. He hypothesized that, with smoking prevalence down dramatically, sitting was now killing more people. Being too sedentary for too long raises risks for some of the most common life-threatening diseases in the U.S., including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, certain cancers and death from any cause. So Levine's phrase comparing sitting to smoking got a lot of attention from the press and from Americans themselves, Glenn Gaesser, professor of exercise physiology in the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University, tells Yahoo. But Gaesser and Bethany Barone Gibbs, an epidemiologist who studies physical activity, are not entirely convinced that that attention actually translated to action. Because the subjects of the JAMA study documented their own sedentary time (rather than it being tracked by smartphone or another more accurate device), the experts wonder if the decline in sitting time was real. 'It could hopefully reflect a true population in what people were doing, but at the very least it might reflect an awareness that too much sitting is not good for [people],' driving them to report fewer hours spent sitting on their couch. According to the JAMA report, the average number of hours Americans spent sitting each day stayed about the same even after the world began to reopen. During the period between 2017 and 2020, people were spending 5.9 hours a day sedentary. 'I'm not surprised at all to see that the [declining sedentary time] trend did not continue after the pandemic,' says Barone Gibbs. 'During the initial lockdown period, there was just nothing to do; people couldn't leave their home and sat around a lot.' It's hardly surprising that activity decreased amid lockdowns. But by July 2021, the majority of the country was open with few restrictions, according to the New York Times. By April 2023, the national state of emergency due to COVID was officially declared over. Yet from 2021 to 2023, the amount of time Americans were sedentary remained stable at six hours, the JAMA report suggests. 'I think there have been some behavioral changes in the way that we do things and some technological advances, during work and leisure time, that are contributing to more sitting,' says Barone Gibbs. Zoom school and meetings were the new normal amid lockdowns, but they have stayed the norm for some students — especially those in college and higher education — and white-collar workers. Spending on food delivery shot up amid the pandemic and never fell back down. Office commutes and grocery trips that once represented opportunities for incidental exercise became unnecessary inconveniences, notes Barone Gibbs. It wasn't so much the pandemic but the technology, which became prevalent during lockdowns, that has changed our sitting habits and physical activity, she suspects. There isn't much data about physical activity or sedentary time after 2023 yet. But neither Gaesser nor Barone Gibbs think much has changed since. 'Getting the average time spent sitting below six hours 'is probably not going to be achievable,' says Gaesser. 'We live in a sedentary society where most people's jobs [involve] a lot of sitting.' However, there are some promising signs that people may be getting back to more active lifestyles. In 2024, a record 25% of Americans ages 6 and older belonged to gyms, health clubs or fitness studios, according to data from the Health & Fitness Association. But there's a wrinkle to that good news, says Barone Gibbs: The people who can afford those memberships aren't the ones most at risk of the health problems associated with too much sedentary time. 'The people we're really worried about are the ones who are lower income and don't have flexibility in their job [to find time to work out]; they don't have that kind of luxury,' says Barone Gibbs. It's ultimately a highly personal question. For Washington, it was a personal tragedy that spurred him to change course. Washington's father had multiple health issues, including stomach cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes, he says. When his father died in November 2022, 'it was a wake-up call,' Washington says. 'He had a lot of health problems, and considering my own weight and that I had high blood pressure at the time, I felt like something had to change.' Washington started educating himself about better nutrition. He quit sugar and fatty foods 'cold turkey,' and started hitting the gym two or three times a week, eventually increasing his workouts to six or seven times a week. In less than two years, Washington was down to 180 pounds. 'It was really hard considering that I didn't have many examples when it came to losing weight,' he says. 'After a while, you're able to grasp that fact that you're bettering yourself; once you're ingesting good food and moving around feeling your heart pumping, your sweat dripping and knowing the [excess] fat is slipping away — that's the motivation and the goal.' Experts say it doesn't necessarily take a life-altering event to get moving, but it's important to find your individual motivation and the activities that work for you. For starters, both Barone Gibbs and Gaesser point out that it's not just about sitting less but a matter of moving more. 'If you have a person that is a couch potato and doesn't do any physical activity and you ask what would improve the health of that person: Sit an hour less a day, or increase physical activity to meet the minimum; there's no question that they would have much bigger benefits from physical activity,' Gaesser says. So rather than opt for a standing desk, try to incorporate daily walks into your routine. You don't have to start living at the gym — in fact it's probably more sustainable (and affordable) to just add movement to your day-to-day life, such as walking. Or try taking short breaks from work to do some "exercise snacks." Or maybe you want to unsubscribe from your grocery delivery service and start going to the grocery store. 'Figure out ways to make walking purposeful and meaningful and find ways to get more movement in across the day,' says Barone Gibbs.
