What is Cortisol? Here’s How it Impacts Your Body When You’re Stressed

What is Cortisol? Here’s How it Impacts Your Body When You’re Stressed More It’s known as the stress hormone—because it rises when you’re on edge and can cause harm if its levels creep off track—but cortisol isn’t always a bad guy. It does so much more than trigger the fight-or-flight response, says Rocio Salas-Whalen, MD, an endocrinologist at New York Endocrinology and clinical instructor at NYU Langone Health. “Cortisol is responsible for carrying out many vital processes in the body every day. We wouldn’t be alive without it.” The key to living well is keeping the hormone in check: “You want your cortisol to follow a certain pattern—it should be high in the morning and dip at night. And it’s even helpful for cortisol to spike when you’re under acute stress,” says Dr. Salas-Whalen. “What you don’t want is your cortisol to stay high for too long because that’s when you start seeing health problems.” More Friend Than Foe When you’re in a good place physically and mentally, cortisol rises and falls in sync with your natural circadian rhythm: In the late-night hours, cortisol will sink to its lowest point (around the same time your melatonin level peaks)—and then ascend, cresting around 8 a.m. That escalation is part of the chemical shift that gets us going in the morning, says Elizabeth Bradley, MD, medical director of the Center for Functional Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. “Cortisol stimulates the liver to convert fat into glucose, which gives you energy,” she explains. Throughout the day, the hormone does several jobs. It helps regulate blood pressure, assists in the formation of new memories, and plays a role in digestion, managing how your body uses protein, fat, and carbs extracted from the foods you eat. Cortisol is even involved in curbing inflammation, says […]

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