The hormone that’s likely wreaking the most havoc on your health

Hormones are communicators/signallers. They’re telling specific things in your body to kick into gear or not kick into gear, and the hormonal systems are interconnected in many ways.

The one that has the biggest systemic impact on every area of the body is cortisol - the stress hormone. Your body’s number 1 goal is to survive.  So if it feels like there’s a threat to that survival - it will make cortisol and will prioritize its parts that are needed to survive.

Brain Health & Stress Management:

Our brain doesn't know the difference between the stress of running away from a tiger, receiving a stressful email, or running out the door in a hurry. It makes cortisol in all of these situations. Cortisol causes our body to go into the fight or flight mode or freeze mode, sending blood and oxygen to our brain, heart, muscles, and lungs so we can run away from a tiger.

Digestion:

Digestion does not keep us alive in an acute emergency and so when we’re stressed it can speed up to clear things out so we can prioritize other areas of function, or it can shut down and slow things down digestively.

Menstrual Health:

We’ll notice stress can impact menstrual cycles - your body may feel like it has inadequate resources to support ovulation/pregnancy. Stress will exacerbate premenstrual concerns, menstrual pain, polycystic ovarian syndrome and many other menstrual related conditions.

Hair Health:

We’ll also notice impacts on hair health. Hair doesn’t keep you alive so if there is a lot going on, or inadequate resources available, it will go into telogen effluvium and start to shed so our body can prioritize other ‘more important things that are needed for our survival’.  

Sleep Health:

Stress is one of the biggest contributors to insomnia as well.  Cortisol spiking during the night can cause wakefulness and impact sleep quality.  

To move the needle on your health and support your digestion, sleep, menstrual cycles, hair/skin health, etc. we need to be looking at cortisol! 

I often say to patients - cortisol/nervous system is king, if our plan is stressing you out, we need to put together a new plan that feels feasible!