Reduce Cortisol Levels Naturally: Detox Diets to Adaptogens
The modern lifestyles we have are unnaturally stressful on the body and mind. It is no wonder that people are looking for a way to reduce their stress levels. Workplaces have become Victorian in their demands and workers are stressed out to the max. There are record numbers of stressed, depressed and unhappy people out there.
What is cortisol? Cortisol is a natural stress hormone. The hormone Cortisol is released so that your body can cope and react to stressful situations appropriately.
Cortisol is needed to activate certain body cycle patterns and initiate fear responses. This is why Cortisol levels are heightened in the morning and lowest at night. Your body stimulates Cortisol production when you need to do things to survive.
Cortisol can also be naturally produced when your immune system is under attack. This is because your cells are under stress through fighting infection. While cortisol production is natural, excessive cortisol will lead to weight gain. Hormones can have all-sorts of downstream consequences from blood pressure, sugar levels and metabolic rates.
This is why achieving balanced hormones is important to a healthy lifestyle.
Luckily, naturally balancing hormones like Cortisol is something that is quite easy to achieve.
Tips to Reduce Cortisol Levels Naturally
Cortisol Detox Diets
Cortisol detox diets are an excellent way to balance and manage cortisol levels. One could start with managing coffee consumption. Coffee stimulates the production of cortisol. An ideal cortisol detox diet would include removing all inflammatory and highly processed foods. Inflammation will naturally increase your cellular stress levels.
Reducing coffee intake will reduce the active amounts of cortisol circulating and relieve the stress on your glands.
This may take a couple of weeks, but your cortisol levels will rebalance. Reducing cortisol levels naturally is highly dependent on you eating nutrient rich foods.
Examples of these include berries, such as gooseberries and blueberries. According to Harvard Medical School fish such as salmon, tuna and sardines are all very nutrient rich. Certain leafy greens such as spinach are very high in vitamin C, iron and calcium. Many nuts, including Brazil nuts, are high in micronutrients such as selenium or amino acids.
Selenium is an essential antioxidant. Antioxidants are vital to reducing overall body stress, cortisol levels and hormone balance. Fresh and organic foods have a higher micronutrient content these are not only healthier for you but will support healthy hormone production and gland functioning.
Cortisol Detox Diets: Superfoods
If you are looking for a nutrient rich superfood powder then you could try Super Greens by Bioglan. You can stir this into your food or you can try adding this to any smoothies.
Super Greens by Bioglan contains Iodine, Vitamin B12 and Zinc. All are crucial nutrients for the proper function of most of the cells in your body.
You can also try my personal favourite Naturya’s Spirulina Powder. It comes in the packet as a forest green coloured powder full of goodness. Spirulina are cyanobacterium and are also why many plants are green. Rich in manganese, vitamins B1, B2 and iodine, NASA have investigated Spirulina as ideal nutrition for astronauts in space.
Naturya’s Spirulina Powder is very cost effective, easy to transport and very environmentally friendly. Changing your eating habits to include more nutrient dense foods will enable you to reduce your stress levels, cortisol and balance your hormones effectively.
If you were looking for some tailor made diet plans then the ladies at Tone It Up have a couple of recipes for you.
These include avocado and stone fruit salad, chocolate banana protein bars and an adaptogenic coffee alternative mocha drink that contains reishi mushrooms and ashwagandha root.
Reduce Cortisol Levels naturally: Manage Your Water Consumption
One concern about Cortisol is adrenal gland health. Ensuring natural cortisol levels means looking after your adrenal glands amongst other factors.
One way to reduce cortisol levels naturally is to properly manage your consumption of water. Proper clean drinking water and regular water consumption is a massive part of this.
A healthy Pituitary Gland is essential to normal Cortisol secretion. Cortisol is regulated by signals coming from the Pituitary Gland.
If your Pituitary Glands become stressed through a lack of or irregular water consumption, your cortisol levels will spike. This is because your body is trying to tell you to drink water.
Imagine you drink water containing lots of contaminants or substances that need to be filtered in the kidney.
Your body will come under more stress signalling than it normally should do. This leads to hormone imbalances.
Drinking alcohol reduces your ability to uptake nutrients and increases your water requirements. Naturally this is going to negatively impact your cortisol levels and you might want to consider going on a dry January.
Reduce Cortisol Levels Naturally: Adaptogenic Herbs
You can eat or supplement for certain herbs, vitamins and minerals to help regulate and protect your hormonal glands. Some herbs are known more broadly as adaptogens. Most adaptogens work on your glands in some shape or form.
Adaptogens are compounds within herbs or extracts that help to manage your stress levels. They help you to adapt to situations that are stressful. We recently wrote an article on Ashwagandha. Ashwagandha is a powerful adaptogen. Supplementing with Ashwagandha also seems to help relieve stress and calm the body overall. You can read about Ashwagandha here.
Ginkgo Biloba contains powerful antioxidant compounds and is a strong adaptogen. Some examples of these include flavonoids and terpenoids. Flavonoids are also found in green tea and they protect against oxidative cell stress.
Most Ginkgo Biloba supplements are 240 milligrams in strength. They have been shown to reduce anxiety in sufferers and could have positive effects on stress levels. This will most likely be because of the high levels of antioxidants in Ginkgo Biloba extracts.
Ginseng extracts also contain many antioxidants and have been found to lower cortisol levels. Ginseng supresses cortisol production reducing stress levels. Maca root extract also been shown to reduce cortisol levels although this needs to be studied further.
Chamomile has been used for many years as a naturopathic remedy for anxiety and to aid restful sleep. Chamomile helps to regulate cortisol, positively interacting with cytokines to reduce overall stress.
Reduce Cortisol Levels Naturally: Herbal Supplements
There are various supplements you can take with either one or more of active herbal ingredients listed above in.
Veridian’s high potency adaptogen complex is a supplement that contains two different types of Ginseng extract. This is a very high-quality product containing 5 natural adaptogens.
Pukka have a Chamomile, Vanilla and Manuka Honey Tea. This is a particularly useful go to for helping calm the mind before sleep.
Solgar, one of the most recognised supplement brands globally, have an Ashwagandha root extract supplement. You should be able to pick this up at your local natural health store.
Reducing Stress and Cortisol Levels Through Your Actions
A lot of your health is about taking control of your mindset. Making yourself your priority and re-organising your lifestyle.
If you are in bad health or stressing about your health, there are things you can do to prevent worsening health or restore balance in your life.
Sleep
Sleep is another essential lifestyle choice that is key to your health. Adequate sleep helps your glands to rest and recuperate.
Reduce Cortisol Levels Naturally: Immune system
Your immune system also interacts with cortisol. Ensuring you have a diet rich in vitamin C is essential. This can be supplemented or obtained through eating brightly coloured fruits.
10 ultramarathon runners took 500 milligram tablets of vitamin C every day for seven days before running 90 kilometres. Naturally here cortisol levels are going to increase. Vitamin C supplementation reduced cortisol levels dramatically.
This is a complex interaction, but vitamin C is largely involved in immunity and protein production. Vitamin C here likely protects cortisol production through those means.
Cortisol levels spike dramatically after infection. If you want to reduce your cortisol levels, you should ensure your general immunity is high. Vitamin C and zinc, both water soluble, are essential for immunity.
Along with selenium they are essential antioxidants. Therefore, they are vital nutrients assisting with inflammation reduction and cortisol balancing.
Conclusion
Here we have covered reducing cortisol levels naturally. We’ve seen how important adequate water consumption is, how necessary micronutrients are and how small lifestyle changes can positively affect your cortisol levels.
With small steps you can have a big influence on your life and your stress levels.
To see more articles you might enjoy follow the link below.
