By Dr. Josh Redd, Chiropractic Physician, RedRiver Health and Wellness Center
Cortisol is your body’s main stress hormone and works in your brain to help control mood, motivation, and fear. However, cortisol becomes too high in response to chronic stress.
The first step is to find what is triggering chronic stress. It may be not sleeping enough, a bad relationship, a toxic work environment, or not making time to exercise, meditate, socialize, or engage in other known stress reduction strategies.
However, high cortisol often results from high blood sugar, undiagnosed infections, systemic inflammation, food intolerances, and other metabolic factors.
These must be addressed to lower high cortisol.
Stimulating the vagus nerve will also help you to lower stress and cortisol. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system and calms you down.
Some of the most effective ways to stimulate the vagus nerve include: Ice Baths, gargling water aggressively for 3 minutes, deep breathing exercises, and coffee enemas.
Your diet can play a dramatic role in healthy cortisol levels. If you eat a diet high in sugars, starches, and inflammatory foods, the adrenal glands must overcompensate by producing excess cortisol.
To take the pressure off adrenal function and address high cortisol, focus on a diet that minimizes sugars and processed starches (white rice, breads, pastas, white potatoes, etc.), removes inflammatory foods (gluten and dairy are the two most common), and that emphasizes plenty of veggies and healthy proteins and fats.
If you still can’t calm down your stress after the above, adaptogen herbs and nutritional compounds can minimize the effect of stress on your brain and body. One of the most researched is ashwagandha. Phosphatidylserine is another one and helps balance the cortisol circadian rhythm. We use both of these for a number of our patients when we are working on adrenal health.
To learn more about our services and to schedule a free consultation, please visit redriverhealthandwellness.com. We work with your prescribing physician for optimal results. Do not discontinue medication or hormone replacement therapy without consulting your prescribing physician.