One of the first steps to overcoming stress is understanding how it affects your body on a chemical level. Stress isn’t just a feeling: it’s a series of changes to your body and mind brought on by the release of certain chemicals into your body.

One of the main chemicals, or hormones, involved in stress is cortisol. Understanding exactly what cortisol does enables you to take specific steps to counteract the negative side effects it can create.

What is cortisol?

When we feel stressed, anxious or under threat, the brain tells our adrenal glands to release several different hormones in response. Cortisol, known as the stress hormone, is one of them, along with adrenaline and noradrenaline.

These hormones are responsible for the fight or flight response: getting the body ready to confront or escape from whatever it is that’s making us feel unsafe. When released into the bloodstream, cortisol has the following effects:

● Our metabolism speeds up
● Blood pressure and blood sugar levels rise
● Non life-or-death functions in the body such as digestion, reproduction and growth, are slowed down
● Our heart rate increases
● Increased energy and focus

All of these changes help us feel more alert, have more available energy and make it easier for us to respond to threatening situations.

What happens when cortisol levels get too high?

If we’re successfully able to deal with the source of stress, then cortisol levels should drop back down to normal within about half an hour. If so, we suffer no long-term effects from the fight or flight response having been activated.

The problem is, it isn’t always easy to deal with the source of stress within a half-hour window. In the early days of human history, threats were very immediate: a predator, a rival tribe, or a natural hazard all require an immediate response, but how do you deal with the feeling of threat caused by an unpaid bill, or an email telling you your boss wants to see you at the end of the day?

When we’re bombarded with these low-level threats on a long-term basis, cortisol levels can remain high. We get stuck in fight or flight mode and spend our days feeling like our very existence is at stake.

All of the beneficial changes brought on by cortisol outlined above are great for helping us deal with short-term challenges, but really get in the way of normal functioning if left unchecked for too long.

Long-term effects of elevated cortisol include:

Mental effects:

● Inability to switch off from or control anxious thoughts
● Increased risk of depression
● Low mood
● Feeling constantly tense and jumpy
● Poor memory and learning ability
● Difficulty concentrating

Over time, cortisol buildup caused by chronic stress can permanently age the brain, making it less able to adapt and causing the fight or flight response to become overactive.

Physical effects:

● Difficulty sleeping
● High blood pressure, leading to increased risk of cardiovascular problems
● Gut and digestion problems such as IBS
● Weight gain
● Headaches
● Muscle tension

How to lower cortisol (and stress) levels

Luckily, dealing with the source of stress isn’t the only way to get cortisol back down to healthy levels. There are various ways you can perform a ‘manual reset’ and prevent a harmful buildup of cortisol. Some of the most effective methods are:

Exercise: exercise has a huge range of benefits to your physical and mental health. Of particular importance is the way that getting your body moving actively breaks down stress chemicals, including cortisol.

It’s important to note that we’re talking about mild or moderate exercise here. A high-intensity workout will be considered a stressful situation by the body, leading to an increase in cortisol rather than a drop-off. So to better manage your stress levels we recommend gentle aerobic exercises such as jogging, cycling, or swimming.

Prioritise good quality rest: cortisol plays a key role in maintaining our sleep-wake cycle. High levels can make it difficult to switch off at night, but a good night’s rest inhibits cortisol production, making it especially important to find ways of relaxing and unwinding in the evening.

So how can you ensure you get a good night of rest, even when stressed? The trick is creating a relaxing evening routine that gives your body and mind plenty of time to unwind from the stress of the day. Set clear boundaries on work, minimise your screen time and fill your evening with calming activities like reading, yoga or a nice relaxing bath.

Cut down on the caffeine: coffee might be the go-to means of coping when you’re tired and need to focus, but too much caffeine can also stimulate the release of cortisol in exactly the same way stress does. And so, just like the fight or flight response, caffeine gives you a temporary boost to your energy and processing power, which soon translates into feeling twitchy, irritable and unable to relax.

Now, you don’t need to go totally caffeine-free. Limiting yourself to one or two cups of coffee in a morning strikes a good balance between perking you up in the morning and preventing too much cortisol buildup during the day. Limiting your intake to this level also ensures all caffeine has left your system by bedtime, helping you sleep better.

Practice deep breathing: when we’re stressed we tend to breathe in short, shallow gasps. Deliberately slowing down and deepening your breathing activates the vagus nerve— one of the main connections between our brain and our digestive system. Activating this connection calms down the fight or flight response and restores an optimal balance between the body’s different resting processes. Cortisol levels naturally drop as a result and we feel much calmer.

There are plenty of great breathing exercises out there, but you don’t need to over-complicate it. This simple exercise, known as 4-7-8 breathing, is proven to help reduce fight or flight activation and promote relaxation:

1. Fully empty your lungs of air
2. Breathe in quietly through the nose for four seconds
3. Hold your breath for a count of seven seconds
4. Exhale forcefully through the mouth, pursing the lips and making a “whoosh” sound, for eight seconds
5. Repeat this cycle four times

Laugh: finally, you might be surprised to learn that there’s some truth to the old saying that laughter is the best medicine. Laughing releases feel-good endorphins and blocks the release of cortisol, helping elevate your mood and counteract harmful stress buildup.

Interestingly, the effects are the same whether you are genuinely laughing or forcing it. So even if you’re stressed to the eyeballs and can’t find any good reason to laugh, putting it on can still help you feel better. Or there’s always the option of finding some funny cat videos online if you prefer the real thing.