How To Reduce Cortisol – 15 Proven Ways To Lower It Immediately!

Just this past week I got my AM cortisol tested and found out that I have very high cortisol. The symptoms I’m experiencing, like fast heart rate and inability to do any work, are horrible…….so, I have been desperately researching what I can do to decrease the high cortisol. I thought for this post I would share what I found, what I am trying, and the things that are helping me right now, hoping that I can help someone or we could share ideas and find out what works best.

Having high cortisol is a common problem that many people have and some don’t even know that cortisol is the reason for their health problems. Fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and unintentional weight gain or loss are just a few of the symptoms. But, having problems with cortisol can also be much more severe. It can stop you in your tracks, affecting your everyday life!

If you have high cortisol, then you have adrenal fatigue. There are 4 stages of adrenal fatigue, ranging from mild to full on adrenal exhaustion and adrenal crisis. 

The worst part is you can go to the doctors with very visible symptoms and they don’t even think of testing cortisol. This is what happened to me. Over the past 4 months, I went to 6 different doctors, the ER, and finally, just this week, a doctor tested my cortisol. Yet, cortisol issues are treatable and it would be best find out as soon as possible if that is the cause of your symptoms so you can take steps to correct it and feel better.

Credit:healthextremist.com

What Is Cortisol?

Cortisol is a hormone made by the adrenal glands which is essential to almost every process in the body and also for maintaining homeostasis. When the body is under stress, it goes into fight or flight response, which activates cells firing and the increase of adrenaline and cortisol. Cortisol increases in response to the stress, but after a while it can’t keep up with the extra effort andbegins to decrease as the body can’t keep up with the demand.

Typically, higher levels of cortisol are seen in the first few beginning stages of adrenal fatigue and in the later stages of adrenal fatigue, the levels drop lower as the adrenals become more exhausted.

Or you could have a variation of both, having too little cortisol at certain times of the day and too much at other times as cortisol levels drastically change throughout the course of the day. This is what I’m suspecting is going on with mine, but I won’t know for sure until I get the results of my 24 hour cortisol test.

Symptoms Of High Cortisol:

• Dizziness
• Lack of energy
• Weight gain or weight loss
• Brain fog
• Crave salt and feel better when you eat something with sugar
• Feel worse in the morning, such as stomachache
• Difficulty sleeping
• Anxiety
• Decreased immune system and slowed wound healing
• Increased blood pressure
• Sweating
• Increased heart rate/palpitations
• Face feels flushed

Symptoms Of Low Cortisol:

• Fatigue
• Dizzy, faint
• Weight gain or weight loss
• Decreased blood pressure
• Difficulty sleeping
• Anxiety, nervousness
• Increased heart rate/palpitations
• Sweating
• Feel “weird”

You may have just a few or many of the symptoms, depending on the person. Many of thesymptoms for high cortisol and low cortisol are the same, so it’s hard to determine which you have without a cortisol test. Based on my symptoms, I was expecting my cortisol to turn out low, but it turned out high. For me, my symptoms currently are: increased heart rate (tachycardia because it’s over 100 bpm), chest pain, dizzy, hungry all the time, sweaty hands and feet, trouble sleeping, fatigue, weight loss (10lbs and can’t gain weight no matter how much I eat), and feeling much worse in the morning and but a little better after lunch. Continue Reading  >> Page 2