What Is So Important About The Stress Hormone Cortisol?

Cortisol is actually a key hormone in your body and regulates many of the daily processes; these include your immune response and your metabolism.

It is important to be aware that your body is a complex piece of machinery. There are thousands of different chemical processes which are carried out every day, disrupting even one of these can make a difference to your health.

Unfortunately, cortisol can disrupt nearly all of them! There is a good reason for this but, what really makes cortisol so important is modern society!

Stress

In times of stress your body releases the hormone cortisol. It has one predominant purpose, to prepare your body for a fight or to run away.

This is a primitive response but an essential one; in a life threatening situation you need to either run, or fight, potentially to the death.

The release of cortisol prevents many of your normal chemical processes from working. All available energy is redirected to your muscles; ready for action. Your body will also stock up on fat reserves, making you hungry; this is to help you survive if you have to flee.

The problem is that when your normal processes are prevented from working you’ll find there are drops in key chemicals. Men will notice a drop in testosterone. In fact, it is worth having your testosterone levels checked regularly by a reputable firm. A quick search online will reveal a number of hormone test providers, testochecker is one which works hard to get you fast results.

How Modern Life Affects This Process

Releasing cortisol in a life or death situation is essential and the prevention of your normal process is acceptable. However, this is supposed to be a short term thing and your hormone levels will return to normal.

The problem is that your body doesn’t know the difference between an armed robbery which threatens your life and a stressful meeting at the office. Cortisol is released in both situations.

In short, your body is stressed the majority of the time and the result is an inability for your body to perform correctly.

The real reason cortisol is so important is that it prevents your body from working normally.

Dealing With Stress

There are many techniques for dealing with and limiting stress. Of course you can’t simply avoid stress altogether but you can choose moments to completely de-stress.

Yoga, physical exercise and even reading can all help to take your mind away from the stress of modern life. In fact any activity that you enjoy will enable you to put your worries aside and allow you to de-stress.

To ensure that your approach is effective it is advisable to have regular hormone tests. This will help you to detect any issues in your body while making sure that your cortisol levels are right.

Cortisol has an important role to play in your body but it must be in the right context. You need to monitor your hormone levels and periodically reduce your stress to ensure you retain the best possible health.

This is a guest blog entry.