Premium Only Content

5 Foods That Naturally Decrease Cortisol, the Stress Hormone
Managing stress involves a lot of things, a healthy work life balance, good boundaries, sleep, exercise, but changing what you eat can also have a big impact on your stress levels, and that’s because what you eat impacts cortisol levels.
Cortisol is known as the stress hormone, it is part of the activating energizing response in your body, and it triggers the fight or flight response. But it plays a lot of other important roles in your body too. Cortisol helps regulate everything from sleep cycles and inflammation, to blood pressure and blood sugar levels.
Cortisol is released by the adrenal gland in response to a physical threat (like an injury) or a mental threat (like a deadline). Cortisol isn't inherently bad, it’s helpful in the short term, but being exposed to it for too long can lead to a chronic stress response which includes more anxiety, depression, fatigue, inflammation, weight gain, higher blood pressure, a decreased immune system, higher chance of diabetes and heart disease. So you can see how decreasing cortisol can have a big impact on physical and mental health.
When researchers explored how diet impacts cortisol, they found that people on a traditional American diet (high fat, sugar, and carbs) had much higher cortisol levels than people who were eating more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and polyunsaturated fats. An anti-inflammatory diet can counteract the impacts of cortisol.
Inflammation is essentially a low level stress response in the body, your immune system sends out macrophages and cytokines to kill off pathogens, but the side effect is that it also damages healthy tissue and leads to chronic stress on the body. Inflammation also increases intestinal permeability, aka leaky gut, which allows bacteria into the bloodstream and triggers even more inflammation to counter it.
When we eat foods that cause inflammation, we essentially trigger that stress response in the body, but you can choose foods that lower cortisol, inflammation and the stress response. As we go through this list of foods, you may recognize it as having a lot in common with the Mediterranean diet. The Mediterranean diet has been found to be quite effective at decreasing inflammation and it’s been shown to improve mental health.
-
LIVE
SpartakusLIVE
5 hours ago#1 MACHINE Never Stops The GRIND || LAST Stream UNTIL Friday
20,432 watching -
28:36
Afshin Rattansi's Going Underground
1 day agoDoug Bandow: ENORMOUS DAMAGE Done to US’ Reputation Over Gaza, Trump ‘Easily Manipulated’ by Israel
12.9K22 -
2:45:13
Barry Cunningham
11 hours agoCBS CAUGHT AGAIN! CHICAGO A MESS! LISA COOK IS COOKED AND MORE LABOR DAY NEWS!
82.9K40 -
LIVE
StevieTLIVE
5 hours agoMASSIVE Warzone Wins on Labor Day w/ Spartakus
126 watching -
10:46:42
Rallied
12 hours ago $12.73 earnedWarzone Challenges w/ Doc & Bob
177K3 -
3:26:25
Joe Donuts Live
4 hours ago🟢 Lost in Space with My Clones: The Alters Adventure Begins
21.6K -
7:20:22
Dr Disrespect
13 hours ago🔴LIVE - DR DISRESPECT - TRIPLE THREAT CHALLENGE - WINNING AT EVERYTHING
203K12 -
2:35:33
Chrono
6 hours agoBirthday-eve Stream | Helldivers II
18.4K1 -
54:40
BonginoReport
1 day agoLABOR DAY SPECIAL! The Best of Nightly Scroll - Nightly Scroll w/ Hayley Caronia (Ep.124)
119K14 -
2:39:21
Joker Effect
4 hours agoReviewing the downfall of Kick Streaming. Kick streamers welcome to Rumble! Stake bombshell found!
27.9K1