What is Cortisol?

The glucocorticoid hormone cortisol is produced and released by your adrenal glands.

Hormones are substances that communicate with your organs, skin, muscles, and other tissues through your bloodstream to regulate various bodily activities. Your body receives these messages and knows what to do and when.

Within the class of steroid hormones are glucocorticoids. They regulate metabolism in your muscles, fat, liver, and bones while reducing inflammation in all of your body’s tissues. Moreover, glucocorticoids impact sleep-wake cycles.

The little, triangle-shaped glands that sit atop each of your two kidneys are called suprarenal glands, or adrenal glands. They belong to the endocrine system in your body.

An important hormone that impacts practically all of your body’s tissues and organs is cortisol. It has a variety of significant responsibilities, such as:

Your body keeps an eye on your cortisol levels all the time in order to keep them stable (homeostasis). Your health may suffer if your cortisol levels are higher or lower than usual.

Cortisol and Stress Management?

Many people refer to cortisol as the “stress hormone.” However, in addition to controlling your body’s stress response, it also performs a variety of vital roles throughout your whole body.

It’s also critical to keep in mind that, in terms of biology, stress comes in many forms, such as:

  • Stress that strikes suddenly and intensely in a brief amount of time is known as acute stress. Situations like narrowly missing an automobile accident or being pursued by an animal can lead to severe stress.
  • Chronic stress: Persistent events that give you tension or irritation can lead to chronic stress, also known as long-term stress. Chronic stress might be brought on, for instance, by a chronic disease or a challenging or demanding work.
  • Traumatic stress: This is the state that results from encountering a potentially fatal situation that makes you feel afraid and powerless. Traumatic stress can be brought on by, among other things, witnessing a violent conflict, a sexual assault, or an extreme meteorological occurrence like a tornado. These experiences may occasionally result in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Any of these forms of stress causes your body to produce cortisol.

What does cortisol do to my body?

Your body’s tissues are almost entirely composed of glucocorticoid receptors. Cortisol can therefore have an impact on almost all of your body’s organ systems, including:

  • Nervous system.
  • Immune system.
  • Cardiovascular system.
  • Respiratory system.
  • Reproductive systems (female and male).
  • Musculoskeletal system.
  • Integumentary system (skin, hair, nails, glands and nerves).

More precisely, cortisol has the following effects on your body:

  • Controlling your body’s stress response: In times of stress, your body may release cortisol in addition to adrenaline and other “fight or flight” hormones to keep you hypervigilant. Furthermore, during stressful times, cortisol causes your liver to produce glucose, or sugar, for quick energy.
  • Controlling metabolism: Cortisol has a role in regulating how your body converts proteins, lipids, and carbs into energy.
  • Reducing inflammation: Cortisol has the ability to temporarily increase immunity by reducing inflammation. On the other hand, if your cortisol levels are high on a regular basis, your body may become accustomed to having excessive cortisol in the blood, which may impair immunity and cause inflammation.
  • Blood pressure regulation: It is unknown how precisely cortisol affects blood pressure in people. On the other hand, low cortisol levels can result in low blood pressure, while excessive cortisol levels can produce high blood pressure.
  • Raising and controlling blood sugar: Normally, cortisol balances the influence of insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, in controlling your blood sugar. Insulin reduces blood sugar, but cortisol raises blood sugar by releasing glucose that has been stored. Chronically elevated cortisol levels have been linked to hyperglycemia, or persistently elevated blood sugar. Type 2 diabetes may result from this.
  • Assisting in regulating your sleep-wake cycle: Normally, your cortisol levels are at their lowest in the evening when you go to bed and at their highest in the morning just before you wake up. This implies that cortisol affects your body’s circadian rhythm and is important for the start of awake.

Adequate quantities of cortisol are essential for survival and the maintenance of several body processes. Your general health may be negatively impacted by persistently high or low cortisol levels.

How does my body control cortisol levels?

Your body uses a complex mechanism to control the amount of cortisol in your blood.

Your pituitary gland, a tiny gland lying beneath your brain, and your hypothalamus, a small part of your brain involved in hormone regulation, control how much cortisol your adrenal glands produce. Your hypothalamus releases corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) in response to a drop in blood cortisol levels. This hormone then instructs your pituitary gland to make adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). Your adrenal glands are then stimulated by ACTH to create and release cortisol.

Your body needs the healthy functioning of your pituitary, adrenal, and hypothalamus glands to maintain normal levels of cortisol.

What causes high levels of cortisol?

  • Cushing’s syndrome, an uncommon illness, is often recognized as having prolonged periods of unusually high cortisol (hypercortisolism). Cushing’s syndrome and elevated cortisol levels can be caused by the following:
  • using high dosages of corticosteroid drugs, such as dexamethasone, prednisone, or prednisolone, to treat other ailments.
  • adrenocorticotropic hormone-producing tumors (ACTH). Usually, your pituitary gland contains them. Rarely, elevated cortisol levels can also result from neuroendocrine tumors in other body areas including the lungs.
  • Excessive development of adrenal tissue (hyperplasia) or malignancies of the adrenal glands result in an overproduction of cortisol.

What are the symptoms of high cortisol levels?

The degree of cortisol elevation determines the symptoms of Cushing’s syndrome. Typical indications and manifestations of elevated cortisol levels consist of:

  • Gaining weight, particularly around the face and tummy.
  • Between your shoulder blades are fatty deposits.
  • Your tummy has wide, purple stretch marks on it.
  • Weakness in the thighs and upper arms muscles.
  • Elevated blood sugar, which frequently progresses to Type 2 diabetes.
  • Elevated blood pressure, or hypertension.
  • Hirsutism, or excessive hair development, in those born with a feminine sex assignment.
  • Fractures and weak bones (osteoporosis).

What causes low levels of cortisol?

  • Adrenal insufficiency is defined as having hypocortisolism, or lower-than-normal cortisol levels. Adrenal insufficiency comes in two flavours: primary and secondary. Adrenal insufficiency can be caused by the following:
  • Primary deficiency of adrenal glands: An autoimmune reaction, in which your immune system targets healthy cells in your adrenal glands for unknown reasons, is the most prevalent cause of primary adrenal insufficiency. We refer to this as Addison’s illness. An infection or blood loss to the tissues (adrenal haemorrhage) can potentially harm your adrenal glands. These circumstances all restrict the generation of cortisol.
  • Secondary adrenal insufficiency: The generation of ACTH may be restricted if you have a pituitary tumour or hypopituitarism, an underactive pituitary gland. Reduced ACTH leads to decreased cortisol production because ACTH tells your adrenal glands to produce cortisol.

When using corticosteroid drugs, you may also have lower-than-normal cortisol levels, particularly if you stop using them abruptly after a prolonged time of usage.

What are the symptoms of low cortisol levels?

Symptoms of lower-than-normal cortisol levels, or adrenal insufficiency, include:

A Note from The Insight Clinic

One important hormone that affects many parts of your body is cortisol. Although you may attempt a number of strategies to reduce stress and, in turn, control your cortisol levels, there are situations in which unusually high or low cortisol levels are beyond your control.

Make sure to get in touch with your family doctor if you encounter signs of either excessive or low cortisol. Physical health issues need to be addressed before pursuing psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy and counselling can help lowering high stress levels in many different ways. Talk to one of our therapists today to learn more about your specific needs.