I feel as though I have seen an uptick in (holistic) health folks online talking about the importance of being aware of your cortisol levels. I am incredibly sceptical of holistic medicine, particularly when new ‘levels to track’ seem come out of nowhere, and when the suggested resultant ‘symptoms’ pointed to on social media are so vague so as to apply to basically anyone experiencing the effects of living everyday life.
What is cortisol, what does it do, and is it something doctors rely on as a marker of health? Is there even a way for laypeople to track and target this one variable reliably?
In: Biology
I think the best way to understand cortisol is from an evolutionary standpoint. When you face a threat your body releases two hormones that affect your entire body: adrenaline and cortisol.
Say thousands of years ago you walked into a sleeping bear. You release adrenaline and get a sudden boost of energy to run away. *Adrenaline helps you survive to the next 10 to 60 minutes.*
Then you gained distance from said bear and start releasing cortisol. *Cortisol is there to help you survive the next 8 to 24 hours.* The threat is not immediate anymore but you still need to be prepared in case the bear finds you. Cortisol does several things but here are the probably most important effects:
* Increased wakefulness and alertness: It’s difficult for you to fall asleep, your sleep is light, and you’re woken up easily. When you’re awake it’s hard to focus and you’re easily distracted by external stimuli. All of this serves for you to notice the bear as quickly as you can if it follows you.
* Ramped up immune system: Your body is preparing for infection in case you get injured in an encounter. You release a lot of white blood cells that are usually in reserve into your blood stream.
This response makes sense when you’ve walked into a bear and in this case cortisol levels would, as stated, lower over the next few hours. But there are cases in which your cortisol levels are *constantly* elevated, for example in people with depression, anxiety, and trauma. Then cortisol can cause problems. You can’t rest well because your sleep is impaired. You can’t focus well (when studying, reading, talking to others) because you are on high alert. And because nowadays people usually not injured you have a lot of white blood cells ready to fight but nowhere to go; so instead they’ll attack some of your healthy tissue. This worsens auto-immune diseases like skin problems. A decreased volume of the hippocampus seems to be a frequent consequence, too.
That being said, a lot of laymen online and in real life like to use technical jargon taken from psychiatry and psychology without really understanding the original meaning and then use them in whatever way it suits them. Being aware of the difference is in my opinion very important. From what you’ve described the people you mention might belong to those who don’t have a good understanding of what these words actually entail.
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