You have many hormones in your body – and cortisol is one of them. This hormone is created by your adrenal glands, which are located at the top of each kidney.

Here’s a quick list of how cortisol helps you every day:

• It gets you out of bed in the morning.
• Cortisol helps keep your blood sugar level in the normal range.
• It makes you run faster when you’re being chased.
• Cortisol gives you super strength, enough to even lift a car off a small child.
• It allows you to do that last set of reps on the leg press in the gym.
• Cortisol also lets you respond appropriately to the bullies at the office or at school.
• It helps you keep your weight stable after eating cake and ice cream.

Your body churns out high levels of cortisol in each of these situations.

Your Adrenals Turn On Cortisol During Stress – But Not Off!

Cortisol is especially critical for helping your body recover from the daily stresses of life. It’s the hormone that enables you to react to stress during the day. The extent that cortisol helps you recover from stresses is an indication of how well your adrenals are doing.

But if you have stress that continues for long periods of time, your cortisol levels go higher and higher, because your adrenal gland don’t stop producing the hormone. The key here is that cortisol production by the adrenals only has an on switch, and stress turns it on.

This doesn’t mean you are necessarily messed up when you go through a period of stress for a few days. Luckily, your nervous system has two parts – one that turns on the adrenal hormone cortisol so you can run away from stress or stand there and fight against it – and another part that helps you calm down and get back to life as usual.

It’s the parasympathetic part of the nervous system that restores you back to normal daily living. The good news is that certain activities will help pull down the high cortisol levels.

What Happens in Your Body When Cortisol is High?

And that’s great because high cortisol is associated with the following:

• belly fat production
• high levels of blood sugar
• inflammation in the body, and in the joints
• frequent fatigue that interferes with you fulfilling your daily responsibilities
• bad moods, including ones that are sometimes uncontrollable
• lack of sleep
• the feeling that you are wiped out

Why Blood Sugar Levels Rise When Cortisol is High

Many people know about the connection between cortisol and belly fat, but not about the link with blood sugar levels. What actually happens is that cortisol raises blood sugar in several different ways. It activates the breakdown of glycogen stores, releasing lots of sugar into the bloodstream. Cortisol also shifts the body’s biochemistry so that new sources of fuel are directed to create more blood sugar. Your body wants to make sure that there is plenty of energy for you during the time of stress – and this requires high blood sugar levels.

Cortisol also interferes with the ability of insulin to get into the muscles and cells. And since insulin’s job is to lower blood sugar levels, blood sugar levels stay high when cortisol is around.

Are Your Cortisol Levels High and are Your Adrenals Fatigued?

Just thinking about how you react in different situations will tell you whether or not your cortisol levels are most likely high.

Check off any of the following that apply to you:

____ When my boss gives me more work, I often think about how impossible it will be to complete it. I’m so wiped out now and can’t imagine taking on one more task.

____ When a stranger cuts in front of me in line at the grocery store or on the highway, I immediately get all riled up.

____ After someone cuts in front of me, it takes me more than 15 minutes to think happy, peaceful thoughts once again.

____ At night, I’m all riled up, thinking about and replaying what happened during the day. It takes me a while to get to sleep.

____ This year, I gained inches around my middle.

____ This year, my muscle mass seemed to decrease and my body gained more fat.

____ My blood sugar levels have been out of control lately and I don’t know why.

____ At my last health check up, my doctor said I had high blood sugar.

____ I’ve been diagnosed with chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia.

How did you do on the quiz? Are you already seeing signs of high cortisol levels?

5 Ways You Can Decrease Your Cortisol Levels

Your reaction to stress is what potentially makes or breaks you. Becoming calm as a pussycat is one of the secrets to long life. High cortisol levels that occur too often will cut years off your life. And who wants to die early? There’s so much more life to experience…

It can take up to 21 days to start a new habit, but the following habits are well worth starting. They will help you switch on your parasympathetic nervous system, and thus relax you. When this occurs, your cortisol levels start to fall.

Here’s the list:

1. Get to bed around 10:30 pm or 11 pm at the latest.

This will reset many of your body’s hormones, plus give you a good night’s rest. When starting this new habit, you may want to do something during the day that tires you out, such as working out more than usual, spending a lot of time outside with your feet in the grass (this sends negative ions up through ion channels in your feet and relaxes the nervous system), or other things you like doing. Then by 10:30 pm, you’ll have no choice but to fall asleep.

2. Eat enough protein during the day.

Many people don’t realize that eating protein will increase your body’s production of growth hormone (GH). GH counteracts high levels of cortisol.

3. Lift weights at the gym.

Bodybuilding is another way to increase GH and thus decrease high cortisol.

4. Get a massage.

This is a quick way to relax, especially when the massage therapist uses certain essential oils such as bergamot, frankincense and myrrh which decrease high cortisol levels.

5. Seriously analyze the friends you are hanging out with.

If your friends are the types that love to start arguments, constantly judge you and pick at you even in jest, it’s stressful and will contribute to high cortisol levels. Start opening up a space in your life for better, more even-keeled friends.

Cortisol – it’s something you can’t live without, yet you have to learn to manage it. And once you do, your life is SO MUCH better as a result.