Cortisol cleanse

New #biohacking goal - reduce cortisol. Oh wait I already got a goal for biohacking stress. So I guess this falls under it.

Main functions of cortisol:
- Manages metabolism of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.
- Regulates immune and inflammatory responses.
- Controls sleep/wake cycles, blood pressure, and stress adaptation.
- Increases blood sugar for sustained energy during stress.
- Role in stress: Acts in response to longer-term or ongoing stress. After the initial “fight or flight” burst (from adrenaline), cortisol helps keep the body on alert and provides sustained energy.
- Health note: Chronic high levels can lead to health issues like hypertension, immune suppression, and metabolic problems.

Humble opinion: Dad bods are mostly cortisol-related.

First, the sleep goes sideways because of baby feeding and care-giving during the night. Then stress from the urge to provide, from new roles, new routines, new lifestyle challenges. Usually lifestyle changes come in too - no more exercise, more sedentary. Then poor diet, junk food, late night screen time. More coffee aka adrenaline juice to keep you up and going.

All adding to chronic cortisol levels.

Interestingly, this is not a new insight for me, but as usual I’m just late on the action. Last year on my keto anniversary, I wrote:

The biggest insight was realising that the root causes of my dad bod and health issues were actually more due to chronic stress and anxiety, and sleep deprivation. I was using diet to fix something which it wasn’t meant to fix. Poor tool to problem fit. Diet can only scratch the surface in such situations. Fixing sleep, decompressing stress and resolving issues helped more. But learning how to eat healthily was a helpful life skill nonetheless! One of those “wished I learned this in school” things.

I truly need a cortisol cleanse.

So what I’m going to do:

Less coffee
More sleep
Better sleep
Less stress
More self care
Learn about stress and cortisol
Better stress management