The Pendulum of Stress
I have bad news and good news: The bad news: there’s no such thing as a stress-free existence. The good news? There’s no such thing as a stress-free existence! We all need a bit of “good” stress to put some pep in our step!
Without stress cues, the majority of us would most likely spend our existence lounging on our sofa, watching TV, eating potato chips, feeling absolutely useless.
But in reality, having too little stress is not an issue. These days, we are constantly being bombarded with information, and our to do lists are becoming infinitely long (or so it seems), and there’s so much going on in our personal lives and on this planet to worry about, so it’s easy to get caught up in a never ending stress loop. It happens to the best of us.
And remember, healthy cortisol levels are constantly ebbing and flowing. Think of it as a pendulum. Throughout any given day, our cortisol levels will slowly and pretty predictably shift from one end of the pendulum to the other. When something out of the ordinary happens that spikes our stress level, our cortisol pendulum swings over to the “overdrive” side.
Unfortunately for a lot of women in particular, our pendulums get caught in overdrive, and finding equilibrium gets more and more difficult. High cortisol is easily the most common hormonal imbalance among women today, for this reason.
Click here to download the fillable cortisol imbalance questionnaire before moving on!
NOTE: for educational purposes only. This questionnaire is not a diagnostic tool, but rather a tool to facilitate self-reflection.
Can you have both high and low cortisol?
The answer is YES! You can have both, even on the same day. Remember how I mentioned that healthy cortisol levels are constantly shifting throughout the day? If your adrenals are imbalanced, it’s quite common to experience too-high cortisol at night (causing major sleep issues) and too-low cortisol in the morning (hello, coffee dependency!). However, it’s also possible to have overall high daily cortisol levels or overall low cortisol—which is the result of burnout. Check out the chart below to see a normal daily cortisol cycle.
