A lot of people think, Oh, I just need to focus on being in fat burning mode all of the time. But actually, that reduces metabolic flexibility. And it also can reduce insulin sensitivity over time. And this is really, really key.
Welcome to the high performance health podcast with your host, Angela Foster, the show where we talk about everything you need to break through limits and achieve a high performance, mind, body and lifestyle.
So in this episode of Bite Size bio hacks, I'm going to be continuing with the theme of optimising Hormonal Health. But specifically, in today's episode, I'm going to be giving you some tips to manage cortisol, so many people I see are struggling with stress and resilience. And I think that if I can give you some actionable steps that you can take away to start minimising stress, but also to understand whether you are under stress and how that might be affecting your body. So one of the leading kind of pioneering researchers in this field is totally Thomas Guilliam's and he categorises four key areas of stress and those are your perceived stress. So how you perceive stress is very important. You may be under a degree of stress, but your perception of it makes a real difference. He also talks about circadian disruption and I think this happens to more of us than we believe. If we are not sleeping well or we're going to bed and waking up at different times. This leads to significant circadian disruption. And circadian disruption is a cause of what we call HPA access dysfunction, which is where your hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis is not functioning correctly. And this can cause all kinds of havoc across the body, if it goes on for a sustained period of time and circadian disruption is key. Now, one of the things that you need to understand is that two consecutive nights of poor disrupted sleep can start to change the pattern of your cortisol production. And cortisol is a stress hormone so you can actually begin to feel quite off just after two nights of circadian disruption. So that's why I encourage people to really think about their sleep maximising their or optimising, should I say their circadian rhythm by getting access to early sunlight during the day, enhancing that production of melatonin, and reducing exposure to light, particularly artificial blue light in the evening, wearing things like blue light blocking glasses, two hours before bedtime and just changing gear bookending your day lowering stress because that sleep and circadian rhythm is really really key in terms of optimising your stress levels. Now the third area is glycemic dysregulation. And I did a bite size bio hack. If you ever listen to podcast episode 156, I talked all about how you can flatten your glucose curve. But you do need to get on top of blood sugar control if you aren't already, because cortisol really interacts with that pathway. And actually, if you're not controlling blood sugar, it's going to be very, very difficult to get your HPA access functioning properly. And this really impacts a number of autoimmune conditions, particularly things like Hashimotos thyroiditis. So really optimising your blood sugar regulation is key in this regard. And then the fourth area he talks about is inflammation. So in last week's bite size bio hacks episode, I talked about removing toxins from your diet, removing inflammatory foods, and also the effects that toxic thoughts can have in terms of our stress levels as well. So go back and have a listen to that if you haven't already. But those are really the four key areas. And often, we think of all we hear about things like adrenal fatigue, and that that's the issue in reality, stress and HPA dysfunction is more often a problem with the brain than it is the adrenals. And really, your brain is trying to protect you and keep you healthy. And Thomas Guilliams talks about this concept of naps in relation to stress, which stands for novelty, unpredictability, threat, and a sense of no control. And I think it's fair to say that most of us recognise when we feel under stress, and we don't feel there's anything that we can do about it, the situation becomes eminently more stressful because we've lost that sense of agency and self control. And so actually getting help in those situations, whether that's through a health professional, a coach, a psychologist, psychotherapist, a friend, anyone that can really help you gain control over that situation is already going to help to start reducing that stress. And so that first stage really is acceptance. So really, what we want to do when we're looking at cortisol is to optimise those four key areas. So we need to keep inflammation low. We want to get really good quality sleep and actually just by getting that sleep and optimising your circadian rhythm will really really help you to feel less stress because there's a double feedback mechanism there, getting our blood sugar under control, and as I say, Episode 156 I talked about ways that you can flatten the glucose curve. Another really good episode on this to listen to is Episode 122, which was with Anttonni Aniebonam who is the founder of Veri and we talked about out all the data that they've learned from working with 1000s and 1000s of users in terms of continuous blood glucose monitoring, and the types of foods that we are most likely to see glucose spikes in. And you'll hear about how both Antonni and I found that bananas make our blood sugar, go bananas. And that Sushi was the number one food for causing spikes for the most number of people. So that's a really interesting episode that you can go and have a listen to. And if you want to try out a CGM device, he also shared a discount code, which I think is bit.ly/getveri20. And that will give you 20% off if you want to try it. Things like the lumen device that I've talked about previously, as well can be really, really helpful, because lumen can help you understand how your, whether you're transitioning between burning fats, or burning carbs. And really, we want to be able to move between the two as well, that's a really important thing. A lot of people think, Oh, I just need to focus on being in fat burning mode all of the time. But actually, that reduces metabolic flexibility. And it also can reduce insulin sensitivity over time. And this is really, really key. And if you listen to the podcasts that I have recorded recently with Dr Will Bulsiewicz, you'll learn about this concept of lipo toxicity, and how actually being on a very low carb diet and a ketogenic diet all of the time, can actually lead to things like increased insulin resistance. So that's really interesting. So I highly recommend you listen to those episodes on that as well. And something to think about here is if you are in a permanent state of ketosis, you may be raising cortisol levels without knowing, because your body is really looking to generate that glucose itself through a process known as gluconeogenesis. And to do that it relies on the cortisol rhythm. And that's because the brain likes to function on glucose, yes, it can function some function on ketones. But as I've been explaining, it can be that if you are in a state of ketosis on a constant basis, for some people, this can cause stress within the body. And so what I will say is actually, it's better to cycle in and out of ketosis. And it seems to be best to do that on a daily basis. So by including some carbohydrates in your evening meal, if you have been in state of ketosis all day, and that could be for a variety of reasons. Because you find that your concentration is better, you find that you're, you have a leaner, healthier body composition, when you're using fats predominantly as a fuel, then what I would say to you is to have some carbohydrates in the evening, because this can help with sleep. Because if you're utilising cortisol in the evening, to generate carbohydrates, that's going to interfere with the production of melatonin, which can interfere with sleep. And also Melatonin is a very powerful antioxidant. So that's something to think about as well. The other things with cortisol really, is to think about exercise, whether you're under exercising or over exercising, there is a very much a Goldilocks effect, with exercise. And you can test for these things. So you can if you feel like you've been under pressure for a long time, and under a sustained period of stress, the body isn't really designed to deal with that. So it's designed to deal with stress in the short term. And in that situation, not only will cortisol rise, which is anti inflammatory, and that's really in response to the production of more adrenaline and noradrenaline. And that's there to kind of power your muscles and help you sense less pain. So you can actually flee from that threat, or fight if you need to. But in that situation, generally DHEA, which is an anabolic hormone will also rise to keep up with cortisol production. But that's when you're stressed for a short period of time. What's happening to many people in modern life is that they're actually under this relentless stress over time, and that can cause problems because the body can start to defend itself. And you can see reductions in DHEA. And if DHEA is reduced, because that's an anabolic hormone, and then you've got high cortisol alongside it that can be quite catabolic in nature. And you might find that you're aware of these things, because you would see things like for example, reduced lean mass in the body, so you've got less muscle tissue, you might find that you've got this weight gain that's going on around the abdominal area that you've never had before. And that's a really good indicator that you're either not managing your blood sugar, or not managing cortisol or likelihood because of how you now know how those two things interact, that you're not actually managing both. So you really need to look into that one of my favourite tests for doing this because it also tests your melatonin, your sex hormones in terms of oestrogen, progesterone, testosterone and DHEA. Alongside cortisol is the Dutch test. And for people who have trouble sleeping at night, using a urine only test can be quite a good thing because you can get a measure during the night if you wake up. But for people who are waking out really, really wide in the morning, or they're feeling quite stressed all day, then I like to use the Dutch plus tests because that actually shows us what your cortisol awakening response is in the morning and we should see a nice healthy spike in the morning that helps you get out of bed. And so that's one of my preferred tests. I will link to resources for all of the things that I'm talking about in the show notes below this podcast so you can have a look. They're just thinking about stress and cortisol to give you some things that you can look into If you want to reduce cortisol levels, if you've been under stress, I would first recommend checking out what your cortisol rhythm is with something like the Dutch test, because we can see for different presentations. So what we may see is we may see that metabolise cortisol, which is your overall production for the day is high. And that free cortisol is also high, and that's only around one to three, maybe up to 5% of your cortisol production is freely available, because it gets bound up to protect your your tissues. And so we can look at both those things to see are they both high, and if they're both high, and DHEA is also high, it looks like you're basically dealing with a stressful situation in your life currently at this moment, which as I say, we're designed to do, but if that continues over any length of time, then we can start to see discordant patterns. So we can see things where overall production may be high, for example, that freely available cortisol is actually lower, and that means that the body is making less cortisol available to you. In that syrup situation, you've
got faster clearance, we may see that overall metabolise cortisol is low, but freely available, cortisol is actually high. And in this situation, then what we're having is more sluggish clearance. And then if you've been stressed for a very long period of time, we may see that actually both levels are low. So free cortisol is low and metabolise cortisol. And this can be a really, really big struggle when you're in that situation. So I'd highly recommend that you get these things checked out, first of all, but if you are somebody who is dealing with a very high stress situation at the moment, currently, and you maybe have high free cortisol and high metabolise cortisol, and actually something like Phosphatidylcholine is a really good supplement to take. And I like the one actually by body bio, because it contains Phosphatidylcholine and Phosphatidylserine. And you can take that multiple times during the day really just to help to control the HPA axis. The other things that can be really helpful are adaptogenic herbs, you can use a combination of things like rhodiola, which is more stimulatory with ashwaganda. ashwaganda is actually amazing for lowering stress, but also helping with blood sugar control. If you think that you've got issues with blood sugar, you do definitely want to be looking at your diet. But also you can consider things like Berberine, or chromium, which can help with blood glucose stability, Biooptimizers also have a really good product, blood sugar breakthrough as well. So I'll link to that in the show notes as well. The other things that you want to be thinking about, in addition to taking supplements is really just spending time relaxing in your day, maybe having a warm bath before bed, taking time out to go for a walk, not just constantly being on the go all of the time, because these things can just contribute to more and more stress. And you're never going to supplement your way out of HPA access dysfunction, you're actually going to have to take lifestyle steps to do that. If you want to see where you are, as you know, each week at the moment, I'm going through my shift protocol for health optimization, and taking you through each of the steps and at the moment we're on hormones. This week, we've been talking all about cortisol, I will be covering sets hormones in the upcoming boxers bio hacks podcast. But if you want to get an overview on where you are with shift so that sleep hormones, insights, fueling your body and training your body and mind then you can go and take a free health check over at your total health check.com. And we will send you a free personalised report with your scores on each area and actionable tips that you can take to start improving the areas that really matter the most for you. So that is your total health check.com And I'll also link to everything else that I've talked about in this episode of Bite Size bio hacks in the show notes so you can access them there. Thanks again for listening. I will see you on next week's episode of Bite Size Biohacks.
Thanks for listening. Remember to review and subscribe. You can grab the show notes, the resources and highlights of everything Angela mentioned over at Angela Foster performance.com You can also snatch up plenty of other goodies including the highly helpful Angela recommends page which is a list of everything she personally recommend to optimise your mind, body and lifestyle
