FOOD - stress Can what we eat help ease stress?
By Prudence Wade, PA Motoring
We’ve all heard about adrenaline – the hormone your body produces when you find yourself in a stressful situation – but what about cortisol?
“Put simply, it’s one of the stress hormones,” explains registered nutritionist Angela Dowden, who places it “in the same category” as adrenaline.
“We’re meant to produce it, it is produced in a daily pattern.We produce a lot when we wake up in the morning, so it gears us up to the day. Production should then slow over the period of the day, with fluctuations here and there.”
Cortisol is produced in response to stress, so if you find yourself spinning out, you might see a spike in your levels – and food can have a potential impact on this.
“It’s really good to be aware and think about what stress might be doing to you, and how you could eat to make sure that your cortisol and stress levels are a little bit more in balance,” Warwickshire-based Dowden, 58, says – but she also warns:“I’m not wanting people to be obsessed by it”, particularly as there are so many other factors which can affect your stress levels.
Still, Dowden suggests it’s beneficial “having a general awareness that there is this hormone, it does this every day. It should go up, it should go down, and your levels can
be impacted by stress. Being aware of that and adjusting your diet to be healthier is not a bad thing at all.” Other things that can help with stress – and therefore potentially cortisol levels – according to Dowden, include exercising, getting outside in green spaces and practising meditation or mindfulness. But food can help – and her new cookbook,The Cortisol Fix Recipe Book, includes a range of dishes aimed towards healthy eating, with a particular focus on cortisol- balancing ingredients.
So, what are the key ways you can keep your cortisol levels in check?
Champion plants
“What you need to do to keep your cortisol levels healthy and your other hormones healthy is basically the same as healthy eating,” advises Dowden.
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