Cortisol and Anxiety: The Body’s Response to Stress

Anxiety is emotional, mental, and physical. Those tense, jittery sensations people associate with anxiety are driven by the body’s built-in systems designed to protect us from danger.

Your adrenal glands and the cortisol they produce are key players in those protective systems.

The Adrenal Glands and the Stress Response

Anxiety is intense fear. Fear’s message to you is, “Danger!” That message can activate the fight-or-flight stress response. And that will get your adrenal glands involved.

When you perceive a threat, the adrenals release several key hormones:

• Adrenaline (aka adrenalin or epinephrine)

• Noradrenaline (aka noradrenalin or norepinephrine)

• Cortisol

These hormones tell your body and brain what to do next. They boost your fight responses or prep you to make a speedy getaway, and they suppress other body functions that aren’t necessary for high-level protective maneuvers.

Adrenaline and noradrenaline are the first-wave threat response team.  They exert their force in a flash: your heart rate increases, you become hyper-alert, your digestion slows down, and your blood sugar goes up. You might recognize these as physical symptoms that accompany anxiety.  

Cortisol is the second-wave responder, keeping some of these reactions going and changing others to help you deal with prolonged stress. It impacts when the stress response will be turned off.  

Cortisol: The Primary Stress Hormone

Cortisol is considered the primary stress hormone. It helps you deal with stressors of all kinds, from noise to infections and toxic chemicals to psychological stresses. 

In healthy conditions, your cortisol ebbs and flows throughout the day. It goes up in the morning so you feel perky and down at night so you feel relaxed in preparation for sleep. It spikes in response to emergencies and then stands down when the emergency passes. 

Cortisol can be extremely helpful when you encounter a stressor. It focuses your physical forces away from unnecessary functions and toward dealing with the threat. Cortisol can help you battle the lion at the cave door or be “on” for a speech.  

Cortisol also acts as an anti-inflammatory agent. (That’s why doctors give cortisone shots to fight inflammation.) When your adrenal glands are clicking along producing healthy amounts of cortisol, it can reduce the likelihood you’ll get any of the myriad of illnesses that inflammation causes, contributes to, or exacerbates.  

In a healthy response to a threat, cortisol:

• Mobilizes fats and glucose to increase energy

• Suppresses immune response temporarily

• Decreases inflammation

• Increases heart rate and blood pressure

• Reduces the perception of pain

• Suppresses growth and reproduction

The Cortisol Burst Downside

The cortisol-boosted extra energy for making a quick escape or attack is all well and good when there is an acute threat to your safety or even something you need to be alert to deal with. 

However, it can also propel overreactions that overwhelm you or wear you out, or fuel anger and have you saying and doing things that cause damage. 

Help for Calming Your Body and Mind's Response to Stress

Ideally, we save the cortisol for when it's needed and set our body and mind up to handle lesser stressors in a more relaxed way. That's where I come in. 

I take a holistic approach to working with anxious clients, exploring changes that may improve mental and emotional stress resilience, as well as those that address the physical aspects of stress. And I've published books that tackle anxiety from both these angles. 

Feed Your Calm: Anti-Anxiety Anti-Stress Diet and Supplement Tips for Stress Resilience focuses on the biology of anxiety. It explores the physical mechanisms involved in the stress response — from adrenal hormones and nerve cells to neurotransmitters, inflammation, and gut bacteria — and examines what research says helps or hinders your body’s ability to recover from stress.

Becoming Calm: Silver Lining Anxiety and Stress Resilience Workbook and Journal explains the emotional and psychological aspects of anxiety, provides step-by-step exercises, and practical tips and techniques for anxiety relief. 

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