Table of Contents
Muscle breakdown due to stress
Muscles are built up by the right training and nutrition. Anabolic processes ensure that available nutrients in the body are used to create new tissue such as muscle mass. To prevent the opposite from happening and proteins in the muscle cells are broken down, catabolism, as a strength athlete you ensure that your body always has enough nutrients. However, your body can enter the catabolic phase despite having eaten enough of the right food. The main cause of this has to do with how the body responds to stress. In the case of acute stress (walking around in the Amsterdam forest, suddenly a lion jumps out of the bushes), it is mainly adrenaline and noradrenaline that ensure increased alertness through accelerated heart rate, lungs expanding, and muscles tensing. Your body goes into a fight or flee mode, ready to fight or flee. However, when the stress is prolonged, there is another process that ensures that your body can release enough energy to deal with this stress. One of the main players in this process is cortisol.What is Cortisol?
When continuous alertness is needed due to chronic stress, a reaction occurs in the so-called hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis). The first step in this process is the production of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) by the hypothalamus. The name of this hormone already indicates that it causes the ‘release’ of the hormone corticotropin, also known as adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). This happens in the pituitary gland. ACTH then ensures that the adrenal cortex produces cortisol. The presence of cortisol finally has an inhibitory effect on the production of CRH, preventing too much cortisol from being produced. The so-called stress hormone cortisol changes some priorities in the body to cope with stress. This mainly happens through gluconeogenesis, the process of creating new glucose, one of the main suppliers of energy. However, this comes at the expense of, among other things, your muscle mass because protein in the muscle cells is broken down for this purpose. Moreover, the increase in glucose leads to an increase in insulin. This can in turn lead to a different distribution of body fat, causing it to accumulate in the abdomen. It can also lead to diabetes. When stress lasts too long, cortisol can become depleted, causing your body to no longer be able to cope with the stress. This can then lead to burnout and emotional exhaustion. At the end of the stress response, another hormone called DHEA plays an important role. This hormone ensures the body’s recovery to its normal state. While cortisol works catabolically and suppresses the immune system, DHEA works anabolically and strengthens the immune system.Less stress means less cortisol
Because prolonged stress is the main cause of elevated cortisol levels, it is obvious that reducing stress contributes to lowering cortisol. Especially since prolonged stress also lowers your testosterone and growth hormone. It is often not or hardly possible to remove the cause of the stress, otherwise you would have already done so. However, there are several ways to reduce stress itself. I will only discuss some of them here, which have been scientifically proven to reduce stress and cortisol.- Meditation. Meditation has been shown in individual studies to lower both stress and cortisol. Meditation lowers heart rate and blood pressure, possibly due to its inhibitory effect on cortisol. Although some practitioners of specific types of methods like transcendental meditation like to show that their type of meditation yields more results, various types of meditation have been shown to have, among other things, cortisol-lowering effects.
- Tai Chi. Sometimes also called moving meditation. Tai Chi lowers cortisol levels, but not heart rate like meditation, and it increases noradrenaline. In this respect, it is more comparable to light physical activity. However, practitioners of Tai Chi often report many subjective experiences of reduced stress through Tai Chi.
- Light physical activity. Cortisol rises with heavy physical activity. However, it decreases with light physical activity. Researchers from the University of North Carolina compared the effect on cortisol during exercise at 40%, 60%, and 80% VO2-max (maximum oxygen uptake). At 40% of the VO2-max, they observed a decrease in cortisol, whereas at the heavier exercise at 60% and 80% of the VO2-max, it increased. A relaxing walk, for example, will lower cortisol, running a marathon will not.
- Relaxing music. If you have a psychologically heavy stressor as a cause of stress, your cortisol rises during and after this stressor. If you listen to relaxing music afterwards, this rise stops, while it can last another half hour in silence. Read more about this in our article: less cortisol and muscle breakdown through music
- Relaxation exercises. American researchers from the University of Southern Mississippi had a group of subjects do a specific type of relaxation exercise and compared it to a control group that just sat still. The specific relaxation exercise is called Abbreviated Progressive Relaxation Training (APRT). In this exercise, muscles are tensed in a lying position in a certain order for 7 seconds followed by 30 seconds of relaxation. In the group that did APRT, cortisol levels halved. In the control group, it increased in the first test and decreased in the second test, but much less than in the APRT group (see image). For an explanation of the order and manner of tensing and relaxing, read here.
Cortisol-lowering diet
Various nutrients can have cortisol-lowering effects. First, I mention the food here. Below you will find many of the active ingredients again under cortisol-lowering supplements. In general, it is important to eat enough protein and complex carbohydrates. Not directly because they have cortisol-lowering effects (carbohydrates have lowering effects, protein has both increasing and decreasing effects), but mainly to ensure that there is less need for conversion of muscle proteins into glucose because there is enough glucose present (carbohydrates) and to ensure sufficient protein and amino acids when conversion by cortisol does occur.- Vegetables and fruits. Due to the variety of different vitamins and minerals, especially vitamin C. (see explanation below under supplements).
- Polyunsaturated fats such as in fatty fish, especially salmon, flaxseed oil, avocados, and certain nuts.
- Complex carbohydrates such as in brown bread, whole grain pasta. Especially immediately after a workout, these can limit the increase in cortisol.
Cortisol-lowering supplements
There are many supplements sold as cortisol-lowering agents. You should be careful with products hyped by the supplement industry, whose effectiveness has only been demonstrated by the manufacturer itself. The following supplements have been shown in independent (as far as possible) studies to lower cortisol:- Vitamin C. As it should be, an old acquaintance and probably already a part of your pillbox for various reasons. One of these reasons is the lowering effect on cortisol, among others. proven in a study where young weightlifters received 1000mg of vitamin C. They did a high-intensity, high-volume training that normally causes your cortisol to rise significantly. In the group that took vitamin C, the cortisol rose significantly less than in the control group.
- Omega-3 fatty acids, fish oil
- Protein. Especially in the morning, protein intake leads to a decrease in cortisol and an increase in testosterone and growth hormone.
Conclusion
It should be clear that this article is not intended to sell you a bunch of supplements to lower your cortisol. The few supplements mentioned are, as it should be, already in your closet for reasons other than cortisol. The same goes for the food. The main point of this article is therefore to deal with stress well and actively fight it.References
- MacLean et al.Effects of the Transcendental Meditation program on adaptive mechanisms: changes in hormone levels and responses to stress after 4 months of practice.
- Sudsuang R. et al. Effect of Buddhist meditation on serum cortisol and total protein levels, blood pressure, pulse rate, lung volume and reaction time. Physiol Behav. 1991 Sep;50(3):543-8.
- Jin P.Changes in heart rate, noradrenaline, cortisol and mood during Tai Chi.J Psychosom Res. 1989;33(2):197-206.
- Khalfa S. et al. Effects of relaxing music on salivary cortisol level after psychological stress. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2003 Nov;999:374-6.
- Pawlow LA, Jones GE.The impact of abbreviated progressive muscle relaxation on salivary cortisol. Biol Psychol. 2002;60(1):1-16.
- Marsit J. et al. Effects of Ascorbic Acid on Serum Cortisol and the Testosterone: Cortisol Ratio in Junior Elite Weightlifters. August 1998;12(3)
