Hello everyone welcome back to Fit Buddy Happy Joints. My name is Shannon. Today I want to talk about how to balance exercise and cortisol.

If you're someone who feels like you may have an imbalance of stress and recovery or if you're just curious if this applies to you I want you to listen to this episode

We'll talk about the effects of cortisol and how cortisol is actually a good thing in the right amounts

Then we'll talk about the symptoms if you have an

imbalance, what forms of exercise elevate cortisol more or less, how to restructure your exercise routine

to strike a better balance in order to ultimately feel better and see better results.

So first of all, what is cortisol?

Cortizol is a hormone related to stress.

When we perceive stress, the brain initiates

a cascade of events and eventually releases cortisol.

cortisol, among other hormones,

prepares your body for fight or flight.

So it prepares your body for an emergency situation.

And this triggers the sympathetic nervous system.

Cortisol pulls glucose out of... the sympathetic nervous system.

Cortizol pulls glucose out of the liver so that there's fuel for your body to run or fight.

Cortizol will also do things like sharpen your attention and your decision making so that you can work your way through a stressful situation.

Cortizol also inhibits processes that are non-essential for survival like digestion,

reproduction, and immunity. All of these are related to the parasympathetic nervous system.

So cortisol is related to sympathetic nervous system,

which tends to inhibit the parasympathetic nervous system when cortisol is released.

From a hormonal level, exercise increases cortisol and this is more or less unavoidable

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