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Cortisol & Adrenal Function
https://adrenalfatigue.org/cortisol-adrenal-function/
Cortisol is a life sustaining adrenal hormone essential to the maintenance of homeostasis.
Called “the stress hormone,” cortisol influences, regulates or modulates many of the changes that occur in the body in response to stress including, but not limited to:
Blood sugar (glucose) levels
Fat, protein and carbohydrate metabolism to maintain blood glucose (gluconeogenesis)
Immune responses
Anti-inflammatory actions
Blood pressure
Heart and blood vessel tone and contraction
Central nervous system activation
Cortisol levels normally fluctuate throughout the day and night in a circadian rhythm that peaks at about 8 AM and reaches it lowest around 4 AM.
While it is vital to health for the adrenals to secret more cortisol in response to stress, it is also very important that bodily functions and cortisol levels return to normal following a stressful event.
Unfortunately, in our current high-stress culture, the stress response is activated so often that the body does not always have a chance to return to normal.
This can lead to health problems resulting from too much circulating cortisol and/or from too little cortisol if the adrenal glands become chronically fatigued (adrenal fatigue).
Higher and more prolonged levels of circulating cortisol (like those associated with chronic stress) have been shown to have negative effects, such as:
