Unmasking Greatness
Join Fitness/LifeStyle Expert & Mentor Chris Kakouras talk about maximizing your health, business, mindset, and overall life! Let's get better together as I bring on amazing guest to interview and learn from!
Unmasking Greatness
Harnessing Cortisol: Transform Stress into Your Ally for Health and Performance
Unlock the true power of cortisol and boost your health and performance with our latest episode of Unmasking Greatness. Have you ever wondered how the stress hormone—often painted as the villain—could actually be your ally in achieving your fitness goals? Join me, Chris Kakouras, as we explore cortisol's essential role in your daily rhythm and how understanding its cycle can transform stress from a stumbling block into a stepping stone. From balancing work demands to prioritizing your well-being, we dive into how managing this hormone is crucial for busy professionals striving for optimal health.
We also explore the critical importance of self-care, emphasizing the value of activities that bring peace and reflection. Discover how gut health is intertwined with cortisol balance, the impact of dietary choices, and the power of gratitude in achieving mental peace. I'll also share a practical breathing technique designed to help you manage stress and stay present in the moment, offering relief in high-pressure situations. Whether you're seeking health tips or personal growth strategies, this episode is packed with insights that cater to your journey towards a healthier, more balanced life.
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Welcome to Unmasking Greatness. I'm your host, chris Kikoris, a lifestyle fitness coach and mentor. This podcast is about unmasking your greatest potential, finding your purpose and crafting a life worth living. Health and fitness has been the gateway drug to all of my success. My continuous drive to keep learning and surround myself with other high achievers forces me to level up, which has developed my mind to something I never thought was possible. This podcast is here to share what I've learned and continue to learn with all of you. This is your sign to take back control of your health, mindset and personal environment. Strap in as we are recharged and always find value in the show. Please subscribe and share, as we can all get better together. Let's go. What's up, guys? Welcome to another episode of Unmasking Greatness. I'm your host, chris Koukouris, and today I have a little bit of a different episode for you guys, as every once in a while I will have a pre-recording of some sort of talk, and a lot of times they're in-person events or seminars that I do, that I like to get content from and then reshare it with you guys. That couldn't make it, but unfortunately this past week and weekend, I would say, the flu has come through my whole household. So my son, my wife and myself, we all got the bug got the bug, and so with that I didn't have a chance nor could I even really talk much to record you guys something that was beneficial, although I do have something that is quite valuable, I believe. And so, to give you guys a little context, inside of our coaching program, cac Performance, one of our value stacks or one of our layers of accountability is that I do a Zoom support call twice a week. So every Mondays and Thursdays I have a call that everybody can jump on and I try to provide some sort of value for the first 15 to 20 minutes and then after that it's straight Q&A, rapid fire questions. We can dig into their profiles if we need to, which is why I like Zoom so much is because we can. Obviously, I can see people and I can share my screen and show you guys different tools that we use inside of the program and help our clients essentially.
Speaker 1:So this past week we had a hot topic on cortisol, and this will be a topic that you'll probably see me talk about a lot, because I think it is something that is misunderstood and overlooked and this can be a pretty big hinder in you making progress if this is not something that you can regulate. So you know, this whole topic that I'm going to share with you guys is all pretty much all the basics when it comes to cortisol levels and helping you guys understand that cortisol isn't bad. I think that it is, you know, associated with a. You know the stress hormone and it's, you know, bad, bad, bad hormone. You know parasympathetic mode. You know bad, bad, bad hormone. You know parasympathetic mode. You know the whole concept of it just being so negative, and it's not. It becomes bad if it is heightened all the time, if it is not regulated.
Speaker 1:And so I break that down for you inside of this, and I broke it down actually inside of our support call, where, you know, I'm just educating our clients, uh, but if you are somebody that is highly stressed, uh, highly, you know, on a timeframe of just not or not even having time to do anything, uh, you can't. You can't figure things out. You're super like. Sometimes the clarity is just not there. Some days this could be talking to you. I mean, we deal with a lot of busy professionals and sometimes working on underlying issues is what solves the problem. You know, if you are hectic, running frantic, you know on a timeframe all the time, you're not managing it. You're not time blocking, you're not trying to reduce your stress. Um, sometimes those are the things we need to focus on. Me, just throwing you a diet and a workout sometimes can not always be the best first option. Uh, because what also increases stress is you start to overload more on your plate versus reducing some of the things that you need to do or managing them. So if we can get the body to start working with you versus, you know, making it more stressed and fight against you, I think we have a better chance of actually reaching your health and fitness goals.
Speaker 1:So I say that to say this is the intro to the recording. I hope you guys enjoy it and learn something. And if you guys are interested in hearing more about how our coaching program works and how you can work with me one-on-one, shoot me a DM on Instagram at coach underscore CAC or I don't know. I want to say on Apple podcast. There is a way to message me in there, but I think your best option is actually just message me on Instagram, on on the. I'm on there every single day, so I will see your message, just say that you listened to this episode and you just want to learn more about what we do. All right, so enjoy and I'll catch you on the next one, see y'all.
Speaker 1:So cortisol in itself is a daytime hormone again, it's. It's secreted by the adrenals. It's also known as, like aka, the stress hormone. So the reality is cortisol is not bad. Matter of fact, it is needed in the body for optimal health and performance. The goal is not to have minimal cortisol, but to have a healthy rhythm of cortisol production to get the results that you want. So cortisol is essential to your circadian timing system for sleep. You naturally have increased cortisol in the AM, which helps you wake up, get active and enjoy life. Then, as the day goes on, there is a natural reduction bottoming out at the end of the day of the night to set you up for a great sleep. When the flow has peaks and valleys, you can imagine there's times where you're tired and wired, so you can see how this plays a lot into into your sleep as well. So if you're somebody that struggles with sleep, you know this potentially could be one of the things that is affecting you. I can tell you this from personal experience and we'll talk about some symptoms and some things that can help you guys with regulating your your cortisol levels.
Speaker 1:Back when I originally started personal training, my days were long. I was at the gym. Man, I'm about to repeat this? I hope not, but anyways, I'm at the gym at six in the morning and I wouldn't leave till seven. And so first thing in the morning I'm taking a fat burner. It's like 300 milligrams of caffeine. Midday I'm working out, got to have a pre-workout drink another 300 milligrams, and by like four-ish I was having a bang energy drink, which is another 300. I'm at like 900 milligrams of caffeine a day and, just, you know, pushing through.
Speaker 1:I did that for maybe four to six weeks and I started getting really bad anxiety and panic attacks at night and I couldn't tell you why. It was just like this overwhelming uncomfortable feeling. It happened once and I was like oh, is that I? Just? I felt just irregular heartbeat, everything, and I was like what's wrong with me? It just cause it came out of nowhere and it kept happening more frequently and I started to think. I was like what am I doing different in my life that's causing this, you know? And inevitably it came down. It's like I don't normally drink an extra energy drink in the middle of the or at the end of the day and, um, the high levels of caffeine were just burning my adrenals out and so once I basically scaled it back, I didn't cut it off completely, I basically just had it in the morning at 300 milligrams. Um, it slowly faded and I didn't have that anymore.
Speaker 1:So you really like, if you start feeling some of the symptoms we're going to go through, I would really audit your day and look at some of the things that you're doing on a daily and see if there's something that we can just tweak a little bit to potentially just help regulate this. So here's some signs of imbalances of cortisol. Okay, so if you have high cortisol levels all the time, weight gain you know that is probably one of the most common ones. People are gaining weight, they don't know why. So weight gain especially in the face, abdomen, upper back, moon face. So if you start to hold like a lot of water in your face and you get kind of a rounded face, this is considered like a moon face. That could be at high blood pressure If you're checking that hypertension, of course, high blood sugar and this could again lead to type two diabetes, which really gets into more of the nutritional side of things.
Speaker 1:With cortisol, brain fog you just kind of foggy, can't think clearly, mental clarity is not there, muscle weakness, weakness in the upper arms and thighs could potentially be an issue. Acne, obviously. Acne is very hormone driven most of the time, typically with like high estrogen levels, testosterone levels. But that also plays a role with your cortisol right? Something I didn't put in here now that I'm thinking about it is you will hear people take things to help regulate cortisol. So somebody will say, if you've heard of ashwagandha, it is a supplement that you can take that helps with cortisol but increases testosterone. That's what they say is oh, it increases testosterone. That is a uh, a side side effect of regulated cortisol. So ashwagandha doesn't directly increase testosterone. What it's doing is trying to regulate your cortisol, to increase your testosterone levels.
Speaker 1:Um, thinning of the skin, so if you bruise really easily, potentially that could be a reason. Um, irregular uh periods, menstrual menstrual cycles, again could be a possibility of high cortisol levels. If you have too low, staying low all the time kind of makes sense, right? You're going to feel tired. Um, feeling wired and tired at the same time, sugar and salt cravings are a lot higher. You're low libido, so your sex drive is down. Memory problems, you know, difficultly remembering things.
Speaker 1:Foods high in caffeine, added sugars and processed ingredients can increase cortisol levels. So this is why you know, when I talk to you guys and talk to you know people in general, most people, when they want to lose weight, the the the big concept that the surface level is calories. I need to eat in a calorie deficit. Okay, that's very like broad spectrum. But when you start going down narrower, then we're starting to talk about your macro nutrients, right, making sure we're getting the right amount of proteins, carbs and fats, uh, in your portion sizes. And then the next layer down is food quality. Right, you can get carbs from a sweet potato and you can get carbs from, you know, a bag of Skittles. Right, they're not the same, but from a calorie, macro standpoint it is. So this is why it's important to make sure that we understand what we're eating, because that will directly affect the way that you feel day to day.
Speaker 1:Okay, so here's 10 things to help manage cortisol. Just simple steps. There's a lot of things you do, but I've kind of narrowed them down. So first thing would be tried to get roughly around 30 grams of protein for breakfast with an hour waking up. Um, I know a lot of people like the ideas of fasting and things like that. There's a time and place for fasting, for sure, but we wanna get some good protein in first thing in the morning. I mean, you've literally been fasting for seven to eight hours while you're sleeping already. So that's my point of view.
Speaker 1:Um, get some morning sunlight. I don't know about y'all, but when I see the sun in the morning, it wakes me up, it makes me feel good. So go for a morning walk, you know. Go go outside and just get some natural sunlight. This is a great time as well to just meditate a little bit, and you know meditation doesn't always mean you got to sit. You know crisscross applesauce with your you know fingers out like this, looking like you're a Buddha. You know you can really meditate many different ways. Journaling is a form of meditation, um, but if I was walking and trying to get some sunlight, I do. I love listening to podcasts. My mind just like, really like expands, uh, and especially if I'm getting some natural sunlight in, I just I'm in a good state of mind, a peaceful state, uh, being in the moment. So get some sunlight.
Speaker 1:It is not the same thing as turning the lights on in your in your room. Plan your sleep equals plan to conquer the day. This is like fundamentals of what we teach in our program. You got to have a sleep schedule. You got to have a routine. It's not to say every once in a while that you guys will, you know, go on trips and things happen in life, but in a general sense you should have a normal routine to go to sleep and a normal routine of what time you wake up, and that helps really frame a time that you can start to time block and prioritize what you need to do. You know you want to talk about cortisol and stress. Just wake up when you feel like it. Waking up late, waking up late makes me feel like I'm already behind and I'm trying to catch up all day. So if I wake up just a little earlier 30 minutes, an hour earlier I have time to just kind of ease into things and progress. And you know when you're planning your sleep, I'm sure you're planning your day as well. So make sure that you are regulating your sleep to get some good quality sleep too.
Speaker 1:You got to have time for hobbies that bring you in the moment. This really goes back to, you know, like going on a walk, playing golf, I think. If you love golf and like playing golf, go play golf. If you like, skating, if you like, I mean the gym. For me that's kind of a hobby, I guess as well, but something that just takes you away from every day, that you can just be focused on yourself. That is something I was actually talking to my sister-in-law this morning about that. I know a lot of people. They want to go to the gym with their friends and have a gym partner.
Speaker 1:I, personally, I don't like working out with people all the time. This is, this is my therapy. This is my time to just be with myself, be with my own thoughts, push myself. So it doesn't mean I like I enjoy once in a while working out with friends because it's just a good time, but in general, that's that's my time, that's me time. So maybe the gym is you time. Uh, I, I encourage you to find whatever that is and and just lean into it and make make that a priority, because that will definitely just bring you some peace in your life and you don't feel like you're always like working on something right.
Speaker 1:Uh, gut health and cortisol balance. Again, this goes back to food high sugars, high caffeines, processed foods, all of this I mean this will definitely do some detriment to your gut health and the microbiome, which will affect a lot of hormones, not just cortisol. So you really want to be mindful of the foods that you are taking in. Some foods that are really good or anything that's like fermented. There's like kimchi, some people do like pickled onions, any sort of like fermented foods, yogurts that will help with some gut health as well and getting that in there. So you can look into some things like that.
Speaker 1:But again, going back to like calories and macronutrients, like sure, that's very calories being very surface level and then diving more into the macros than it goes to food quality, Because, again, if you eat a lot of highly processed foods, if you're eating a lot of junk food, things like that, it will slow down your metabolism. Even if you're getting the right amount of calories in, your body doesn't know how to break it down, so everything just kind of like it holds on to it and it takes longer. You ever see people like on YouTube. They'll get like a bag of Doritos or something and they'll get a torch and they'll like, torch it and nothing happens to it. What do you think is happening in your body? You don't have a torch in there and you got some acid, but there's no, you know, an energy and calories Calories is just a term for an energy expenditure of heat, and we don't have a torch in us. So then, doritos and things that you're eating is not the same.
Speaker 1:Reduce caffeine. You know, I don't think anything's wrong with caffeine. I would. I wouldn't probably consider taking caffeine first thing in the morning. I would try to, you know, wait a couple hours again, cause when you, when you get a caffeine intake definitely like, raises cortisol levels even more, uh, puts a little stress on the adrenals. So you know, be mindful, be mindful of of the caffeine. I don't think it's bad's bad. I still drink pre-workouts and things like that. Kind of rule of thumb for me and most of you guys. We teach is try not to have caffeine after like 1 o'clock in the afternoon, because caffeine has a half-life Meaning that if you have 300 milligrams at lunchtime, you know in a couple hours you still got about 150 milligrams in your body still, and this is where it will.
Speaker 1:People say, oh, I can drink caffeine and go straight to sleep. Yeah, you might be able to go to sleep, but that mind is not asleep. This is very different in the quality of sleep. Is is not getting to where you need to be to release some of those growth hormones and, uh, recover the way that you need to be to release some of those growth hormones and recover the way that you need to if you're staying in the gym. Time blocking this really goes back to like planning your sleep as well. Manage your time. This is the number one stressor I see with everyday people is they don't are the most common ones.
Speaker 1:I don't have time, chris. I don't have time to cook. I don't have time to go to the gym. I don't have time for anything. We prioritize what's important to cook. I don't have time to go to the gym, I don't have time for anything. Uh, we prioritize what's important to us. So if something's important to you, you will manage it.
Speaker 1:We will find time if and I hate to say this, but like this, this may be morbid to some people, but it's like I promise you if you, if you have a dog, and maybe you love that dog, I would assume, since you have a dog and it gets hit by a car and dies, you probably stop in everything that you're doing right now and it would go. You know what I mean. So, like we, maybe you didn't have time, but guess what? You found it, you did it. So you need to make time for yourself, uh, and time for everything else that you have in life. So when you block out these sections, give yourself buffer time, uh, this is going to significantly reduce a lot of the stress that you have in the day, um, and you don't overload yourself. So if you guys haven't gone through the time management trainings that we have, that stuff is gold in there. I mean, if, if there was one thing, one section out of our whole program I would really look at, it would be that I think that is. That has been a game changer for my life, for sure.
Speaker 1:Um, role of gratitude. I know that's a very, uh, generalized term. Obviously I can't spell apparently, but anyways, um, this helps just bring peace of mind, right, you can do it first thing in the morning, you could do it at the end of the day, personal preference, but I think it's important to reflect and think what, what you do have. It's not always about what you don't have or what you're trying to do Like think about things that you have accomplished. You know, when we start talking about everyday people, you know a lot of them just hyper focus on everything that they don't have, the things that they want, the things that they can't have. I mean, we're just prone to really just dig into the negatives. This is also why I don't really I don't watch the news first thing in the morning. Um, it's really depressing and I'm not trying to start my day like that. And also, I'm not going to infect somebody else's life with my negativity when I see them, because if I see something on the news that I feel like is horrible and I share it with someone, well, guess what I did? I just shared that virus with them and that negativity. So your energy is definitely contagious. So be careful where you spend it and what you consume on a daily.
Speaker 1:Lastly, breathing techniques there's tons of them out there. These are things that you can straight up just do in the moment. Anytime you start feeling really, really anxious, anytime you start just getting super stressed, take five minutes and just do some breathing techniques. Uh, there's, there's one where you can um I'm trying to remember off the top, it's like a, and again you're breathing through your stomach. Okay, so you're doing like a seven uh, seven seconds inhale, a four second hold and then, I believe it's a seven second, exhale, just very slow out of the mouth. And you do that. You know five minutes and you will definitely tell a difference in just like your mood and being in the moment Because, again, if you're thinking, I got to breathe in seven seconds, I got to hold it for four seconds, I got to breathe out so many seconds, your mind is now focused on that.
Speaker 1:It's not whatever else you got going on. So it is definitely a great option. If you've never done it, just try it. Just try it. I mean, it's not it's not for everybody, but a lot of people use different breathing techniques to again just kind of ease the mind and just get back in the moment. So sometimes I need to do that when I'm in the car. You know people drive crazy. So, all right, that is that's I wanted to run through this. I really want to make these calls more for you, but again, I do want to give you guys some tips and things to think about. And again, I know this is kind of like bam bam, bam, like a lot of stuff, but really like when I'm explaining certain topics like this, I would, I would probably just grab one thing, like one good solid nugget that I say, and just put some energy into that.