HSOS #33: Naturally Balance Cortisol for Better Sleep, Energy, and Hormone Support

Remember when your body shape felt predictable… and then midlife showed up and rewrote the script? Changes in hormones and stress levels can influence cortisol, which affects everything from fat distribution to cravings, sleep, and inflammation. This episode breaks down what cortisol actually does, why it’s necessary for survival, and simple ways women over 40 can support healthier cortisol rhythms through food, movement, sleep, and stress management.

Let’s talk.

Welcome to Her Season of Strength—where women over 40 reclaim their bodies, their energy, and their voices, without apologies. I'm Kim Duffy, registered dietitian, personal trainer, mom, and your biggest hype woman when it comes to aging like you mean it.

This show isn’t about chasing skinny or counting wrinkles. It’s about building real strength: physical, emotional, and hormonal. Each week, I’ll share straight-talking nutrition tips, sustainable fitness strategies, and conversations that help you feel powerful in your skin once again.

Menopause is not an ending, it is only the beginning. This is your season of strength.

Topics Discussed:

• My pear-shaped body growing up
• The midlife waistline surprise
• What cortisol actually does in your body
• Why stress and hormones team up after 40
• Belly fat, cravings, and inflammation
• Sleep disruption and cortisol rhythms
• Can you actually test cortisol?
• Eating enough and balancing meals
• Exercise, recovery, and nervous system resets
• Learning to love a strong, capable midlife body
• Click here to listen to Episode #21: "How You Can Eat More and Still See Fat Loss"

Links & resources for this episode:

Fit After 50+ Program: 8-Week Nutrition Coaching & Strength Program for menopausal women.  Join the interest list today for the best discounts, bonuses and updates about the next program coming Fall of 2026!

Free cheat sheet: "20 Tips to Crushing Menopause"

Join my free weekly newsletter list and get a new high protein recipe sent to your inbox every Thursday. 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi there, and welcome to Her Season of Strength, where women over 40 reclaim their bodies, their energy, and their voices, without apologies. I'm Kim Duffy, registered dietitian, personal trainer, mom, and your biggest hype woman. When it comes to aging like you mean it, this show isn't about chasing skinny or counting wrinkles.

[00:00:20] It's about building real strength, physical, emotional, and hormonal. Each week, I'll share straight talking, nutrition tips, sustainable fitness strategies. And conversations that help you feel powerful in your skin. Once again, menopause isn't an ending. It's only the beginning. This is your season of strength.

[00:00:39] Hello, and welcome back to Her Season of Strength and welcome to the month of March. I'm recording this on March 6th, but it will go out on the 12th and I can't believe it's already March. We blew through this winter season. I'm super excited 'cause the weather up here in Minnesota is starting to get a little bit [00:01:00] warmer.

[00:01:00] It's been a little rainy, gloomy today, but no snow, no ice. I'm okay with that. And I had a birthday earlier this week. I'm officially 55. So thank you for everybody who reached out and wished me a Happy birthday. I appreciate it. So today I wanna tell you a little story about me growing up. I had most what most people would call a pear-shaped body.

[00:01:27] My hips, my thighs were always curvier. They were always a larger part of me. I had a smaller waist and I had a smaller chest, and if I gained weight, it almost always showed up on my, my thighs or my butt. For a long time I just assumed this was my body type, right end of story. But then somewhere in my forties, something started to change.

[00:01:46] I just noticed that my waistline started to get a little wider. My pair, my shape became a little bit less pair and more kinda straight up and down, especially when I started really strength training too, [00:02:00] because I started doing a lot more core work and I know that I was stronger for sure, but I remember thinking what's going on here.

[00:02:06] What I wa you know, I'm not eating much differently. I'm not exercising much differently. I had really bumped up the strength training, so I was like, okay, maybe this is just what it is. But something clear had clearly changed in how my body was storing fat. And if you're a woman over 40, you're listening here, there's a good chance you've noticed something similar because it's very common.

[00:02:28] Maybe you used to, carry weight in your hips and thighs. Now it seems like it's settling more around your midsection and maybe, you're noticing that your jeans waist are, is getting a little bigger. Even though maybe it's fitting you differently in your. Your butt and thighs.

[00:02:44] But the truth is the shift. It's so common during perimenopause and menopause and yes, calories and activity matter, but there's also hormonal changes that are happening that can influence where our bodies are storing fat. And one of those hormones, [00:03:00] which we're gonna talk about today is cortisol. A I wanna touch on.

[00:03:04] What it actually is, how it functions your body, why it's actually helpful and necessary. It's not all a bad thing. And why chronically elevated levels can affect things like, you know how our body stores fat. It can increase inflammation, it can affect our sleep, and it can affect our overall health.

[00:03:23] But most importantly, I wanna talk about just some natural, realistic ways that we can support healthy cortisol levels naturally. First of all, let's talk a little bit about what cortisol is. It's often called a stress hormone. And while that's not wrong, it's a little bit misleading because it's not a villain.

[00:03:42] It's actually a hormone that our bodies need. It's produced by our adrenal glands, which are these little tiny glands that sit on top of our kidney. And it's part of a system called HP Axis. I promise this isn't gonna be a science lesson here. I'm gonna try to make it as easy and simple to understand as [00:04:00] possible, but HPA access stands for hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenal glands.

[00:04:06] And these three parts of your body, actually, they talk, they communicate with each other to constantly regulate our stress responses. And cortisol helps our body do a lot of really important things. It helps to wake us up in the morning. It helps to regulate our blood sugars. It helps to control our inflammation.

[00:04:24] It helps to mobilize energy when our body needs it in a pinch, and it helps us to respond to stress. So cortisol itself is not the problem. In fact, if your body didn't produce cortisol, you literally wouldn't have the energy to get out of bed in the morning. What matters is how much cortisol your body is producing and for how long.

[00:04:45] So under normal circumstances, cortisol follows a super predictable daily rhythm. It's supposed to be highest in the morning, shortly after you wake up, and that rise in cortisol actually helps you to wake up and [00:05:00] gets you moving during the day. And then throughout the day we see those cortisol levels slowly decline, and by evening and bedtime, cortisol should be relatively low so that our bodies can really relax and prepare for sleep.

[00:05:12] So ideally, we want higher cortisol levels in the morning, gradually lowering throughout the day, and lower cortisol at night. But stress can totally disrupt that rhythm. And when stress becomes chronic, even if it's low level stress chronic, our cortisol can stay elevated for longer periods of time. Now, let's add on.

[00:05:36] Hormonal changes. Once you know women become, 40 or so, you might be balancing work responsibilities, family life, possibly caring for aging parents, managing relationships, and dealing with just, all the days, daily demands of life. And you add to that hormonal changes of, perimenopause and menopause.

[00:05:55] And during this time, estrogen and progesterone levels fluctuate and [00:06:00] eventually decline to wear their nil. And those changes, they affect our sleep. They affect our mood stability, they affect our energy levels, and even how sensitive your body is to stress. When sleep gets disrupted and stress levels are high, cortisol can remain elevated more often, and over time, that can really affect several aspects of your health.

[00:06:25] So if you're feeling as your hormones are starting to change, if you're just like, oh my gosh, why do I just feel like I'm always go and having a harder time recovering from the high stress. It's not your imagination, it's definitely, it's what's going on in your body plus that additional stress that's harder for your body to handle as well as it did before.

[00:06:47] Those chronically elevated cortisol levels, they can influence our bodies in a few different ways. One of the things people notice mostly is changes in fat distribution. So cortisol can increase our visceral fat, so that's that fat that we [00:07:00] hold around like our abdomen and around our like vital organs.

[00:07:05] And it can also increase our insulin resistance. And we know you've heard on me talk so many times on other other episodes about how insulin resistance increases. With perimenopause and menopause, we're just less sensitive to insulin. So we can start to see those blood sugars get a little bit more variable.

[00:07:26] And that makes it easier for the body to store fat and harder to access the stored fat for energy. So next thing is high cortisol can also influence our appetite. So when our levels are high, people often experience stronger cravings for sugary or high carb foods. So think about, when you have high stress situations.

[00:07:48] Going on, why is it that you seem to, you're drawn to those foods for calming you, for, giving you a little bit of a dopamine hit to, to help, emotional eating. And that's because those [00:08:00] cortisol signals the body that it needs quick energy, it needs fast energy so it can get through this high stress situation.

[00:08:09] Cortisol can also contribute to increased inflammation, which plays a role in a lot of chronic health conditions like cardiovascular disease many cancers diabetes autoimmune issues. And it can of course, impact our sleep because when we're supposed to have those lower cortisol levels, leading up into falling asleep and that it increase slowly as we're sleeping.

[00:08:34] So when we have high cortisol levels at night, it can make it harder to fall asleep or it can cause you to wake up in the middle of the night. And we also know that with perimenopause and menopause, we can also get that exact same thing from those hormonal changes. So while cortisol itself isn't bad, chronically elevated levels can create that cascade of effects that many women start [00:09:00] noticing in midlife.

[00:09:03] So you might be asking how do I know? How do I test my cortisol levels? There are a few different options. We can do blood tests, but they're usually taken in the morning and just provide one little snapshot in time. We can do saliva tests, which you can measure cortisol multiple times through the day, which helps show the natural kind of rhythm of you know that your body's following.

[00:09:30] There's also urine tests like the Dutch test that measures your cortisol metabolites and provide that broader picture of how your adrenals are functioning. And testing can sometimes provide helpful information, but it's super important to remember that lifestyle patterns and symptoms often tell us a lot more.

[00:09:52] So for many women, the most effective approach is just simply addressing the underlying factors that influence your cortisol. [00:10:00] So some of the ways that we can do that is through nutrition, because one of the biggest stressors on our body is undereating or under fueling your body. I talk a little bit more about this in episode 21.

[00:10:16] It's called How You Can Eat More and Still See Fat Loss. And I'll link that episode in the show notes or you can find it on my website at www.strengthinnutrition.com/podcast. Surprisingly, many women over 40 are not eating enough during the day. Skipping meals. We're restricting calories too aggressively.

[00:10:38] We're eating very little protein. All of these things can increase our cortisol levels. When we eat more balanced meals regularly throughout the day, when we're incorporating in protein and fiber, healthy fats and carbohydrates, those are gonna help to stabilize our blood sugars and reduce those stress signals in the body.[00:11:00] 

[00:11:01] Also things like magnesium rich foods, Omega-3 fatty acids, and adequate protein. These can all support stress regulation as well. The next way more natural way that we can support healthy cortisol levels are gonna be through exercise. Woo-hoo. You knew that was coming. It's exercise is huge for stress regulation, for mental health therapy, and it can incorporate I'm not just talking about strength training, I'm talking about all of it.

[00:11:33] Strength training, walking, yoga, moderate cardio. These all can help lower stress hormones, but there is a balance when we're doing excessive high intensity training without adequate recovery, that can actually increase our cortisol levels. Your body needs that recovery and that rest just as much as it needs the movement, right?

[00:11:58] So when we're working out seven [00:12:00] days a week and just go, lots of hit training, our body never gets that chance to decrease those levels. Next is sleep. Sleep is one of the most powerful regulators of cortisol. So when we're not getting enough sleep, when our sleep is disrupted, when the, our quality of sleep, we're waking up loads during the night, cortisol levels can often increase the next day.

[00:12:29] So what's important there is our sleep routine. We need to prioritize consistent sleep schedules. We need to limit screen times before bed. We need to get natural sunlight in the morning. To help regulate our circadian rhythm, which then is going to regulate our cortisol levels higher in the morning and lower, decreasing as the day goes on.

[00:12:55] It's why I see a lot of shift workers, nurses working in the hospital and stuff, and they [00:13:00] really struggle with this. They, even when they're working all night long and they're trying to, use blackout curtains during the day to get sleep, they still struggle with weight more than I think any other population that I have worked with.

[00:13:16] Because regardless of what you're doing, your circadian rhythm and your cortisol levels are gonna be out of whack when you're doing those shift works because you're not getting that natural sunlight during the time that you're awake 'cause you're typically sleeping. So the next natural way to support our healthy cortisol levels would be stress reduction.

[00:13:38] So finding those small daily practices that can help to calm your nervous system. That can be even five minutes of breath work or meditation during the day. I was just talking to a client about this today, and it doesn't, where I'm not talking about you have to stop and do an hour meditation in the middle of your day, but boy, five minutes even [00:14:00] over your lunch hour to just, maybe you close your door to your office you turn the lights down, and you sit and, turn on a meditation app for five minutes and do some breath work.

[00:14:11] It's amazing how that even that one small practice can help to regulate your nervous system better. That deep breathing is so important just because how often are we running through the day going from activity to activity or work thing to work thing. Just taking these short breaths. Do you ever think about that of I'm gonna stop here and I'm just gonna fill my lungs with breath in and out and in and out and in and out, and how cleansing that can feel.

[00:14:42] We're running throughout the day in this shallow breathing. We're not even thinking about it, we're not allowing our body that time to just be able to recover. Some people might use prayer and that's totally, personal preference, other people journal that can be powerful. Even keeping a little [00:15:00] journal by your bedside and you can journal for even five minutes before you go to sleep, or five minutes when you wake up in the morning.

[00:15:06] Gratitude is huge. Just thinking about some things that you were thankful for. Or positive things that have happened during your day or even manifesting, thinking about what positive things you want to happen in your day. Spending time outside, putting your feet in the grass, feeling the sunshine on your face and taking a little bit of a respite from your phone.

[00:15:30] Putting your phone down and actually just being present. Even just 10 minutes of intentional relaxation can actually help to lower your stress hormones. It's so funny. It's such a small thing that you can do for just a couple minutes, but it is like challenging to get people to do that and I don't know if it's just uncomfortable to be still with your thoughts and your brain.

[00:15:55] Or and I know it can be challenging to actually still your thoughts and your brain when you are [00:16:00] doing these things. It's oh gosh, okay. Stop thinking about all the things you need to do yet today, and the final way that you can help to support healthy cortisol levels are boundaries. Sometimes the biggest cortisol reducer is learning to say no.

[00:16:21] Many women reach mid midwife midlife and they realize that they have spent decades taking care of everyone else. So setting boundaries around time, around commitments, around expectations can dramatically reduce chronic stress. Now everybody's gonna go home and be like, Kim told me to tell you no, I can't do this.

[00:16:46] No, I can't do that. But you know what, it's okay. You can blame me. So to circle back. That younger version of me with that tiny waist and the, the big but thighs, my body looks different now and at [00:17:00] 55 I will probably never again have a 20 inch, 28 inch waist. And honestly, I don't want one because if I'm being completely truthful, the only way I had that tiny waist when I was younger was because I was younger.

[00:17:16] I. Was eating less and I was a lot, doing a lot more, and my body was totally different. Today, my perspective is very different. My waist is a little thicker, my shape has changed. That's just part of hormonal shifts. Life stress, simply just passage of time. But here's what I love about my body now.

[00:17:39] It's strong. It lifts weights, it carries me through long days. It allows me to show up for my family and my clients, and that feels far more meaningful than chasing some number on a tape measure. On a scale, if your body has changed in a midlife, please know this. Your body is not betraying you. It's responding [00:18:00] to hormones and stress and life and time, and the goal isn't to punish it into looking like it did at 25.

[00:18:07] The goal is to support it, to nourish it, to strengthen it. And respect and be in awe of what it's capable right now. So when you focus on, building strength, regulating stress, nourishing your body, and prioritizing your sleep and recovery, your body will meet you there. Maybe not with a 28 inch waist, but with energy and resilience and strength that lasts.

[00:18:35] All right. So if this episode resonated with you, I'd love for you to share it with a friend or hit that follow button. And if you haven't already, please leave me a rating or review so more women can find the show. And as always, just remember that progress over perfection. We're in this for the long haul and this is your season of strength.

[00:18:57] Have an amazing [00:19:00] day.