Cortisol & Stress: The Hormone Sabotaging Your Life

Vitality Unfiltered Podcast

Host: David J. Bauder, PA-C
 Co-Host: Stephanie Lattimore

In this episode of Vitality Unfiltered, we explore one of the most misunderstood drivers of modern health issues: cortisol and chronic stress.

Cortisol is often portrayed as a harmful hormone, but in reality, it plays a critical role in survival. It helps regulate blood sugar, maintain blood pressure, and control inflammation. In the setting of acute stress, cortisol is protective and necessary.

The problem arises when stress becomes chronic.

David J. Bauder, PA-C, founder of Weight Loss & Vitality, and co-host Stephanie Lattimore break down how modern stress differs from the acute stress the body was designed to handle. Unlike short-lived threats, today’s stress is persistent and unresolved, leaving the body in a prolonged state of activation.

This chronic cortisol exposure has far-reaching effects. It suppresses thyroid function, disrupts sex hormones such as testosterone and progesterone, promotes insulin resistance, and shifts the body toward fat storage. These physiologic changes often present as fatigue, poor sleep, anxiety, brain fog, and weight gain—symptoms that are frequently treated in isolation rather than recognized as part of a larger pattern.

A central message of this episode is that stress is not simply a mental or emotional experience—it is a biological process that can significantly impact health when left unaddressed.

In This Episode We Discuss

• The role of cortisol as a survival hormone
 • The difference between acute and chronic stress
 • Why modern stress keeps the body in a prolonged survival state
 • How cortisol disrupts thyroid, testosterone, and progesterone
 • The connection between cortisol and insulin resistance
 • Why chronic stress promotes fat storage and metabolic dysfunction
 • Common symptoms of cortisol dysregulation
 • The “wired but tired” pattern and sleep disruption
 • Why cortisol-related symptoms are often overlooked in healthcare
 • The misunderstanding of “adrenal fatigue” and what is actually occurring

Key Takeaway

Cortisol is not the problem—chronic stress is. When the body remains in a prolonged stress response, cortisol begins to disrupt multiple hormonal systems. Recognizing stress as a physiologic condition is essential to understanding symptoms and improving long-term health.

Contact Weight Loss & Vitality

📞 Call: 571-550-9000
 🌐 Visit: https://weightlossandvitality.com

About Vitality Unfiltered

Vitality Unfiltered is a medical podcast exploring the science of hormones, longevity, metabolism, weight loss, aesthetics, and precision medicine.

Each episode provides clinical insight from healthcare professionals who treat these conditions every day.

Our goal is simple: to help people better understand the biology of their health so they can make informed decisions about wellness, prevention, and long-term vitality.

⚠️ Disclaimer
This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Listening to this episode does not establish a provider-patient relationship. Always consult your qualified healthcare professional regarding medical concerns, diagnosis, or treatment.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Vitality. Vitality Unfiltered. Unfiltered. With David Bowder.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Welcome back to another episode of Vitality Unfiltered. I'm your host today, David Bowder. With me, joining me today from Weight Loss and Vitality is Medical Director Dr. Christopher Reeves and nurse practitioner Stephanie Lattimore from the DC Clinic. Today's conversation, we're going to center around cortisol. Everyone knows that there's chronic stress out there, it's everywhere. People are feeling burnt out. They have a lot of symptoms associated with different types of stress components. And often these patients go to their primary care provider and their symptoms are dismissed as just you're working too much. But what we're going to try to do today is frame out that stress is not in your head. It actually lives inside your hormones. To kick this thing off, we're going to start with Miss Stephanie? We're going to start on let's go and discuss what cortisol is supposed to really do for us and why why is it a beneficial hormone? And then we'll get into kind of some of the subtleties about what it does that kind of is not so good.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

So cortisol gets a bad rap as the hormone that is sabotaging your life because it is the primary stress hormone. But it does have a crucial evolutionary role in keeping us alive and speaking to speaking to our survival as a species. Cortisol is a hormone that's produced by the adrenal glands, these two triangular-shaped glands that sit above the kidneys, and it is responsible for regulating your blood pressure, your blood glucose aspect of your metabolism, as well as inflammation. So it's a crucial hormone that we can't live without. It's been around a long time, pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Our great ancestors pretty much could not have made it without cortisol. What is the difference today because cortisol was used in our ancestors secondary to a stressful life that they had. So what is different about stress today versus stress that was that that our ancestors experienced?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Aaron Powell Well, the one thing that you can say in terms of cortisol just is it is called a stress hormone, but it really is a hormone that kind of provides energy when you need it, right? You know, by raising glucose levels and that sort of thing. The response for stressful situations with cortisol is a little bit slower than your fight or flight, like your adrenaline or norepinephrine and dopamine, those kind of come in the instant, but then it takes about 10 minutes for the cortisol effect to kind of reach its peak effect. But the issue with the difference in terms of how the response to the stress is from ancestors to today is that in the ancestors it was like a real threat, like a saber-toothed tiger is chasing you or a woolly mammoth or something like that. And you need to you need a certain uh burst of energy to be able to run and flight and protect yourself. But the thing about interesting is that uh stress and that physiological response can be real or perceived. So the perceived stress that we feel from you know, the kids aren't ready for school, you know, the car, you got a flat tire, you're you forgot to get gas, there's traffic, all these things can cause uh perception of stress in the mind that can have the same physiological response to uh that we had ancestrally from a real physical threat. And so that's where stress is one of the main contributors in terms of elevating cortisol levels, which can have all the detrimental effects that we'll go into a little bit more detail a little bit later.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. When we think about when we think about stress and the other hormones that it involves, right? So it's cortisol is a main or it's probably one of the main hormones in the body, quite honestly. What how does it affect our other hormones?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

So cortisol plays a huge role in how it impacts the other hormones in the body. And I'll start with thyroid function. Increase cortisol levels decrease overall thyroid function. So as we talked about in previous episodes, the thyroid is the primary metabolism of the body, responsible for brain function, energy, just how your body processes. So if you have elevated cortisol, your thyroid's not functioning properly, that's really gonna negatively impact your metabolism. It blocks the conversion of T4 to T3. Um, so your thyroid is not optimized, your thyroid is not functioning properly. Other hormones affected with elevated cortisol, progesterone. That's that inhibitory calming um hormone, um, elevated cortisol, decreased progesterone. For men and women, elevated cortisol decreased testosterone. So it has this kind of negative inverse relationship with a lot of hormones. And I'm talking about elevated cortisol beyond the normal amounts is gonna suppress things and impact things negatively.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

It's ironic that that chronic cortisol has a real detrimental or devastating effect to the body. But all of the benefits come from just like when you need cortisol, you get it. I mean, like you if you need to, if you need immediate energy supplies and you have to try to save your life and a tiger's chasing you, it's like you get all the benefits from cortisol. But it's cort sort of like too much cortisol, which kind of just burns out. That chronic reproduction.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

And Dr. Reeves made a good point. R um from an ancestral perspective, we needed cortisol to survive. Um we needed to build up, you know, insulin resistance to store fat and survive. When you have increased cortisol now in 2026, you don't want to have that increased insulin resistance. You don't want to store fat. We don't need to store fat. We don't need cortisol to play that role with insulin resistance.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Aaron Ross Powell We had a ton of cortisol just a little bit ago. So we just got here on the set, we were starting to record, and literally everything that could go wrong went wrong. And we were inside Adobe Audition trying to troubleshoot everything. And I feel at this point my cortisol level is still very elevated.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Aaron Powell But it's the morning, though. So that I think that you're making up a good segue to a good point in terms of cortisol, it's not something that is just released and continuous. In terms of the problems and complications of cortisol, you have to also look at kind of the cortisol curve or the pattern of normal distribution or release of cortisol. Just briefly, basically kind of how you want to think of it, is that you know, uh in the you know, cortisol levels should be low at the lowest about four hours before and two hours after going to sleep. That's when you want your cortisol to be low. That's when you know your body kind of is winding down, getting ready for sleep and that sort of thing. And then in about three to five, six hours after your your cortisol levels start to pick up and ramp up. And then you have like kind of your main secretory phase, which is hours, you know, six to eight before, you know, of waking up. And the better you manage your sleep, which we'll probably we'll get into a little bit later, the detail, the better you're gonna have in terms of this rise. But when your cortisol rises in this main secretory phase, like right before you wake, um around the seventh, eighth hours of sleep, it's that rise in cortisol that gets us up and gets us going. And so what you want to have is when you wake up the first hour, hour and a half after waking up, you want to do certain things to kind of get that cortisol to peak as best you can. Not too high, not too slow. It's a Goldilocks kind of concept when it comes to the cortisol curve. But it's that getting that timing of that cortisol peak right in the morning and then having a nice steady flow, not too sharp, not too gradual, so that you have energy throughout the afternoon, you don't get that crash. And we can go into details about how to manage these things a little bit later, but that's a general curve that you should be looking for in terms of cortisol levels. So if you take a snapshot lab of a cortisol in the morning or in the afternoon, it's not going to really give you much information because you don't know how that curve is for you with your lifestyle and that sort of thing. So it's think of it like cortisol is like a Goldilocks. Um you don't want too much, not too little, not too high, not too low.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Aaron Ross Powell Hence that's why they like to if you do good blood testing on cortisol, you want 24-hour sampling to try to get like what's the total cortisol versus because like it's so cyclical. Like you're explaining. You can take that one blood test and never get never get a right never get the blood test you're looking for. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Exactly. Symptoms, you know, when you think about when you're thinking about a patient with dysregulation or abnormal cortisol levels, a lot of times I always think of patients in the framework of wired but tired. Yes. Sleep disturbances. Yes. And then you can start thinking about patients like or people, ca uh patients that they start have kind of vague symptoms. Even it can be like fluid, like uh progesterone is relevant with fluidic fluid balances in the body. Well, cortisol and progesterone are very tightly connected. You know, if you don't have good cortisol levels or have too much, you're gonna have the fluid displacement and things like that. If you want to work somebody up with cortisol, like what's a what's a appropriate way to go about this?

SPEAKER_00 8:48

So comprehensive management for a patient who is dealing with stress. Um, what I like to do, who's not dealing with stress, right? Every patient, every person will have some amount of stress or some source of stress in their life. I think what I try to do as a provider is reframe stress as a medical condition that affects the body rather than a personal failure or something that can be managed with willpower. Stress is out there. And I have lots of patients with high-profile jobs, medical professionals that work 12-hour shifts. And there's only so much you can do as far as career choice, family, you know, home life. You need to manage stress and take on stress as something to cope with and to treat it with medicine, whether that's sleep hygiene and sleep regulation, um, healthy coping strategies, nutrition. There's a really taking it back to the basics and managing that stress and treating that as something that can, if unmanaged, will lead to detrimental health consequences down the road. Elevated blood pressure, a weakened immune system. Um, it can really have negative health consequences if not treated upfront and reframed as a medical concern. Aaron Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Well, you have like two types of burnout. You have the patient, you know, or the client, you know, who comes in, and they uh they when they wake up in the morning, they're sluggish, they're tired, they're, you know, they they can't get seem to get get going. And by the time they have their fourth or fifth cup of coffee, it's two o'clock in the afternoon, and now they're wired. And so now it comes time to, you know, where they it's time to go to sleep, and now their mind is racing and they they can't go to sleep, you know, but they're exhausted. That's the kind of the wired but tired. You know, uh then you have the other uh you know kind of patient who um you know wakes up and you know they they are on fire in the in the morning really quick, but then they burn out in the afternoon and they don't have enough energy uh for the afternoon in terms of you know kind of get through their day, and they're kind of having difficulty getting through their emails and concentrating and focusing. And each of these different types of burnouts have different ways to treat and manage those based upon that curve that we talked about in terms of the optimal way in which your cortisol should be distributed. Uh so you kind of you know you know figure out kind of which pattern um each patient is, and then are different things that you can do from a, you know, like you said, sleep hygiene diet, and then supplements if necessary. Um, you know, but we'll start with the behavioral modifications first, and then you can move to the supplements.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Aaron Ross Powell I think you just described me, the outline. Yes. I appreciate the honesty.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

But there's a lot of and I mean everyone could make a behavioral change to improve stress. Everyone. Whether that's those of us who take stimulants and have that crash at the end of the day because we didn't eat, we forgot to eat, we didn't eat enough, we didn't eat the right thing, we didn't stay hydrated. Who drinks enough water, not me?

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Aaron Powell Yeah, yeah. Well, some of the things like I mean, like as you know, preparing for this, like there's some things that I realize that I can do differently to kind of maximize and optimize this curve for myself. So for example, one of the best recommendations is within one hour of waking up, the the best thing is to go out and look at sunlight, see sunlight. Because you have these uh in the suprachassic nucleus in the in the hippo hypocampus, um, there are cells that respond from the retina that actually cause cord and increase cortisol production and release. So you can maximize that peak, you know, in the morning with sunlight. If you can't get sunlight, you can go on Amazon and get at least a 10,000 lumen light that will do light therapy in the morning to kind of really bring brighten, you know, the uh the you know your um your photosensitive response to light and maximizing your cortisol in the morning. Other things that you can do, caffeine, for example, kind of prolongs the duration of cortisol. So depending upon if you're a little bit sluggish in the in the afternoon, you have that crash, delay taking your first morning coffee until for about 60 to 90 minutes. And that way, instead of having your coffee when you first wake up, push it out about an hour, hour and a half, and that will slow that curve down the afternoon so you'll have a little bit more energy in the afternoon. So these are some small modifications that we can do that are a little minor, but they can make a big difference in terms of our energy profile and managing our cortisol throughout the day.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

It's it's uh you know, on all of these episodes that we're putting together, we always talk about upstream and downstream, and it always centers around these four or five things at the very top. Uh sunlight is a new one, obviously, but but when you think about eating, nutrition, hydration, exercise, and sleep. Those are like the four, you know, four- I mean, it affects every single thing. And and so many patients that come in complaining of wired but tired or brain fog or these vague symptoms, you know, like yeah, blood tests will be drawn on the patient. It'll be kind of like whatever. It's a blood test that says whatever. It doesn't have to have any tangible number associated with it. And it's like, well, your labs look okay, you must be okay. But it really comes back to these little basic principles of the nutritional aspects. You mentioned supplements potentially rolling that into the patients. And I can definitely say that in in today's food quality, uh the nutritional element of food is way down. And so there could be a benefit in adrenal health and adrenal support with some type of nutritional supplement, like you suggested. And with the elevation of cortisol like that, if you get the light therapy in the morning and you get that little spike of cortisol or that increased bump in the morning. So you're suggesting then that that gives you a longer tail throughout the day of how you feel?

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Aaron Ross Powell It can, yeah. So basically what you're what you're doing is uh you want to optimize that peak in the morning, because that's when you want to get your cortisol should peak in the morning and then gradually decline over the afternoon. Like I said, not too steep, not too not too slow. And so on a normal kind of thing, there's things you can do. For example, like something as simple as grapefruit juice or eating a grapefruit, uh, because that inhibits uh one of the enzymes that breaks down cortisol. So if you're feeling that sluggish brain fog, you know, low energy in the morning, you can use a light therapy, uh, get out, you know, get out of bed, do the light therapy, exercise, um, you know, um uh licorice root, you know, um uh you know the uh grapefruit juice. All these things can help to pique that uh that cortisol in the morning. And then if you, like I said, the caffeine, you delay that, you can prolong it out a little bit in terms of slowing down the decline. But that all depends upon just your, you know, or that particular patient's kind of energy pattern throughout the day in terms of what to what to do. Now on the other side, you are wired but tired, where you now you um are sluggish in the morning, you have a lower cortisol peak in the morning, and it doesn't peak until 12, 1, 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and now your peak is shifted to the right, and now you're ti you're you're you're so wired that you can't fall asleep. So there's things that you can do to uh to reduce your cortisol levels. Ashwagandha has been shown to do that. Chamomile T has been shown to do these things. They have enzymes that kind of facilitate the you know the breakdown of cortisol and that sort of thing. And uh there's also um a thing of um some breathing exercises, some uh you know, that you can do to kind of slow your heart rate and decrease stress and stress management in the afternoon sort of thing is something that also would be helpful to kind of bring those cortisol levels down in the afternoon so that you can get back to more of a normal distribution.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Trevor Burrus What's going on physiologically, uh if you may uh possibly explore this. Well, like individuals, I know some people like they they wait, their eyeballs open up in the morning and they're ready to go. This is not me. Okay? Like this is not me. This is not me. It has never been and will never be me. I know people that like just love to jump and exercise in the morning. They wake up in the morning and they're off to exercise. Again, this is not me. I I like the evening, afternoon, late afternoon. Is that related to cortisol? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

So so what you know, what you're describing is and there's also studies that show that the late afternoon, evening working out actually raises your cortisol and can make it more difficult to sleep at night as well. But everybody's different and you gotta work with whatever works with your pattern and sort of thing. But like the uh the the one you're describing, the one that's able to get up and get going in the morning, probably has a higher um uh surge at night and getting a bit a greater peak of cortisol rush in the morning. And again, it's not a problem if they are managing it and it and their energy is fine throughout the day. But if they're at the point to where they um are not getting good sleep because they're they're they're so wired, um then that's where some of these things where you wake up and you can do a slow, gradual wake up where you can do some of this non-dream um kind of uh relaxation, like meditation type things to kind of rest your body before you get out and going. Um and so you can, you know, so they if that's if that peak is coming like like three, four o'clock in the morning and it's causing difficulty sleeping, you kind of want to push that out a little bit further as well. So that that's where these relaxation techniques can help to modulate the rise of that cortisol in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Aaron Powell Everything that you said about modifying this hormone in the body seems extremely reasonable. It's very reasonable. Affordable. It's free. I think it just has to be intentional to take the time to say sleep is this important, nutrition is this important, and make those behavioral changes. Can I put off my morning caffeine 90 minutes? Maybe not. But 45, 60 minutes, I can try. I can build up, I can try, you know. Um, and if my baby turns out to be one of these people who is a is a morning person, uh my husband and I are in serious trouble because we are not. But I don't think it would be unreasonable to take a step outside.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

It's like grapefruit juice in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yeah, it's not something simple It's not hard. It's not hard. It's just it takes intention to do these things and and better yourself and your life and control your cortisol from the best of your ability.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

That was a great, actually, really, really neat discussion. So um I'm gonna wrap this up and just in summary, just for the listeners, if you're exhausted, overwhelmed, brain fog, and you feel like you've been running omnipty, uh just keep in mind that stress isn't just in your head, it lives inside your hormones. And your body has been on survival mode way too long. And when you start treating stress as a physiological issue rather than a personal failure, that's when the re healing really begins. Stress isn't something you just push through, it's something to address. If you like this show, make sure you hit the subscribe button below. Thank you for listening on Vitality Unfiltered.

SPEAKER_03 19:28

Thanks for joining us on Vitality Unfiltered with David Bowder. Addressing norms, busting myths, and uncovering health realities for a more vibrant life today. For more expert insights and real talk, make sure to subscribe and join us next time.