Top Supplements to Reduce Cortisol and Better Manage Stress

You felt somewhat relieved the first time you heard that stress can hinder your weight loss and muscle growth aspirations. After all, you’ve been working in a fast-paced, high-stress job for a long time, while still managing to put in the same hours in the gym as your less ambitious friends. 

It always annoyed you that your physical progress hadn’t even come close to matching the pace of your friends even though you’d been doing everything identically. You’d love to think that your body’s poor stress response is the reason why your weight hasn’t dipped to the degree that you would have liked, and why your muscles haven’t sprouted the way you envisioned. 

At least if your problem was linked to the crushing stress you’ve been under, you would feel like you’d been let off the hook for why your body hadn’t responded to your heavy training in a similar way to those of your less-responsible, carefree friends.

At the same time, this just raises further questions. Namely, if your uncontrollable weight gain and lack of muscle growth are the result of increased stress and high cortisol levels, then how do you get things back on track? Moreover, if your stressful lifestyle isn’t going to disappear anytime soon, should you be taking supplements to reduce cortisol?

What is Cortisol?

Far from being a thoroughly negative force within your body, cortisol is actually an essential component of your body’s stress response system. Simply stated, cortisol is the king of the stress hormones, and when you’re faced with a real life situation that induces stress, your body’s cortisol levels naturally increase to help you contend with the threat you’re facing.

How Does Cortisol Work?

First of all, it’s helpful to keep in mind that cortisol’s foremost purpose is to prepare your body to contend with stressful situations. When you feel stressed, your pituitary gland sends a message to your adrenal glands that prompts them to produce cortisol to help remedy the situation.

In essence, cortisol is a steroid hormone that initiates a series of all-hands-on-deck emergency procedures to temporarily boost your physical performance and mental performance to ward off what will hopefully be a temporary threat.

How does cortisol accomplish this? By factoring into the processes of nearly every organ system  in your body. It induces glycogenolysis in your muscle tissue, which rapidly breaks down the glycogen stored in your muscles to produce instant energy. 

In the process, it boosts your blood glucose levels by reducing the ability of your muscles and stored body fat to absorb it. It also accelerates the breakdown of fats into fatty acids.

In short, cortisol increases blood glucose levels, which aids the process of feeding energy to your brain and other body tissues. This is intended to give you the necessary mental and physical capabilities to survive whatever threat you are presently facing.

What is Wrong With Elevated Cortisol Levels?

The problem with walking around with heightened cortisol levels all the time is that they essentially extend your body’s fight-or-flight response system well beyond what it is intended to cope with.  In other words, what is intended to be a short-term response to increased stress can prove to be highly damaging to your body if too much cortisol is produced for too long of a time.

For starters, high cortisol levels will result in high blood pressure and all of the problems that accompany it, up to and including heart disease.  Aside from high blood pressure, raised cortisol levels also compromise your sleep quality. 

A byproduct of cortisol-induced sleep deprivation is often that the sufferer will increase their caffeine intake, which can also increase the cortisol levels of already stressed individuals.

When cortisol is doing its job on a short-term basis, your immune system will be kicked into overdrive to ward off anything that might cause an illness. Part of this response will be that cortisol will temporarily reduce inflammation in your body. 

However, if your body is forced to contend with excess cortisol for too long, it has the opposite effect on your immune system. In effect, the presence of chronic stress causes your body’s tolerance of excess cortisol to also increase.   When that happens, your inflammation levels increase over time, while your immune system ceases to function optimally.

Top Supplements to Reduce Cortisol

If you find yourself suffering from what you believe to be elevated cortisol levels, there are certain supplements you can take to either manage stress levels, or to reduce cortisol directly. 

Along these lines, there are compound supplements that combine one or more ingredients in an effort to regulate cortisol production and relieve stress. The combined effect of these ingredients is a substantial relief of chronic stress and its symptoms, and the stabilization of your body at healthy cortisol levels.

Ashwagandha

Ashwagandha is an herbal remedy that is often used to treat anxiety and reduce stress. As a byproduct of addressing these two root causes of increased cortisol, it may play an indirect role in lowering cortisol levels as well.

While research suggests that ashwagandha is helpful and controlling anxiety, it has been stated that more evidence is required before it can receive an official seal of endorsement from medical professionals. (1)

Rhodiola Rosea 

Rhodiola rosea is commonly sold as an herb that can lessen stress, boost energy levels, and even improve the functionality of your brain. Because of these capabilities, rhodiola rosea is also believed to decrease cortisol levels.

In addition to its proven benefits pertaining to stress relief, research also suggests that rhodiola rosea can enhance cardiovascular performance among both trained and untrained athletes, and increase reproductive health. (2)

Phosphatidylserine 

Phosphatidylserine is a fatty substance that is commonly found in meat and fish. It has demonstrated an ability to improve mental health and upgrade the overall functionality of the brain and nervous system.

Aside from aiding relaxation, research into the effects of phosphatidylserine indicate that it can be a promising intervention for reducing inflammation of the brain, and even in combating central nervous system diseases. (3)

Magnesium

Ordinary magnesium — the electrolyte that is available in a wide variety of magnesium rich foods like seeds, nuts, and beans — is a critical nutrient that plays a role in a wide range of your bodily processes. When it comes to cortisol, magnesium supplementation is able to reduce cortisol levels in at least three ways.

First, magnesium works directly to lower cortisol levels by inhibiting the neuroendocrine pathways that would send cortisol to your brain. Magnesium can also block the neurotransmitters that spike anxiety levels, thereby resulting in a rapid return to lower cortisol levels in your bloodstream. 

Finally, magnesium supplementation has a general calming influence on the body, which relaxes your muscles, and helps to support healthy cortisol levels. 

Omega-3 Fatty Acids

Omega-3 fatty acids are healthy fats that are commonly found in fish, nuts, eggs, and are frequently sold in fish oil capsules. Whereas certain supplements are sold as fish oil or krill oil products, the omega-3 fatty acids within the fish oil are the ingredient that is being sought after. 

Omega-3 fatty acids help to reduce cortisol levels and eliminate many of the symptoms of stress, including lowering blood pressure and reducing inflammation.

L-Theanine 

L-theanine is an amino acid found in mushrooms, and also in green tea and black tea. It elevates your levels of GABA, dopamine, and serotonin, and leads to a natural reduction in stress levels, and an accompanying reduction of previously high cortisol. 

Controlled studies have demonstrated the potential of L-theanine to improve the mental acuity of people with stress-related ailments and cognitive impairments. (4)

Vitamin D

There are several study results suggesting that intake of vitamin D is positively correlated with lower cortisol levels, while low levels of vitamin D are linked with high cortisol levels. One study indicates that vitamin D may block the action of a key stress hormone required to produce cortisol. 

There is also evidence that patients with Cushing’s disease — a condition in which tumors in their pituitary glands prompt their adrenal glands to overproduce cortisol — patients with the lowest levels of vitamin D had the highest levels of cortisol. 

How to Choose the Right Supplement

If you’re contending with high cortisol levels, one of the safest ways to go about selecting a supplement to help maintain normal cortisol levels and initiate rapid stress relief is to select supplements with active ingredients that are often available through a balanced diet. 

This means products containing magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamin D are all worth targeting, as all of them perform multiple functions in your body along with contributing to the alleviation of chronic stress.

Benefits of Reducing Cortisol Levels

There are plenty of stress reducing benefits to be unlocked by controlling your body’s cortisol response and engaging in general stress management. Whether you manage cortisol levels through lifestyle changes, supplements intended to lessen the production of stress hormone, or a combination of the two, avoiding high cortisol levels is always beneficial to your body. 

Improved Mood

Chronic stress and the constant flow of  cortisol that accompany it keep your mind in a constant state of defensiveness, and do considerable damage to your mental health over time. Conversely, lower cortisol levels are associated with reduced stress, improved overall brain functionality, and a reduction in mental health problems.

Better Sleep

Managing stress as a component of a healthy lifestyle is associated with improved sleep. For a non-stressed person, cortisol levels will decrease during sleep, and then rise to an acceptable level to sustain a healthy level of alertness. If you’re stressed, cortisol will compromise the function of melatonin and adenosine, two hormones that help induce sleep.  Reducing cortisol frees these hormones to do their jobs.  

Enhanced Immune Function

Your immune system and your nervous system work together to protect your body from illnesses. Too much stress hormone in your body can impair your body’s ability to protect itself from illnesses, whereas lower cortisol levels enable your body to manage to adequately defend you.

Weight Management

Your body responds to high cortisol levels by slowing down your metabolism, increasing your appetite, and boosting both your insulin level and your insulin resistance. All of these actions can contribute to rapid weight gain. Once you have a stress management system in place, cortisol levels return to normal, and weight gain is reversed.

FAQs About Cortisol-Reducing Supplements

Supplements are a popular way to get your body’s stress response system back online, lower your cortisol to manageable levels, and preserve your body’s overall stress resilience. Here are the answers to several popular questions related to supplements used to control cortisol levels.

Do Cortisol-Reducing Supplements Actually Work?

There are several supplements that have been proven to maintain cortisol within a healthy range. These range from widely available vitamins and minerals — like magnesium and vitamin D — to more exotic sources like ashwagandha.

What Are the Best Supplements to Reduce Cortisol Levels?

People’s bodies may react differently to different supplements, or have different degrees of sensitivity to each of them. 

As a starting point, it is often best to begin with supplements that contain stress-controlling ingredients that are common in everyday food items, like omega-3 fatty acids, magnesium, and vitamin D.

Can I Reduce Cortisol With a Healthy Diet?

While you can reduce cortisol levels with a healthy diet, regularly consuming foods with ingredients that control cortisol in the necessary quantities is not always a practical or reliable strategy that can be carried out with consistency.

In particular, magnesium can be very challenging to consume at recommended daily intake levels despite its availability at low levels within a wide variety of food sources.

Is Stress Reduction the Best Way Lower Elevated Cortisol Levels? 

Because lifestyle factors are often unpredictable and difficult to control, it can be challenging to maintain the sort of stress-free lifestyle that can mitigate the damage that the resulting creation of cortisol can do to your body.  

As such, cortisol-reducing supplements are often the most reliable way to reduce stress and prevent cortisol from climbing into a problematic range.

Stress Relief is Always Worth It

Clearly, your cortisol levels are worth getting under control. Aside from the obvious physical benefits that can be accessed through the consumption of the right supplements — like a reduction in body fat and an increase in muscle mass — your mind will also be set at ease as you unburden yourself from the constant weight of stress. That way, the next time you do a set of squats at your gym, the only heavy weight on your shoulders will be supplied by the barbell.

References:

1. Speers AB, Cabey KA, Soumyanath A, Wright KM. Effects of Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha) on Stress and the Stress- Related Neuropsychiatric Disorders Anxiety, Depression, and Insomnia. Curr Neuropharmacol. 2021;19(9):1468-1495. doi: 10.2174/1570159X19666210712151556. PMID: 34254920; PMCID: PMC8762185.

2. Ivanova Stojcheva E, Quintela JC. The Effectiveness of Rhodiola rosea L. Preparations in Alleviating Various Aspects of Life-Stress Symptoms and Stress-Induced Conditions-Encouraging Clinical Evidence. Molecules. 2022 Jun 17;27(12):3902. doi: 10.3390/molecules27123902. PMID: 35745023; PMCID: PMC9228580.

3. Ma X, Li X, Wang W, Zhang M, Yang B, Miao Z. Phosphatidylserine, inflammation, and central nervous system diseases. Front Aging Neurosci. 2022 Aug 3;14:975176. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.975176. PMID: 35992593; PMCID: PMC9382310.

4. Hidese S, Ogawa S, Ota M, Ishida I, Yasukawa Z, Ozeki M, Kunugi H. Effects of L-Theanine Administration on Stress-Related Symptoms and Cognitive Functions in Healthy Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Nutrients. 2019 Oct 3;11(10):2362. doi: 10.3390/nu11102362. PMID: 31623400; PMCID: PMC6836118.