What is cortisol?

High morning cortisol, driven by bright light, caffeine, or exercise, suppresses evening and nighttime cortisol and thereby enables robust melatonin production for sleep.

“If your morning cortisol is high and you can make it higher doing any number of the things I just It ensures that your evening and nighttime cortisol is low and that's what sets you up for an increase in melatonin.”

The stress hormone cortisol increases cellular energy expenditure by 60 percent, according to Martin Picard's research.

“We found that the stress hormone increased energy expenditure like the cost of life by 60%.”

Alcohol increases cortisol and numbs rather than relieves stress, according to psychiatrist Carmine Pariante.

“This thing about alcohol that it actually increases my cortisol and so it doesn't actually reduce my stress. It just sort of numbs me to it.”

A single one-hour group singing session measurably reduced both cortisol and inflammation markers in women with postnatal depression, measured before and after the session.

“We recently did some work using singing groups from other that were suffering from postnatal depression. And we measured literally from before the singing session, one hour singing session to the end of the singing session, a reduction in cortisol and in inflammation.”

Alcohol does not reduce stress but raises cortisol, and feeling it dramatically lowers your stress is a signal you are drinking too much.

“If you feel that it's actually reducing your stress a lot while you're drinking, you're probably drinking too much.”

Chronic stress amplifies acute stress responses: a small additional stressor on top of ongoing chronic stress produces a cortisol spike that is both faster and higher than it would be in a non-stressed baseline.

“When you're facing a small stress in the context of the ongoing stress then your cortisol goes up more and goes up higher.”

Acute cortisol and short-term stress are immune-enhancing, a benefit that has been overlooked because research focuses on chronic cortisol's suppressive effects.

“The immune-enhancing effects of acute cortisol and stress are really important and I think they've been overlooked.”

The popular internet 'cortisol cocktail' (orange juice, coconut water, salt, magnesium) has no identifiable physiological mechanism that would specifically affect cortisol, according to a leading psychiatrist.

“To me, it doesn't ring any bell cuz I cannot link any of this compound or things in the cocktail to anything that particular would affect.”