We all know that unbalanced cortisol levels can wreak havoc on our health. So, we do our best to mitigate it: We meditate, we exercise, or we write in a gratitude journal. But often, we forget how our eating habits can influence cortisol, too. If you’re looking to improve your cortisol levels in the new year, re-evaluating your food choices might make a surprisingly big impact.
What and how we eat has a direct impact on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the system that regulates the body’s stress response. “Sometimes we think that stress comes only from what we eat, but many times it comes from how we eat,” explains Ana Morales, a psychologist specializing in obesity, binge eating disorder and bulimia. “The way we eat can raise or lower cortisol as much as the dish itself.”
Cortisol and food
Many of us we eat quickly, standing up, or answering emails. The body interprets this as alert mode. “The message the brain receives is as There’s no time to digest because I’m in danger,” says Morales. “When the body is in danger mode, cortisol is triggered, even if we’re eating a nice organic salad.”
Digestion becomes incomplete, resulting is inflammation, fatigue, cravings, and elevated cortisol. “When we eat without presence we lose internal signals. We no longer distinguish whether we are hungry, full, or tired. The mind goes into a loop, eating becomes automatic and stress multiplies,” Morales says, adding that we should instead eat without rushing or looking at our phones.
Our beliefs about food can also contribute to the way our body responds. “Many people have a history of diets, restrictions, and rules that generate stress even when we’re just thinking about ‘eating well,’” says nutritionist Toscana Viar. “If your head already goes into control-restriction-guilt mode, your body responds with more cortisol, so working on that relationship is essential.”
When our dietary patterns trigger cortisol
We all acquire unhealthy habits that become established in the hard drives of our brains without us even realizing. In many cases, childhood might be to blame—especially if you grew up hearing the phrases “hurry up” or “finish everything on your plate” during mealtimes. “Your body learned that eating is a chore, not a time for self-care. The problem is that once we reach adulthood, the reinforcement is given by the pace of life we lead and a culture of hyper-demand. When there is no time for anything, food becomes the first need to be sacrificed,” says Morales.
Viar warns of three very common patterns that tend to trigger cortisol:
- Arriving too hungry for meals. If you go many hours without eating anything, the body interprets scarcity.
- Sugar spikes. It’s not the sweetness that’s the problem, it’s the high followed by the low. The ups-and-downs trigger physiological stress.
- Abusing coffee or stimulants, especially to replace food.
Anti-stress foods
The good news is that eating certain foods can help: quality protein, healthy fats, and vegetables. Viar recommends avocado, nuts, and seeds; eating protein such as eggs, chicken, tofu, or fish at every meal; including slow-absorption carbohydrates such as potato, sweet potato, rice, and oatmeal; and drinking calming infusions such as chamomile or lemon balm.
As for nutrients to take into account, Viar also mentions magnesium for its ability to regulate the nervous system and induce rest; Omega-3 fatty acids for their key anti-inflammatory role; tryptophan, a precursor of serotonin; and plenty of B vitamins. “With food you can improve a lot, so it is not always necessary to take supplements,” she notes.
How to stay mindful while you eat
You can also use some simple strategies that will help calm the nervous system and let the body know it’s safe to rest and digest. “It’s not the food that raises cortisol the most, it’s the way we treat ourselves while we eat,” Morales says. Here, she offers seven guidelines:
- Pause for 20 seconds before eating. Breathe, drop your shoulders and send the message, “I m no longer working, I’m eating now.” It s a physiological reset.
- Eat sitting down and without multitasking. No emails, important decisions, or tense conversations. If the brain is in charge, the body can’t relax.
- Change your scenery. Eating at your desk—the place where you work—triggers alertness. Moving to another space, even if it’s the other end of the table, changes your internal state.
- Slow down. Try to eat at the pace at which you breathe. When your breathing slows, your body comes out of threat mode.
- Reflect before the first bite: Ask “what does my body need now?” instead of “what should I eat?” That shift dismantles automatic eating and activates emotional regulation.
- Stop stress eating. If you notice you are chewing with your body on alert, stop for two seconds and breathe. Remind your body that there is no threat at this moment.
- Forgive yourself. If you do happen to eat in a hurry one day, that’s okay. What triggers cortisol is not just the rush, it’s the added guilt.
You may also want to focus on how you start each morning. “When you start the day with a good habit—a more stable breakfast, a short meditation, some stretching—you enter with a different energy,” Viar explains. “This invites you to keep making better choices the rest of the day.” She also recommends swapping a breakfast of pastries and coffee for something more satiating: quality protein, good fats, fruit, and complex carbohydrates. “This lowers that alarm mode a lot.”
Along those same lines, she suggests that we focus on foods that help us rest better at night—another key to lowering cortisol. Avoid stimulants and instead include foods rich in tryptophan, such as banana, a glass of warm milk with a little honey, or a handful of almonds.
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