How to hack cortisol in your lunch break

The good news you need to read

With TikTok having us believe that high cortisol is the bane of every physical problem we’re currently facing, scientists say they’re found the answer to our soaring stress levels. And all it takes is half an hour. 

We get it, ok. We’re all super stressy stress heads that can’t calm down and we don’t need social media telling us that our moon faces are a result of high cortisol – you know, the stress hormone that controls, like, everything in the human body. Because that isn’t exactly calming news either. 

But now scientists have come up with news that we can celebrate and get our giant moon-shaped heads around, because apparently there is a magic medication that'll stop stress in its tracks. And it’s called a ‘nature pill’. 

A study, published by Frontiers in Psychology journal, found that spending 20 to 30 minutes in nature lowers salivary cortisol by 21.3 per cent beyond the diurnal drop – which is the rise and fall rhythm of cortisol during your waking hours – in urban adults.

“In urban life, staring at screens, staring at phones and looking out for cars and other people in the city, tenses our directed attention system which is holstered in the frontal lobe of our brain,” Oliver Baumann, Associate Professor in Psychology at Bond University, tells Body+Soul.

“But being in nature – which is well-known to really help relax our nervous system – engages a passive system and so essentially it gives our brain a break. And with less stress going on in our minds, there’s less signalling happening in the body that you have to be ready for action. So it calms our mind and it helps to unwind those stress responses as well.”

And the best news of all? You don’t have to go on a weekend hike or a week-long holiday to feel the effects of nature. Just getting outside for a half-hour lunchtime stroll will do wonders for calming the mind and reducing strain on the body.

All it takes is half an hour outside. Image: Getty

“Research is consistently showing that time in nature quiets the mind and reduces rumination (the replay loop of stressful thoughts),” explains Dr Suzanne Hackenmiller, the Chief Medical Officer at AllTrails, an app for trail guides. “A 2020 study found nature immersion improved heart rate variability, which is associated with reduced cortisol levels.  

“We hear so much about biological data-tracking devices, supplements to help us with stress and anxiety, apps to guide us through meditation and other practices (and these are all valid modalities that I discuss with my patients) but isn’t it fascinating and validating when science confirms that one of the simplest prescriptions of all – time in nature – can lower cortisol levels and improve stress and mental health?”

Real jungle or concrete, just get out there! Image: Getty

What happens if you ignore spiralling cortisol?

When our brains are overstimulated and freaking out, off pops cortisol to prepare the body for a stress response. Think faster breathing, faster heart rate, tensed muscles, reduced digestion and a higher alertness to be ready for action. Which is all well and good apart from the fact that we’re not heading into battle and may instead just be at our laptops trying to make it through another day. 

“If that [state] continues too long, like if you've got eight hours sitting there doing your emails or you have a stressful job, then you're sitting there for eight hours plus with that elevated cortisol that evolutionarily was there to get us ready to run or fight or do something physical,” Professor Baumann explains. 

“And then if you just there and it’s over days and weeks and months wearing you down, it lowers the immune system – which can lead to things like cancer over the long term by having a suppressed immune system for weeks and months – or it can lead to digestive issues because the digested system activity is reduced due to the stress response or it can lead to back or neck pain because of the muscles that are tensed over long periods of time.”

Grab a friend and get out of the office at lunch. Image: Getty

Dr Hackenmiller adds that the long term effects of consistently high cortisol levels can be seriously damaging. “Chronic elevations in cortisol lead to increases in blood pressure and blood glucose levels (by way of insulin resistance which leads to diabetes).

So get up from your desk chair and into the jungle around you [whatever that looks like], and feel your stress ebb away and cortisol carry on falling. 

Originally published as How to hack cortisol in your lunch break