How to get rid of CORTISOL FACE. Yep! you have seen the difference in the photos. That’s me, after losing almost 20kgs and unknowingly fixing my cortisol face. I had reached 70kgs of weight and started feeling something really wrong in my body. I was constantly stiff and puffy. I have seen many people with an extra weight on their body but it wasn’t looking like mine. My face and body was kind of different, growing from everywhere like a ginger and looked like a steamed Momo. So I simply thought I needed to lose weight. When I started my fat loss journey I knew nothing about cortisol. Never even heard the word before, until a month back. And when I read about it and researched about it, I felt like, “Yep, I fixed that sh*t.” So first let’s understand what is cortisol.
Google definition of Cortisol: It is an important hormone that’s produced by the adrenal glands, located on top of the kidneys, and affects many parts of the body. It’s known as the “stress hormone” because it’s released when the body experiences stress, but it has many other important functions, including: Regulating blood pressure, Maintaining immune function, Suppressing inflammation, Regulating metabolism, Increasing and regulating blood sugar, Helping control sleep-wake cycles, regulating your body’s stress response, etc.
Hence, less cortisol is a problem but high cortisol is also a very big problem.
High Cortisol symptoms (Especially in women): Lack of sex drive. Irregular or less frequent periods in women. Mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. Weight gain, especially in your face and abdomen, Constant puffiness on the face. Wide, purple stretch marks on your abdomen (belly). Muscle weakness in your upper arms and thighs. High blood sugar which might turn into diabetes. Hypertension. Weak bones, etc.
When I had that huge puffy cortisol face, I have faced many of these symptoms. When I think about it now, I feel I was reaching towards other symptoms. But, thankfully I controlled it before it got worse. Lost almost 20kgs and now I am 50kgs. Let’s discuss what I gained after loosing this much of weight and how cortisol was a big factor for me.
Reasons for high Cortisol: Higher the stress, higher the cortisol. And you must be thinking I am going to talk something really scientific here, but most of your stress is your emotional stress. Emotions that you couldn’t process, words that you couldn’t speak when you wanted to, trauma that you still haven’t healed, freedom that you couldn’t feel to express yourself authentically, life threatening abuse that you felt or still feel everyday, these constant feelings pushes you towards eating disorders, mental health issues, emotional shutdown etc. and after a point that pushes your body further towards chronic stress and gives your body a signal that your body is under attack and when that happens your body starts the inflammation process.
This process ideally stops when the body feels safe, when the body feels there is nothing to fight for. But if your body is feeling under attack for longer period of time, then body becomes inflamed and you look puffy and swollen. Hence, inflammation in the body continues and causes more stress to the body that again releases more cortisol.
Mental stress, emotional stress and unhealed past traumas are the start of physical stress like gut health issues, eating disorders, indigestion, weak metabolism etc. that eventually causes weight gain and higher levels of cortisol.
WHAT HELPS REDUCE THE CORTISOL FACE: Four areas you need to cover to balance your cortisol levels. Food, sleep, mental health and physical exercise. Let’s start with foods that will help lower your cortisol.
Food: Eat a whole-food, different coloured, plant-based diet. An unhealthy diet filled with added sugars and processed foods will raise cortisol levels and put you at a greater risk for high blood pressure and diabetes. Basically, eat more of what comes from the ground and not from the packet. Make sure you’re getting enough fibre (fruits and vegetables are great sources) because fibre helps to regulate gut bacteria, which in turn helps to regulate hormones. Diet is really important—it’s 80% of the battle. Mediterranean diet seem to be most helpful when it comes to lowering cortisol levels. However, I did it with Indian food but tweaked it a little.
Here is what I personally did: Protein and multivitamin shake in breakfast (7AM), any nutritious snacks like 30grm makhana etc. (10AM), Salad before lunch by 12PM and then Indian lunch (with portion control and without wheat roti) by 12PM, and anything light in dinner like Daliya, Little millet Pulav, home made vegetable soup etc. (5:30PM) and sleep by 10PM. Initially it used to be tough, my body used to get hungry quickly, but after some time when my body’s nutrition needs were met, it got easier and I am easily able to follow this schedule and reaping the benefits of it. Also, 3 to 3.5 litres of water every day and most of which before lunch.
List of foods that help lower cortisol: Foods rich in magnesium (avocados, bananas Spinach etc.). Foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids (Chia seed, walnut etc.). Gut-healthy foods (Greek yogurt, fermented foods etc). Extra virgin olive oil, Dark chocolate etc. Things like Ashwagandha and cinnamon can also help reduce cortisol. You can take supplements as well if it is getting difficult for you to find all these different food products. However, I will always suggest to take food products rather than supplements because food contain fibre as well for better digestion and clears the gut better.
Sleep: I am a fashion photographer and I had no schedule before. Sleeping anytime and waking up anytime. My life schedule used to revolve around my work schedule. But now, my work schedule revolves around my life schedule. Yes! change your mentality, change your life. I strictly sleep by 10 or 10:30 PM so I naturally wake up by 5AM (without alarm).
I prefer to wake up on my own and with peace without any noise. I treasure the early morning silence. You won’t believe just because of my poor sleep cycle I started getting pimples on my face, my face started to get swollen and puffy of course, and my periods got irregular which was my biggest concern. I was putting my body through so much stress.
When I checked with my gynaecologists, she wrote me some tests, I did those and everything looked clear in my body. I thought I got PCOD, but No. Then she asked me my life routine and she was shocked when I told her. She straight away told me that I am putting my body through a lot of stress which is now started to harm me. Your body can take the stress up to a certain level, after that, it will retaliate.
Mental health: Alright, long story short, I had years of unhealthy childhood trauma piled up, which was causing a chronic stress to my body and was source of my cortisol issue. I started my healing journey in February 2022. I mean, I started it way before but officially started taking therapy from February 2022. I would honestly tell you, my “letting out stress” journey started from there.
The more I started healing my inner child, that child didn’t throw tantrum to eat chocolates and ice creams anymore (Sugar is the enemy of cortisol), my inner child was able to sit idol and write her thoughts in a journal, accept the good and bad parts of herself, my inner child started slowing down in terms of everything, my inner child stopped deriving her value from what she achieves and started showing gratitude for what she already has. She started slowly being happy with who she is and started trusting herself more as an adult.
Now, my inner child is not driving me crazy and making me do things that my adult self knows are wrong for me, now my inner child is my friend. She doesn’t rely on junk food for cheap dopamine, doesn’t want validation through unhealthy barely existing relationships. Believe it or not, it feels like taking 200 kilos of cortisol off my chest.
Note: Meditate and take deep breaths that fills your lungs. It instantly calms down the stress and intense anxious feelings.
Physical Movements: It’s no secret that exercise improves your mental health as well. You wanna know how? For example, I used to feel tired and lazy a lot. I used to think I have worked for 8-9 hours in a day so of course I will be tired, of course I will be unable to workout today. May be I will try and do it tomorrow, I will wake up early tomorrow so I get time. But I kept scrolling on my phone till 1PM and woke up late again, was late for work again, missed my workout AGAIN. Breaking the promises to myself and my over weight body broke my confidence. The moment confidence goes for a toss, your mental health goes for a toss.
However, the moment I started eating right, started sleeping on time without scrolling on my phone, took consistent therapies to keep my emotions on check and moved my body on a daily basis. My productive hours increased without being tired, my concentration increased. Brain fogging was reduced. Anger and irritation was under control. I can keep on listing the benefits, how many hours you got?
When I was going through high cortisol and started gaining weight especially on my face and neck area, I wrote a blog, “Style a curvy body” which seem to be my most loved blog so far. I used to try my best to style myself so I look good and that increases my dopamine for a time being. You can check out that blog by clicking here.
Products links are mentioned below that I used in my journey:
Dumbbells
Ashwagandha
Resistance band
Eye mask
Yoga mat
Walnuts
Chia seeds
Extra virgin olive oil
85% bitter dark chocolate
Note: If you click on any of the product links and buy the product, I might earn a little commission on it. However, it doesn’t affect your purchase price.