
Stop Blaming Cortisol: The Real Story Behind Exercise and Stress
You may have heard that doing a tough workout will send your body into “fight-or-flight,” spiking cortisol, causing weight gain or burnout. Recently I have seen many fitness and wellness influencers (and professionals for that matter) discourage people from participating in higher intensity workouts, claiming “intense workouts can spike cortisol and ruin your hormones!” But this is a massive misunderstanding of how cortisol actually works and in a world where there are already so many barriers to people moving their body, only creates more fear and confusion around exercise.
In this post, we’ll kick things off by looking at some of the myths surrounding cortisol, then for those who want to go deeper, explore cortisol’s true role, how exercise affects it, and why vigorous workouts (even for women) are more friend than foe.