Peak Thoughts At Peak Performance: Why Cortisol Gets a Bad Rap
You’re mid workout.. beginning to sweat, heart is pumping, and your thoughts are slowly shifting from negative to positive.
Suddenly, you forget about the drama with your friends, work stress, and the winter blues you’ve been struggling with…. This shift from a negative to a positive mentality is the reason so many people exercise consistently. You’ve likely heard of a “runner’s high”, the surge of positive feelings and emotions during and after a run. But have you ever wondered WHY exercise has the ability to boost our mood in this major way?
I do my best thinking while exercising. I find that I can strategize, problem solve, and come to more rational conclusions about things while exercising. I also feel a sense of calm and tension relief that lasts hours after working out. It’s not a coincidence! There is science to back this clear-headed thinking during exercise! While exercise on its own is not a treatment for anxiety or depression, studies show that even a single session of exercise can positively impact mood and cognitive function while decreasing depression, anxiousness, and tension.
I wanted to find out what happens in our brain when we exercise that enhances our mood and makes our brain function differently… so I did a little research! I focused on one review of over 200 studies related to acute exercise and brain function.
The findings of this review reveals that short-term exercise stimulates an increase in Neurochemicals, Neurotrophins, Neurotransmitters, and Neuromodulators within our brain.
Some examples of each:
o Neurochemicals: Cortisol, Lactate
o Neurotrophins: BDNF, IGF-1, VEGF
o Neurotransmitters: Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Serotonin, Acetylcholine, GABA, Glutamate
o Neuromodulators: Endogenous Opioids, Endocannabinoids
These science-y words may be going over your head, and that’s okay! A lot of this information went over my head. For this reason, I decided to focus on just one Neurochemical: Cortisol
Cortisol tends to be an infamous hormone. Most people think of it as the “stress hormone” that only comes out when we are in strong flight or fight situations. This is partly true, but Cortisol has many other important roles including blood glucose control, blood pressure regulation, and metabolism of glucose. Our levels of Cortisol can vary day-to-day based on the level of stress we endure. In the average healthy person, Cortisol is usually heightened in the morning when we wake, and tapers down as the day goes on.
Low to moderate intensity exercise induces a healthy level of stress on our bodies. This means we get a spike in Cortisol when we exercise! This type of stress is healthy for us as long as we’re not exercising excessively or at too high of an intensity for prolonged periods of time. (Moderate exercise intensity feels somewhat hard; between 50% and 70% of your maximum heart rate) Cortisol is capable of crossing the blood brain barrier to reach the brain, which means the hormone can directly impact the brain. We all have Cortisol receptors located throughout our brain, with heavy concentrations in areas supporting learning and memory, such as the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala.
That being said… it’s not a huge surprise that study results show a correlation between low to moderate-intensity exercise induced Cortisol production and increased attention, working memory, problem solving, cognitive flexibility, verbal fluency, decision-making, and inhibitory control with effects lasting up to 2 hours after exercise. The review also suggests that the more we exercise (and Cortisol is released as a normal hormonal response to the activity) the more conditioned and equipped our brain will be to deal with exposure to other acute stressors in the future! How amazing is that?
So basically, the more we put ourselves through low to moderate levels of exercise related stress, the more prepared we will be to deal with other stressors in our lives. If that isn’t good enough news, the long term effects of exercise on cognitive function are also being studied for their possible role in improving cognitive function during aging and neurodegeneration, which sometimes leads to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, etc. It can be implied that exercise can positively impact our cognitive health both in the short-term and long-term!
There are many factors involved with brain cognition and exercise, I barely brushed the surface here, but I think it’s safe to say that exercise is good for us! Physically and Mentally!
