Nowadays there is a lot of emphasis placed on cortisol levels which can be tested on blood work. Let’s take a look and see why everyone is so interested in seeing what their cortisol levels are nowadays and what it can mean if they are out of balance.
The adrenal glands release cortisol when under stress, and it can create lots of problems if the stress continues on a chronic basis. The ancient doctors of Ayurveda talked about this at great lengths in their textbooks, although they called it Vata being out of balance.
Which means that there are different ways of describing the same thing. Nowadays we speak in terms of organs and glands using modern scientific terminology. For example, we might talk about how the adrenal glands release cortisol when stressed and how too much of it in your bloodstream can create different health problems. But the ancient doctors talked about it at a deeper level and they took it one or two steps further back to the root cause.
It’s not so much that the adrenal glands are the problem, they are more the victim. The driving force behind the whole situation is that if the Vata goes high, then it stimulates the adrenal glands. If you remember, Vata is that principle in our bodies which governs the movements of thoughts through the mind, the movement of blood circulating, the movement of food churning in the stomach, in fact it controls all bodily movements. Vata is also the element of quickness so if you rush through the day and are doing everything too quickly or having too many thoughts or over-analyzing everything, then you will be continually disturbing your Vata, which in turn pushes your adrenal glands to dump cortisol.
The ancient textbooks said that Vata disturbances can shrink the body’s physical channels. And guess what? So can cortisol. So let’s think what might happen if some of your physical channels shrink down. Well, if you shrink the channels that carry blood, such as the arteries, the blood pressure can go up. Or if you shrink the channels that are carrying toxins out of the body through the bowel movement, urine and sweat those toxins cannot get out now so they can turn around and settle in the joints causing arthritic pain and swelling. This is why your whole body aches and feels like you’re retaining fluid after periods of stress.
Vata disturbances are known to affect the quality of sleep since Vata is so light that if it becomes elevated the sleep becomes light and it becomes hard to fall asleep and have a deep rejuvenating sleep. If cortisol is in your blood stream at night after a stressful day, then you will also have a hard time falling and staying asleep.
The ancient doctors stated that high Vata can emaciate the tissues of the body. This is especially true with the bone tissue, where many of the tall thin Vata body types who wind up with either too much stress or a very light diet such as a vegan diet will usually wind up with osteopenia or osteoporosis.
It turns out cortisol does this as well: when cortisol levels are high it signals the thyroid gland to stop making its hormones while at the same time preventing the conversion of the thyroid hormone T4 into T3, the inactive version into the active version, which can be taken up and used by the cells. If you recall from my book, “Healing the Thyroid With Ayurveda,” when the thyroid gland becomes weak then calcium absorption into the bones is impaired, creating osteopenia or osteoporosis. This again is just another way of stating the same thing in both ancient and modern terminology.
When Vata goes out of balance we crave sweet, sour and salty foods and just food in general because eating can pacify Vata. In the same way if cortisol levels are high signals are sent to the brain that you are hungry and you need to eat to keep up with the demand for this high energy you are creating. You therefore end up overeating to satisfy these hunger signals and to balance your Vata.
The ancient doctors said that in general Vata was the “leading” dosha, which means that once Vata gets disturbed it will eventually push Pitta and Kapha out of balance.
So many disease processes start with high Vata as the initial underlying imbalance, which if not addressed early on, can slowly blossom into more complicated imbalances.
Which means that if you are existing in a state of high cortisol for too long lots of diseases can result. Another way we could put it is that you are existing in a constant state of fight or flight. We all know that the fight or flight response was meant for an occasional stressor, which helps us to run from the danger, but if we are always rushing through the day and this becomes the norm, then its effects can devastate the body.
When you are rushing and cortisol is constantly being pumped out by your adrenal glands, the cortisol triggers a flood of glucose that supplies an immediate source of energy to your muscles. And at the same time it prevents the production of insulin so that the glucose or blood sugar won’t be stored in the muscles which is what insulin’s job is, but instead will stay in the bloodstream so that it is available to the muscles. Which means that over time this high sugar remaining in the blood can make your blood sugar go up.
Both high Vata and high cortisol levels can upset digestion. This is because under times of fight or flight the blood is shunted out of the digestive organs and into the extremities so you can run from the danger. At the same time the digestive system shuts down so the body can use its energy to run from the threat, preventing you from digesting or absorbing food. This is why many people develop digestive problems, ulcers and colitis when stressed, and then these symptoms clear up once the stress is gone.
And when Vata goes up your apana moves up. Remember, apana is the subdosha or subsection of Vata which resides in the intestinal region and is responsible for the downward flow of food in your gut. If apana moves up, it can shut down your digestion and create problems such as a hiatal hernia as the energy keeps pushing the stomach up into the diaphragm, eventually weakening the lower esophageal sphincter and creating a hernia.
We all have had times in our lives when we were severely stressed by some bad news and directly after that we developed a head cold or other respiratory infection. This is because cortisol shuts down the immune system. There are bacteria and viruses in every breath you take just waiting to gain entrance into your body at the first sign of immune system weakness.
When we are stressed and our Vata goes high and we begin dumping cortisol, the magnesium flushes instantly out of the body. And since magnesium is responsible for over 300 bodily functions and enzyme systems, pretty much anything can happen when magnesium goes low. For one thing you can develop panic attacks as more magnesium is dumped out, making you more nervous, causing more cortisol to be released, and so on until this vicious cycle ends in a panic attack. Low magnesium can also cause high blood pressure and headaches, hardening of the arteries, irregular heartbeats and arthritis in the joints since one of magnesiums hundreds of jobs is to keep the calcium from depositing into the joints. Once magnesium goes low the calcium can infiltrate into the joints, causing pretty intense joint pain.
So now you can see why the ancient doctors prescribed twice as many remedies for Vata imbalances as compared to the Pitta and Kapha imbalances. It is imperative that you identify that you are in fact in fight or flight or are walking around with a Vata imbalance. Until you do so your healing won’t be as deep and effective.
I mention this because the majority of my patients have severe Vata imbalances and they are stuck in fight or flight and are releasing too much cortisol on a daily basis. They contact me and ask me for any herbs I might have to help all their ailments. I start them out on our wonderful herbs, then we go over the diet and cleansing techniques, but what I have found through the years is that these patients are looking for the cure outside of their bodies, which is there to some extent in the therapies I just mentioned, but the real truth is that until they can identify that they are their own worst enemies, perpetuating their Vata imbalances as they continue to rush through the days, go to bed late and respond adversely to all the stressors that come their way, as long as they don’t realize that they also play a huge part in their healing, they cannot fully escape their health issues.
The very successful patients and those who overcome their health problems the best are those that can stand back, check in with their body throughout the day, and identify when they are talking too much, or too rapidly, or might be multitasking or doing things very quickly, and when they realize these things are happening just create a habit to stop them in their tracks. By constantly re-evaluating your state of Vata throughout the day and nipping it in the bud when it starts to go high, it becomes a habit that you can break where eventually you will slow down, you will learn to balance the Vata, prevent the release of cortisol and allow your body to fully heal itself as it gently slides out of fight or flight into a balanced state of being which can finally pave the way for true healing to take place.
Of course there are dozens of herbs to help get one out of fight or flight, in addition to dietary changes, meditation techniques, breathing techniques, marma and massage therapies, magnesium baths, and exposure to nature. All of which are can help reduce your Vata.
So I hope the message is loud and clear in this video: whatever your health problem is, first learn what Vata is and all the ways you can work to reduce it so that you can also be part of your health care team. It’s wonderful that there are so many natural ways to bring balance back to the body, but don’t forget that YOU must also play a role in healing yourself by keeping your Vata balanced which will result in lowering the cortisol levels, which will ultimately reverse and prevent all kinds of bad health trends.
Thank you,