Stress Hormones

You would have to mention it, and still, they are going to be very transitory in nature.

If you are consistently stressed than yes your cortisol levels may be elevated slightly...however this wouldn't neccesarily ring an alarm. The stress hormones are what can cause damage to your body thus creating other issues that do show up in blood work. If you are chronically stressed and don't know what to do about it you may want to see a counselor.
Some of my friends that are therapist see therapist themselves outside of work.
It helps:)

The increase in the hormone cortisol from stress, may contribute to weight gain. And long term stress could cause problems like depression, anxiety and high bp .So get yourself checked with the doctor asap.

Staying in a good hydrated status can keep your stress levels down.

I was in a bad hydrated status last week. No coffee making facilities and the room service was awful.
I have therefore promised myself that in future, I shall never book less than a four star.

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I've got a serious reply to all this, but not right now.

Oh.

Do I need to put on a tin hat or anything?

Maybe

< goes to find tin hat....unsuccessful....dons top of the range colander instead..... hides behind couch >

Earlier this week I went to see the nutritionist that my husband saw at the beginning of the year.

He gave me several supplements that will support and increase my own sertonin production.

Methyl Folate
Methyl B-12
5-HTP

The first 2 I'm taking once a day, the 5-HTP twice a day.

I'm also taking ZMA is at bedtime. Makes me sleep like a log. It's zinc and magnesium aspartate.

Finally sunflower based lecithin, which is taken a half hour before exercise.

Not to rehash my medical history, but I can now identify that I was having panic attacks as young as 5 or 6 years old (hid them) and also engaged in borderline OCD behavior.

I was born in 1958. from the age of 15 or 16 through age 29 I drank alcoholically. Around 2003 I think I had a year of therapy, and was convinced to start taking Zoloft, getting up to a dosage of 150mg a day, a normal dosage. I remember asking the phychiatrist who perscribed it if I would ever get off of it. She said that given my history, that was unlikely, and that I'd stay on it long term.

However, more than one physician would ask me when I intended to get off Zoloft, and at first I would say "Never" as it made me feel normal. Then, over the years I started to second guess myself, and weaned off completely, which lasted only a month or 2. I went back on to 50mg.

In my mind I always took it as a failing that I had to take a medication, and that after all this time my body should have "fixed" itself as far a serotonin.

The nutritionist said some things that were a real eye opener for me, and has made me rethink my individual biology.

I'll continue this tomorrow. Don't mean to leave this as a cliff hanger, but I'm just not in the mood to write about this any more tonight.

Ooo . . . ooo . . . ooo . . .

I know how to make a hormone . . .













Don't pay her.

Anyway.

In answer to the original question as to whether stress hormones would be in the blood even when not feeling stressed at a particular time, I think it would depend upon the nature of the situation.

If a person has been chronically stressed, I'd imagine those hormones would always be present. The same as if you are a woman, estrogen is always present, for a male, testosterone.

It isn't something that flushes out of your system instantaneously, and the effects of it would be seen long term in other areas of blood work, i.e. your cholesterol, lipids (cortisol increases your lipids), blood platlettes, etc.

Your body doesn't produce and use hormones in isolation. It's a very complicated web.

Why do some people handle stress well, and others not? In part (I think in large part) because of genetics.
I explained to the nutritionist that both my mother and maternal grandmother (as far back in my family that I have personally seen), as well as my brother exhibited symtoms of chronic anxiety. My grandmother and now that I think of it, brother also exhibited OCD.
Another brother died of alcoholism at 34, father alcoholic most of his life, "stiff upper lipping it" the last decade or so of his life. Other drug dependancy issues, including suicide attempts, with another sibling.

Given this history, plus my own personal life experiences, including outside stressors such as husbands health issues, is it any wonder stress hormones would almost constantly be present.

I'm not giving this information to interest anyone about me personally, but as a statement to everyone. My experiences are not unique, others have/had much worse backgrounds and experiences, others better.

The fact is, I have always found statements/advice such as "take a deep breath, hydrate, think 'happy thoughts', pray, eat more/less of this/that, etc." while well meant, to be many times inadequate. It may be fine for many people, but these one size fits all methods leave a lot to be desired. Telling someone falling off the cliff into the abyss of a panic attack to "take a deep breath" is like giving someone a kleenex and telling them to use it as a parachute when they are about to fall off a literal cliff.

You cannot tell stress hormones what to do, any more than you could tell FSH in a woman not to help produce follicles in the ovaries for egg production or insulin not to perform its job on glucose.

Going for a haircut, will be back to continue.