Environment For High Cortisol Individuals

[ursidae]

What kind of environment should the high cortisol person seek to manage emotional stress? I realise such imbalance is not all in the mind but extreme levels of emotional stress are impeding any sort of improvement on a physical level

 

[shine]

Not quite sure what exactly you mean by environment. If you live in an environment that is constantly leading to emotional stress, you need to get out of it. I don't know your situation, what is it like?

I like to be in the forest to destress. Being surrounded by trees and animals and just watching what is going on makes you realize that your problems don't really matter there, in the real world. Nobody in the forest cares about them but you. You're the only idiot there that thinks that they are highly important and it is absolutely necessary to think about them and feel them. It's your own prison.
It's easy to break out and let go there.

Do you know how to focus your attention? You don't need to focus on your emotional stress, you can choose to focus on something that is uplifting. Meditation teaches you to focus on your breath, your heartbeat and what not. You can then use this skill to focus your attention on different things. If you feel the negative emotional stress, you can for example focus on how beautiful the trees/plants look. You can't have all your attention on your emotional pain when your focus is somewhere else.


Also, have you tried theanine? It is like meditation in a capsule, it increases alpha brainwaves and lowers cortisol even in low doses. When I have difficulty sleeping after intense afternoon workouts or generally stressful days theanine reliably calms me down and puts me to sleep.

 

[ursidae]

Not quite sure what exactly you mean by environment. If you live in an environment that is constantly leading to emotional stress, you need to get out of it. I don't know your situation, what is it like?

I like to be in the forest to destress. Being surrounded by trees and animals and just watching what is going on makes you realize that your problems don't really matter there, in the real world. Nobody in the forest cares about them but you. You're the only idiot there that thinks that they are highly important and it is absolutely necessary to think about them and feel them. It's your own prison.
It's easy to break out and let go there.

Do you know how to focus your attention? You don't need to focus on your emotional stress, you can choose to focus on something that is uplifting. Meditation teaches you to focus on your breath, your heartbeat and what not. You can then use this skill to focus your attention on different things. If you feel the negative emotional stress, you can for example focus on how beautiful the trees/plants look. You can't have all your attention on your emotional pain when your focus is somewhere else.


Also, have you tried theanine? It is like meditation in a capsule, it increases alpha brainwaves and lowers cortisol even in low doses. When I have difficulty sleeping after intense afternoon workouts or generally stressful days theanine reliably calms me down and puts me to sleep.

I was referring to environment as one’s surroundings but also habits/mindset, thanks for responding. Focusing on things bigger than me sounds like a good strategy. I knew theanine occurs naturally in some beverages but I didn’t know the action. Being in nature calms me down too, but when I’m very stressed even that doesn’t work so well so I have to lie down, wrap myself in a blanket and hyperventilate which is probably very bad

 

[equipoise]

Nature is all fine and dandy but to survive you have to work a minimum of 40 hours per week and add time to comute and socialize with colleagues. All that takes quite some energy to do. What you gotta make sure you do is get enough calories in you, make sleep your priority, work on stress resilience.

As for the toxic ones around you? Even the ones you percieve as friends are usually your biggest enemies. To your psyche, to your well being. There are tons of awesome people around, and while they might eat PUFA and stuff, they are still fun to be around.

 

[AndrewGesell]

What kind of environment should the high cortisol person seek to manage emotional stress? I realise such imbalance is not all in the mind but extreme levels of emotional stress are impeding any sort of improvement on a physical level

High elevation if you can.I live in the low Valley in Phoenix. Whenever I travel to Flagstaff to snowboard many of my symptoms go away, and my breathing improves greatly.