Cortisol and Your Period: How Stress Disrupts Ovulation

Stress takes a toll on our bodies, and for women, being in a prolonged state of stress can disrupt hormonal cycles and cause irregular periods. 

If you’ve been experiencing changes to your cycle with no discernible medical cause, the culprit may be stress. Here’s how stress could be messing with your hormones and some tips to take better care of yourself throughout your monthly cycle.

How Stress Affects Your Period

Emotional, nutritional, or physical stress can alter your hormone levels and reduce the energy you have available for menstruation. The hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPA) axis, otherwise known as the reproductive axis, regulates hormonal responses to stress.

When you’re stressed, the hypothalamus releases corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), triggering production of the stress hormone cortisol and impacting the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis, which regulates the release of hormones essential to ovary stimulation. 

Elevated cortisol levels also cause your body to use more energy. When your body thinks it’s facing a challenge, it prioritizes blood glucose to vital functions like your brain over long-term processes like menstruation.

Not everyone experiences menstrual changes when they’re under stress, but some ways stress may affect your period include:

• Spotting in between periods
• Longer cycles between bleeding
• Less or more blood than usual
• Missing period
• Unpredictable menstrual cycles
• Prolonged periods

It’s important to consult with your gynecologist if your period has been irregular, or if you have spotting between periods. While stress from a heavy workload or frequent travel can change your cycle, irregular periods and spotting are also common symptoms of a range of conditions from STIs to PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), or even serious problems like cervical cancer.

Signs of High Cortisol

Cortisol is a hormone produced by the adrenal glands that plays a key role in regulating immune function, metabolism, and the body’s response to stress. Our bodies are designed to handle stress for short amounts of time, but not months of emotional duress and low-grade physical strain, which modern life often entails.

Persistently high cortisol levels can lead to a range of health issues such as:

• Weight gain (particularly around the abdomen) despite unchanged diet – Cortisol promotes accumulation of visceral (belly) fat
• Sleep problems – Cortisol messes with melatonin, a hormone regulating sleep
• Mood changes such as anxiety, irritability, or feeling overwhelmed easily – cortisol directly impacts mood regulation
• Hormone disruption or irregular periods – Cortisol competes with reproductive hormones, leading to reproductive issues
• Cravings for sugar and high fat foods – Cortisol raises blood glucose as the body goes into “fight or flight,” which over time can increase the risk of developing insulin resistance 

What Is the “Pregnenolone Steal”?

The “pregnenolone steal” is a popular theory in naturopathic medicine that attributes hormonal symptoms to stress. Pregnenolone is the “mother hormone” your body uses to produce progesterone, cortisol, estrogen, DHEA, and testosterone.

Since cortisol and sex hormones like progesterone all come out of pregnenolone, the “pregnenolone steal” theory proposes that when you’re stressed, the body uses more pregnenolone to make cortisol than sex hormones, causing symptoms of pregnenolone deficiency such as fatigue, low libido, and irregular cycles. 

While there is plenty of scientific evidence behind cortisol itself interfering with hormonal function, there is little evidence backing up the theory that cortisol steals raw hormonal material. If you’re concerned about hormonal symptoms, it’s important to consult with your gynecologist.

Five-Minute Stress Reduction Techniques To Keep Your Cycle Regular

Stress is unavoidable and the only thing we can help control is how we react to it. Understanding how to regulate your body’s reaction to stress can help lower cortisol levels and reduce hormone disruption.

Here are some easy ways to get your body out of fight-or-flight mode and keep your cycle regular.

1. Breathing Exercises

When we’re stressed, we tend to subconsciously hold our breath, elevating cortisol levels and anxiety. Try these breathing techniques to get oxygen and blood flowing through your body:

• Deep belly breathing – Slowly inhale through your nose, counting to five, allowing your belly to fully expand. Hold the breath for one second, and slowly exhale through your mouth.
• 5-finger breathing – Using one hand as a focal point, concentrate on tracing the outline of a hand with your other hand, inhaling as you trace up a finger and exhaling as you trace down.
• Sighing – There’s a reason why we sigh when things get hectic. Taking a deep, sighing exhale helps your body immediately release tension.

2. Mindfulness

Stress causes the brain to fixate on things out of our immediate control as it tenses in anticipation of the next challenge. Mindfully grounding yourself in your body and environment releases this tension and lowers anxiety.

• Grounding observation – Take in your surroundings in their exact metric. This is a large table, this is a large wooden table, this is a large wooden table that has been here for three years. Identifying things you see, smell, and touch in your immediate environment helps ground you in the moment rather than anticipate unknown problems.
• Positive visualization – Close your eyes, breathe, and spend five minutes picturing a tranquil space you feel safe in, such as your bedroom, or a beautiful beach.

3. Physical Shifts

Fresh air, movement, and environmental changes can do wonders. When you’re feeling particularly stressed at work, try these techniques to release tension.

• Gentle stretching – Our bodies hold a lot of tension when they’re sitting all the time. Gently stretching or going for a quick walk breaks up sedentary stress and gives you a little endorphin boost as your body thanks you for moving.
• Unplug – Sensory overstimulation raises cortisol in the body. Close your laptop and turn your phone off for five minutes to center yourself.

Conclusion

Chronic stress can impact your hormones, resulting in a range of physical symptoms. Managing day-to-day stress effectively can help keep your cortisol levels down so your body isn’t always in fight-or-flight mode.

Keep in mind that hormonal issues and irregular cycles are also symptomatic of many other conditions, and it’s important to consult your doctor if symptoms persist.