Turns out the cortisol spike from exercise suppresses the next cortisol response from a stressor. So you should exercise before stressful things.
Aka too exhausted to give a fuck
Hahahahahaha, holy fuck is that accurate!
So if you’ve just exercised, psychological stressors won’t increase your cortisol levels very much? Is that what it’s trying to say?
On the other hand, not exercising means that psychological stressors can spike up your cortisol sky high. Well, at least that’s my interpretation of what I just read.
That is my read of it too. The next question would be quantifying the effect in terms of duration and durability. If you have this depression of cortisol response from a one time set of exercise, how long does it take for that reduced response to fade? If you have one psychological stressor does that now reset your system and return you to the pre-exercise state?
I would also want to know about the levels for someone going from sedentary to low, mid, and high levels of activity. If you take someone from any of the 4 categories, sedentary, low, mid, and high activity, and then change their activity to one of the other levels what is the impact? For example if you change from a physical job to a less physical job do you have increased cortisol response to psychological stressors? What about parents as their kids move from requiring lifting and carrying to walking on their own? Could this be part of the terrible twos? What about people who have an injury and then become depressed?
Very interesting research, I will definitely be following it in future.
As far as I can tell, that’s outside the scope of this study. Who knows what the long term effects are. However, it did say this:
Above this threshold, a single bout of exercise induces a cortisol response that is linearly proportional to the intensity at which the exercise is performed.
So the intensity matters in the short run. Take a walk, and it does something to your cortisol, lift weights and it does a lot more.
If you wanted to explore longer term effects, you could just have people exercise regularly for a week or a month and then replicate the rest of the study. I’m really curious about the lingering effect this might have. If you went to the gym every afternoon, will that still help in the next morning when you’re in a stressful meeting?
Indeed, future research needed, but definitely interesting.
My incredibly anecdotal experience of being a college athlete that slipped into alcohol abuse and getting out of shape for a few years, now 34… 3.5 years no alcohol, slowly getting back in the gym the past year or two. Intense exercise is good for my brain and I need more of it. Was already realizing it, this study confirms. I used to be a sprinter. Handled the stresses of life much better. Started to swim and run again recently. Too bad my body isn’t back there yet, pulled a hamstring a couple weeks ago
I’m glad you’re better now.
So, long term effects might exist as well. If the same mechanics apply long term as well, that would mean that living an active life would make it easier to handle psychological stress.
