1. Limit your screen time before bed
Start setting your phone on the other side of the room at least an hour before sleep and swap that doom-scrolling time for a good old-fashioned book. The blue light emitted from your phone, more than just being harmful to your precious eyes, strains the production of melatonin making sleep harder to achieve and disrupting your body’s natural circadian rhythm. Yep, your phone is culprit number one for stressing your body out, and if you can set a cap on your screen time at least an hour before bed, your body will reap the benefits.
2. Get those steps in
While high-impact workouts could cause cortisol levels to spike in some people, a low-impact, hearty workout like a daily long walk is a surefire way to calm the nervous system and make your body naturally extra tired at the end of the day. On top of those benefits, walking helps release endorphins, the feel-good hormones which lifts your mood and fights that pesky cortisol.
3. Take calming supplements
If you haven’t hopped on the ashwagandha trend yet, you’re missing out. Ashwagandha is a root typically used in supplement form to promote sleep and lower stress and anxiety. Studies have shown that ashwagandha significantly reduces stress, and fatigue and improves healthy sleep. So, this one is a two-in-one: You can lower your cortisol AND improve your sleep simultaneously.
4. Expose yourself to sunlight first thing in the morning
Take a note out of Andrew Huberman’s playbook and prioritize getting that sunshine in as soon as you wake up. This sunlight exposure in the AM suppresses the melatonin in your system which blocks sleepiness. It’s like caffeine, but a lot healthier. The suppression of melatonin signals to your body that it's time to start the day, initiating the natural circadian clock so that in the evening melatonin can rise again, letting your body know it needs to go to bed.
5. Prioritize a well-balanced diet
To lower your cortisol levels, you’ll have to also lower your caffeine and sugar intake. Yes, it’s not great news for the coffee and sweet treat enthusiasts, but the good news is you can still have those things. Just limit the intake! Instead, you’ll want to prioritize foods containing omega-3 fatty acids (which can be found in salmon, tofu and avocado) and dietary fibers like vegetables and nuts.
6. Meditate and/or do some breathwork
Cortisol is quite literally known as the “fight or flight” hormone. Meditation or breathing exercises work to ground you in the present, slow breathing and lower your heart rate. The vagus nerve is the central nerve site in your parasympathetic nervous system which specifically targets the immune system, heart rate and digestion, among several other things. In simpler terms, this is what gets set off when you are stressed. By implementing an active process such as meditation or breathwork, you directly stabilize this site of nerves and stop the panic in action. You get calmer and thus experience better sleep.
