Constant stress from the modern world creates the need to run away from the tiger, the response signaled by cortisol that is wired into us from our ancestors.
Since we cannot physically run from the dangers in the modern world, glucose that cortisol releases does not get used by the muscles and gets stored as fat. Additionally, the hormone cortisol stays high. That causes insulin resistance.
What is worse is that the foods we eat that are highly processed with sugar and salt and chemicals create cortisol spikes that also cause insulin resistance.
Reset with fasting
By fasting in a rhythm, we go in and out of feast and famine, cycling our metabolism.
This way, when we fast, we are burning the sugar stored as fat that got stored when not being able to run from the tiger. It also makes us more insulin sensitive, so we can burn glucose when it comes in our cells.
By resetting our metabolism, fasting also resets our taste for more of food as nature provides it, not highly processed. That helps everything.
But sometimes when we are fasting, we need a little love and reassurance. We can’t get it from food. There is an alternative –
Reset with hormones
When we understand our body’s hierarchy of hormones, we can use higher level hormones to bring back regulation to the hormones below them in the hierarchy.
On the bottom of the hierarchy are sex hormones: estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. Too often when they are low, the impulse is to replace them with creams, patches or pills.
Nature’s way of bringing back low sex hormones is to regulate the hormones above them in the hierarchy.
The hormone just above the sex hormones is insulin. It is responsible for bringing glucose into the cell to burn it for fuel.
The biggest reason that sex hormones are low or imbalanced is insulin resistance. The high prevalence of PCOS and infertility is evidence of widespread insulin resistance.
But to help manage insulin resistance is the hormone directly above it, cortisol.
Step higher in the hierarchy
Cortisol is secreted in high amounts when you are stressed, dysregulating insulin.
To add to a fasting rhythm, we look to the top dog hormone at the top of the hierarchy to moderate stress and cortisol.
This top hormone regulates the release of cortisol so that it is pulsed only when needed and then cleared so it is not around all the time.
What is this top dog hormone?
Oxytocin
Oxytocin is the top of the hormone hierarchy.
It is the feel-good love hormone that helps mothers bond with their newborn babies. The good news is that you do not have to give birth to raise your oxytocin levels.
Because it is so important to moderate stress in this world, researchers have looked at practices that have traditionally helped people calm their systems of stress.
Here are 12 science-based ways to increase oxytocin so that all the hormones down the hierarchy are regulated
- Yoga (research does not say what kind, but not extreme or hot yoga, more like Sun salutations.)
- Listen to music (your favorite)
- Get a massage or favorite relaxing bodywork – especially on day 2 of a 3 day water fast
- Tell someone how much you care (in a divisive world, there is no oxytocin)
- Spend time with friends
- Use the comment sections on social media to express thanks and amazement
- Meditation
- Make your conversations count when you are connecting with people – care as you listen to the speaker, not immediately turning it around to you, but asking more questions and being curious about their experience
- Cuddle or hug (if you are by yourself do havening: cross your arms and rub upper arms with hands. You can also, with your arms crossed, hands on upper arms, tap them in a rhythm, left, right, left, right . . .)
- Do something nice for someone
- Interact with your pet: play with it, pet it
- Cook and eat with someone you love (When you break your fast)
Also, Walking will bring cortisol down because it is bilateral stimulation. If you also look out at the horizon, scan left to right, you let your body know you are moving away from the tiger and that calms cortisol too.
Perhaps also try Rucking – walking with a weighted vest. Or EFT tapping.
Strategies to use whether eating or fasting
These ten plus ways to increase oxytocin in order to calm stress hormones can be used any time.
Whether we are in a fasting window or an eating window, we may need to calm down so that cortisol does not dysregulate our other hormones.
Pick one of these research-backed ways to calm down by increasing oxytocin.
Then pick another when you need it, using the tool to fit the situation.
