Once again, today’s post is coming from readers’ emails and comments. In my recent Derailed post, I wrote the following:
In it for the long haul? Here’s where you have to triage – and listen to me carefully. Eating well and sleeping enough come first. Just focus on that, and if that’s all you can do, that’s okay. Eat only Good Food, sleep as much as you can, and supplement for cortisol management. Those are your top priorities, and if you can keep those up, you’ll maintain an awful lot of your general “health”.
I received more than a few emails following that statement, asking about cortisol management, and steps you can take to help you manage your cortisol levels. Now, I’m not an expert on adrenal fatigue by any means, but I’m pretty good with Google, so I’ve pulled some basics together for y’all. I also checked in with Dallas and Mathieu Lalonde to see what their giant science-y brains could add. One word of caution – I’ve given you some supplement links as reference, but common sense should tell you to do your own research before you start taking anything new, right?
Let’s hit the basic background principles first. The adrenal glands produce many of the body’s hormones, including epinephrine (adrenaline) and cortisol. The function is to help us under stress – the release of certain hormones puts us into “fight or flight” mode, to help us deal with crisis situations. Trouble is, when you are under constant stress, the glands are working overtime, pumping out these hormones. The excess cortisol wreaks havoc on your metabolism, and seriously circumvents the processing of fat, protein and carbohydrates and fat loss efforts.
You can help to manage cortisol levels with the following supplements and common sense tips.
Supplements:BCAA (branch chain amino acids). A general recommendation is to take 5g of mixed BCAAs per dose, 3-4 times a day, especially post work-out, and on an empty stomach.
Dallas adds that L-glutamine has been found to have immune-stimulating properties, and can help with muscle recovery when training hard. Supplement with 10 grams, twice daily on an empty stomach, with one of those servings taken right before bed. Powdered forms are inexpensive and easily mixed into a few ounces of water.
Phosphatidyl serine. Studies have shown that 800mg/day can significantly suppress cortisol, but this can get expensive.
ZMA supplements (zinc-magnesium-aspertate) or any other supplement that has zinc, magnesium and/or calcium, along with vitamin C supplements or Emergen-C Lite. Those should help with immune function and DNA repair during stressful times.
Avoid all NSAIDs (like Advil). Dallas explains that these anti-inflammatories not only negatively affect cortisol, but they decrease protein synthesis rates. This means that your body’s acute response to the stress of high-intensity exercise is diminished, which potentially could slow recovery/adaptation. Stick to fish oils for their anti-inflammatory properties.
Training:Perform your workouts but reduce the intensity. Exercise does reduce stress. However, excessively long bouts of training or too many intense workouts deliver too much stress to an already-stressed body, and will increase levels of cortisol.
M@ adds that intense met-cons should be no greater than 30 minutes, and ideally much less than that. Monostructural cardio at high intensity (running, rowing, cycling, swimming) should be less than 45 minutes. Weightlifting workouts should also be less than 45 minutes in total.
Sleep:
Get plenty of sleep, but it does not have to be all in one chunk. Don’t freak out if you sleep for a little while, wake up, then go back to sleep (as you’ve been doing), or get up and take a nap later in the day. Research has shown that it is not the total amount of sleep hours that matters, but the number of sleep cycles achieved while sleeping.
Here’s something from the Center for Applied Cognitive Studies: “Studies show that the length of sleep is not what causes us to be refreshed upon waking. The key factor is the number of complete sleep cycles we enjoy.” It turns out that short afternoon naps (75-90 minutes) are very productive sleep-cycle wise. So go ahead and get your sleep in whenever you can – it doesn’t have to be a whole 8 to 9 hour block.
Nutrition:
With respect to your overall diet, we’ve more than got that covered, don’t we? However, be sure to abstain from caffeine and other stimulants. M@ also adds that you may want to abstain from alcohol and fructose as well.
A small (no more than 2 blocks of whatever macronutrient combination suits your goals) PWO meal will help lower cortisol levels after exercise.
So now you’ve got a few options for helping you manage your cortisol levels, including some that come from a bottle. One obvious word of caution – this does NOT mean you can supplement your way out of stress and its negative effects on your health and fitness. Employing good life stress-management skills are going to do more for your efforts to manage cortisol than any combination of supplements. A little extra help never hurts, however, so add the above to see you through the stressful times.
Melissa, I've read that you're not supposed to take calcium and ZMA together because the calcium blocks the absorption of the Zinc. Just how important is it that I separate these? If I take them together is all the Zinc just going to waste?
-Ryan
Ryan – lots of supplements contain zinc PLUS calcium. I don't believe there is a contraindication for consuming both together. From the Linus Pauling web site (emphasis is my own):
"High levels of dietary calcium impair zinc absorption in animals, but it is uncertain whether this occurs in humans. One study showed that increasing the calcium intake of postmenopausal women by 890 mg/day in the form of milk or calcium phosphate (total calcium intake, 1,360 mg/day) reduced zinc absorption and zinc balance in postmenopausal women (11), but increasing the calcium intake of adolescent girls by 1,000 mg/day in the form of calcium citrate malate (total calcium intake, 1,667 mg/day) did not affect zinc absorption or balance (12). Calcium in combination with phytic acid reduces zinc absorption. This effect is particularly relevant to individuals who very frequently consume tortillas made with lime (i.e., calcium oxide)."
And from The Journal of Nutrition:
"It appears unlikely that calcium per se has a negative effect on zinc absorption. We added calcium to cow’s milk formula to a level of ~1300 mg/L and found no significant difference in zinc absorption from the formula with the regular level of calcium (500 mg/L) through the use of radioisotopes in human adults and paired observations (Lönnerdal et al. 1984 ). Similarly, Spencer et al. (1984) and Dawson-Hughes et al. (1986) added large amounts of calcium to a meal and found no effect on zinc absorption in human adults. It also appears that the long-term use of calcium supplements has no effect on zinc status; Gambian women who were given 1000 mg calcium/d had plasma zinc concentrations similar to those of unsupplemented women (Yan et al. 1996 )."
So, my take would be that there is no need to take these supplements separately. (Interestingly, phytates – like those found in grains – has a strong negative effect on zinc absorption. Yet another reason to go Paleo if you're trying to de-stress and get better sleep.)
Anyone smarter and more science-y than me want to weigh in on this one?
Thanks for the excellent question, Ryan.
Sweet! I tried ZMA and enjoyed it's benefits but quit taking it b/c timing it to avoid calcium was too much of a pain in the ass. I guess I'll hop back on it. Thanks for doing that research!
-Ryan
I can attest to the benefits of giving up fructose. As part of my pre Thanksgiving Whole 30, I decided to give up fruits. Prior to the Whole30, 75% of my carb source was coming from fruits. Within days of giving up fruits, my energy level went up, I sleep like a baby through the night and lost a 1/2 inch from my belly and digestion improved.
While I don't consider myself "smarter or more science-y" than Melissa, I'll weigh in and say that a little calcium in some residual food in your stomach that you ate 3 hours before bed shouldn't affect the absorption of magnesium and/or zinc, though I wouldn't recommend taking a calcium supplement with your ZMA. In general, I encourage people to head to bed with an emty-ish stomach anyway, so ZMA right before bed shouldn't conflict too much with calcium-containing foods. Also, keep in mind that most calcium supplements aren't very well absorbed anyway (though some compounds are better than others), so I'd rather see you getting your calcium from food. Of course, the ZMA supplement is a suboptimal source as well, but as an anti-stress "intervention", it works well. I've used ZMA (and various formulations of chelated zinc or picolinate and magnesium asparate/citrate) off and on for years, and definitely noted better tolerance to hard training and life stressors when I am supplementing with it. I don't place nearly as much importance on calcium supplementation, though. The hormonal balancing and immune-stimulating effects of ZMA can be augmented by glutamine and BCAA supplementation, as Melissa previously noted.
Melissa, nice work on posting all this stuff. I'm stoked to have you as a Smart partner. Now if you could just make me a little less Dumb…
Great post….
starting my google searches
Melissa,
Making supplement recommendations based on google searches is weak.
The supplement industry is notorious for promoting stuff of questionable value. You are simply falling in line.
You do ok when you talk about stuff you know. Don't give up your authority.
@Hamilton: All right… that's fair-ish. Lest anyone think I got my information from the back of Muscle & Fitness Hers, here's some background. A few months ago when I was going through some stress, I spoke with Robb Wolf about adrenal fatigue and his experience with cortisol and cortisol management. He made reference to Poliquin's BioSignature work, which I then spent time researching. Fascinating, especially knowing the success Robb has had with implementing Poliquin's cortisol management protocol in his own life. I then sent my thoughts on supplementation over to M@ and Dallas, and had chats with them about what was worthwhile to consider and what was, in their opinion, bunk. I then applied some of these tips for cortisol management to my own life, with good success. So there you have it – all that background, condensed into the phrase, "I Googled some stuff."
In all fairness, not all supplements are bad. Fish oil is a supplement. Vitamin D3 is a supplement. And in times of stress, I am not above bumping up my supplement intake in the short term to help see me through. Note, however, that three out of my four areas of recommendations had nothing to do with pills from a bottle, and everything to do with good old fashioned common sense. And I sure as hell consider common sense "stuff I know".
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Mellisa,
You've got a distinctive way, so I like to pop in here. I appreciate your taking the time to respond further.
In my view, there's too much in the way of shorthand solutions floating around on the largely unreliable web. Anything focusing on supplements is suspect. Surely you've dropping in on various fitness sites and noticed how everyone is pimping supps. I take fish oil and D and haven't noticed a bit of difference.
Good luck.
nice work
oh, though not working by the exact same mechanisms, I think that Creatine and Glutamine have similar effects, if only indirectly.
As does marijuana.
But I didn't say that.
@Hamilton: You make a great point here that I've often thought of when taking supplements.
How does one really notice whether or not they're making a difference? Especially given that there are so many factors involved that it's impossible/impractical to just change one thing. Let's say this week I decide to start taking BCAA's. I know my work schedule and pressure is going up, but I'm also switching my training program up. And I'm at day 23 of my whole30. And so on… So, how do I tell if these are working or if I'm wasting my money?
Ok, let's say my numbers in my workouts go up/down. Was it the supplements or was it something else? Or, let's say I start taking them and I "feel" stronger more days in a row? Did they help with my recovery or is there something else going on?
Melissa,
I am wondering how/if you have changed your CF WODs in response to this article? Do you think main site WODs, in general, fall in line with the intensity of training over the long term? (For sake of argument, lets assume the crossfitter is someone who usually does the workouts RXd in a reasonable time, (not a firebreather, but respectable)