IF YOU FEEL LIKE there’s something wrong with you, blame the hormone cortisol. If you’re trying to lose weight but can’t? High cortisol. Flare-up of acne? Messed-up cortisol. Can’t sleep/focus/fend off cravings for crummy foods? Cortisol, cortisol, cortisol.
Or at least this is what social health-fluencers—some doctors and nurses, others just regular people sharing personal experiences—would have you believe. (Oh, and here’s a cortisol-managing supplement they’d like to sell you.) While there is a solid body of actual research behind how cortisol works, the science behind how much you need to worry about “balancing” the levels of the hormone in your body (especially with supplements)
