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An old timer long ago told me to take 1000mg of Vitamin C after my workouts for cortisol control. Have been doing it ever since.
The standard reference range for Cortisol is from 9.9 - 19.9, though mine's pegged 30 a couple of times. It's one that I've wrestled with quite a bit.
I've spent an extensive amount of time researching it - yes, anything anabolic (AAS, insulin/carbs) will inhibit the response from cortisol but the ABSOLUTE best thing to do is remove whatever the stress (physical or emotional) is that's causing it.
That being said, from everything I've researched on pubmed in terms of clinical evidence, there's only 2 things that do anything about it really:
* Cinnamon (believe it or not) - so either get some caps or drown your oatmeal in it
* Phosphatidylserine - you can likely order bulk powder of it.
Implementing the above, I managed to get mine pulled back from 30 -> 17 in around 6 weeks. But this is one of those hormones that likely will be "elevated" or at least high range of normal just because you stress your body in the gym. #1stworldproblems
Hope that helps -
Couldn't find the specific article I was referencing, but just to show you how crazy cortisol is, here's an interesting one:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21903122
Basically, the conclusion of this animal study is that eating too little variation can cause an increase in cortisol (and last I heard, that's called contest prep LOL). Sadly, it seems ANYTHING can really cause an increase so it's one of those symptoms that just takes a while to narrow down.
It can be physical as well as mental/psychological. Could mean anything from too little sleep, to work is too demanding, to the wife not putting out, to hitting it too hard/frequent in the gym.
If you figure it out, definitely share with the group. It's perhaps the most onerous hormone I think there is because there's not really an easy to manipulate feedback loop for it and it's one we like to push down instead of up.