Can high cortisol cause nausea?
Yes, in Dr. Martin's view, and it is one of the first places he looks. A listener named Diane asked him why she felt nauseous every morning when she woke up. He did not hesitate.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1659Usually high levels of cortisol. I saw that all the time in CFS, chronic fatigue syndrome, nausea in the morning unless you're pregnant.
He came back to it a moment later, so nobody missed the point.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1659But seriously, guys, usually nausea, high levels of cortisol, stress on the inside. That'll give you nausea.
Note the words "stress on the inside". He means a body stuck in stress mode, whether or not you feel stressed.
Why does stress make you feel sick to your stomach?
Cortisol is made by your adrenal glands, and its job is to get you ready to run or fight. Dr. Martin calls it a diversion. To get you ready, it moves blood to where it thinks you need it most, and your stomach is not on that list.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1724So what does cortisol do? It's a diversion. Think of the stomach. My stomach ain't working so well. I'm nauseated. I'm nervous. I got a nervous stomach. Well, that's cortisol, guys. That's cortisol.
He spells out where the blood goes.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1724It takes blood away from things because it wants to pour it into your muscles so that you fight or flight.
Your body does not think about digestion when you are in a war, he says. That is fine for a few minutes. When the alarm never switches off, the stomach runs short day after day, and that is when digestive trouble and nausea arrive together.
Why do I feel nauseous in the morning?
Some cortisol in the morning is normal. Dr. Martin is clear that it is meant to be there.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1476So it's normal to have cortisol, and it's normal to have higher cortisol in the morning because your cortisol goes up, it wakes you up, elevates your blood sugar, elevates your blood pressure. It's on your side, except if it goes on and on and on.
The trouble is a morning rise that sits on top of a level that never came down overnight. He describes the healthy pattern and what he sees instead.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1427When your cortisol levels are high and they should be higher in the morning and down to almost zero at night, but a lot of people have high cortisol all the time, and that isn't good at all. It's going to disrupt your sleep.
So the woman who wakes up queasy has often slept badly too. For the full daily curve, see when cortisol is highest.
What other symptoms come with cortisol nausea?
Nausea from cortisol rarely shows up alone. When a listener named Judy wrote in with poor sleep, low energy, anxiety and nausea after changing her diet, he named cortisol straight away.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1556And if cortisol is high for a period of time, the number one thing is poor sleep, anxiety, nausea, a lot of people with, they nauseous all the time.
He told her she was wound up inside like a tight ball, and that she might not even realize it. On another episode he added a few more that people find strange.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 801But if cortisol is excreted over a period of time unabated, it can give you weird symptoms; nausea, lightheadedness, depersonalization, like you just feel like you're in somebody else's body.
- Nausea, often worst on waking
- Poor sleep, or waking in the night
- Anxiety and a wound-up feeling
- Lightheadedness
- Feeling detached, as if you are outside your body
- Low energy through the day
These are his list, not a diagnosis. He reads them as a pattern pointing at cortisol. For the rest of the checklist, see high cortisol symptoms in women over 60.
Is the nausea in your gut or in your head?
Both, and Dr. Martin says they are wired together. The link is the vagus nerve, the tenth cranial nerve, which runs from your brain to your gut. It is the reason you get butterflies.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1557That's why when you're stressed, a lot of people get stressed over a period of time and one of their biggest symptoms is nausea. They're nauseous. Why vagus nerve.
A listener once asked him which comes first, the upset gut or the stress. He picked stress.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 873So yes, it's usually the stress that messes your digestive track up first.
Poor sleep plays in too. He says lack of sleep raises cortisol, and that hits the gut. And it feeds itself.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 951And when you're uptight, you don't sleep as well. When you don't sleep as well, you're more uptight. It's a vicious cycle.
Could morning nausea be low B12 instead?
He does not rule it out. When he answered Diane, he added a second suspect, and he connected the two.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1659high cortisol can knock out your B12 too, so I used to monitor that and if they were low in B12, of course we took care of that
So in his office, nausea meant checking both, though he still called cortisol the usual reason. More in is B12 worth it for a woman over 60.
How do you calm cortisol nausea?
He goes after the cortisol, not the queasiness. Here is what he points to across these episodes.
Sleep first. He calls sleep the low hanging fruit for cortisol. In his view, if you do not sleep, your cortisol is high, and if your cortisol is high, you do not sleep. Break the cycle at bedtime. More on that in how to lower cortisol after 60.
Get out of fight or flight. He told Judy she was never getting into rest and digest, the mode your body digests in.
Look for the stress you have stopped noticing. He says a lot of people do not realize how much stress is on them.
Look after your gut. Because of the vagus nerve, he puts the friendly bacteria in your gut in the same picture.
Rule out B12. He checked it in his office, and fixed it when it was low.
And for Judy, after all of that, his answer was a formula.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1556It could be environmental, but a lot of times you don't even realize that there's a lot of stress and it's affecting your body and you need to get on the cortisol formula big time.
Nausea has many causes. Anything with pain, vomiting or weight loss needs your doctor.
Common questions
Can high cortisol cause nausea?
Yes, in Dr. Martin's view. He says nausea, especially on waking, is usually high cortisol and stress on the inside, unless you are pregnant.
Why does high cortisol make you nauseous?
He says cortisol is a diversion. It takes blood away from the stomach and pours it into your muscles for fight or flight, so digestion stalls.
What are high cortisol symptoms in the morning?
Nausea on waking is the one he names first. Poor sleep, anxiety, lightheadedness and low energy often come with it.
Can stress cause nausea every day?
He says yes when stress goes on over a period of time. The vagus nerve connects the brain and the gut, and one of the biggest symptoms of long stress is nausea.
Why do I feel nauseous when I take Cortisol Control?
Asked this on air, he said tens of thousands of people take it every day without trouble and he takes it daily himself. For someone who feels queasy, he suggested taking it with food.
Calm the cortisol
Cortisol Control Formula is the formula Dr. Martin points to when he hears poor sleep, anxiety and nausea together.
60-day money-back guarantee.
