My point is that pointing to “excessive cortisol levels” is, have been, a catch-all for all kinds of human suffering that is not reducible to a tidy biological cause. It was the explanation for all depression and anxiety for a while.
Isn’t that more of an issue of getting cause and effect backwards? i.e. high cortisol levels are not the cause of depression/anxiety, etc etc but that high cortisol levels they are caused by high levels of stress, and the stress is what’s causing the depression/anxiety. Measuring cortisol only tells us that someone is stressed, not why or how, so reducing cortisol is basically meaningless. What they actually need is a reduction in stress in order to treat the resulting depression and anxiety.
Like, I have disturbed sleep during the work week, and I sleep fine on the weekend. That’s obviously stress. If my cortisol levels were measured they might be elevated, but all that tells me is what I already know - I’m stressed.
Isn’t that more of an issue of getting cause and effect backwards? i.e. high cortisol levels are not the cause of depression/anxiety, etc etc but that high cortisol levels they are caused by high levels of stress, and the stress is what’s causing the depression/anxiety. Measuring cortisol only tells us that someone is stressed, not why or how, so reducing cortisol is basically meaningless. What they actually need is a reduction in stress in order to treat the resulting depression and anxiety.
Like, I have disturbed sleep during the work week, and I sleep fine on the weekend. That’s obviously stress. If my cortisol levels were measured they might be elevated, but all that tells me is what I already know - I’m stressed.