Why YSK: There is a lot of cortisol going on right now. A lot of people are stressed, angry, and afraid. Those emotions all deserve to be felt, but over time, cortisol becomes neurotoxic (inflicting permanent damage on the hippocampus).
Oxytocin (responsible for feelings of love, attraction, affection, etc) is a perfect foil to cortisol. If you notice yourself feeling angry or afraid for an amount of time that bothers you, adding some oxytocin to the situation might be helpful.
Luckily for us, our biology makes oxytocin pretty easy to come across. Different activities work better for different people, but cuddling with a pet or loved one, watching cute cat videos, or having sex work for a lot of people.
Here are a few interesting sources for further reading, if you are curious.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33632072/ https://www.nature.com/articles/srep30187 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5619133/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33632072/
It is an oversimplification for the study of neurochemistry, psychiatry, or neuro pathophysiology, yes. This is a casual YSK forum, where medical jargon is not useful, and plain language casual understanding is much more apropos. But thanks for the condescending comment!
So why not just say “stress is bad for you” instead of “cortisol is bad for you”, if plain language is better?
It would be more accurate, too.
You’d have to ask OP. I find that the average person has cursory knowledge of what cortisol is, and the 175 upvotes on the post seem to support that.
And as we all know, popularity is the ultimate measure of good taste and scientific accuracy. /s
Just keep moving those goal posts buddy