Sneak Peak: More From Sadie Nardini

In this course, Sadie Nardini will teach you how to stop and prevent cortisol spikes, so you can take control of your digestion, energy levels, and more! 

Here’s what she has to say about optimizing your cortisol levels: 

DailyOM: You’ve made a lot of programs for DailyOM. Why did you decide to make your new course about cortisol? 

Sadie: I’m a huge advocate of staying healthy at any age, and very few things can wreck our health faster than cortisol. It hurts my heart to know that so many people are overproducing this stress hormone on a daily basis. Around 75 percent of American adults say their health is being impacted by stress. 

Cortisol is often the culprit behind why people feel chronically exhausted, have brain fog, don’t sleep well, gain weight, and this list goes on. Regular workouts and even meditations often won’t lower cortisol as well as we’d like. Cortisol is catabolic, which means it tears down muscles, so if you’re overproducing while exercising, workouts don’t work as well. And meditation, without specific breath and movement, is not near as effective as it could be.

This all adds up to a vicious cycle where people get stressed, and they don’t have the energy to figure out how to correct it. Cortisol starts to win the battle. 

DailyOM: That sounds terrible! It often seems like life is designed to stress us out. Please tell us there’s something that can be done.

Sadie: Let me shine a ray of light onto this situation. There is a lot we can do to combat cortisol when it starts to overproduce in our bodies, creating a flood of destructive hormones that I call “cortisol dumping.”

Cortisol itself isn’t a bad thing. It’s a necessary hormone that helps regulate weight, appetite, body metabolism, blood pressure, and glucose, but too much can cause a myriad of issues. What most people do when they get stressed is just take the cortisol hit. They put their head down and try to endure it. The problem with this is, they’re letting cortisol wreak havoc on their bodies.

Instead, I invite people to course-correct cortisol in the moment or on the day, rather than waiting until they’re totally burnt out. 

The best thing to do whenever cortisol arises is to immediately counter it with a cortisol rescue practice. And this can be done in just a few minutes — or just a few breaths!

Meet Your Teacher

Sadie Nardini, a renowned fitness and yoga instructor, is Harvard-certified in anatomy and Stanford-certified in exercise physiology. She is the founder of Somatic Flexibility Technique®, Core Strength Vinyasa Yoga® (an anatomy-enhanced yoga style), and Yoga Shred® (a joint-safer HIIT + yoga fitness style). After healing from a severe spinal injury in her teens, Sadie made it her mission to empower people of all ages and abilities to find their physical and emotional strength, resilience, and freedom. Sadie is a longtime and bestselling DailyOM course creator, a leader in digital wellness instruction, the lead singer in her band Sadie & the Tribe, and a proud mom of three of the cutest kitties in the world: Bowie, Freddie, and Annie!