by Is your face looking a little puffier than usual? “You’re not fat, you just have cortisol in your face,” is what you might hear on TikTok, where users have taken to diagnosing a rounder appearance as the result of elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol — and encouraging people to take steps to reduce it.
TikTok users attribute the spike in cortisol levels to a number of factors, including excessive phone use, early morning caffeine consumption, and high-intensity workouts. They say these practices put unnecessary stress on the body and contribute to overall weight gain, including in the face.
Are they right? Does your face look puffy and swollen because your lifestyle habits are stressing your body? (And if not, why not?) East (what is causing this swelling?) The experts give us the scoop.
What is happening?
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People are sharing before and after photos of their faces and discussing why they now look less round, puffy and inflamed.
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They attribute their past appearance to excess cortisol and claim their faces have thinned after taking simple fixes to reduce those levels.
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Social media users are encouraging lifestyle changes, such as low-intensity workouts and cutting back on caffeine, which they say reduce stress and under-eye puffiness. Some also credit supplements containing magnesium, L-theanine and ashwagandha with promoting “healthy hormone levels.”
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What is cortisol? It’s “the stress hormone that helps your body cope and respond to stressful situations,” according to family medicine specialist Dr. Laura Purdy. When you’re experiencing high levels of stress, your body releases cortisol.
Is it true?
Sure, but it’s a more complicated problem than you might think from being on TikTok.
Your cortisol levels can be affected by factors like “your circadian rhythm, the quality and quantity of your sleep, exercise, and your overall health,” Raj Dasgupta, MD, an internal medicine physician at the University of Southern California, tells Yahoo Life.[Cortisol] “Fish oil plays an important role in regulating metabolism and in your immune system’s response to threats and stress,” he says.
Purdy adds that while facial inflammation can be caused by excess cortisol, “it’s just one symptom, so it’s not necessarily the root cause.” That said, what’s medically known as “moon face” can be “both a symptom and a side effect of a condition”—like Cushing’s syndrome (which Amy Schumer was recently diagnosed with) or hypothyroidism, both of which are associated with high cortisol levels—Purdy says. However, these are chronic conditions and likely more serious than the puffiness some people are hyping up on social media.
“The biggest problem is that a lot of people try to self-diagnose,” Sue Decotiis, a New York City-based physician who specializes in weight loss and hormonal health, tells Yahoo Life. “Cortisol levels aren’t as big of a fluctuation as people make them out to be online.”
Simply put: A few bad nights of sleep don’t have the same health consequences as post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic anxiety or depression, which Decotiis says “dramatically alter the circadian rhythm” and pose a threat to cortisol levels, most commonly in older adults.
“Internet discussions about ‘cortisol face’ sometimes oversimplify the causes of under-eye bags,” Dasgupta adds. “Other causes can include infections, allergies, fluid retention due to your diet, alcohol consumption, and side effects of certain medications you’re taking.”
Takeaways
As with any other medical conversation on social media, the advice TikTokers offer should be taken with a grain of salt. And even if high cortisol levels are indeed the culprit, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution (ahem, supplements) that will work for everyone.
More importantly, there are legitimate ways to diagnose true cortisol abnormalities “through blood, saliva, or urine tests, if your doctor or endocrinologist deems it necessary,” Dasgupta says.
Either way, stressing about your stress levels and what it might do to your face seems a little counterproductive.
