Cortisol is actually a really important hormone and it can even make you feel good. The problem is when you have too much too often. It’s like putting your body and mind into sport mode. Very useful in the short term but unsustainable in the long term.
Comment on Stress
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Did we ever figure out why we evolved brains that produce cortisol?
dmMeYourNudes@lemmynsfw.com 5 months ago
RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Because people who are born lucky enough to have an easy life are likely to have more kids.
Using cortisol to magnify that improves selection bias.
The rest is math.
Evolution is a bitch.
Lath@kbin.earth 5 months ago
Uh, poor people tend to have more children than rich people.
ryannathans@aussie.zone 5 months ago
That’s only a recent thing though
CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 5 months ago
what does “recent” mean? Poor folks been having shit tons of kids for a long ass time. THey needed to have a) extra workers, and b) a chance at keeping the family name/heritage/culture/whatever going. especialyl being poor, you know at least 3 or your 10 arent going to make it, so you gotta play the odds!
Talia@feddit.it 5 months ago
Immagine what it could be if the cortisol mechanism didn’t work
Lath@kbin.earth 5 months ago
Not us, that's for sure.
Xavienth@lemmygrad.ml 5 months ago
A successful organism would not have evolved to highly express cortisol to weed itself out in the case that it has a stressful life. It makes no sense for an organism to evolve a trait that makes it at best equally likely and at worst less likely to reproduce.
The reason we release excess cortisol in modern life is because our bodies did not evolve for constantly present stressors, they evolved to be stressed in a situation, run away from the tiger, and then you’re good.
ssj2marx@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
I think the real answer is that it plays an important role in making sure you respond appropriately to being chased by a tiger. For hundreds of thousands of years it was perfectly fine operating in that role, and then in the last ten thousand we accidentally created a civilization where some people get way too much of it.
SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
Also, humans are not machines, we need rest and relaxation. It’s debatable for why, but life would be a lot more boring if we didn’t have a need for relaxation, art, recreation, etc. Just pure work for survival.