C – Cortisol: cravings, comfort seeking, and compulsive behaviours

Introduction

The A–Z of Stress & Anxiety is not intended as a checklist or a curriculum. It is an index of recognisable entry points. Each letter names something people already notice in themselves, often without linking it to stress or anxiety at all.

C is one of those letters.

Cortisol rarely features in everyday conversations in a grounded way. When it does appear, it is often framed as a villain, a hormone to suppress, hack, or eliminate. In practice, cortisol is neither good nor bad. It is a signalling molecule. It reflects internal conditions, particularly perceived demand, safety, and load.

This entry looks at how cortisol relates to cravings, comfort seeking, and behaviours that can feel compulsive. Not as failures of discipline, but as information about system state.

What Cortisol Often Looks Like in Real Life

Most people do not experience cortisol directly. They experience its downstream effects.

It can show up as a pull towards food late in the evening, often specific foods rather than hunger in a general sense. It can look like grazing without noticing, or finishing a meal and still feeling an urge to eat. For some, it appears as a sudden loss of restraint that feels out of character.

It may also show up as reaching for alcohol, scrolling long past the point of interest, compulsive checking of emails, or repeatedly opening the fridge without intention. These behaviours are often described as habits, weaknesses, or addictions. From the inside, they are more often experienced as relief.

Cognitively, there may be a narrowing of options. Thoughts such as “I know this is not what I planned” or “I will deal with it tomorrow” appear. Emotionally, there is often a blend of agitation and fatigue. Physically, people report tension, restlessness, or a wired but tired quality.

Relationally, this state can reduce patience and increase withdrawal. Small interactions feel effortful. Connection can feel demanding rather than nourishing.

Seen together, these patterns form a recognisable picture. They are not random. They tend to cluster during periods of sustained pressure, uncertainty, or overload.

What Is Often Misunderstood About This

The most common misunderstanding is that these behaviours reflect a lack of willpower.

This assumption is reinforced by advice that focuses on motivation, discipline, or better planning. While these qualities matter in some contexts, they are often ineffective here. People frequently report that they understand what they want to do, but cannot access the capacity to do it when it matters.

Another misunderstanding is that cravings and comfort seeking are signs of indulgence rather than protection. When viewed only through a moral or behavioural lens, the underlying function is missed.

There is also a tendency to treat cortisol as something to be lowered at all costs. This leads to strategies aimed at suppression rather than understanding. In reality, cortisol rises for reasons. Ignoring those reasons tends to push the system harder, not calm it.

Logic alone rarely resolves this pattern because the system involved is not primarily logical. These responses emerge when the body is prioritising short-term regulation over long-term goals.

What Is Happening Underneath

Cortisol is part of the body’s stress response. It helps mobilise energy, maintain blood glucose, and keep the system alert in the face of demand.

In acute situations, this is adaptive. In ongoing situations, it becomes costly.

When cortisol remains elevated over time, several things tend to happen. Blood sugar regulation becomes less stable. Energy availability fluctuates. The nervous system remains oriented toward vigilance rather than recovery.

In this state, the brain prioritises actions that promise immediate relief. Foods that provide rapid energy or comfort become more salient. Behaviours that reduce sensation, distraction, or emotional load gain traction.

From a nervous system perspective, these behaviours are attempts to regulate arousal. They are not random urges. They are context-sensitive responses to internal conditions.

Importantly, this does not require conscious stress. Many people experiencing these patterns would not describe themselves as anxious. The body, however, is responding to cumulative load, not just conscious worry.

Over time, repeated reliance on short-term relief can harden into patterns that feel compulsive. The behaviour remains protective, even when its longer-term effects are unhelpful.

How This Fits Within the Mind Works Framework

Within the Mind Works lens, this pattern reflects a system operating under pressure rather than a person making poor choices.

At certain points in the Process of Change, particularly before stabilisation, effort-based strategies tend to fail. The Tower Block metaphor helps here. When the system is operating at lower levels, access to executive function and future-oriented thinking is reduced. Behaviour becomes more reactive.

From a Parts of Self perspective, comfort seeking often belongs to protective strategies. These parts are not attempting to undermine progress. They are attempting to maintain function and reduce threat in the moment.

Psychological processes such as underestimating stress or overestimating available energy can further obscure what is happening. The person believes they should be able to cope, while their physiology indicates otherwise.

Seen this way, cortisol-driven behaviour is not a contradiction. It is coherence within constraint.

Orientation Rather Than Solutions

When cortisol-driven patterns are present, the instinct is often to intervene directly. To remove the behaviour, control the craving, or override the impulse.

Orientation offers a different starting point.

Rather than asking “How do I stop this?”, the more useful question is “What does this tell me about my system right now?”. This shifts attention from fixing to stabilising.

Understanding comes before change. Without stabilisation, attempts at control often increase internal pressure, which further elevates stress chemistry. The loop tightens.

Orientation involves recognising that capacity fluctuates. That behaviour changes with state. That effort is not always the missing ingredient.

This does not mean resignation. It means sequencing. Stabilisation first, then change.

Closing Reflection

Cravings, comfort seeking, and compulsive behaviours are often treated as problems to eliminate. Viewed through a stress and nervous system lens, they are signals.

They indicate that the system is carrying more load than it can comfortably process. That immediate regulation is being prioritised over long-term intention.

Support that focuses on stabilisation, rather than discipline, is often more appropriate at this point. Approaches that work with nervous system state tend to reduce these patterns indirectly, without force.

For some, this is where reset-style support becomes relevant. Not as a fix, but as a way of restoring enough internal safety and capacity for choice to return.

C is not about cortisol being the enemy. It is about listening to what it is communicating.