I really got interested in cortisol when I met 6 months back a super fit young chap who was a national standard rower who was part of the Olympic team and had to give everything up due to a nasty auto-immune disease that he has subsequently cured.
As part of that he has to limit any intense exercise dramatically and even now refuses to train more than 30 minutes for 3 times a week as he cannot control the impact of raised cortisol on his health i.e. his sporting ambitions have gone for good.
The lengths it took him to reduce his inflammation was staggering including red light therapy and a ton of other stuff. He felt I needed to be far more careful about cortisol if I was going to address long term weight loss, sugar control and immunity issues.
There are many relevant issues on this topic on you tube, one perhaps that is more comprehensive than most is the one from Dr Berg - he certainly got me thinking about the correct vitamins, minerals, exercise intensity (his comments on High Intensity Interval Training are fascinating i.e. only do for a few seconds at a time not to raise cortisol), diet, sleep, blood sugar management, yoga the list goes on.
I am in danger of repeating the earlier post i put up about feeling warm, but cortisol issues do need to be discussed more in my view as they are the one thing that can get in the way of fixing just about everything else - I am sincerely hoping brain focus and belly fat can improve as these are next on my list