Soldiers may also elect not to wear a combat patch. Controversies have arisen in recent years over brigade commanders' decisions to ban combat patches in certain situations. This has been done in an effort to make new recruits, who didn't have the patches, feel less excluded.
Cortisol and Stress: How Cortisol Levels Affect the Body. Cortisol and stress are connected and, although stress isn't the only reason for the release of cortisol into the blood stream, it is still known as a stress hormone. Every time that you are confronted with a stressful situation your body undergoes a fight or flight response and cortisol levels increase.
Stress impacts both the adrenal hormone pathway and the thyroid hormone pathway. Stress can cause inflammation in the brain/ hypothalamus, stress can raise cortisol levels that may inhibit or alter the metabolic pathway of active thyroid hormone (T3), or some other mechanism may be at play.