<p>Autonomy in natural agents originates from the 3 way interaction between their cognition, internal body and external body (in direct relation with the environment). The state of the internal body is dynamical and enables the agent to adapt their body and behavior to better match the cognitive state and vice-versa. However, this aspect of autonomy is mostly missing from robotic systems. In this study, we wanted to investigate the cognitive flexibility gained from the presence of an internal variable and its impact on the deliberative functions of the robot. For this, we introduced a single variable inspired by cortisol to model a pain-induced cognitive stress response during a table clearing task. We also compared the results of the implementation with the simple reinforcement learning equivalent. We showed that the internal state is important in changing the focus to the relevant information (the one that triggered the current state) during a task. The robot could pursue the same goal for longer periods of time while avoiding harmful actions and maintaining a desired internal state. The cortisol variable showed to be an ecological way to balance exploration and exploitation of the possible actions.</p>