Hormonal balance is vital to a healthy, cancer-free body and mind but can be disrupted in many ways. It can occur naturally like puberty and menopause and can also be caused by an imbalanced lifestyle and toxins.
Your hormones are simply your body’s own natural messengers. Produced by the endocrine system – which includes the thyroid gland, pituitary gland, ovaries, and adrenal glands -hormones travel throughout your bloodstream and affect numerous psychological functions, such as mood regulation and metabolism reproductivity, to name a few.
What’s more, small changes in the ratio necessary for optimal function – brought about by infections, stress, sleep deficits, hormonal birth control, and more – can cause issues that echo throughout your body if you don’t address them at the time being.
For example, the fine balance of the reproductive hormones’ testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone plays a crucial role in many sexual and fertility health issues. When they’re imbalanced, it can lead to polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) or infertility. Some of the most common endocrine disorders – hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism- involving different thyroid hormone levels can lead to fatigue, weight gain, anxiety, and hair loss.
Because it’s always easy to find out what’s going on inside your body., it’s worth paying attention to the (most external) symptoms that something’s off with your hormones, including the following.
No one can really know why some women have PMS, and others don’t. Yet, PMS symptoms are closely linked to changing levels of serotonin, progesterone, and estrogen. For some women, PMS is more disruptive and uncomfortable than their actual period. While you may blame an argument on your short-tempered PMS mood or even joke around about feeling bloated, it’s important to know when your PMS actually needs attention.
Contrary to most inexperienced beliefs, disruptive PMS symptoms between ovulation and the start of your period aren’t normal. Anything from brown spotting at the end of your period to unbearable cramps could indicate low progesterone levels.
Hair, skin, and nails are often impacted by changing levels of hormones, mainly because hormones known as androgens aren’t able to stimulate hair follicles and oil glands in the skin.
Your skin is the window of your body, and it’s especially true at the intersection of dermatology and endocrinology. Visible changes in the skin can signal abnormalities in numerous hormone levels. Recognizing these signs is important, not only treatment of the skin but also because they may lead to other health problems. Skin discoloration, hair and nail changes, and severe acne are the most common skin manifestations of hormone imbalances.
Do you often experience night sweats that leave you drenched? Does it feel like a radiator is scorching deep inside your body? You are not alone. Most women experience such symptoms due to an imbalance in their hormone levels. Not long ago, it was believed that being low in estrogen is the main cause.
However, that cause may also be too little progesterone and too much estrogen or other hormone imbalances in your body that come from ovaries, thyroid pancreas, adrenals, or gastrointestinal tract. Although it becomes more challenging for women who go through midlife changes to keep all these systems in balance, learning to recognize your triggers is the best move so far.
Both insulin and hormone imbalances can contribute to weight gain, but the same effects can stream from excess in the stress hormone cortisol, as well as ghrelin and leptin, hormones that affect appetite and fullness cues.
These are other symptoms that may indicate you have a higher-than-normal amount of cortisol – the well-known stress hormone – present in your body. If you’ve experienced a lot of stress lately, you might have noticed stomach issues, muscle weakness, or difficulty sleeping. It can also affect your capacity to focus, as well as your energy levels and mood.
If you’ve experienced any of the above symptoms, get in touch with a medical professional to share your concerns. They can run a necessary blood test, do a detailed workup, including medical history, and take a complete look at all of your symptoms to find out what could be going on in your body.
Hormone therapy is routinely used to treat various menopausal symptoms and protect long-term health, and its benefits may outweigh the most common hormonal imbalance symptoms.
Hormone replacement therapy means you will receive a medication that restores your body’s natural production hormones. Be it estrogen, thyroid hormone, testosterone, or a combination of them, this therapy is the most common type of treatment both in women and men.
Today increasingly, more people are misdiagnosed with conditions like anxiety and depression. But in reality, the true cause of their symptoms is hormonal imbalance. Why live a life of constant anxiety when you can undergo simple symptoms and patient intake forms and let Balance My Hormones specialists introduce you and facilitate you through your hormone balancing journey?
Using non-toxic beauty and bath products and cleaners for a month can also diminish your exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which could upset your normal hormone levels.
To help reduce levels of cortisol, consider mindfulness practices such as deep breathing, meditation, and yoga– all of which have been proved to lower stress levels in your body.
As for nutrition, registered doctors specializing in hormone deficiencies suggest adding flax seeds, broccoli and pears to your diet for additional fiber. They also recommend adding certain nutrients to your diets, such as B vitamins, glutathione, and vitamin C, which support your liver process excess estrogen.
Finally, to improve your gut health and completely restore your hormonal balance, good gut bacteria, also known as the microbiome, can produce vital enzymes that help metabolize estrogen. That, plus added probiotic food such as kefir, sauerkraut, yogurt, and kimchi, as well as foods rich in prebiotics such as fibers (which provide nutrients for your gut bacteria), can work wonders for your out of balance lifestyle and hormones.
Expert