Hormones and their effect on our health and mental wellbeing
In my approach to wellbeing I emphasise the importance of bringing hormones back into balance, especially with female clients. I express how having hormonal intelligence can be game changing for feeling our best and living as our best selves. Within coaching I highlight the importance of hormonal alignment and the personal actionable steps you can take in oder to do this.
But why are hormones important and what is their role in our day to day lives?
The Role Hormones Have
Hormones in their simplest terms are chemical messengers. They are produced in glands throughout our body then released and circulated to different organs. They influence all sorts of different daily functions, such as bone growth, metabolism, and ovulation. For example, hormones released from the hypothalamus and pituitary glands in your brain stimulate your ovaries to grow and release an egg, leading to ovulation. Ovulation, then, causes us to make the hormone progesterone.
As human we have around 50 different types of hormones and millions of hormone receptors, which are like guards on the outside of cells that allow hormones to enter and do their jobs.
Example: Estrogen is an amazing example of a hormone that many tasks in the body. We have estrogen receptors in our heart, bones, and brain! That’s why estrogen can affect so much of our body at once, including our menstrual cycles as well as cognitive function and bone density and so many other functions. The same is true of cortisol, our thyroid hormones, and many others.
Our hormonal systems are interconnected. For example our thyroid function affects your production of estrogen, your levels of estrogen impact your thyroid, your levels of cortisol affect thyroid function, and your levels of cortisol influence ovarian function. These systems are all communicating all the time!
When hormonal system’s are communicating properly, the functions that are supposed to be triggered by the hormones are able to do their jobs smoothly however what happens if these messages get mixed and lead to incorrect communication?
Hormonal Imbalance
These important messages might not get passed on properly or they might not even get passed on at all. Or there might be some messages that get passed on too loudly, or too many messages happening at once, this is how hormonal issues happen. Hormonal imbalance can express itself as not feeling quite like yourself, mood swings, brain fog, tiredness, depression, anxiety and difficulty with weight management. Example: For women heavy periods along with breast tenderness and bloating from water retention, can be a sign of elevated levels of estrogen. If you’re not ovulating, that would you indicate that the production of progesterone is not efficient. If you can pinpoint what your symptoms are and when they occur, you can often identify the underlying hormone imbalance, without labs and treat with lifestyle and nutrition principles.
So what does balance look like? There is no correct number or level that is right for all, genders age and bio-indivuality play an un-ignorable factor. Hormones are constantly fluctuating throughout the day throughout the night, throughout the month and for women during our menstruating years, and across our life cycles. Example: Our hormone levels in puberty are different from our hormone levels in our twenties and thirties, which are different from our hormone levels in our forties and fifties. They’re different when we’re pregnant and different when we’re in menopause. It’s individual and forever fluctuating!
Back Into Balance
To achieve what balance looks like for you, we first must addresses the root causes that we know impact our hormonal health and our menstrual cycles. The symptoms show up differently in each of us, but the core pillars include nutrition, inflammation, environmental factors, gut health, sleep, and stress. All of which can help make a difference for all of us, no matter what gender or age. That’s not to say one size fits all, this is where health coaching’s bio-individual approach does not compare one person’s hormonal imbalance cause to another’s and so the approach is tailored to the individual. I teach these principles and how they can be implemented into your health practice in my programme!
Balanced Hormones Benefits:
- More energy
- Less stress/anxiety
- Elevated mood
- Sharper mind
- Deep, restful, rejuvenating sleep
- Regular menstrual cycles
- Minimal PMS
- Reduced cravings
- Weight balanced
- Longetivity
What are you waiting for? Join the programme for a helping hand to happier, healthier hormones.