Hormone imbalance and stress

You may not be aware that you even have a hormone imbalance and often we can walk around for years not knowing. We can experience not feeling quite our best but not sick enough to seek treatment, so its common for many ailments to go left untreated for years, even though the solution can be very simple.

The difficulty with hormone imbalances is that there are a whole range of symptoms and these will differ from person to person There is not one clear symptom, where a health professional can say “yes, that’s it, you have a hormone imbalance.” In addition to that, there are so many hormones that affect us in completely different ways. Some of the symptoms you could be experiencing, if you have a hormone imbalance are excessive sweating, skin issues, headaches, insomnia, indigestion, fatigue, weight loss or weight gain, anxiety and depression. Yes you read that right! Imbalanced hormones can lead to anxiety and depression. A lot of the time people are treated for hormone imbalance with medications to stabilize hormone levels. While this will make you feel better (and is better than no treatment at all), it is masking the symptom and it is likely that you will remain on that medication long term because you haven’t been able to treat the cause. Treating the cause of hormone imbalance may take a little longer but the results will be permanent if you are able to stick to new lifestyle patterns. This is where stress comes in.

Stress is often the cause of hormone imbalance because it is the way the human body was designed. Stress is your body’s way of dealing with threats to your wellbeing. In the cave man days a form of stress would have been getting chased by a wild animal. When this happened the cave man had 2 choices: he could fight the wild animal or he could run from it. He had to use his brain to recognise the threat by thinking about it. Thinking about a threat or demand, then creates a chain reaction in your body, as it signals your body to release stress hormones and get ready to run or to fight. Back in those days, once the wild animal had gone, the stress was over and the perceived danger was removed. Your body would have functioned perfectly to keep you safe and then gone back into balance and continued its normal ways. There was no high stress, overthinking about deadlines and bills, there were no worries or constant bombardment of media, so the cave man just went back to living life and therefore his stress hormones went back into balance. That’s what your stress response is for: it is to keep you safe from a perceived threat to your wellbeing.

Our bodies still work in this same way: we use our brains to recognise a stress, a reaction then happens in our body and stress hormones are released. We go into fight or flight, so we are ready to fight or ready to run, which means we are ready to deal with the stress. The problem these days, is that stress is constant and we don’t simply go back to living a stress free life and wait for the next wild animal encounter before getting stressed again. That means that if you are constantly thinking about something that worries you, your body is constantly preparing for fight or flight because it perceives a threat to your wellbeing. When this happens, your stress hormones rise and your other hormones are not your body’s priority, so they can become out of balance, causing a whole range of health issues. Once we become ill, that in itself is stressful, adding to the symptoms. We then seek treatment for that one issue, not realising that the cause all along was stress.

A stress response can be triggered over time from your daily worries or it can be triggered by a major stressful event in your life that you have not been able to let go of. If you have some symptoms of hormone imbalance or you have a diagnosis of hormone imbalance, think back to when your symptoms began and have a think about what was happening in your life at that time. If you are able to dig deep and let go of the stress associated with a stressful and/or traumatic event, it may be the key to treating the cause of your imbalances.

In the meantime, there are things you can do to take charge of your health naturally. Below are some ideas and suggestions that you could begin to implement each day:

1. Make time to meditate. Even if it’s only for five minutes, that is five minutes that you have invested in your health and wellbeing. When you meditate, you are focused on yourself only. You lose focus on your worries and stresses, giving your body a chance to reduce stress hormones. Although this may be difficult at first, if you make this a daily practice, it gets easier and the results all add up together.

2. Add physical activity into your day. By adding physical activity into your day, your body starts to enhance its detoxification processes, getting rid of toxins and hormone imbalances. Exercise also improves your mood and aids in relieving stress

3. Improve your diet. Making even minor dietary adjustments can have a large impact on your hormone levels. Eat regular meals and snacks, aim for as many nutrients as you can by including fresh fruits and vegetables whenever possible. At each meal, have a serving of lean protein, healthy fats and vegetables. Eating at regular meals and having enough protein and nutrients, helps to stabilize and regulate your metabolism, which helps to balance hormones.

4. Reduce refined sugar. Wherever possible do this. This could be as simple as having one less sugar in your coffee. Wherever you recognise that you could cut down on sugar, do it. This helps your body to decrease stress hormones.

5. Prioritise sleep. Make sure you get enough sleep. Make sleeping a routine, so you go to bed at a regular time and wake up at a regular time. While you sleep your body gets a chance to regenerate and revitalize. This is important to all of your body’s functions.

6. Try not to play into media hype. The media’s job is to make you fearful of what is happening in the world. Try to remain calm within yourself and realise that whatever is going on in the world, will not change even if you stress yourself about it but what will happen is that you will become more sick, so really there is no point in worrying. Do what you need to do for you and your health and don’t worry about the rest. When you find yourself worrying, as yourself "is there something I can do about this?" if the answer is no, then don't worry and if the answer is yes, then you know you can do something so do not need to worry.

Remember to try and keep your mind on the present moment, instead of thinking about things that are stressful to you. The more you do this, the more it becomes a habit and the happier and healthier you will be!

For more advice and information on hormone imbalances and/or stress, feel free to get in touch.