Optimizing hormones
A Problem affecting so many women (and even men) is when our hormonal health is not optimized. Many are not even aware that hormones are the reason for weight gain, inability to lose weight, poor digestion, skin problems and many more.
Hormonal imbalances occur when the endocrine glands produce too much or too little of a certain hormone or hormones, which can initiate a cascade effect, ultimately affecting overall health. Normally, hormones fluctuate a woman’s menstrual cycle, pregnancy, perimenopause, or menopause. However, in the case of severe imbalances that last for a prolonged period of time, it can underlie many disorders, such as thyroid disorders, diabetes, acne, obesity, and infertility.
Hormones
The endocrine system is a very important system and is responsible for controlling homeostasis, or balance, in the body. Homeostasis is the process by which the body maintains stability, constancy, and equilibrium even when dealing with varying and sometimes unpredictable external environment factors. It works a lot like the nervous system, but instead of electrical signals, it uses glands to secrete hormones. Hormones are chemical messengers that regulate the normal process and bodily functions needed to maintain homeostasis. These messengers control most major bodily functions, from simple basic needs like hunger to complex systems like reproduction, and even the emotions and mood. They are secreted by both endocrine and exocrine glands. ! Hormones are chemical messengers that regulate the normal process and bodily functions need
Role of Hormones
Once the brain receives a signal, the endocrine glands produce and store hormones. The hormones are then transported from the glands to the targeted organs and tissues throughout the body to carry out the bodily functions and processes that require them. Once the messenger reaches the targeted site, the hormone binds and locks into the specific receptor site similar to a lock and key. These receptors are located on the surface of the cell or within the cell nucleus. After the connection has occurred a message is transmitted to the targeted site and carries out the specific action. These chemical messengers control the majority of the major bodily functions, including:
• Development and growth
• Regulating body temperature
• Maintenance of appetite and thirst commands
• Usage, storage, and production of energy
• Cognitive function and controlling emotions and mood
• Regulating metabolism
• Controlling stress
• Stimulation or suppression of apoptosis, programmed cell death
• Homeostasis of salt and sugar levels in the blood
• Healthy immune system
• Reproduction, sexual function, and reproductive growth
Hormone imbalance can be caused by numerous factors including diet, exercise, past trauma, lifestyle, and genetics to name a few.
Do you ask yourself any of these questions?
• Why am I always tired?
• I have tried every diet in the book, but I can’t seem to lose weight?
• Why am I always getting sick?
• How can I control my mood swings before and during my menstrual cycle?
• Why can’t I sleep well at night?
There are many potential causes of hormonal imbalance. Let’s cover some now.
Cortisol
Cortisol, the primary “stress hormone,” may surprise you by doing much more than just responding to stress. Cortisol is created in the adrenal cortex and is controlled by the hypothalamus, adrenal gland, and pituitary gland. Cortisol is a steroid hormone with receptors on most of the cells in your body. Cortisol, the primary “stress hormone,” may surprise you by doing much more than just responding to stress.
The many functions of cortisol include:
• Regulating stress levels
• Controlling blood pressure
• Maintaining blood sugar levels
• Reducing inflammation
• Regulating metabolism
• Facilitating memory
• Controlling the body’s usage of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates
• Balancing salt and water in the body
• Assisting in fetal development
• Playing a role in immune function In our high-stress society, the stress response is continuously activated, and the body is unable to return back to a homeostatic, comfortable state, which ultimately causes an imbalance and poor health
The Importance of Specific External Environment Factors
Environmental factors can specifically affect hormone balance. Specific external factors are related to your immediate environment, lifestyle, and habits. They include:
• Toxins and pollutants
• Infections
• Alcohol, smoking and drug use
• Diet
• Exercise and physical activity
• Age and age-related conditions
• Sleep and rest
• Stress
Let’s talk about some of these specific factors.
Your lifestyle – including what you eat, what you breathe, and even what you touch - impacts every cell within your body! Did you know that chemicals can cause hormonal imbalance? Everyday our body is under attack from chemicals in our environment that penetrate cells and affect genetic expression. Many of these chemicals are endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that disrupt the normal hormonal function. EDC’s either mimic the natural hormone binding at specific receptor sites or block the normal hormone binding process. They disrupt the production, storage, secretion, transport, and elimination of hormones.
Naturally, hormone fluctuations occur during puberty, perimenopause, menopause and andropause, but unhealthy imbalances are initiated by stress, toxins, lifestyle choices, sleep, and food choices. The amount of stress you allow to permeate your life or the way you cope with the stressors you encounter influence hormone levels. In addition, the toxins that you allow to enter your body, including occupational hazards, cosmetic and body care products, household products, or food and drink choices, impact the function of the endocrine system.
Staying physically active helps to control weight, balance hormone levels, and facilitate the release of toxins.
Reducing or eliminating your alcohol consumption will minimize damage to the pancreas and liver. And don’t forget, after a long day, your body needs an appropriate amount of rest/sleep to allow the body to recover and rejuvenate. As you can see, there are many conscious decisions your clients can make to help their bodies be the best they can be!
Stress
Stress is a huge contributor to hormonal imbalance. Stress can be emotional, dietary, or physical. Emotional stress may be due to work, relationships, or finances. Dietary stress can cause an inflammatory process resulting from eating processed foods or allergens. Physical stress can be a result of trauma, illness, infection, major temperature
changes, surgical procedures, pain, lack of sleep, chronic conditions, or diseases. Both physical and emotional stress demand higher productions of cortisol from the adrenal glands to combat the stressor.
When higher amounts of cortisol are produced, progesterone becomes depleted as progesterone is a precursor to cortisol production. In what is known as the “pregnenolone steal,” the precursor hormone pregnenolone, which is used to synthesize both sex and stress hormones, is diverted to synthesizing cortisol instead of the sex hormones.
It’s like the body steals pregnenolone to use it for stress hormone production, which happens at the expense of
progesterone. As a result, progesterone levels often become depleted in chronic stress because of the demand for progesterone to make cortisol. This ultimately affects sex hormone production from the adrenals (testosterone and estrogen production), as pregnenolone is diverted towards cortisol production and away from sex hormone production.
Manage stress by:
exercising regularly
practicing yoga
meditating or praying
getting acupuncture
spending more time in nature
being social
keeping a journal to vent your feelings
using adaptogen herbs
practicing aromatherapy with essential oils
Toxins
When warming your food in plastic containers, spraying cologne, or applying nail polish, you are disrupting the function of hormones. Xenohormones are natural or artificial compounds displaying hormone-like properties associated with endocrine disruption. Xenoestrogens are xenohormones that mimic estrogenic effects similar to the
actual hormone with an uncontrollable overstimulation of cellular activity. Xenoestrogens are ten times stronger than natural hormones found in the body.
Similar to a stubborn stain, once the xenoestrogen has settled, it will be hard to remove from the body. They hide in your body fat, so the more body fat present, the more room toxins have to live comfortably. Xenoestrogens are found in dairy and feedlot beef because these unhealthy, bloated cows are often given synthetic growth hormone.
Toxic chemicals are hormone disruptors found in plastics (BPA and phthalates), pesticides (DDT), fungicides,
Herbicides, acetones (nail polish removers), preservatives (parabens), and industrial pollutants (dioxins and PCBs).
These toxic chemicals are commonly seen in household cleaners and personal care products.
Even though men don’t experience menopause, they live through andropause. As men age, andropause causes a slow decline in testosterone. Heavy metals, including lead, mercury, aluminum, cadmium, and arsenic alter and reduce testosterone levels. Toxins expedite the process of lowering testosterone levels, and testosterone deficiency can cause serious health issues in men, such as reduced sperm count, impaired sexual function, and infertility.
Lifestyle Choices
You can implement healthy lifestyle changes in order to facilitate healing and long-term health.
Chronic diseases that are linked, in one way or another, to hormonal imbalance, can be especially helped by lifestyle
changes, because certain lifestyle changes can facilitate hormonal equilibrium.
For one, exercise is vital for maintaining hormonal balance. Weight gain caused by a sedentary lifestyle creates a perfect environment for toxin deposits throughout your body. During exercise, the brain releases “feel good” neurotransmitters, such as serotonin for a good night of sleep and dopamine for positivity/pleasure. It will also boost testosterone production, which naturally slows the effects of aging, and it also increases estrogen levels to lessen menopause symptoms.
A sedentary lifestyle combined with toxins from your diet is a perfect storm for weight gain. Most hormonal imbalances begin due to high levels of estrogen (primarily powerful xenoestrogens), which causes more fatty tissue growth and the production of even more estrogen. The estrogen determines that the fat cells are deposited around the belly area. This is the classic vicious cycle of estrogen dominance and excessive weight gain.
Feeling bloated and heavy is a textbook sign of fluid retention from high levels of estrogen and as well as your food choices. Low progesterone can also cause weight gain and difficulty losing weight due to its negative impact on the thyroid.
Besides diet and exercise, another important lifestyle decision has to do with sleep. The quality and amount of sleep affects how much leptin is produced, the hormone that controls your appetite. When staying up late, you might notice more frequents trips to the kitchen the next day. A lack of sleep causes low levels of leptin, which causes you to eat much more than you normally would.
Another important lifestyle decision, especially when it comes to maintaining or reestablishing hormone balance is alcohol consumption. Alcohol impairs the function of the glands that release hormones. Alcohol intake affects pancreatic function, which can cause malnutrition, leading to a disruption of other hormone functions. Even a night out with a few drinks impacts the function of testes and ovaries, causing sex hormonal deficiencies, infertility, sexual dysfunction, and issues related to sperm health, ovulation, fetal development, and menstruation. Alcohol also impairs calcium metabolism and degrades bone structure.
Finally, a lifestyle decision that is of the utmost importance when it comes to hormones is smoking. Smoking increases cortisol levels, especially in menopausal women. High cortisol levels lead to high blood glucose and insulin levels, which stimulate the ovaries to produce estrogen. Cigarette toxins interfere with the blood supply to reproductive organs, reduce bone mineral density, impair ovulation, and harm the fetus.
Food Choices
Food choices impact the amount of toxins that enter the body. Stay away from processed foods and refined sugars to avoid sugar spikes, weight gain, and many other harmful effects. You see, insulin works to maintain normal blood sugar levels because excess blood sugar wreaks havoc on the cardiovascular system. Upon consumption, food breaks down into glucose, and insulin transports the glucose in cells as an energy source.
When blood sugar is chronically too high you can develop insulin resistance and diabetes. Excess sugars not needed for energy are stored as fat, increasing your chances of obesity. Higher fat levels increase estrogen levels, leading to estrogen dominance.
Higher body fat levels increase estrogen levels, leading to estrogen dominance.
Before I move on, one more point of emphasis is organic versus non-organic produce. While it may take some convincing to spend extra money on organic produce, trust me – the expense is totally worth it. Farmers are using more toxic herbicides and pesticides than ever before in an effort to combat super-weeds and super-bugs that are becoming increasingly resistant to these chemicals. No matter what you may have heard, these toxic chemicals do indeed impact human bodies – in many negative ways, especially as endocrine disruptors.
Rest/Sleep
If you are one of those people who skips sleep in order to work, your body might be showing symptoms of hormone imbalance. Experts recommend sleeping 8 hours of non-interrupted sleep per night. While you are cozy in bed and fast asleep, your body is doing damage control from whatever happened during the day. The body needs to repair, detox, correct chemical imbalances, regulate hormones, perform immune functions, adjust blood sugar levels, process and store memories, and many other bodily functions. Most physical repair of the body occurs between 10:00pm and 2:00am, while most psychological healing occurs between 2:00am and 6:00am.
Balanced hormones and quality sleep are important for a healthy menstrual cycle. Lack of sleep affects all hormones, but especially estrogen, progesterone, cortisol, LH, leptin, and FSH.
Sleep deprivation muddles cortisol secretion at difference times of the day. Someone who is sleep deprived will have high levels of cortisol at night, when they should be low. High cortisol can cause diabetes and obesity. It isn’t a coincidence that we are once again connecting hormonal imbalance to diabetes and obesity. There is a direct connection, and with the incidence of diabetes and obesity on the rise, we need to be checking in on our sleep and other lifestyle decisions.
Tips to help you get adequate, quality sleep
waking up and going to sleep at roughly the same time each day
avoiding staying up late if possible
getting enough exposure to sunlight during the day
limiting or avoiding exposure to bright lights in the evening, such as from electronic devices
Add foods that Foods that contain tryptophan to help produce melatonin:
nuts
wild-caught fish
grass-fed beef
turkey and chicken
Did you know that you exert quite a bit of control over your hormone levels? Your actions impact your hormones. While many bodily processes, such as endocrine and immune function, were once seen as beyond our control, researchers have uncovered that the opposite, is in fact true. You are an active participant in your own healthcare!
Psychological/Mental Stress Can Create Hormonal Imbalance
If you feel tired, lethargic, unmotivated, or frustrated, chances are you are suffering under the weight of stress. You may have already reached and exceeded your physiological limit – taking on more than you can handle. After ruling out any major conditions or diseases, it is likely that your endocrine glands have been overworked, even causing adrenal fatigue.
The adrenals regulate and produce DHEA, cortisol, and sex hormones. Therefore, if you are showing symptoms ofadrenal dysfunction, you are over or under producing all of these important hormones. Your cortisol and DHEA hormones, along with other steroid hormones and systems in body, are affected by adrenal fatigue. And as you already know, high levels of cortisol for an extended period of time can be detrimental to your body.
Your body is designed to handle stress that is not long lasting. Once stress becomes unhealthy and sticks around for a longer period of time, the body struggles. Our body continues to produce stress hormones, which affect other bodily functions. Stress hormones aren’t only produced during life-threatening situations; they also respond to all kinds of stressors – even minor ones, including financial worries, unemployment, infection, digestive issues, smoking, alcohol, depression, and dieting. Long-term stressors lead to chronic fatigue, impaired mental clarity, unhealthy endocrine function, insomnia, immune system weakness, obesity, thyroid imbalance, and gut issues.
The Effect of Mental Environment on Hormones
Mental environment along with past trauma and evolutionary psychology, it forms the foundation of mental health. Defined simply, it is the culmination or summation of thought patterns and life outlook. Humans naturally have a tendency to think negatively and focus on their own weaknesses. Your goal should be a positive, strength-based mental environment, which is conducive to healing.
Did you know that there is mounting evidence to support the idea that positivity positively impacts health? Positive thoughts generate positive feelings and attract positive life experiences. That’s right - a positive outlook can decrease chronic inflammation, prevent chronic disease, and even lengthen life. Any negative viewpoint can always be flipped around to a positive one. That is, there are always at least two ways of looking at the same occurrence.
For the sake of your mental and physical health, which will you choose?
A strengths-based focus complements a positive outlook. Instead of focusing on what you can’t do, leverage what you can do to overcome your weaknesses. This is especially true when it comes to physical healing.
For example, you may feel intimidated by the idea of cooking fresh, whole foods in the kitchen. Try using your strengths, like organization and ideation, to sprinkle some fun into cooking.
So how does your mental environment impact hormone levels? Well it turns out that our conscious and unconscious mental framework impacts the emotions we attach to current and future events. For instance, if you tend to inflate and exaggerate the severity of situations in your mind (cognitive distortion), then you will likely have extremely powerful negative emotions about failing a test, for example. If you sincerely believe that passing the test is required for your continued survival, then you will emotional (and physiologically) react much differently to failing it than you would if you simply viewed the test as an assessment of your current knowledge.
You see, negative emotions are so powerful because they impact neurotransmitter and hormonal levels. You know how you feel your emotions physically? Well, that’s actually the chemical messengers associated with your emotions! Not only that but your negative emotions can, over the long term, wreak havoc on your mental wellbeing, actually causing mental disorders. If you develop depression, you may struggle to be motivated to cook healthy meals. Therefore, you might develop a nutritional deficiency, which further contributes to hormonal imbalance and exacerbates the mental disorder. As you can see, a negative, unhealthy mental environment is intimately connected with hormonal imbalance.