What Causes Hormone Imbalance
Virtually everyone experiences imbalanced hormone levels at some point in their livesparticularly us women! These imbalances are often a result of natural changes that occur with age, such as puberty and menopause. When you were growing up, hormones triggered bone and muscle growth. They also set in motion the reproductive changes that led to menstruation and fertility in young women, and sexual maturity in young men. This surge of hormones is behind the acne, mood swings, and other teen issues that affect most adolescents.
How To Balance Your Hormones Naturally
1. Reduce Your Sugar IntakeConsuming high amounts of processed sugar and refined carbs like pastries, candies, ice cream and soft drinks can lead to insulin resistance, along with other health issues like obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. When your body gets tired of receiving the signal that your blood sugar is high, it becomes less responsive to it and can lead to inflammation in the body and increased production of testosterone in the ovaries. This can lead to symptoms like irregular periods and acne. Reduce your processed sugar intake as much as possible and focus on a diet high in whole foods, fruits and vegetables.
2. Low Intensity ExerciseStress, illness or lack of sleep can play a part in elevated cortisol levels. Its your bodys main stress hormone and works with certain parts of your brain to control mood, motivation and fear. When your cortisol levels are high, it can result in anxiety, headaches, trouble sleeping, weight gain and even heart disease. Low intensity exercise can help lower elevated cortisol levels. Yoga, pilates, walking, slow jogging, swimming, and low intensity fitness classes are excellent cortisol-conscious workouts.
If youre dealing with symptoms of hormone imbalance, try these tips to balance your hormones in a natural, healthy way.
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The Best Ways To Lose Weight Naturally During Menopause
Menopause weight gain is obvious when you turn 45, and you may feel it is hard for you to lose weight during this time. Since it happens naturally, the best way to lose weight during menopause is with natural remedies.
Making sure you exercise regularly, eat well, and focus on boosting your hormones can help make weight loss during menopause easier. Other natural remedies such as herbal teas can also help you naturally lose weight.
Check out some of our top tips for losing weight during menopause and how to keep the weight off in the long term.
Toning And Weight Loss | Stop Weight Gain | Control Your Portions | Metabolism Boost | Detox | Balanced Diet
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You Have Anxiety Depression Or Experience Mood Swings
As a woman, you experience a lot of complex emotional thoughts and feelings throughout the month, but if your emotional health is negatively impacting your wellbeing, that of your relationships, or your day-to-activities, its definitely not normal and is a sign that estrogen and progesterone may be out of sync.
PMS is a sign or hormonal imbalance known for causing changes in mood that can start up to 2 weeks prior to your period. Because of this, you might not connect depressed or anxious feelings with a hormonal imbalance. And despite what you may have heard, PMS that interferes with your life is not normal for women.
How Can You Balance Your Hormones Naturally
Your body is naturally meant to generate the right amount and type of hormones to keep you happy and healthy. But can you balance female hormones naturally on your own? The short answer is yes there are many habits you can implement to help improve your hormonal balance.
One of the easiest ways to do this is by following a hormone-balancing diet. Now, before you start panicking, this is by no means a typical fad diet. Rather, its about finding and eating the right foods that can help with hormonal imbalances.
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How To Naturally Balance Hormones
Hormone ups and downs are a fact of life, but you shouldn’t have to put up with uncomfortable or unwelcome side effects of extreme fluctuations.
While doctors may prescribe medications for diagnosed hormone disorders or for specific times in life such as menopause, there are many things you can do naturally to encourage hormone balance.
Some lifestyle modifications are known to be effective.
Hormones And Your Health
Hormones are chemical messengers that help your cells communicate and trigger various actions. Theyre the bedrock of your bodys endocrine system, which regulates growth, reproduction, metabolism, temperature, and even your mood.
Hormones and the endocrine system keep your body in a balanced state of homeostasis. Therefore, having a hormonal imbalance too little or too much of a certain hormone can have harmful side effects.
Oxidative stress, infertility, and endocrine disorders like thyroid disease are just a few conditions that can result from hormonal imbalances (
13 ).
Whats more, Nigella sativa extract exhibits estrogenic activity, meaning it acts similarly to the hormone estrogen in your body .
In fact, some studies in rats are exploring whether nigella seed extracts could be an alternative to hormone replacement therapy during menopause, a time when the body typically produces less estrogen than it used to .
Concentrated Nigella sativa supplements are becoming increasingly popular and sometimes marketed as black seed or black cumin seed. Whole nigella seeds have an herby aroma and are easy to add to bread, salads, and other dishes .
Still, keep in mind that most studies on nigella seeds and hormones were conducted in animals and used concentrated extracts or isolated thymoquinone. Thus, while using whole seeds in cooking can be healthy and delicious, it may not confer the same benefits.
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Try Some Of The Strategies To Help You Manage Stress:
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Learn to say no
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Protein with every meal to stabilise blood sugar and moods
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Regular exercise that you enjoy and is not too strenuous
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Time outdoors: barefoot on the ground
When it comes to supplementation, ashwagandha is an incredible natural solution. Here at Nourished we have created the purest ashwagandga supplement on the market, our Calm + De-stress vitamin. It is made in the USA, FDA certified and 100% natural.
What Is Organifi Harmony
Organifi Harmony is a delicious cacao and chocolate-flavored superfood blend designed by some of the worlds top herbalists , for women.
Its not just for your time of the month! Harmony contains a daily dose of balancing herbs that supports you pre AND post menopause.
- After 15 days of consuming this: Increased energy!
- After 30 days of consuming this: Cycle regulation, aids in reduction of PMS symptoms, such as bloat, moodiness, breast tenderness.
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Changes In Blood Pressure
Your hormones play a major role in heart health, primarily due to one of your bodys largest hormone-producing glands, the pancreas. The pancreas is responsible for producing insulin, which regulates the amount of glucose in the blood. Without proper regulation of this hormone, your body could end up with too much glucose in the blood, leading to cardiovascular problems like high cholesterol or high blood pressure. High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, has also been linked to thyroid dysfunction, testosterone deficiency, growth hormone excess or deficiency, and more.
Hormones That Affect Your Weight
A large number of hormones important to your body can significantly affect your weight. It can help to talk to your doctor about your weight concerns and to find out if, perhaps, your hormone levels may be imbalanced enough to lead to the problem. Below, youll find some of the most common hormones that can cause weight fluctuations.
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What’s The Best Way To Start A New Exercise Routine
If you’re experiencing hormonal imbalance, it may be extra hard to get motivated. Hormone issues can zap your energy and make working out feel like a chore and this can lead to a frustrating cycle of weight gain and energy loss. Conditions that involve hormonal imbalance are also often linked to inflammation, which can make working out even harder. In this case, its important to find ways to make exercise fit into your life as smoothly and with as little difficultly as possible.
Physical Activity and Insulin Sensitivity:
Effects of 8-week Pilates exercise program on menopausal symptoms and lumbar strength and flexibility in postmenopausal women:
Avoid Excessive Intake Of Sugars And Carbohydrates
Sugar in excess is not beneficial for the body. Sugar becomes more harmful to the body when it is consumed in the form of sugar-rich beverages and other simple sugars. According to a study, sugar-rich beverages contribute to resistance towards insulin and it is the leading cause of childhood obesity and weight problems in younger adults. Because sugar-rich drinks do not have any solid fibers in them therefore it is easy to over-consume them since they dont trigger the sensation of fullness even after consuming a considerable amount of them.
Refined carbohydrates also contribute to insulin level elevation in the body. As the name suggests, these carbohydrates are refined, and once consumed they are readily taken up by the body and broken down into smaller fructose units.
According to a study, fructose is harmful to obese and diabetic people because of its contribution to insulin resistance. Therefore, people with underlying health conditions should avoid a sugary and carbohydrate-rich diet. Lets face it. Avoiding these drinks altogether will help keep you from these issues to begin with. There is a reason people will tell you not to drink your carbs. The diet most suited for them should be low in carbohydrates and should not contain sugar including chemical fake sugars as well. Those dangers are for another article. Only then they will be able to keep their insulin levels to a considerable healthy level.
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Hormone Balancing Tip #: Manage Stress
Stress wreaks havoc on our hormones, particularly our production of progesterone. Progesterone is produced from the same building blocks as our stress hormone cortisol . When we are stressed, our body ramps up its cortisol production and slows down on progesterone, contributing to a number of hormonal imbalances.
For many of us, we have little control over the stressors that are thrown on us on a day to day basis. The key then to managing stress is learning how to change your relationship with stress. Shifting your mindset around stress is the cornerstone to changing the way that it affects your body.
Eat A Balanced Diet To Balance Your Hormones
- Make sure that each meal combines protein, complex carbohydrate, fibre and fat for optimal blood sugar control, increased energy levels, better mood Talbott, S. . The Cortisol Connection. Alameda, CA: Hunter House, p. 153.
- Protein is very important for building and repairing the body, and to make optimal levels of neurotransmitters from amino acids
- Should be eaten three times a day from vegetable and/or organic animal sources
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Managing Your Hormones With Our Obgyn In Lake Success
Its important to regularly visit your obgyn in Lake Success to ensure you have healthy hormone production and good lifestyle habits. Your hormones are involved in almost all aspects of your health. They need to be in good standing for your body to optimally function and feel good. Contact Women for Women today to schedule your appointment and get your hormones balanced and feeling right.
Testing Your Hormone Levels
If you are concerned that your hormones may be unbalanced, speaking with a healthcare professional to get an appropriate lab test is a next step. The endocrine system is complicated, and most lab values are lab-specific and age-specific. Your healthcare professional will recommend a lab for you, receive the results along with laboratory standards and help you interpret your results.
Invigor Medical works with a network of partner labs. These labs have met high laboratory standards and are trusted by healthcare practitioners for providing accurate results. For more information:
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Youve Lost That *spark*
If youve ever felt like youve lost that special something, your zest for lifeand your partnerthen you know what Im talking about. Maybe its a shift in energya change in your Qior perhaps situational factors like high stress, or the life of a busy mom. Either way, the last thing youre interested in is your hubby winking at you from across the dinner table.
Having a healthy sex drive is a really important marker for hormone health . This is because the hormones that regulate libido, like estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, also regulate your mood, sleep, mental health, and metabolism. If your libido has gone missing for an extended period of timeits time to find out why.
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Ways To Balance Your Hormones Naturally
While hormonal imbalances sometimes require working with an endocrinologist or another specialist, you have tremendous power over balancing your hormones naturally. Start with what you eat. A hormone-balancing diet includes the right foods to steady your blood sugar levels and optimize insulin levels. When you support a healthy diet with the right nutrients and lifestyle factors, you can dramatically improve hormone levels. These 7 strategies provide a solid starting point.
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Puffy Swollen Or Rounded Face
Though this symptom of hormonal imbalance isnt talked about much, for those who experience it, it can be a major concern. And while this symptom is relatively painless, besides possible tenderness due to the swelling, it may be negatively impacting your quality of life. Sometimes referred to as moon face, this gradual rounding or swelling of the face is a common sign of high cortisol characterized by Cushings syndrome. If your adrenal glands release too much cortisol, theyre unable to properly regulate your blood pressure and inflammatory response. As a result, your body has a hard time keeping your blood vessels functioning appropriately, leading to swelling and a puffy appearance around your face or shoulders.
Rethink Your Beauty Products
Xenoestrogens, or foreign compounds that mimic estrogen, are also found in GMO cleaning and beauty products, phthalates, parabens, lead, formaldehyde, are all toxic and affect your endocrine system.
Our Tip: Go for organic, vegan, 5-Free, 7-Free or 10-Free beauty products and makeup. Read the labels and research the ingredients to help balance hormones naturally.
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Why Supplements And Herbs Are Important For Female Hormone Balance
While Im a FIRM believer in focusing on getting as many nutrients as possible from a variety of real, whole foods, I also believe that supplements and herbs are an effective way to fill in any nutritional gaps, helping hormones stay balanced in order for women to feel their best.
This is because nutrition is a KEY aspect of hormone balance. Our hormones would simply not be able to produce, function or do their jobs without nutrients derived from the food we eat, as well as the supplements and herbs we consume.
A lack of nutrients, whether due to dieting, skipping meals or not eating enough, eating a limited variety of foods, nutrient-poor processed foods, pesticides or environmental contamination, soil depletion, foods sitting on the shelve too long, etc. negatively impacts our hormones, leading to the uncomfortable symptoms and hormonal imbalances we experience as a result.
Because it can be more challenging today to access a variety of nutrient-rich foods I often recommend supplements and herbs as a helpful and natural way to increase vitamin and mineral intake in order for optimal hormone balance.
The Quickest Ways To Balance Your Hormones Fast
To regain balanced hormone levels, youll want to start with the two most important pillars: nutrition and lifestyle.
First, youll want to begin by tracking your cycle, and evaluating the feedback your body provides. Then, you can begin eating and making lifestyle changes in a way that better aligns with your hormones.
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Menopause: When Estrogen And Progesterone Levels Are No Longer Balanced
Consider the female sex hormones estrogen and progesterone. Before puberty, both hormone levels are low. Puberty is initiated when the hypothalamus releases gonadotropin-releasing hormone . GnRH triggers the release of luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone from the anterior pituitary gland. A synchronized release of LH and FSH regulates the menstrual cycle, the release of an egg from a follicle in the ovary, and the uterine cycle. Throughout a womans reproductive years, these cycles occur on a 21 to 28-day basis.
With aging, fertility wanes as the number of follicles remaining in the ovaries diminishes. Menopause occurs when a womans ovaries no longer have any follicles left, and estrogen production declines. The earliest phase of menopause, perimenopause, is characterized by normal estrogen levels but decreasing progesterone levels. When estrogen levels drop, symptoms develop, such as vaginal dryness and pain, hot flashes and night sweats, mood swings, brain fog, and thinning hair. These symptoms vary by women from mild to severe.
Many women are at the peak of their careers as they enter menopause. Brain fog can negatively impact their work and quality of life.