Avoid Plastic Containers And Bottled Water
When plastic freezes, it tends to break down into smaller particles that become toxins, our bodies inadvertently consume them when they seep into water or food they contain. The body takes these compounds as xenoestrogen, and it adds to the hormonal imbalance, not to mention the strain on your liver for detox.
Xenoestrogens also make it hard to lose weight. Learn more about the female hormone weight lossconnection.
Our Tip: Balance hormones naturally by simply ditching plastic! Switch to a reusable glass or metal water bottle.
Magnesium Balances Your Reproductive Hormones
Magnesium is your hormones best friend. Not only does it help relieve the effects of menopause, it can also help boost your mood, calm the nervous system, reduce your blood sugar levels, and help you sleep.
In addition, magnesium also helps with the production of sex hormones – estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.
With all these positive benefits, magnesium is definitely a vitamin for hormone imbalance that you need to incorporate into your daily routine right away.
Top 10 Foods To Restore Hormone Balance
Hormones have a huge impact on our overall health and well being as they affect everything from our menstrual cycles to health issues such as PCOS, Thyroid, PMT and Endometriosis. Nutrition can be a powerful tool when addressing hormone imbalances as when hormones are in harmony you reclaim your life back! Here are my top 10 foods to eat to help restore hormone balance.
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Limit Caffeine And Alcohol Intake
Consuming caffeine and alcohol can impact hormone secretion. After drinking caffeinated beverages, adrenocorticotropic hormone production by the anterior pituitary increases, thus triggering cortisol secretion. According to one study, consuming caffeine while experiencing mental stress can enhance the bodys stress response by further increasing cortisol levels.
Research indicates that alcohol can also impact the hypothalamicpituitaryadrenal axis, promoting the release of circulating ACTH and glucocorticoids . In one study, cortisol levels significantly increased following the consumption of alcohol in healthy individuals. Heavy drinkers, in particular, are more likely to experience dysregulation of the HPA axis. Alcohol abuse can also impact reproductive function in both men and women by deregulating the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, a signaling pathway for endocrine glands and hormones involved in reproductive health.
Feeling stressed? Drinking a cup of coffee may increase cortisol levels. Instead, reach for herbal tea or your favorite decaffeinated beverage.
Stress Is The Major Progesterone Robber
Doing everything at warp speed is a major downside of modern living. You race the clock and feel you never have enough hours in your day. Often you feel you cant cope because you have no control over your life.
Dont underestimate the fallout.
Progesterone is a big casualty of stress. Every time youre anxious or wound up due to that traffic jam, huge in-tray, an argument with your partner, or car repair bill, your body responds as though your life is in danger. Hello, adrenaline and cortisol.
These fight or flight hormones have enormous impacts and lead to chronic symptoms of hormone imbalance. This happens because your body thinks youre in an unsafe environment and drops progesterone levels to ensure the lining of your uterus is not-conception friendly. This makes sense, given that your brain signals are saying your life is under threat. As a result, you may develop Luteal Phase Insufficiency.
Heres why: each month when an egg is released causing you to ovulate, it leaves behind a crater on the surface of your ovaries. This is called a corpus luteum and its like a little pop-up factory where most of your progesterone is made. When you ovulate, your body produces around 25mg of progesterone daily all through the fertile phase of your menstrual cycle.
Or, it should produce this amount. But I constantly see a hormonal imbalance in women that leads them to have:
Estrogen Dominance + Luteal Phase Insufficiency = Progesterone Deficiency.
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Get Sunlight First Thing In The Morning
Sunlight exposure triggers the release of serotonin, a hormone that boosts mood and enables calm focus. Having low levels of serotonin is associated with a higher risk of depression and seasonal affective disorder. Furthermore, vitamin D is created by your body in response to sunlight exposure. Vitamin D isnt actually a vitamin, however its a prohormone or substance that your body converts to a hormone. Vitamin D helps regulate other hormones, including adrenaline, noradrenaline, and dopamine production. It also helps prevent your serotonin levels from becoming depleted. Find out more about vitamin D here.
And just as a dark bedroom signals bedtime to your body, early morning sunlight tells your daytime cells to rise and shine.
Your Endocrine Systemit’s Complicated
Your hormones are generated by your endocrine system, which is made up of glands and other parts of your body that make and release various hormones.
There are over 35 unique hormones and science knows much about these hormones and their actions, but we are still discovering so many things related to hormones. For example, we are still avidly researching the way our environment impacts our hormones, from substances in plastics , to flame retardants that are everywhere, in furniture, curtains, and carpets, says Dr. Dillard.
There can be many hormonal disruptors in our environment. Some hormones play more than one role, like players on a baseball team with assigned roles that back each other up in various situations.
Hormones, their interactions with cells, each other and our environment are complex and endocrinologists are hard at work researching and trying understand this complexity and how it impacts our health, he says. You might also compare hormones to instruments in an orchestra, playing different parts of a complicated piece, ideally in sync.
So, if hormones control so much, is there anything you can do to control your hormones?
Yes, no and it depends, says Dr. Dillard.
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Vitamin B3 Aids Stress
The B-vitamins are an essential group of vitamins for hormone balance. You can take these vitamins to address stress and mood changes related to both PMS and menopause. This kind of stress can trigger tension, anxiety, irritability, and poor concentration.
While it relieves menopausal stress, vitamin B3 can also smooth the transition between estrogen production in the ovaries to estrogen production in the adrenal glands and fat cells instead.
These are both post-menopause estrogen production sites and B3 helps stabilize estrogen production there once your ovaries stop producing it.
Pro-Tip: Along with B3, consider supplementing with folic acid if youre of reproductive age. This vitamin can help prevent birth defects as well as boost a womans fertility.
Changing Your Diet To Promote Hormonal Balance
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Hormone Balance For Women
One of Biotes goals is balancing hormones in women, and we have created a Method of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy that many patients have reported has improved their wellbeing. BHRT involves the use of hormone pellets that are inserted subcutaneously to balance female hormones. Learn about our process and how patients have experienced wellness with optimized hormones here!
Signs Or Symptoms Of A Hormonal Imbalance
Your hormones play an integral role in your overall health. As a result, theres a broad range of signs or symptoms that could signal a hormonal imbalance. Your signs or symptoms will depend on which hormones or glands arent working properly.
Common hormonal conditions affecting both men and women could cause any of the following signs or symptoms:
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Best Vitamins To Balance Your Hormones
Ever notice how spending five minutes in the sunshine instantly makes you feel better?
It may have something to do with your body getting some of the vitamins for hormone balance that you need. After all, everything from the way your hair grows to how energized you feel when you first wake up in the morning is controlled by hormones.
But what happens when your hormones get out of whack? You may recognize the side-effects of hormone imbalance as persistent acne, weight gain, fatigue, and more.
Well, one of the best options is to use vitamins to balance hormones.
In this article, youll learn about the 7 best vitamins to balance your hormones naturally and feel your best.
Continue With A Hormone
None of the above can be temporary measures, but need to be a whole lifestyle change in order to keep hormone levels in balance. Take it from a recovering perfectionist, though baby steps are just fine!
Once you master these tips make the changes stick by supporting your body with a whole foods, hormone-friendly diet. For in-depth guidance, I recommend my friend Magadalena Wszelakis Cooking for Balance e-course. Its targeted for this purpose and leads you through every step of the process.
This article was medically reviewed by Dr. Scott Soerries, MD, Family Physician and Medical Director of SteadyMD. As always, this is not personal medical advice and we recommend that you talk with your doctor.
The infographic below is a quick overview of steps to balance your hormones. Pin it or share it to save for later!
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Have you struggled with hormone problems? What helped you? Share below!
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Your Circadian Rhythm Is Off
The pineal gland is a small endocrine gland that is located in the brain. It produces melatonin, which affects circadian rhythm and the levels of other hormones in the body. A pineal cyst is a disorder of the pineal gland that may not produce any symptoms. If the cyst is large, it may produce symptoms including water on the brain , headache, eye problems, and vision problems. Large pineal cysts that cause problems usually affect women who are in their second decade of life.
Boycott Soy For Hormone Balance
Did you know that soy:
- Disrupts hormones by looking like estrogen to the body
- May cause inflammation and leaky gut by inhibiting trypsin, a protein-digesting enzyme
- Is most likely genetically modified
Soy milk, soy meat, soy protein, soy-based cereal all these foods touted as healthy wreak havoc on the body. The Weston A. Price foundation has also collected and summarized a list of studies showing the toxic effects of soy consumption on hormone balance and general health.
Fermented soy, such as miso and tempeh, have the detrimental effects reduced, but I believe these should be only eaten in strict moderation. If you are currently trying to balance hormones, I strongly recommend avoiding even fermented soy.
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Evaluating Your Hormonal Birth Control
Essentially, hormonal birth control is what it sounds like: hormones. If you’re looking to balance your hormones naturally you may want to look into the type of birth control you’re using and opt for a hormone-free option. This is totally a personal choice and I’m not advocating one way or another, I just feel it’s important to bring up here.
Sometimes, when you’re taking hormonal birth control it can “cover up” underlying issues. Even if you’re bleeding each month while taking the pill you may not actually be getting a regular cycle.
The way many hormonal birth controls work is that they provide you high levels of estrogen on the active pill days, then that week of inactive pills causes a steep decline in estrogen, which causes what is called a “with-drawl bleed”. This is why many times women go off of the pill only to find out they’re not getting a regular period, like they thought.
Learn More With Overcoming Estrogen Dominance
The body has an amazing ability to heal. We just need to give it the right resources.
In Overcoming Estrogen Dominance, my goal is to empower and give you the tools to take control of your hormones and health.
More than 70% of women experience estrogen dominance. The symptoms range from lumpy and fibrocystic breasts to thyroid nodules, hot flashes, fibroids, uterine polyps, painful, heavy or irregular periods to infertility and miscarriages, from mood swings to insomnia, weight gain to fatigue.
So many women have experienced the pain and frustration that comes when they feel their symptoms and complaints are dismissed or minimized. This is particularly true for women who are experiencing the symptoms of hormone imbalance. Even when doctors do offer treatment, its typically in the form of prescription medication or invasive surgical procedures.
In Overcoming Estrogen Dominance, I hope to show that those extreme interventions are often unnecessary, and to give women a roadmap to reverse estrogen dominance using food, herbs, supplements and natural protocols to rebalance hormones.
To get your copy of Overcoming Estrogen Dominance, go here.
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Weight Gain Or Difficulty Losing Weight
Why do so many people struggle with weight loss and maintenance? Usually, its because they are eating nutrient-poor foods and working too hard. The body processes this hard work as stress and when the body is stressed, it goes into survival or fight or flight mode, producing cortisol. When youre chronically stressed, your cortisol is always high and in an effort to protect itself from whatever danger it senses, your body holds onto fat as a form of energy.
Can I Check My Hormone Levels At Home
You might be wondering how you can check for your hormone levels in the comfort of your own home. For starters, there are various tests that are typically run in order to diagnose a hormone imbalance. The type of test depends on the issue, concerns, or the symptoms you are experiencing. For example, if youre having issues with hot flashes or irregular periods, then your estrogen and progesterone might be checked. On the other end, if youre feeling fatigued and your weight is fluctuating, your thyroid might be checked.
Now, you’re not expected to know what tests need to be run depending on your symptoms unless you’ve gone to school for that and have become, say, a doctor. And I’m not talking about Doctor Google! That is why we have medical professionals in the first place.
There are some companies and websites that do offer in-home testing. They take your samples, then return a report of your results. However, these tests might not be as beneficial for a few reasons.
Firstly, using in-home tests requires you to know what you’re in need of testing. Typically a healthcare provider will take on the task of figuring out the right answer to this for you, so you aren’t just shooting in the dark.
Like I said, there is so much more to you than just data and results! A healthcare professional not only evaluates your lab results, but they also consider your medical history and all the things that make you unique.
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Hormone Balancing Tip #: Support Hormone Detoxification
Our liver and gut are the two major organs responsible for breaking down and clearing hormones once they have been used in the body. It’s so important that these systems are working properly to prevent build-up of hormones which contributes to hormonal imbalances. Heres a brief overview of how to support these two systems of detoxification .
Incorporate Healthy Fats Into Your Diet
Adding healthy polyunsaturated fats to your diet, such as omega-3 and omega-6 may help reduce your appetite and. Fatty acids signal the production of leptin, a hormone that reduces appetite by suppressing the area of the brain that controls our appetite and signals to us its time to eat. Without adequate healthy fats in your diet, youre more likely to have low leptin levels, which can induce overeating and an inability to feel satiated. That may be one reason women have been experimenting with seed cycling for hormone balance.
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Skin And Hair Changes
Acne. A sudden increase in acne is one easy way to identify a possible hormonal imbalance. One of the few hormones involved is androgens. Androgens, typically referred to as male hormones, but found in both males and females, regulate your skins sebum production. If your body produces androgens in excess, sebum can build up in your pores and cause a pimple to surface.
Hair loss. The quality and vitality of your hair is also directly related to your hormones. Thyroid abnormalities, for example, may cause dry hair or skin, thinning hair, or brittle nails. Hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, and parathyroid disorder can also cause hair loss.
Use Gelatin To Improve Hormone Balance
Gelatin and collagen hydrolysate, available here, contain a unique profile of healthful amino acids that help balance hormones by complimenting the amino acids we obtain from meat. Ive discussed the health benefits of gelatin in-depth here, but heres a quick overview.
Dr. Ray Peat, a hormonal researcher in the field of nutrition and metabolism, describes why muscle meats when consumed without gelatin throw the metabolism out of balance:
When only the muscle meats are eaten, the amino acid balance entering our blood stream is the same as that produced by extreme stress, when cortisol excess causes our muscles to be broken down to provide energy and material for repair. The formation of serotonin is increased by the excess tryptophan in muscle, and serotonin stimulates the formation of more cortisol, while the tryptophan itself, along with the excess muscle-derived cysteine, suppresses the thyroid function.
If a person eats a large serving of meat, its probably helpful to have 5 or 10 grams of gelatin at approximately the same time, so that the amino acids enter the blood stream in balance.
By helping to balance the tryptophan, gelatin supports healthy thyroid function and adequate thyroid hormones. Thyroid hormones work synergistically with all other hormones in the body by supporting our thyroid, we support balanced hormones in general.
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