Hormonal Harmony: The Key to Women’s Wellbeing

When it comes to women’s health, nothing is more influential than the hormones responsible for dictating a wide range of our bodily functions.

Our bodies are finely tuned machines; everything needs to work together just so for us to feel how we’re meant to, full of energy and zest for life.

Our hormones are responsible for regulating essential functions such as sleep, mood, metabolism, and reproduction. The moment they get out of whack, things take a turn: suddenly, our moods may begin to swing wildly, our periods might become irregular, we may gain weight or experience acne, go through hot flashes, or find ourselves battling serious illnesses like breast cancer or osteoporosis.

Keeping our hormones balanced is vital; but how do we go about that?

Let’s take a deeper look at the hormones involved, and what we can do to manage them effectively.

 

What are the key hormones involved?

In biologically female bodies, the endocrine system is regulated by hormones such as estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and thyroid hormones, among others.

One of the most common hormone imbalances is estrogen dominance. This is when levels of estrogen in the body are higher than the levels of progesterone, and can lead to irregular periods, mood swings, weight gain, and even increased risk of breast cancer or fibroids.

Conversely, when levels of progesterone are higher than those of estrogen, we can struggle with osteoporosis or have difficulty conceiving.

 

What causes hormonal imbalance?

The balance in our hormones can be disrupted by a wide range of things, including stress, medical conditions, and lifestyle factors such as poor sleep, inadequate nutrition or lack of exercise.

Our hormones also undergo natural shifts at different times of our lives; puberty and menopause are extremely challenging times when our bodies are in transition, and our hormonal balance is thrown off by these changes.

Stress is one of the biggest causes of hormonal imbalance. In the world we live in, it’s safe to say most of us live with catastrophically high levels of stress. This stress causes high levels of cortisol to be released into our bodies, which causes our bodies to go into a kind of emergency mode. This “emergency mode” was designed to help us survive encounters with sabretooth tigers, not deadlines, and therefore prioritises immediate physical safety over long term health by diverting resources away from systems which aren’t crucial in the short term – systems such as metabolism, language, sleep, and memory formation – and into systems which are essential for immediate survival – such as our heart and musculature. 

That’s fine for brief, isolated incidents, where cortisol levels return to normal within a few hours.

Our modern lives, though, often see us spend months or even years in non-stop emergency mode due to the levels of stress we encounter in our everyday lives. Imagine the damage done from years of inadequate functioning of these key systems by a consistent high level of cortisol.

 

What can we do to balance our hormones?

The most important thing you must do to regain your hormone balance and maintain it is to prioritise self-care.

Our bodies are designed to function optimally when well-taken care of. The problem is that our society doesn’t value or prioritise self-care. As a result, neglecting ourselves has become a difficult habit to break.

The cold, hard truth, though, is that if we don’t take care of ourselves, the consequences for our health can be dire, even fatal. It simply isn’t optional; we need to learn to prioritise it or we (and our families) will pay the price.

The first thing that needs attention is your stress levels. To counteract the effects of the stress hormone, cortisol, we must convince our brains that our deadlines and workload aren’t life-threatening; to do that, we need to settle our nervous system, so it stops releasing cortisol. Breathwork, meditation, exercise, and relaxation are key ways to do this.

It’s crucial to carve out time in your everyday life for these self-soothing practices. Take a walk at lunch time; spend five minutes deep breathing in between meetings or in the car while parked in the supermarket car park; meditate for ten minutes when you first wake up and before you go to sleep. Every little bit helps; there is no need to meditate for an hour at a time if that’s too hard to fit in, even ten minutes makes a difference.

Exercise. It doesn’t matter whether you prefer walks on the beach, HIIT classes, or going out dancing, just get your body moving. Exercise releases endorphins, which help counteract cortisol in your body.

Learn to say no to things that will cause overload or that you simply won’t feel good about doing. That project with the too-tight deadline that will cause you to have to work all night for several nights? Say no or negotiate your workload or deadlines. That family reunion or dinner with friends that feels like a chore? Skip it.

Learn to be okay with not saying Yes to everything.

Take a long, hard look at your sleep. How many hours do you get each night? Is it restful? Do you toss and turn or get woken up frequently?

Ideally, you should be aiming for 7-8 hours of restorative sleep each night. If you get less than that, it’s time to figure out why, and what you can do about it. A good place to start is to reduce your caffeine intake and limit it to early in the day, as well as turning off screens at least two hours before you go to bed.

Look at your comfort levels in your bedroom, too; a cool bedroom promotes better sleep than an overly warm one, so make sure you aren’t heating the room too much, and that you have enough blankets to stay comfortable throughout the night.

Consider your diet. Our bodies cannot function on inadequate nutrition; a body that’s fuelled by a diet consisting of highly processed foods over a long period of time will develop illness in much the same way a car fuelled by the wrong type of fuel will break down.

Feed your body the best quality food you can. Avoid processed foods, sugar, alcohol, and caffeine; a little here and there is fine, but it should be a small blip in a diet that’s otherwise packed with nutrition to fuel your body.

 

A Last Thought

A last thing to consider is how well supported you are. Do you have a “village”, a network of friends and family you can count on for emotional and practical support?

Humans are herd animals; we are designed to thrive in groups, and we don’t do well on our own in the long term. Feeling supported reduces overwhelm, which reduces stress. It’s crucial to our mental and physical health.

Nurture the connections you have; spend time with friends and family, help out when and where you can, check on people regularly. If you have few or no connections, work on building new ones; reach out to people you’ve lost touch with, say yes to invitations, join an exercise class or a community group to meet new people with similar interests.

And lastly, if you find yourself in need of support, and people offer to help, say yes.

It can be hard to accept help, especially if you’ve been raised to be independent and go it alone, but the reality is that we can’t do it alone. None of us can. We all need our village, so let it in when it comes knocking.

 

Remember the cliché: self-care isn’t selfish. It’s essential, so prioritise looking after yourself. You deserve to feel good.