What are hormones?
Hormone are tiny chemical messenger that travel throughout the body delivering messages to the organs, tissues and cell to boost metabolism, build muscle, de-stress, lift mood.
Specific hormones are produced in a cyclical or circadian pattern every day, and if their rhythm gets altered you’ll start to feel sluggish, fatigue or fail to strive.
Lifestyle factors like sleep, stress management and the type of food we eat play a vital role in maintaining ideal hormone balance.
Hormonal imbalance
Most of us are living life completely out of balance. Unfortunately, many symptoms we come to accept as normal as normal are just signs of imbalance and the type of imbalance that affect almost everyone in our society is hormonal imbalance.
Hormonal imbalances are the result of oestrogen dominance, where the normal ratio between oestrogen and progesterone is out of balance. This is often caused by oestrogen not been broken down properly by the liver in a process known as methylation. There are several key ingredients that the livers required to break down excess oestrogen. These are Vitamin B6, Folic Acid (B9) and B12.
Causes of hormonal imbalance
There are several known causes of hormonal imbalance
- Hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism
- Trauma
- Medication
- Birth control pills
- Premature menopause
- Childbirth
A major factor in hormonal imbalance is childbirth. Most women that have children suffer from erratic mood swings, depression and emotional outburst for 4-5 years after birth. This is due to hormones not being correctly regulated by the body after birth. - Synthetic or artificial oestrogens in food we eat. Imbalances in your hormones are triggered by bad food. If you eat sugar, you’ll produce more insulin, more estrogen and more
- Prolonged periods of stress
- Erratic menstrual cycles
- Diabetes
- Environmental chemicals like pesticides in our food can act like powerful hormone disruptors and trigger our own hormones to go out of balance.
Symptoms of hormonal imbalance
- Mood swings
- Anxiousness
- Depression
- Emotional outbursts
- Breast tenderness
- Increased body fat
- Fluid retention
- Reduced libido
- Pre-menstrual symptoms
- Migraines
- Menstrual irregularities
- Irritability
- Anger and tension
- Acne
- Bloating hair loss
- Palpitations
- Infertility
- Osteoporosis
- Loss of muscle mass
- Blurred vision
How to rebalance your hormones
Balancing your hormones is a process, and sometimes it has little twist and turns. But by sticking with it, you can become vital, happy, alert, brilliant and thriving.
The following are the ways to rebalance your hormone
- Exercise.
Exercise is the conscious effort made in order to gain fitness or strength. Exercise constitute of constitute of about 10% of our health daily. Time for exercise ranges from 6am-8am, and 6pm-8pm. - Reduce or eliminate alcohol. Alcohol jacks up estrogen and increases of cancer.
- Sleep well. Insufficient sleep can adversely impact menopause and other condition. Getting up to 8hrs of quality uninterrupted sleep every night is one of the best way to balance hormonal levels. While you’re sleeping, your body is extremely active removing toxins, recharging the mind and creating hormones.
- Reduce stress. Chronic stress can trigger hormonal imbalances
- Taking proper diet. Your diet is the foundation that helps balance your sex hormones. Diet is the right portion of food taken into our body system at the right time. It is advisable to take 5% of carbohydrate, 15% of protein, 30% of fruits and vegetables, and 50% of whole grains and nuts.
- Drink enough water during the day and stop drinking about 2hrs before bed so you don’t wake up to use the bathroom
- Limit your intake of caffeine. Too much of caffeine can wreak havoc on the endocrine system, especially if there are other hormone stressors involved.
