How to Balance Your Hormones: 6 Things Women Commonly Overlook
Do you experience depression, fatigue, high cholesterol, or even numbness in your hands? If so, you may have a hormonal imbalance. When your hormones are unbalanced, it can impact many different aspects of your life, some of which you may never have expected.
Hormones play an important role in our lives. Knowing what causes a hormonal imbalance, and more importantly, how to balance hormones is critical to your health.
As we take a closer look at what hormones are and what they do, we’re also going to look at what causes hormonal imbalances and how to balance hormones naturally. You may be surprised to discover how easy it is!
What are hormones exactly?
Hormones are chemicals that help with different functions in the body. They send messages through your blood to your organs, skin, muscles, and other tissues.
Without hormones, our bodies wouldn’t know what to do and when to do it. As you can tell, hormones are essential for your life.
What do hormones do?
If you’re not sure what hormones do, the answer may blow your mind.
Hormones control:
Metabolism
Growth and development
Reproduction
Mood
Sleep-wake cycle
Blood pressure
Blood sugar
Body temperature
Time to get a little scientific here.
Hormones communicate between two endocrine glands as one gland releases a hormone. This stimulates another gland to change the hormone levels that it’s releasing. Your pituitary gland releases hormones to stimulate your thyroid. This triggers your thyroid gland to release hormones that can impact different aspects of your body.
Hormones also work between an endocrine gland and a target organ, like when your pancreas releases insulin.
What causes a hormonal imbalance?
Hormonal imbalances can be caused by a variety of issues. The following list are a few of the things that can interfere with your hormones:
Lack of/poor sleep
Antibiotics
Processed meats
Excess amounts of meat
Excess amounts of dairy
Medications
Stress
Age
Genetics
Damage or injury to an endocrine gland
Hereditary gene mutations (changes) that cause problems with the structure and/or function of an endocrine gland
When one or more of these issues is at play, your hormones will feel the brunt of it.
What happens when your hormones are unbalanced?
When your hormones are unbalanced, it can lead to hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism. This can make your thyroid work overtime or not work enough. When your thyroid levels are off, it can cause:
Weight gain
Fatigue
Hair loss
Anxiety
In women, unbalanced hormones can also cause infertility and/or polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
How to balance hormones?
As you look at how to balance hormones naturally, you’ll see many ways don’t involve taking any medications or seeking any medical intervention.
1. Improve sleep habits
Since your sleep habits can impact your hormones, it only makes sense that getting healthy sleep can help balance hormones naturally. You can do this by trying to go to bed at the same time every night. Getting a consistent amount of sleep can help to balance hormones as well.
Also, having an atmosphere that is conducive to good sleep is important. This means having a good room temperature, having a room that is dark, and having a comfortable place to rest.
2. Eat more plant-based foods
Another easy way to naturally balance hormones is to look at a plant-based diet. Eating whole plant foods helps to support insulin and balance blood sugar. These are needed for an appropriate thyroid hormone response.
Plant-based foods to try include:
Flaxseed
Quinoa
Turmeric
Avocado
Leafy greens
It also may be worth looking into healthy plant milk such as soy if you’re worried about the hormonal effects of your food choices.
3. Decrease animal-based foods
Speaking of hormones in food, when it comes to animal-based foods, many of the animals that are consumed are fed with different hormones and antibiotics to help them grow faster and bigger.
Some farm animals can be raised on a diet that includes genetically-modified grains that are not good for your body or your hormones. Decreasing animal-based foods can only help as you try to balance your hormones.
4. Eat more fiber
Eating more fiber can also help to balance your hormones. Fiber helps to stabilize blood sugar levels and gives you more energy. Fiber can be found in a variety of foods including:
Strawberries
Apples
Blueberries
Raspberries
Carrots
Broccoli
Artichokes
These types of foods are easily accessible and can be found in many different types of recipes.
5. Exercise regularly
Movement and exercise help regulate stress and blood sugar as well. But you don’t have to commit to a gym membership to see the benefits. Start small – if you’re not working out, aim for a 10-min walk once or twice each week.
6. Reduce stress
Stress and anxiety wreak havoc on hormones. There are plenty of ways to reduce and, in some cases, eliminate it altogether.
Focus on sleep and start a short meditation practice. And for quick relief – take a BIG inhale through your nose then slowly exhale out your mouth.
Other frequently asked questions about hormones
How long for hormones to balance after stopping birth control?
This answer is going to differ from woman to woman because everyone’s bodies are different. For most women, hormone levels can return to normal 2-3 days after they stop taking most forms of birth control. This includes the pill, patch, ring, IUD, and implant.
How can I balance hormones to lose weight?
Engaging in regular exercise, eating right, lowering your sugar intake, and lowering stress can all help you to balance hormones to lose weight. Following the 6 methods mentioned above will undoubtedly help.
Does soy interfere with hormones?
Soy is a hot topic. Some people claim it helps them deal with hot flashes that come along with menopause while other people are afraid that it can cause breast cancer or thyroid cancer (claims that have not been proven).
The deal with soy is that it contains a high concentration of isoflavones. This is a type of plant estrogen that is similar in function to the way human estrogen works, but with much weaker effects.
Soy isoflavones can bind to estrogen receptors in the body and can cause either weak estrogenic or anti-estrogenic activity. This is why it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact role soy has in relation to hormones.
According to one study, “the phytoestrogens in soy are 1,000 times weaker and preferentially bind to different receptors in our bodies than true human estrogens do.”
This can allow soy to have anti-estrogenic effects in tissues that we don’t want excess estrogen, such as breast tissue. This may be why soy products have been shown to improve menopausal symptoms.
What about hormone therapy for menopause?
Many clinical trials have been done to look at the effects of hormone therapy for menopause. The results of large clinical trials have led some doctors and patients to question the safety of hormone therapy for menopause.
Rather than turn to hormone therapy, diets rich in vegetables, particularly whole grains and legumes, provide magnesium and vitamin B6, both of which appear to reduce symptoms of PMS, and possibly, menopause.
Meat, chicken, and dairy products contain foreign estrogens that are fed to animals to increase weight and production, but they also lead to higher estrogen levels. This is why keeping a close eye on your diet can help to balance your hormones naturally without resorting to medications.
The takeaway
Hormones are an important part of how our bodies operate. They’re responsible for a list of functions including metabolism, growth, mood, blood pressure, and much more. When our hormones become imbalanced, it can lead to weight gain, anxiety, and hair loss, among other problems.
This is why it’s important to recognize the signs of hormonal imbalances and determine how to balance your hormones.
When you want to know how to balance hormones naturally, you need to look at things like eating a plant-based diet as well as improving sleep habits, and eating more fiber. These things can all help to balance your hormones without having to resort to medical intervention.
It’s always useful to be mindful of your hormone levels so that you can notice when things get out of whack. The more natural ways we can balance our hormones, the more energy we’ll have and the healthier we’ll be.