Your hormones greatly impact your emotional, physical and mental health. These have a vital role in controlling your appetite, weight and mood, on top of other things. Basically, the endocrine glands generate a certain amount of each hormone the body is asking for. In today’s modern lifestyle, experiencing hormonal imbalances is relatively common. And exacerbating this, certain hormones decline with age. So some people experience a more dramatic decrease compared to others. To counteract this, consuming a nutritious diet and practicing other healthy lifestyle behaviors can help you regain hormonal health and let you be at your best.

This article focuses on natural ways to balance your hormones.

1. Turn to healthy fats instead of carbs

Consuming foods rich in short, medium and long-chain fatty acids is a vital factor in maintaining your hormones. The body also needs small dietary amounts of saturated fat and cholesterol to generate hormones. These fats and lipids help to regulate inflammation levels, create a healthy metabolism and control body weight. This is aside from being fundamental building blocks for hormone production. In contrast, nutritionists generally agree that processed carbohydrates can cause increased inflammation and interfere with your hormonal balance.

2. Consume adaptogenic herbs

Adaptogenic herbs are a class of healing plants that helps with hormone balance and reduces the risk of disease by helping the body deal with physical and emotional stresses. Additionally, aside from boosting immune function and helping protect against stress, studies have shown that some adapotogens (like ashwagandha, medicinal mushrooms, rhodiola and holy basil) can promote adrenal gland functions, improve thyroid function, stabilize blood sugar and insulin levels, combat anxiety and depression, slow down brain cell degeneration, and reduce bad cholesterol naturally.

3. Face emotional imbalances

In basic Chinese medicine, it is believed that internal emotions generate a direct impact on a person’s well-being. It is no surprise then that emotional forces when combined with external stresses and lifestyle choices can affect hormone balance and a person’s health. Chinese practitioners say that the emotion of fear can cause disease in your reproductive organs, kidneys and adrenal glands. And this last one is responsible for cortisol production. The impact on reproductive organs can lead to serious conditions like infertility and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). The same Chinese health experts believe the emotions of frustration, impatience and unforgiveness can lead to disease in the liver, which can cause an estrogen imbalance. Similarly, the emotions of worry and anxiety can result in poor control of insulin levels, and this can negatively impact several hormones.

4. Avoid potentially harmful skin care products

In order to balance hormones naturally, it’s important to limit man made toxins entering your body. One simple activity is choosing body care products manufactured without potentially harmful chemicals like sodium lauryl sulfate, DEA, propylene glycol and parabens. A good alternative way is to use natural products which bear ingredients like castor oil, essential oils, shea butter and coconut oil.

5. Take supplements to fill nutritional gaps

Many nutritionists advise taking supplements to fill in nutritional gaps that can result in hormonal imbalance. Below are the most widely recommended supplements for healthy hormone support:

• Evening primrose oil – this bears omega-6 fatty acids (like LA and GLA), which protects overall hormonal function. Taking evening primrose oil can reduce premenstrual and PCOS symptoms.
• Vitamin D – this important vitamin for hormonal health also lowers inflammation. It is especially important for people who do not receive enough direct sunlight and a deficiency can cause depression and other health problems. The solution is to take supplements with vitamin D.
• Bone broth – this can heal the digestive system and deliver to the body essential nutrients for quick absorption.
• Probiotics – this helps in repairing your gut lining and food digestion, which in turn, helps with your hormonal balance. This helps prevent undigested food particles (such as gluten) from being absorbed through your gut directly into your bloodstream; when this happens, the result can be disease-causing inflammation that affects the whole body. The health of glands, like the thyroid, are very sensitive to increased inflammation.

6. Be careful with medications and birth control pills

Do you know the side-effects of your medication? Many medicines can harm hormonal balance, resulting in side effects like depression, fatigue, altered sleeping patterns, sadness, low libido and appetite changes. Examples of the medications that can affect hormonal balance are glucocorticoids, corticosteroids, statins, rexinoids, dopamine agonists and stimulants. Take extra precaution when considering medicines. Ask your physician about the side effects and look for natural alternatives when available.

7. Sleep well

A healthy normal sleep ranges from seven (7) to eight (8) hours every night. Not getting enough sleep affects your natural circadian rhythm and can be a major cause of hormonal imbalance. Why does this happen? This is due to the fact that your hormones also have a schedule. For example, cortisol (the stress hormone) is processed around midnight. So when you go to bed too late, you fail to provide enough rest for your sympathetic flight/fight stress response. This can lead to unhealthy stress levels during the day and impact mental facilities.

AUTHOR BIO

Jennifer Smith is a freelance writer and health advocate. She mostly blogs about Yes Wellness products. If you are interested in knowing more about Yes Wellness and its Estrosmart products which can help balance your estrogen levels, you can view this link.