Pure Health

How to balance your hormones

Do I have a hormone imbalance?

I eat healthily, sleep well, exercise enough and drink plenty of water. Why do I often feel so bad? ”

The reason many women don’t feel vital is almost always linked to a hormone balance. If our hormones are out of balance, sooner or later something will go wrong, and complaints will be lurking. But how do you know if your hormones are out of balance?

Be prepared for the menopause!

What I mean by that is that as a woman, it is good to pay attention to balancing and maintaining your hormone balance as early as possible. During menopause, our main hormones estrogen and progesterone will decrease, which can be accompanied by fluctuations and (temporary) imbalances. These imbalances, in combination with other factors (such as slowing down your metabolism), can cause all kinds of annoying complaints.

 

 

Men have a slider, women a switch box.

Many symptoms associated with the menopause can occur in women of all ages. We see this happening more and more. The sooner you learn how to balance your hormones a little bit, the better it is. In this way, you increase the chance of sailing through the transition without significant problems.

When it comes to hormones, men have it easy: the hormone testosterone plays the most crucial role in them. That’s like a slider: it goes from low to high quite quickly during puberty, and from the age of 40 it goes very slowly from high to lower again. Women are much more complicated hormonally. For the particular miracle that we can let new life grow in us, a whole switch box is needed, where everything is connected to everything. Our hormones are related, as it were, like a spider’s web. What are the signs that your hormones are out of balance? Below we mention 5 important ones

1. You have uncontrollable binge eating

There can be a variety of causes for uncontrollable binge eating. We generally underestimate the effects that food addiction can have on us. Processed foods usually contain a lot of salt, sugar and fat. Which is having an opium-like impact on our brains. As a result, we increasingly long for more. Binge eating can also be temporarily comforting to us; we eat while we want a hug, a compliment, attention or simply rest. Hormonal imbalances are all underlying this. Too much cortisol or insulin can make us crave sweets or wine, and an imbalance in adrenal cortex hormones can cause a poor moisture balance, causing us to crave salt. Too little serotonin and oxytocin can make us want comfort food or hugs!

2. It is difficult to lose weight

Your weight is much more a result of the (im)balance of your hormones than what you eat, or how often you exercise. Of course, nutrition and exercise also have an influence, but if your hormones are out of balance, you can get fat from the air. Or stay fat. Too much insulin in your blood ensures that you cannot burn fat at that time. Too many xenoestrogens from your diet or toxins from your environment can cause stubborn fat storage. An underactive thyroid gland also ensures low-fat burning. In short: healthy eating but still retaining fat or water often indicates a hormonal imbalance.

3. You have mood swings

Many women find that their mood depends on their cycle: the days before menstruation, some women may have such a short fuse that they no longer recognize themselves. They are fed up with it themselves but feel that they have little influence on it. These mood swings are also the result of hormones that have become out of balance with each other. Pre Menstrual Syndrome or PMS is nothing more than a hormonal imbalance.

4. You feel fucked up and burned out at the same time

In this case, the hormone cortisol is out of balance. Chronic stress will create high levels of cortisol in your body, as your body thinks there is danger and will keep you on edge. However, this high level of cortisol disrupts all kinds of recovery processes and balances in your body. Cortisol is a dominant hormone that displaces other hormones, causing them to be produced less. Including the hormones progesterone, melatonin, insulin and DHEA. These disruptions in your hormone balance can make you feel like you’ve worked up and burned out at the same time. You can’t get to bed late at night, but you’re exhausted early in the morning.

5. You have a lower libido than ever

Low sex drive in women can cause your hormones to be out of balance. No less than 70% of complaints about a low libido have a hormonal cause. We women also need testosterone to feel like making love. We usually also produce that to a sufficient extent, although much less than men, of course. Too much estrogen or too little estrogen can be the cause of too low testosterone. But our thyroid hormone and cortisol levels also influence this. Do you now understand how complicated our hormonal system is and how everything is interrelated?

Five ways to get your hormones back into balance

If you want to restore a plant that looks a bit limp or unhealthy to healthy again, the best thing to do is to put it in good soil. Providing a healthy diet is always the basis. But nutrition is more than just what you put in your mouth.

1. Eat as much natural green food as a possible

Green diet hormone balance Our body comes from nature and only recognizes natural, unprocessed food. Food that does not come from a factory! Eating natural food is not always easy in our society; temptations are lurking everywhere. Sugars, in particular, are a massive disruptor to your hormone balance. It is a matter of getting used to it slowly.

Your body is a slow organism that does not like it when you completely change your diet from today to tomorrow.

Start by getting more fresh fruits and vegetables into your home. Green vegetables in particular, help to balance your hormones. We need the leafy green for our liver, which has to break down excess hormones.

You can read how you can influence your hormones with food in my book The Energetic Women’s Nutrition Compass. Click here for this.

2. Get good and enough sleep

There is probably nothing better you can do for your health and hormone balance than getting enough sleep. However, many women do not get into themselves a bit late at night. Therefore, they find it difficult to get to bed early and get enough sleep. Women need more sleep than men.

Eight hours of sleep a day is optimal for many women. Make going to bed a soothing ritual: turn off your television or computer in time, take a nice bath or shower, pamper yourself, make sure you have a lovely bedroom and above all, make sure you relax.

4. Only put on your skin what you dare to put in your mouth

Women usually lubricate and spray a lot more on their skin than men. When it comes to coconut oil as a lotion or lemon juice as a deodorant, nothing would be wrong. Unfortunately, we usually absorb a whole soup of chemicals over time with our cosmetics and care products. Just read the labels in your bathroom. The basis of these chemicals is almost always petroleum: originally a natural product, just like us. Despite all the processing from petroleum to facial lotion, these substances are still recognized by our body because they are very similar to our female hormone estrogen. Because our body knows them, these chemicals can mess up our hormone balance. They can have a strong estrogenic effect, causing the balance with progesterone to be lost. That’s why it’s important to stop putting chemicals on your skin. Would you like to read more about this? Then read my sister’s blog, she knows all about making natural products for homecare, skincare and haircare.

5. Reduce stress

The biggest disruptor to your entire hormone balance is cortisol: the hormone that your body produces when you are stressed too much and for too long. Cortisol is a breaker for your body; it can eat the proteins of your hair, nails, skin and muscles because it needs those proteins as a raw material. Your body will do everything it can to let you survive: with wrinkly skin and crumbly nails you can still survive just fine, it thinks.

The best remedy for stress is to do something in return: usually, this is relaxation. Relaxation is different for everyone; one likes to do a long walk; another one finds peace in Yoga or meditation. Make time and space for it in your life. Even if you think you don’t need it that much, your body needs it.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post about hormone imbalance. When some questions are left unanswered, do not hesitate to leave us a message below.

Love

Holisticdelsol