Women – Improve Mood, Sex Drive, and Energy

Balance your hormones!

Here is a wonderful article recently published at mindbodygreen which provides a lot of information about hormonal imbalance, offers some ideas of how to correct the imbalance through diet and methods that you can do at home.

At Viking Alternative Medicine, we offer free consultations so please, if you think you have an imbalance or need some help, make an appointment. One of our hormone specialists or our medical personnel will contact you and be able to offer some assistance. Our consultations are free and scheduling is easy, online, and fast.

Symptoms of hormonal imbalance

The culprits might be sneaky, but the repercussions are all too apparent. Among the many signs that your hormones are out of whack are:

Temperature dysregulation, like hot flashes or feeling cold all the time
Feeling exhausted, no matter how much you sleep
Heavy or painful periods
Acne and other skin problems
PMS
Anxiety, depression, and mood swings
Inability to lose weight
Digestive issues
Changes to hair, skin, and nails
Inability to sleep
Cravings

Exactly which hormones are behind your symptoms

Let’s dive into exactly which hormones are behind these pesky symptoms:

Too much estrogen (often called estrogen dominance) can be behind heavy periods, irritability, and weight gain (especially around the butt, hips, and thighs). Too little estrogen can be equally bad with symptoms of joint pain, more fine lines and wrinkles, and vaginal dryness.

Progesterone is the “chill” hormone that helps create a calm mood. When it falls too low, we see women feeling anxious, having trouble sleeping, and their periods may come too frequently. While low progesterone is much more common, high progesterone can make you weepy, create breast tenderness and you may even find yourself waking to feel groggy.

Insulin regulates how much glucose, or blood sugar, actually gets into your cells. Insulin resistance can manifest as feeling tired after meals, irregular or missing periods, and, for women with PCOS, excess hair growth on the face and abdomen. Even with a stellar diet, inflammation can occur and create issues with insulin.

Testosterone plays a role in sex drive, bone health, and more. Too much testosterone is a big reason us ladies get offered birth control to “fix” their acne and create a regular withdrawal bleed (sometimes incorrectly referred to as a period). But because birth control also disrupts other hormones, we often swing to having too little testosterone, which can spell bad news. Too little testosterone looks like fatigue, crying all the time, and a missing libido.

Cortisol gets a bad rep as your stress hormone, but like any hormone, it’s all about balance. When cortisol goes high at night and crashes in the morning (exactly what it shouldn’t be doing), your sleep and energy levels often take the hit.

Thyroid issues are incredibly common in women and can be an underlying cause of irregular periods, fatigue, anxiety, depression, and hair loss.

Why hormonal balance is so important

Let’s back up a minute and talk about how you should feel when your hormones are in balance.

Healthy, happy hormones mean you feel on top of your game, invincible, and ridiculously happy. That’s because your hormones influence your mood, your libido, how your period is, your energy, your blood sugar, and more. In other words: Hormones are kind of a big deal.

But, hormones are very sensitive, especially when you’re eating the wrong foods, getting poor sleep, exposing yourself to toxins, and all the things that go along with being a human. They also play together. So when one gets out of balance, others often follow.

Eventually, imbalanced hormones can become like an unruly mob of adolescent teenagers in the backseat of your car. They don’t play nicely, and they can create massive havoc.

How to balance your hormones naturally

Hormones can feel complicated, and balancing them is oftentimes not a quick fix. For my patient Vanessa, and nearly every other patient, I always start with the foundations to fix those hormonal imbalances: nutrition and lifestyle.

Balancing your hormones and keeping them balanced begins with what you put on the end of your fork. Leveraging food as medicine can support hormone balance naturally. In my women’s health medical practice I often find that once women begin tracking their cycle and evaluating how they feel, they intuitively begin eating and exercising in a way that better serves their hormones.

Here’s what to eat to support your hormones:

Non-starchy vegetables.

Aim for 3 to 6 cups of vegetables daily. Choose organic as often as you can. Be sure to pile on those leafy greens, along with beets, carrots, garlic, onions, broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables, and artichokes. The more variety, the better! I recommend all women incorporate ¼ cup of broccoli sprouts at least three times weekly to support estrogen metabolism and for its cancer-protecting effects.

Protein.

High-quality protein helps your liver activate powerful detox pathways, keeps you full, and balances blood sugar levels: All keys for balanced hormones. Eat organic, 100 percent grass-fed meats and pasture-raised eggs as well as wild-caught fish, legumes, nuts, and seeds. (If you don’t eat meat, dial up those last three and consider a plant-based protein powder.) Incorporating Brazil nuts is a great way to supply your thyroid with selenium, which can lend itself to more sustained energy.

Healthy fats.

Hormone-healthy fats help regulate your blood sugar and supply your body with the energy it needs to create hormones. You’ll find them in flax seeds, avocados, cold-pressed olive oil, coconut oil, macadamia nut oil, and olives. Avocados are also a great source of B6, which supports optimal estrogen and progesterone levels

Fiber-rich foods.

Fiber warrants its own special category to balance hormones. Among its roles, optimal fiber levels help you have regular bowel movements to remove excess hormones like estrogen. Aim for a minimum of 25 grams daily. Fiber A-listers include avocado, berries, nuts and seeds, and tons of leafy and cruciferous veggies.

Clean, filtered water.

You should drink at least half your body weight in fluid ounces daily. Keep a BPA-free canteen near your desk or in your car and sip liberally! Add a lemon or lime squeeze for extra zing.’

Also worth noting: How you buy and store your food can also impact hormones. Avoid storing or purchasing food in plastic containers if possible. Placing plastic containers with fat-containing foods in the microwave is a source of xenoestrogens, which can create hormone havoc. As often as possible, avoid plastic straws too.

For Vanessa, we got her going on a hormone balancing nutrition plan, and within one cycle her energy was climbing, anxiety was more than cut in half, and she wasn’t tossing and turning at night. In addition, we incorporated lifestyle practices to help her manage her anxiety and build better hormones.

Other ways to build healthy hormones

When it comes to restoring hormonal balance, food matters. But so do other things like how you live, think, sleep, and move. These four foundational strategies provide maximum bang for your hormone-supporting buck.

Exercise correctly. Both cardio and strength training can improve hormone balance and avoid metabolic mayhem. Aim for at least 20 minutes of daily movement. You can alternate between cardio and strength training. Or try yoga, Pilates, Zumba, Barre3, or martial arts. If you aren’t used to regular exercise, start out with walking and stretching, and work your way up to other, more intensive activities.

Dial up your rock star sleep. Struggling with low libido? Feeling that mid-afternoon mood crash that leaves you bolting for a latte and the vending machine? When too little sleep messes with your circadian rhythm, your hormone balance (and lots more) suffers. I can’t think of anything that solid, consistent sleep can’t fix. Quality sleep, aim for 8 hours, revitalizes your body and helps rebalance your hormones.

Crank down your stress levels. When you’re stressed out, your body goes into fight-or-flight mode, spiking and subsequently crashing cortisol levels. Other hormones also take the hit. Make a concerted effort to reduce stress by taking deep breaths, incorporating adaptogenic herbs, meditating, exercising, eliminating toxic relationships and negative self-talk, and carving out time in your schedule for activities you enjoy.

Get the right nutrients. When it comes to supplements and hormone balance, working with a naturopathic or functional medicine practitioner can help create a plan that works for you. That said, I’ve found nearly everyone benefits from a few hormone-balancing foundation supplements. They include a professional-quality multivitamin, omega-3 fatty acids, extra vitamin D and magnesium, and a B complex.

It may sound like a lot of work to upgrade your diet and ditch some of these hormone-harming habits, but as you increase your energy, your mood, and your mojo, and create better hormone balance in your body, I’m pretty confident you’ll say “That was so worth it.”