6 Handy Hints to Help Balance Hormones

Not saying it's easy, not saying it's hard, but YOU have control to really make a difference in you own life with how you feel and handle your cycle.

I’m sharing the things I suggested to clients who are struggling with their moods and wondering why they have lost tolerance for the people the love; can't seem to maintain a cycle and have body image issues.  These handy hints can help no matter what stage of life you are in or if you are battling mild hypothyroidism; fatigue; brain fog; anxiety; severe digestion issues; or are heading into peri or post menopause. 

These are the 6 most simple and  important steps to take to  help you on your journey to feeling more like yourself again, all the time.

Stress

We are all familiar the feelings of fight and flight, but I’m not just taking about the times you have a deadline to meet or you're worried if your kid will survive their first big night out alone.  Most of the time we are so use to being in a heightened  state, you do not even recognise that you are stressed!   

There are things you may not think are stressful, but your body does. Things like low blood sugar, over-exercising, not sleeping enough, using your electronic devices at night, restricting food groups or ignoring our emotional needs can all send our body signals that we are in a stressful situation.

Handy Hints:

☯︎ Balance blood sugar: This is the most important step! Always eat protein and carbs together to help soothe and support your adrenal glands, turning the dial down on cortisol production, and break the stress cycle. 

☯︎ Prioritise sleep: Getting enough high quality sleep is hugely important in easing stress. 

☯︎ Breath work: By far the most rapid way to initiate the relaxation response.

☯︎ Exercise wisely: Make sure you are not overexercising and do the right exercise depending on were you are in your cycle, start to learn to go with your hormones not against them i.e. do weights to build muscle when ovulating.  

☯︎ Get enough sunlight and avoid blue lights from electronic devices at night (at least wear blue light reduction glasses).

☯︎ Ask for what you need (it gets less stressful once you have done it a few times)

Blood sugar levels?  What does that mean?

Your body has an innate system of checks and balances to keep your blood sugar regulated and within the required limits your body can handle. It reacts and recognises extreme highs and lows as stress. A drop in blood sugar causes a release of adrenaline, cortisol, and glucagon to convert glucose from stored fats. Caused by things such as missing a meals, anyone do this regularly? - I know I struggle with this one when busy.  

This alone can increase the burden of estrogen, promotes the suppression of both thyroid hormone and progesterone and lead to mineral loss like sodium, potassium, and magnesium. Reducing blood sugar fluctuations by eating balanced meals more often leads to a better functioning thyroid, balanced hormones, and less PMS.

Handy Hints: 

☯︎ Eat within an hour of waking up and after exercising, preferably something with protein as it will set you up for the day to make better choices and build muscle.

☯︎ Eat a meal or snack that contains carbs, protein and fat every 3- 4 hours. (Hand full of nuts or a boiled egg can tide you over)

☯︎ Don't go more than 12/14 hours without eating overnight . 

☯︎ Go for a short, 10 minute walk, after your main meals to decrease blood sugar spikes.

Are you eating enough nutrient dense food?

Your body is sensitive to scarcity. If your body doesn't feel like it's getting enough, it down regulates production of sex hormones. Your body doesn't know the difference between a war or famine or a new weight-loss fad you're following. We also need to focus on a nutrient dense diet. Hormones are made up of the same building block as fats and proteins and micronutrients (vitamins & minerals). 

Handy Hints:

☯︎If you would to like to work out your total daily energy expenditure in calories go for it, but I still prefer to work on portion control and food types over weighing everything out as I think it is more sustainable.

☯︎ Incorporate grass-fed, organic animal foods to your diet, obviously only if you are not vegan or vegetarian.  It just takes a little more work if you are, as animal products are nutrient-dense with what we need to make hormones,

☯︎ Include plenty of fruit and good carbs to your diet. Your body needs glucose to convert inactive thyroid T4 into active T3, to keep your cells functioning optimally, keep your metabolism running, and fuel every single part of your body.

☯︎ Eat enough healthy fats. As i mentioned fats and cholesterol are the building blocks of hormones, so don't run away from them, just choose omega 3 sources. You need enough cholesterol to make sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone.

Are you absorbing what you eat?

Without adequate stomach acid, or intrinsic factor for example you will have trouble extracting nutrients from food and you will be more susceptible to bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), pathogens and parasites. The very first thing you have to ensure is working is your digestion.

Handy Hints:

☯︎Eat a biodiverse diet and choose fresh, unprocessed whole foods. See how many different foods you can eat in a week.

☯︎Chew slowly. Be mindful of what and how you are eating, do you chew three times and gulp or 30 x and give gratitude to the food itself or to the cook. Try to relax as much as possible/

☯︎ Before you eat, take 5 deep breaths into your belly, and 3 between each swallow.

☯︎ Try 1 tsp apple cider vinegar, 1/2 a lemon diluted in a glass of water, or digestive bitters 15 or 20 min before meals.  

☯︎ Avoid foods that you are sensitive to, processed foods, numbers and preservative, vegetable oils, alcohol, coffee and excessive use of NSAIDs.

☯︎ Add gut healing foods like bone broth, gelatin, and marshmallow root

Try all these tips to improve digestion but please if you need to work contact a qualified health practitioner on your gut issues as they will be able to make a huge difference.

How’s your toxic exposure?

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are toxins in the environment that interfere with the normal function of your body's endocrine system (the network of hormone-producing glands). EDCs look and act a lot like estrogen and can increase production of certain hormones and decrease production of others. Some of the most common EDCs include phthalates, parabens, sulphates, flame retardants and BPA (Bisphenol A).  Aim to implement the following lifestyle and environmental changes to reduce your toxic burden and avoid the chemicals that disrupt hormones:

Handy Hints:

☯︎Switch to 100% natural personal and cleaning products. Opt for fragrance-free products and avoid parabens, phthalates, sulfates, sodium laureth sulfate and any ingredient that ends with -eth.

☯︎ Dust, vacuum and open the windows often. If intolerant to dust mites use a vacuum with a HEPA filter, which traps small particles of dust instead of blowing them around the house. Open your windows every day to dilute the level of contaminants in your home.

☯︎ Reduce plastic use and BPA exposure. Avoid plastics marked with a “PC,” for polycarbonate. Switch to either a stainless-steel water bottle or glass bottle. Limit your consumption of canned food and avoid handling paper receipts at the store.

How’s your liver coping? 

One of the  many many roles of your liver is to help regulate the balance of sex hormones, thyroid hormones, cortisone and other adrenal hormones. It transforms or removes any excess hormones from the body. If your liver is not functioning optimally, then you may not be able to properly remove estrogen at its normal rate. That means estrogen can be poorly metabolised and can get reabsorbed in the body, leading to a hormonal imbalance (i.e.  sore breasts for your whole cycle).

Handy Hints:

☯︎ Make sure you get enough nutrients so your liver can do its jobs (amino acids, B vitamins, antioxidants, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, choline, magnesium, selenium, zinc, sulfur, magnesium . . .)

☯︎ Support your bile flow, use bile flow aids like digestive bitters, dandelion root, beets, or castor oil packs.

☯︎ Practice dry skin brushing daily. Dry brushing on a daily basis helps increase lymph flow. Exercising and bouncing on a trampoline or skipping rope to 80's music can also be very helpful.

☯︎ Drink dandelion root tea daily.

☯︎ Replace coffee if you can, try a mushroom mix, or de-caffeinated, keep the ritual just make a better different choice for your endocrine system.

What NOW?

Alright, now you know the 6 helpful tools  to take you to balancing your hormones naturally…

But here's the thing, having these 6 steps at your fingertips is only half the journey.

Now your true challenge begins incorporate them into your day-to-day lifestyle to see real results…not for the short term but the long term to discover the root cause of your symptoms, restore your metabolism and hormonal health.