Do you ever wonder whether your hormones are balanced?
 
Here’s what wonderful hormonal balance looks like:

• You have great energy levels throughout the day.
• Your moods are stable.
• You don’t experience cravings.
• Your hair is shiny and full.
• Your skin is clear.
• You have a good libido.
• It is easy to maintain your weight.

 
If you don’t identify with this picture then the chances are you are experiencing some hormonal imbalances. One important way to improve things is to takes steps to minimize your stress levels. Here’s why:
 
How does stress impact my hormones?
 

• When you are stressed your adrenals increase production of the hormone cortisol, which raises your blood sugar levels ready for “fight or flight” activity. This increases your body’s production of the hormone insulin to take that glucose to the cells. When your insulin levels are raised your body will start to store fat, typically around the middle of your body, which is the most dangerous place to have extra fat stores.  If your blood sugar is perpetually elevated due to chronic stress and production of cortisol then the cells can become resistant to insulin and it becomes more difficult to control blood sugar levels. This can cause problems with cravings, shakiness between meals, poor mood, anxiety, broken sleep and more.

 

• Cortisol is a steroidal hormone. Other steroidal hormones are estrogen, progesterone and testosterone – our sex hormones. They are all made from the same base ingredient, cholesterol. When cortisol is needed to handle stress our body can find there isn’t enough cholesterol left to make our sex hormones and we can experience symptoms of imbalance. Take a look at my blog on Sex Hormone Imbalance to find a list of possible symptoms.

 

• Production of thyroid hormones is in delicate balance with the production of stress hormones so stress can exacerbate hypothyroid conditions and increase symptoms like mood issues, fatigue and weight gain.

 
I recommend that you do a stress audit. Identify where you are dealing with unnecessary stress in your life so that you can take steps to minimize it.  If you want to learn more about other natural ways to balance your hormones then consider joining me on July 2nd for my 2 hour workshop on Nourishment for Hormonal Harmony. I would love to have you join me.

As I’ve been focused on writing a new workshop on Anxiety, I’ve been digging more into the many connections between food and nutrition on the one hand and mood and brain functioning on the other. Despite the fact that there are so many logical links between the two, what I find is that many people really don’t think of nutrition and food as serious contenders when they are considering ways to deal with their mental health. More often than not, people go straight to pharmaceuticals or to a therapist before they consider cleaning up their diet.
 
If you think about it though, you already know that food makes a difference in how you feel and your brain functioning. If you’ve ever been really hungry, you have probably experienced feeling grumpy and angry, plus it’s hard to focus and you make more mistakes. If you’ve never been really hungry then just ask anyone you know who’s been on a very calorie restricted diet and they will confirm…It is just not fun!
 
For more evidence on this matter of hunger impacting mood, we can look at Judges’ decisions, which we tend to hope and believe will be logical and balanced. But no, not entirely! Did you know that Judges make more lenient decisions just after they have eaten breakfast or lunch, whereas before a meal break they are more likely to rule unfavorably?
 
This is a blood sugar issue and something that many people overlook as a very simple way to improve their mood and brain functioning.  Just in the last week I’ve had several clients who skip breakfast or go most of the day without food. Sometimes people are trying to eat less to lose weight (which is often counter productive anyway!) and sometimes people say they are just too busy to pay attention to it.
 
Clearly many people are just not connecting the dots and realizing the impact that food has on their brain. Blood sugar is just the tip of the iceberg. We also need to consider neurotransmitters, hormone balance, micronutrient deficiencies, gut health, and more. But if these links are just not tangible enough for you, then how about this?
 
Recently, the SMILES Trial was published. It is the first randomized controlled trial to test whether dietary improvement can actually treat (yes, I did say ‘treat’) depression. In the trial, dietary changes from a junk food diet to a real whole foods diet reduced depression in 30% of the participants.
 
I can only imagine what the results could have been if the participants had taken a deeper nutritional dive and been given more individualized dietary changes to work on.
 
So if I haven’t already made it clear, if you’re experiencing mood or brain functioning issues, I highly recommend paying attention to your diet. The brain is a key organ connected to the rest of our body and it cannot function well without the body functioning properly. If you can fix your body, you can likely fix your brain.
 
If you have questions or need further help the please reach out to us. We’d love to support you!