Stress can have various emotional impacts on the body, for example, It raise your pulse, disturb your digestion process and deny you of sleep. Today, I will truly teach you how stress can impact your hormones as a woman, from insulin to estrogen. And, what this implies for your general wellbeing and how you can reduce the effect.
How does stress affect a woman’s hormones?
With regards to stress, a lot of women are currently mindful of how it can profoundly affect our bodies; from exacerbating IBS side effects to disrupting our sleeping pattern. We are not often so disturbed about the impacts of stress, when it comes to our hormones. so, regular symptoms like missing periods, fluctuating glucose levels and poor digestion get blamed on different issues. That is the reason why today I will attempt to clear things up by looking at how stress affects the woman hormones.
Thyroid
The thyroid plays a critical part in assembling two essential hormones, triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4), which are released into the blood circulation system to help control your digestion. T4 is commonly created in more amount and can promptly be changed over into T3, the more active structure. Pretty much every cell in your body depends on these two hormones and when your T3 and T4 levels do ultimately reduce, your pituitary organ will step in by creating what is known as the ‘thyroid stimulating hormone’, or TSH. This helps the thyroid organ to boost its production of T3 and T4.
Stress might cause issues here, however, as one of the fundamental stress hormones, cortisol, can effectively suppress the function of your pituitary gland. This implies that your body probably won’t create enough TSH, consequently bringing down your T3 and T4 levels. Sadly, this can imply that you’ll experience slow digestion, making you more prone to signs of weight gain or exhaustion. Stress may likewise trigger how T4 is changed over into T3, again making you more prone to low thyroid symptoms.
What you should do?
In case you’re prone to stress, and worried about poor digestion, it may be very pleasant to find a way to help your thyroid organs. One of the key ingredients that your thyroid uses to create T3 and T4 is iodine, a mineral that can be sourced from the type of food you eat, for example potatoes, prunes, strawberries and cranberry juice. Nonetheless, the best iodine sources are vegetables like kelp.
Insulin
when you experience stress, it will prompt your early stage ‘battle or flight’ reflexes, driving your body to organize your short-term survival over your long-term wellbeing. In these conditions, your body will slow down parts of your body like your metabolism and reproduction system for your muscles, heart and lungs. Since energy will be needed here, stress hormones like cortisol will tell your liver to release a large amount of glucose into your blood circulatory system, subsequently raising your blood glucose levels. Normally, when your blood glucose levels are raised, insulin will come into the process and tell your body to store this abundant glucose. However, in instances of stress, your insulin levels can be affected and to worsen the situation, your human growth hormone levels can increase, which will diminish your sensitivity to insulin.
What you should do?
If you know that stress can increase your blood glucose levels and influence your sensitivity to insulin, you truly should be watching what you’re eating and drinking as you might worsen the issue. Try to reduce your intake of sweet, carb-related foods – as these will just flood your blood circulatory system with an overdose of blood sugar – and rather your focus should be about eating foods that can help with adjusting your blood sugar levels.
Progesterone
Progesterone is very important when it comes to managing your monthly menstrual period, yet it competes with your stress hormone, cortisol. This is on the grounds that these two hormones use comparable chemicals in their general make-up – indeed, cortisol is really built from a metabolite gotten from progesterone. when you experience stress, your body will pay more attention to producing more cortisol over everything else, reducing your stores of progesterone.
What you should do
There’s a reason doctors say, when you’re attempting to conceive that you should avoid stress totally. As regards your monthly periods, low progesterone levels can meddle with the routine of your menstrual cycle and affect your menstrual signs. Luckily, there are various things you can do to help your progesterone levels. Magnesium and zinc are two supplements that come into the picture here as both can assist with keeping up good pituitary function and boost your production of progesterone.
Estrogen
As you may know, your liver is very vital when it comes to filtering and processing any extra estrogen available in your body; however, if your body is responding to a stress reaction your liver will not be able to carry out this function as effectively. Instead, this organ will come under quite a bit of pressure – stress, for instance, can decrease the flow of blood to the liver and cause inflammation in this area. This means that, in addition to flagging progesterone levels, extra estrogen won’t be getting properly separated and will instead gather in your body.
What you should do
Milk Thistle is usually the suggested remedy here as it contains a mixture of herbs such as artichoke, milk thistle, boldo and dandelion to support healthy liver function and to guard it from any harm.
Testosterone
Stress should not affect your levels of testosterone too much however, if your cortisol levels are constantly increased, it could affect your testosterone levels, causing low testosterone signs such as lack of libido or fatigue.
What you should do
When it comes to symptoms of low testosterone, the food you eat and lifestyle changes are very vital. For instance, low zinc levels can cause a drop in levels of testosterone so you want to be sure that you are having enough of this nutrient. Exercise can also help to boost your mood, enhance the strength of your muscle and fight stress signs.
What you can do to prevent stress from impacting your hormones?
- Eat fresh fruits and vegetables
- Stay hydrated: ensure you’re drinking between 1.5 – 2 liters of water each day!
- Go outdoors: get enough natural sunshine – as this can help to improve your mood and regulate your sleep patterns.
- Practice stretching of legs: get between 20-30 minutes of exercise daily!
- Sleep away your problems: set up a sound sleep pattern and get a lot of rest.
- Practice careful reflection and meditation: Helps to empower the right breathing
- methods and a careful way to deal with stressful conditions.
- Don’t be shy to say no: If you’re getting stressed because of a lot of task and assignments in your job, don’t hesitate to reject extra duties.
- Converse with somebody: regardless of whether it’s a companion, relative or associate, don’t keep things to yourself.
Celeste London is a Holistic Hormone Nutritionist who teaches women how to use food to balance female hormones and eliminate stress. If you’ll like to learn how to use food to balance female hormones and increase progesterone naturally. You can book a consultation with her here – https://calendly.com/hellocelestelondon/
