You might wonder why are hormones so important? The truth is hormones regulate many aspects of our health - including stress response, metabolism, reproduction, menopause and more - and if they’re dysregulated, hormones can lead to feeling sluggish, weight gain, poor sleep, brain fog, depression, low libido, and increased risk for certain conditions or diseases.
Good news is that simple diet and lifestyle changes can help rebalance your hormones allowing you to find a state of equilibrium once again. Nutrition, sleep, optimizing digestion, mindfulness, and exercise are some of the ways you can regain balance of your hormones.
Nutrition
The focus should be on foods that are nutrient-dense and that provide an abundance of natural vitamins, minerals, and protective phytochemicals. Plant-sources including vegetables, fruits, beans/legumes, and whole grains are some of the best sources of these nutrients. Cruciferous vegetables (i.e., broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage) have a particularly significant effect on estrogen metabolism. Refined carbohydrates, added sugars, and processed foods should be avoided or reduced as much as possible.
Dietary Fiber
Dietary fiber, specifically soluble fiber, from beans, berries, apples, and whole grains among others, is not only good to support the beneficial bacteria in your gut, but fiber also helps to promote excess hormone excretion. In this study, high-fiber diets in premenopausal women resulted in reduced serum sex hormone concentrations. The same was true in a similar study looking at serum hormone concentrations in women with a history of breast cancer.
Dietary Fat
It may be surprising to learn that dietary fat is crucial for hormones, especially female sex hormones including estrogen and progesterone. Did you know that cholesterol is important and used to synthesize female steroid sex hormones, like estrogen and progesterone? So, when hormone levels are out of balance, assessing dietary fat can be of significance, with an emphasis on choosing high quality fats. One study that looked at dietary fat intake and reproductive hormone concentrations in menstruating women suggests that marine omega-3 fatty acids led to increased progesterone concentrations. Plant oils (avocado, olive), nuts and seeds (walnuts, almonds, flax, pumpkin, etc.), avocado, and cold-water fatty fish (salmon, tuna, sardines, black cod, trout) are going to provide the body with healthy fats that are cardioprotective, anti-inflammatory, and anti-carcinogenic.
Supplements
When nutrition from whole foods isn’t enough, supplements can be a great addition to help balance your hormones. There’s a wide variety of supplements on the market, but working with a nutrition professional and getting some basic functional medicine testing done can ensure you take the best supplements for your body. With hormone disruption and stress, there is a greater need for B vitamins and magnesium for proper hormone metabolism. Additionally, vitamin C helps balance cortisol values.
Mindfulness
Cortisol is the primary stress hormone that if chronically activated, can have metabolic and negative health responses. Work deadlines, sitting in traffic, or worries about COVID-19 can all trigger this fight-or-flight response resulting in a cortisol surge. Fortunately, there are techniques to help minimize stress including meditation, journaling, a walk, time outside in nature, eating nutrient-dense foods, physical activity, deep abdominal breathing, and receiving massages. Additionally, sleep is crucial to regulating our cortisol levels.
Exercise
Have you ever regretted a workout? The answer is, probably not. Exercise is beneficial for reducing stress hormones and increasing those ‘feel-good’ endorphins. Exercise can be walking, running, strength training, yoga, pilates, a bike ride, or any sustained physical movement with the purpose of enhancing health and fitness. Aside from improvements in stress response, there is evidence to suggest that physical activity contributes to decreases in sex hormone concentrations, including estrogen.
Interested in finding out more about taking control of your hormones through nutrition, gut health, sleep, mindfulness, and exercise? Join me next week, Tuesday, April 12th @12pm PST for a complimentary Q&A session on the topic of women’s health & hormones. Click HERE to register. Everyone is welcome!
For a deeper dive, join me for a 6-week online Women’s Health & Hormones course that covers nutrition, sex hormones, thyroid & adrenal hormones, gut health & the microbiome, liver health, insulin resistance & weight gain, brain fog, sleep disturbances, exercise & bone health. For more information on the group program, click HERE.
To health & healing,
Natalie & Heather