Hormones are the body’s chemical messengers, and ensuring that they’re balanced and working correctly is SO important for good health. Hormones affect everything from your mood to your energy levels, they control your appetite, they’re responsible for the way your skin looks and ensure your cycles and fertility remain in check. This is vital even if you’re not trying for a baby, since regular cycles ensure the release of the correct hormones each month which can prevent issues further down the line- such as mood disorders and brittle bones. When we think about improving our health, many of us are guilty of thinking it’s all about looking a certain way, seeing a certain number on the scale or building strong muscles. And while these can be useful, don’t overlook the importance of hormonal health since it makes up a huge part of who you are. Here are some of the ways you can go about making positive changes that will improve your hormones.
Eat well
If your hormones are out of whack, this can affect the way you eat. You might struggle with cravings, find yourself eating beyond the point where you’re full and be driven to eat all of the wrong foods. While it can be difficult to fight past this in the beginning, eating well and providing your body with the right nourishment will lead to a positive effect on your hormones. In turn, you’ll find the cravings reduce, and eating healthier going forward becomes much easier. Aim to break away from excess sugar and refined carbohydrates which really wreak havoc on the body.
Keep your weight in check
Once you’re able to eat better and your hunger hormones are under control, it becomes easier to keep your weight in check. Hormones have a huge effect on our ability to lose weight, this article on hormone replacement therapy and weight loss explains more. If you’re over or underweight then getting to a healthy BMI will enable your body to perform optimally and that includes balancing your hormones. Take reproductive hormones as an example, if you carry too much body weight as a woman, your cycles can be impacted. This is because fat cells produce estrogen, too many of them and this excess estrogen disrupts the messages between the brain and the ovaries. As a result you might stop ovulating (or only ovulate irregularly) and as a result deal with missing periods or heavy periods and an inability to get pregnant.
Get enough sleep
Sleep is essential for many of our hormones to work correctly. With a lack of sleep, you can produce too much cortisol which is responsible for stress. It can dysregulate leptin and ghrelin, our bodies hunger hormones making you feel hungrier and more prone to cravings- and so much more. Many of us feel like we don’t have enough hours in the day to get things done, but prioritise sleep as it impacts your health on so many levels. Hormonal balance being just one of them.
