Balance your hormones

3 top takeaways from a recent talk I did on balancing female hormones. 

1. Cortisol takes priority over all other hormones. It’s because it’s part of the fight or flight response that could potentially save our life. This means it can impact the balance and efficacy of all the other hormones. Also, it is made indirectly from progesterone so it can use up our progesterone. So if we’re consistently stressed (and releasing cortisol) we can have lower progesterone levels, which means there is relatively more oestrogen (and excess oestrogen can cause symptoms like heavy periods, bloating, PMS and water retention).

2. Once we’re finished with oestrogen we need to eliminate it and to do this we need to have at least 1 bowel movement a day. Any less than that and oestrogen will re-circulate and can potentially cause problems like the symptoms mentioned above or conditions like fibroids, endometriosis and breast and ovarian cancers.

3. Every time we’re in stressed, and in fight or flight mode, glucose is mobilised so that we have energy (to fight or flee).  If we don’t actually fight or flee (and it’s just consistent stress), the glucose ends up as fat around our middles.