When your sex hormones are balanced you feel wonderful—you have energy, enjoy recuperative sleep, and keep weight off. Conversely, the symptoms of hormone imbalance are usually pronounced, unpleasant, and can be all consuming. These symptoms are the body’s way of saying—hello, something is off here! One of the most common hormone imbalances among women in their 30s, 40s and 50s is estrogen dominance, essentially too much estrogen. It’s extremely important that estrogen and progesterone are present in the body in the correct ratio. When they are—aww, life is good!
However, during perimenopause, women start producing less progesterone—thus, leading to estrogen dominance. When that hormone imbalance starts to happen, women become symptomatic and experience fatigue, anxiety, change in sleep, higher perceived stress, and weight gain (in the mid-section of the body), among other symptoms.
So, what can you do to help keep your hormones better balanced?
- Manage your stress. As I explain to my clients, hormone balance during menopause is highly dependent on stress management. During midlife, progesterone production shifts from the ovaries to the adrenal glands. One of the functions of the adrenal glands is to respond to stress. If your body is busy dealing with long-term stress, it impacts the amount of progesterone that’s produced by the adrenal glands.
- Avoid endocrine disruptors. As I discussed in my “Sunscreen and Hormones” blog, it’s important to reduce the amount of endocrine-disrupting chemicals you use on your skin. You also find hormone-disrupting chemicals in cleaning and other household products. You can learn more about how to avoid these products here.
- Swap carbohydrates for healthy fats. Your body needs various kinds of fats to create hormones, including some levels of saturated fats and cholesterol. These fats provide the basic building blocks for hormones such as testosterone and estrogen to be made in the body, and they also help keep inflammation levels low and boost metabolism. Examples of healthy fats that reduce inflammation include coconut oils, nuts and seeds, and oily fish like salmon. Refined carbohydrates such as white flour and added sugars found in many processed foods and sweetened beverages, have the opposite effect, causing weight gain and inflammation.
