This week I’ve been talking a lot about hormones!

And the reason for that is because hormones play a huge role in how we feel day to day. When our hormones are imbalanced, it can affect every part of our lives (mind and body). Using a range of natural methods to help balance hormones gives us the ability to look at the body holistically, rather than one symptom at a time.

Imbalanced hormones can look like:
- Weight gain / sudden weight loss
- Fatigue
- Muscle weakness, muscle aches, stiffness
- Low libido
- Infertility issues
- Issues with your cycle
- Anxiety, depression or irritability
- Thinning or fine hair
- Dry skin
- Puffy face
… and many more examples.

In order to feel your best, here are 5 ways to naturally helps support your hormones.

STEP 1 - Sleep

Sleep - getting 7-9 hours of sleep at night, and avoiding exposure to blue light at night (from phones, iPads and computers) as it can affect your circadian rhythms. Also, go to bed at roughly the same time, as well as getting up at the same time - it helps with our circadian rhythm and helps us in feeling balanced.

STEP 2 - Food & Hydration

Food: eating more nutrient dense whole foods, healthy fats, protein, and avoid sugars & trans fats.

Hot tip: Avoid having a coffee first thing in the morning. Although you may think that it gives you your get up and go, it can actually play havoc on your hormones if you have coffee on an empty stomach. Try a herbal tea instead, or have your coffee AFTER brekky.

Hydration: stay hydrated, look at getting approx 2-3 litres of water daily.

STEP 3 - Exercise

Go for a mix of strength training, low impact, and cardio. Think walking, swimming, yoga, pilates, strength training, etc.

Hot tip: Try to avoid too much HIIT style workouts as a woman (especially if you’ve got a lot going on atm), as it can increase the adrenaline in your body, which then turns to cortisol, affecting your hormones.

STEP 4 - Avoid Chemicals

Avoid Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDC) that interfere with our body’s hormones, and how they work. They have been linked to many health issues such as certain cancers, endometriosis, affecting fertility (including sperm quality), immunity, and many more.

Taking precautions and minimising EDCs is important, and it could include:

- limiting or avoiding personal care products with phthalates, and choosing products that are fragrance free (opt for scented with essential oils)
- choose organic foods (especially fruit and veg) if in America, if in Aus or Europe be sure to wash your regular fruit and veg well, or choose organic where possible.
- don’t microwave plastic food containers, or store hot food in them.
- use a water filter.
- replace non-stick pans with ceramic coated pans.

STEP 5 - Manage your stress

Stress is one of the most important things to work on when we want to heal our hormones. Often we think this just involves things like work stress, losing a job, dealing with family issues. But when we talk about stress, we are also including the subconscious stress that we experience day to day. This also includes subconscious stress, and examples of this could include: not feeling worthy, not feeling seen, people pleasing, not trusting self, money, not feeling safe in your own body, mother or father wounds, trauma, etc. 

Try some of these tips to get you balancing your hormones naturally - be sure to contact your Dr if you’re concerned about your hormones. Some other practitioners that I would highly recommend to help in this area are your specialist, Naturopath, TCM Dr., and Clinical Nutritionist.

Much love, as always, Stef x