Maintaining Healthy Hormones For Busy Women
Hormones play a significant part in a woman’s everyday life. They affect the emotional, physical and mental being. The modern woman has to juggle a lot between keeping a home, raising children and maintaining a professional and social life. All this can have adverse effects on the hormones like imbalances that bring other health issues.
Age also influences certain hormones. Menopause is one stage in a woman’s life that can cause major hormonal changes. When you have been working your body for the better part of your life, menopausal symptoms can manifest themselves aggressively. Natural remedies can help most women deal with hormonal shifts. Different approaches have varying effects on individuals, so knowing more about them helps.
Diets with Sufficient Proteins
What you eat affects your hormones, regardless of age. However, the older you get, the more susceptible the body becomes to whatever you put in it. A protein-rich diet is one of the natural ways to control hormonal changes. Aging can cause the female body to lose muscle at an increased rate.
Eating proteins every day helps slow down this process. Proteins are known to facilitate the production of hormones that increase fullness, such as GLP-1 and PYY. The higher the level of these hormones, the less a person is inclined to snack between meals.
Proteins also minimize the production of ghrelin, which is the hunger hormone. A decreased hunger rate helps you maintain a healthy weight, which is crucial for a middle-aged woman. You can also improve the body metabolism, allowing you to burn fat efficiently. Some high-protein foods you can include in your meals include nuts, eggs, meat, legumes, and fish. The recommended daily protein intake is 20 to 30 grams.
Manage Stress Effectively
Several hormones in the body influence stress levels. Cortisol is the one that prepares the body to handle stress. Adrenaline is produced when the body senses danger. If either of these two hormones is higher than normal, they affect the body negatively. Excess cortisol leads to higher calorie intake, leading to weight gain and obesity.
Too much adrenaline enhances the risk of high blood pressure and anxiety. These complications can aggravate menopausal symptoms. Stress is one trigger that can send hormones into overdrive. Busy schedules contribute to increased stress and women should find ways to deal with that.
Meditation is an effective method of coping with stress. Increasing mindfulness can help the body and the mind respond better to the changes occurring in your body. Lowering stress can increase the production of serotonin, a mood-boosting hormone, and dopamine, the happiness hormone. Experts on women’s health advocate for yoga, massage, exercise, and other stress-reduction activities. Find hobbies that calm you down when the bustle of everyday life gets too much.
Take Natural Supplements
Despite how great of a meal plan you put together, it can be difficult to get all the right nutrients from daily meals. Menopause-age women tend to have a lot of things going on in their lives, which can make sticking to a diet complicated. Supplements are some of the most-used natural remedies for menopause.
The right products can supplement your diet and give the body the boost it requires to keep up with hormonal shifts. Phytoestrogens are popular in helping to reduce hot flashes, which are common menopausal symptoms.
The compounds work by imitating the role of estrogen. The hormone decreases with age, making it necessary to boost it another way. A bonus of phytoestrogen is a reduced risk of heart disease. The compound is found in red clover extracts. Collagen is another supplement that women of a particular age can find useful.
The compound gives the skin elasticity, in effect reducing the signs of aging. Black cohosh is said to reduce hot flashes. Omega-3 fish oil, primrose, and vitamins are other popular products. Always confirm with your primary care doctor about the suitability of a supplement before using it.
Get Enough Sleep
Lack of proper sleep can wreck your hormones. A lot of people, especially successful ones, sell the idea of limited sleep as a good thing. The truth is that lack of sufficient sleep can leave you feeling tired. Sleep is restorative to the body.
It helps the body heal after all it has been through. Denying the body this benefit can result in compromised mental faculties, headaches and poor moods. Limited sleep causes imbalances in hormones such as leptin, insulin, ghrelin, and cortisol.
Both the sleep quality and quantity matter. A healthy human experiences sleep in five stages, and quality sleep ensures that. Regardless of how busy of a schedule you keep, make sure that you get restorative sleep. Some menopausal symptoms such as night sweats, hot flashes and exhaustion can make sleeping difficult for some women. Then the lack of sleep acerbates the symptoms; it can be a vicious cycle. By finding ways to manage the symptoms, you can get some good sleep.
Exercise Regularly
It appears regular exercise is a recommended solution for many health-related issues, and that’s because it works. Concrete scientific evidence doesn’t exist yet to prove that exercising alleviates menopausal symptoms.
However, you can’t ignore the benefits to your hormonal health. Some exercises like strength training, aerobics, and endurance training can boost insulin sensitivity and decrease its levels.
Insulin is among the most critical hormones, performing multiple functions in the body. However, in excess, it can cause various conditions, including diabetes, inflammation and heart disease. The ability to lower insulin level minimizes your risk. Improved metabolism is another advantage of exercise. As your body breaks down fats faster, it reduces the chances of weight gain.
Exercising helps strengthen joints, which becomes vital with age. Menopausal women can experience good moods after exercising. Learn how to pick exercises that match your requirements. Know how to pace yourself and how hard to push to avoid hurting yourself.
Drink Water Religiously
It might seem obvious, but most people don’t drink water as often as they should. Water is particularly important in women’s health when they are dealing with menopausal hormone imbalances. As the body adjusts to this different stage of your life, it can suffer some challenges that you can solve with sufficient water intake. Dry skin, for instance, is a common issue in menopausal women due to the decreased estrogen levels. Moisturising is not enough when dealing with excessively dry skin.
Taking a minimum of 8 glasses goes a long way in hydrating the skin. Bloating is another menopausal symptom that you can alleviate with proper water intake. Water can reduce calorie consumption if you take it 30 minutes before meals. As you increase your water intake, cut back on sugary beverages. Too much sugar can lead to irregular blood sugar levels, especially in postmenopausal women. Strive to have vitamins, fruits, and vegetables.
This can be a trying stage for any woman, particularly when dealing with aggressive symptoms. The hormonal shifts going on during this time can have grave effects on the body that cascade to secondary health challenges. Menopausal women also have to deal with an increased risk of certain health conditions, including heart disease, obesity, and diabetes.
Various natural remedies can help a woman keep the symptoms in check. However, not every approach works for everyone. One woman might find that incorporating a supplement is effective while another one might have to include a fitness and diet regimen.
Brian Zeng
Founder of Ponbee.com: I like to write about self-improvement and achieving excellence, and believe that it is these qualities that ultimately make people successful in life.
