10 Steps to Balance Your Hormones

Lifestyle factors like exercising daily and eating a balanced, nutritious diet with ample protein and fiber can help naturally balance your hormones.

Hormones are chemical messengers that affect your mental, physical, and emotional health, as they play a significant role in controlling your appetite, metabolism, mental clarity, weight, and mood.

In today’s world, several issues can negatively impact one’s hormone health, such as toxins., chronic stress, sleep patterns, and physical and emotional health. Certain hormones decline with age, as well as exposure to toxins and endocrine disruptors, and some people experience a dramatic decrease in their hormone levels compared to others.

Here’s how to work on balancing your hormones in 10 natural steps.

Maintain a Healthy Weight

Following healthy eating guidelines and reducing your weight to a healthy range can help reverse the effects of these hormones and help balance hormones naturally. Research suggests that increasing weight, specifically in body fat, decreases insulin sensitivity. It can also reduce the release of hormones from the testes and ovaries responsible for maintaining reproductive health and result in lower testosterone in males and a lack of ovulation in women, which can increase the chances of infertility.

Reduce Sugar Intake

Sugar in foods such as high fructose corn syrup, table sugar, fructose, and honey can cause disruptions in your gut health as well as in your hormone balance. Research suggests that fructose found in sugar stimulates the body to release leptin. This hormone gives you the feeling of fullness. However, when it is overstimulated due to a high sugar intake, it causes a decrease in the amount of energy burned, and the outcome is weight gain.

Since a high sugar intake decreases the body’s sensitivity to insulin, resulting in insulin resistance, this imbalance in insulin for females causes further imbalances in other hormones, mainly reproductive hormones such as estrogen. The chronic imbalance of estrogen is linked to medical conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and fertility challenges.

Reduce or Avoid Alcohol

Considerable evidence from both human and animal studies has shown that alcohol administration affects the HPA-axis activity and hormones.

Alcohol disrupts the communication between the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems and causes hormonal disturbances that lead to severe and profound consequences at physiological and behavioral levels. These alcohol-induced hormonal dysregulations affect the entire body. They can result in various disorders, such as stress issues, reproductive deficits, body growth defects, thyroid problems, immune dysfunction, cancers, bone disease, and psychological and behavioral disorders. 

When you quit drinking, your hormones should begin to balance out. Estrogen levels should increase, leading to an improved mood and energy. Testosterone levels should also return to normal.

Eat Enough Protein

Protein is an essential macronutrient that includes animal and plant-based sources. Whilst you may think you need protein for muscle growth, protein plays a vital role in the production of hormones.

Peptide hormones include growth hormone and corticotrophins, which help release cortisol in your body that manages stress efficiently. Your body needs amino acids from proteins to produce these peptide hormones. Therefore, your daily dietary protein intake helps supply your body with these amino acids.

The bottom line is that if you do not consume enough protein, your body cannot make these hormones. Consuming protein helps stimulate the release of peptide hormones such as leptin in your body to help you feel full. Without enough protein intake, leptin cannot be released, and satiety may not be achieved. Without feeling of fullness, it can ultimately lead to weight gain.

Eat Healthy Fats and Increase Fiber

Fat is a macronutrient in your diet. Saturated and trans fats have adverse effects on your health. However, certain fats, such as unsaturated fats, can have beneficial effects. Unsaturated fats include omega 3 and 6. 

Omega 3 is an unsaturated fat found predominantly in oily fish and has been shown to help improve the sensitivity of the hormone insulin and help regulate the cortisol levels in the body during times of stress.

Fiber is a component in many different foods and is the part of the food your gut cannot digest. In the stomach, healthy gut bacteria ferment the fiber, and this fermentation helps to stimulate the release of peptide hormones and helps promote a feeling of fullness. A diet low in fiber can cause these peptide hormones not to be released and cause overeating.

Get Quality Sleep

Sleep is underrated, but it makes up around a third of your life and plays a vital role in regulating hormones such as insulin and cortisol and the hormones involved in hunger and fullness, such as ghrelin and leptin.

Research suggests that sleep restriction or deprivation reduces insulin sensitivity and increases cortisol levels. It also improves the production of ghrelin, the hormone responsible for initiating hunger, and facilitates the production of leptin, which promotes a feeling of fullness. Over time, it can result in weight gain and further hormonal imbalances due to weight gain.

The sleep recommendations for adults are between seven to nine hours a night. If you struggle to sleep or wake up frequently during the night, incorporate breathing exercises, relaxation exercises, journaling, yoga, and supplements such as magnesium to improve your quality and quantity of sleep.

Stress Management

Unfortunately, stress is a common occurrence in many individuals’ lives. While acute stress to the body can sometimes be beneficial, long-term stress can cause adverse effects on your health. With long-term stress, cortisol production increases, increasing the total cortisol level in the body. This increase in cortisol stimulates the appetite and causes an increase in food intake, leading to weight gain and further hormone imbalances.

Stress can also lead to conditions like Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome when long-term stress causes imbalances throughout the body. Because cortisol uses the same precursors as reproductive hormones, high cortisol levels can deplete the resources for other vital hormones and cause hormone imbalance.

Another effect of cortisol is that it causes your body to produce more glucose from non-carbohydrate sources. This increase in glucose causes your body to become less sensitive to insulin.

Managing stress can be challenging, primarily if you work long hours in a stressful, high-pressure environment. Stress-managing techniques such as breathing exercises, yoga, meditation, and journalling for as little as 15 minutes a day can help manage your stress and keep your hormones in balance.

Using certain essential oils can help balance hormone health and ease stress.

Exercise

Being physically active helps to balance hormones both directly and indirectly naturally. Exercise helps to reduce insulin and cortisol levels, helping to keep them within the normal range. It allows the natural balance of hormones by assisting in weight management, reducing stress, and improving sleep.

Adults should strive for 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week, focusing on building muscle two days a week.

Probiotics, Magnesium, B Complex, Vitamin C, Vitamin D

Supplementation is another method that helps to naturally balance hormones if the dietary intake of these nutrients is low. 

These supplements include vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients such as:

• Omega 3 oils
• Fiber
• Probiotics
• B vitamins
• Magnesium
• Vitamin D
• Vitamin C

Omega 3, fiber, and probiotics help to balance insulin and the peptide hormones.

The B vitamins, magnesium, and vitamin D help to balance the reproductive hormones, especially in females. B vitamins, especially vitamin B6 and magnesium, assist in the regulation of progesterone. This hormone regulates the menstrual cycle, prepares the body for conception, and is responsible for maintaining pregnancy. Vitamin D assists in the regulation of progesterone but also helps in the regulation of estrogen, balancing these two hormones. Vitamin C supports the adrenal system and boosts immune functioning.

Here is the hormone balance protocol that I recommend to my clients to balance their hormones: https://us.fullscript.com/welcome/nancyguberti  Setup an account and then you will have access to the Hormone Balance Protocol.

I always recommended doing the salivary hormone functional medicine lab first to get a baseline of your hormones and cortisol levels. To order your lab test and get started on gaining insight into your hormone and cortisol markers, order the salivary hormone functional medicine test today.

Explore Homeopathic & Herbal Remedies

When looking for natural approaches to balance your hormones, explore the power of herbal and homeopathic remedies.

Herbs that can help balance hormones include:

• Black cohosh
• Chasteberry
• Ashwagandha
• Rhodiola

Black cohosh and chasteberry are two herbs that can help balance reproductive hormones. Black cohosh helps to balance estrogen, and chasteberry helps to balance progesterone and estrogen. Ashwagandha and Rhodiola are also known as adaptogens, which help your body handle stress. They do this by reducing cortisol levels in the body. They also have other effects on the body that help you manage stress, such as increasing energy and focus.

Bottom Line

Your body relies on hormones to function, and an imbalance in hormones can cause multiple effects. The above ten steps can help naturally balance the body’s hormones, including nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle changes.

If you are currently experiencing changes in weight, energy levels, and your menstrual cycle and are looking for ways to relieve these symptoms naturally. In that case, I recommend ordering your salivary hormone bundle, which includes the functional medicine lab test and a 40-minute session to review your results and my recommendations. 

Want to be part of the Total Wellness Empowerment Membership? It’s a safe, non-judgmental root-cause resolution functional medicine nutritional approach to treat health concerns where we start with personalized care, health coaching, and year-round, monthly ongoing sessions and support. When you join the annual plan, you receive the organic acid functional medicine lab test, so you gain insight into 70 plus markers.

Tags: 10 Steps to Balance Your Hormones, anxiety, cortisol, cortisol testing, depression, female healht, female health, Functional medicine lab, hormone health, hormone testing, mental health, Nancy Guberti, natural remedy for hormones, Wellness