It’s not just in your head!
Women and hormones
Do you sometimes wake up and wonder where your energy disappeared, why suddenly the afternoon seems to come down like a ton of bricks killing the last little desire to pull through the day
And when you get home, the dishes, kitchen, and laundry are always waiting for your return. And you somehow pull through the challenges of getting rest of the family organised and hope that a warm bed and some “me time” is waiting for you.
In this above complex scenario, there are many things happening, there is definitely the challenges of living in modern, nuclear families plus the demands of making financial ends meet. So, these issues are definitely something not in our control.
However, what is in our control is how we manage our energy, how we can create resilience and the foundation right within our body so that we don’t drag ourselves through the day and we wake up and walk into in all our critical and or difficult relationships and interactions with our best foot forward. For us to do that we need to understand and accept being women the most critical factor apart from many other factors is our hormonal health.
Hormonal imbalance not only reflects in painful monthly cycles, nagging premenstrual discomfort, such as bloating, backache, hot flashes, irregular cycle, excess blood loss, most challenging and mysterious is unexplained mood changes, feeling sometimes highly motivated, engaged in life to feeling absolute dispassion, even unexplained sadness and sudden extreme reactions like anger or irritation to trivial matters or issues.
Being women we do have resilience to multitask and cope with challenges that are thrown at us, however, over a period of constant stretching ourselves, compromising our needs and always putting other’s needs before us, can further exacerbate the delicate balance of wellness plus any hormonal dysregulation adds more fuel to the fire.
Hormonal imbalance not necessarily means, being clinically diagnosed with any condition, but it can still mean any subtle changes or issues like the painful or irregular menstrual cycle, change in mood, changes in the skin (example acne), changes in libido, weight changes, difficulty loosing or gaining weight-to make the point it can reflect in many ways.
However, to bring ourselves back in balance always start with the first step of paying more attention to your needs, needs of our body, your own threshold of what’s acceptable boundary for you and managing energy, work demands whilst respecting yourself first and listening to when you feel tired, not in mood or sad or depressed. Once you learn to go inward the inner intelligence will blossom and help us pinpoint out what exactly one needs help and support with.
In terms of seeking help, there are many ways to bring hormones back to balance and most effective of all is a holistic approach which is about treating individuals with conditions and not just about treating diseases. Also addressing root cause versus suppressing the symptoms.
With the right herbal medicines and diet and lifestyle plus learning to centre ourselves and listening to the body, true health and well-being are just one step away. So next time you feel your body and mood are not the way it used to be, and you feel you are living sub-optimally it could be just your hormones and with the wisdom of nature, you can bring it back in balance…And trust me, it’s not just in your head and its really happening and your body is seeking your attention!
Shweta Pandey
Integrative Naturopathic Medicine
specialising in herbal medicine, clinical nutrition, homeopathy, flower essence, and iridology
