How to naturally balance your hormones
Our hormones affect most parts of our body and its function. And there is so much you can do by yourself in your lifestyle to balance and maintain a hormonal balance. In this post I will talk about two different areas in our lifestyle and how you can help your body create the best possibilities for hormonal balance - diet and workout.
What are hormones?
But first we need to know what hormones are and why we need a hormonal balance in our body to feel our best. Hormones are chemical messengers produced in your body in different endocrine glands like your adrenals, thyroid, ovaries and pancreas, to name a few. They travel through your bloodstream to reach their receiver, where the message will tell them what to do. Depending on the message the hormones will affect your physical, mental and emotional health. The body will always try to maintain the right balance for your health, but due to different factors the body can have either too much or too little of some hormones, or that the messengers have troubles arriving where it is supposed to, through the bloodstream. This is an enormous field to cover so in this post I will try to give you some knowledge about how to make the best possibilities for your body.
How can you naturally balance your hormones with food?
Everything you eat will have an impact on our health and our hormones, therefore it is a good idea to have a look at your diet if you’re struggling with hormonal imbalances. Following are a few ways on how you can make improvements that will support your hormones.
Eat healthy fats - Fats are super important for our hormones, since many of the hormones are made of fat. When we eat a low-fat diet our body doesn’t have the essential building blocks for your hormones. Examples of healthy fats - avocado, coconut oil, olive oil, nuts and seeds, animal protein, eggs.
Eat enough protein - Same as above, enough protein is important for building your hormones. They provide you with amino acids that your body cannot produce on its own. Both protein and healthy fats are important with every meal, and especially your breakfast for getting good energy first thing in the morning.
Get your fruits and vegetables - From fruits and vegetables we get so much nourishment for our body and hormones, we also get important fibers to support our gut health och help regulate hormones.
Be aware of your sugar intake - To lower our sugar intake can make a huge difference on our overall health and help our body to prioritise our hormones. Sugar will have a negative impact on our gut health and our liver, which can lead to hormonal imbalances. Sugar will, as you know, also affect our insulin and that has a known effect on our hormonal health.
Support your microbiome - In your gut you have your super important microbiome which influences your hormone levels in your body. A balanced microbiome is essential for healthy hormones. You can support your microbiome by following the steps above, but also through eating probiotics like fermented food. It’s also a good idea to avoid too much processed food and additives.
How can you help support your hormones with workouts?
Movement and workouts are another great way to support your hormones. Like you learned in the start, our hormones travel through our bloodstream in our body. When we move and exercise we increase the blood flow in our body. This is very important for a good hormone production in our body. In our blood we also have oxygen and nutritions, so the better blood flow we have the better support for our glands that support our hormones. Too little exercise is also a big stress factor for our body. In this section we also need to mention that too much exercise can also be a big stress for our body, depending on the stress level in other parts of our lives. If you are feeling very stressed it can be a good idea to also look into your workout routines, if you also do a lot of high intensity workouts that could be too much for your body, and your hormones may be affected.
Following are a few ways on how you can use your workout to help balance your hormones.
Listen to your body - I will say this is the most important thing when it comes to your workout routines. Listen to your body. Our body is smart, and it will always work to maintain a balance in your body, and to do this, it will send you signals. Our everyday life today is for most people very stressful, we run from one thing to another and are not very good at just stop, and listening, listening to our body and its signals. Do you feel energized or drained after your workout? Do you experience a lot of stress? Is your body heavy or light? I would recommend you to adjust your exercise according to how you feel instead of what you think you should be doing.
Find a balance - As much as we all need more intense workouts to build strength and endurance we also need restorative and more relaxing workouts. Personally I love to do yoga and breathwork to balance my other workout routines. This will help your body to balance your nervous system and help your hormones.
Sync your workout to your menstrual cycle - This is very interesting and has been a big shift for me. Every part of your cycle you will have different energy levels. For example in our menstrual phase we normally have lower energy and our body can feel heavy, so this will be a perfect place to prioritize yoga or outdoor walking.
There’s a lot we can do to support our own health and our hormones. There are so many women suffering from different kinds of hormone imbalances and the interest in our hormones is getting bigger, both in the society but also in science, and to learn more about the hormones and how they affect our overall health. The most important thing I want you to take with you from this post is to really listen to your body. Our hormones are great signals for what our body needs and how you can help them. Most imbalances show up because we have been living in a way that does not serve our health and wellbeing, that we keep on going when we need to stop or rest, eating things our body doesn't like and making decisions based on other people’s needs and not our own. So go do your thing, listen to your body and give it the love it deserves.
Mimmi Palmgren. Photo by: Julia Haraldsson
About Mimmi
Educated health- and lifestylecoach, yogateacher and social worker.
I have been working with people my whole life, and I love to help others feel their best, to find their inner glow and happiness. I have specialized in women’s health and fertility, this after going through several years of infertility and hormonal imbalances myself. I was living a life that didn’t serve my health any good. I was super stressed, I was eating a lot of sugar and processed food, and living my life focusing on the past or the future, never living in the moment.
Finding my own keys to better health has made me want to help other women do the same. I coach women and use my instagram to spread my knowledge and contribute to a more conscious way of living, where we support our body, mind and soul.
All women deserve to live in balance!
