Surrey Homes | SH54 | April 2019 | Garden supplement inside

Wellbeing
A Year of Wellness
Hormones control everything from how much sleep we get to
how happy we feel – Eminé Rushton explores how we can balance
them to create healthy equilibrium
April: Finding your balance
Without diving too deep into
the biochemistry behind our
body’s mechanisms, it’s safe
to say that, for most women, rarely a
month passes without us feeling the
impact of our hormones.
I have friends who suffer extreme PMT,
others who struggle to regulate serotonin
levels and feel continually foggy and sad
and yet others with disturbed sleep. Then,
later in life, there are all the challenges
that comes with the menopause. From
our skin to our sleep, our moods to our
energy levels, hormones rule.
Naturally, when we are living good,
healthy, calm lives, our endocrine system
is able to produce all the hormones we
need, in the right quantities. But in
today’s fast-paced world, where we work
longer hours, sleep less, switch off rarely
and eat less natural, unprocessed food,
our endocrine systems are unable to do
the crucial work that they need to do.
To balance hormones, the simplest
changes have the biggest impact. A
balanced diet with plenty of healthy fats,
oils, protein and complex carbohydrates,
is key. Studies have also shown
that consuming healthy fat at every
meal triggers the release of the ‘satiety
hormones’ that help you feel full and
satisfied (rather than empty and still
craving sugar) – think avocado, olive oil,
nuts, seeds and oily fish.
High stress levels are perhaps the
biggest impactor upon our health.
Cortisol, the ‘stress hormone’, has a
big knock-on effect on oestrogen and
progesterone production. You need a
good level of progesterone to balance out
the effects of oestrogen – and because
cortisol and progesterone are made from
the same mother hormone pregnenolone,
when you are extremely stressed (so
producing a lot of cortisol) your body
sacrifices its progesterone production.
These higher levels of oestrogen in
the body cause a raft of very familiar
symptoms – PMS, bloating, breast
tenderness, heavy/painful periods – but
if oestrogen levels remain elevated over
a long period of time, they also put
women at an increased risk of fibroids,
endometriosis and breast/ovarian cancer.
There is also a tricky vicious cycle
in regard to sleep. When we are
menstruating, pregnant or post-partum,
or in menopause, our hormone levels
are more likely to be imbalanced (with
oestrogen spiking or falling), which
makes us more prone to interrupted
sleep. And, interrupted sleep also causes
our hormones to imbalance further.
By doing all that we can to establish
a good sleep routine – getting into bed
at the same time each night and rising
at the same time each morning – we
stand a better chance of supporting our
hormonal production to click back into a
healthy groove.
Early lights out,
screens off, hot
baths and plenty
of time away
from work
and tech,
every evening,
is vital. And we
need to incorporate
ample stress relief – yoga, walking, time
in nature, and time away from screens –
into our everyday lives.
And plenty of self-care! A recent
review of multiple studies found that,
on average, massage therapy not only
reduced cortisol levels by an average of
31%, but also increased levels of the
mood-boosting hormone serotonin
by 28% and dopamine by 31% – a
wonderful reason to book in for a
treatment, or to warm some oil and
massage your own feet, hands, arms, legs
and torso, with firm, soothing strokes.
Given the seriousness of certain
conditions associated with chronic
hormonal imbalance I would urge all of
us to put our hormonal health at the very
tops of our lists. I’ve also found books
on the subject – from Henrietta Norton’s
Take Control of Your Endometriosis,
Christiane Northrup’s Women’s Bodies
Women’s Wisdom, and Lucy H Pearce’s
Moon Time – extremely helpful in
deepening my understanding of our
bodies, cycles and needs.
“ In today’s fast-paced world, where we work longer hours, switch
off rarely and eat less natural and unprocessed food, our endocrine
systems are unable to do the crucial work that they need to do.”
Eminé Rushton is Wellbeing Director-at-Large at Psychologies magazine, and co-founder
of the conscious living blog, The Balance Plan, balanceplan.co.uk
127 surrey-homes.co.uk