Reclaim Your Vibrancy!
Restoring Female Hormone Balance

At your annual checkup, after a quick examination, your doctor confirms that you are healthy. Despite the excellent diagnosis, you are still feeling tired all the time, and having trouble sleeping. Life is becoming a daily struggle. Stop feeling like you are going against the current – it’s not all in your head! These could be symptoms of a hormonal imbalance, which can impact your health in many ways, including:

• Trouble getting out of bed
• Weight gain
• Anxiety/Depression
• Insomnia
• Sugar cravings
• Brain fog
• Early aging (such as hair loss or skin wrinkles)
• Low libido
• Irregular menstrual cycles

Hormones play a crucial role in how we feel and how healthy we are at every age. An imbalance can wreak havoc on your emotions, lower your productivity, and keep you from your full potential. Estrogen and progesterone may already be familiar terms to some women, but it takes more than these two hormones to keep your body in balance. Thyroid hormones, the power switch to your metabolism, and adrenal stress hormones such as cortisol also play an important role.  All of these systems must be in sync for you to feel your best.

So what can you do to fix an imbalance and get back to the top of your game? With a few lifestyle changes, most of these symptoms can be treated in a healthy, natural way. Try some of the following steps:

Routine: First, establish a daily routine. Try to eat, exercise, and sleep at the same time every day – your body loves balance! Our modern lifestyles often make it hard for most women to stick to a routine, so strive for simple ways to maintain balance. Consider trying 10 minutes of yoga or meditation each morning to help reduce daily stress, or join a group fitness class at your gym to get into the habit of exercising at the same time each week. And getting to bed at the same time every night, no later than 11 pm, will help to balance your hormones.

Diet: Make sure you are eating the right foods so your body has the building blocks to make healthy amounts of hormones. Enjoy a balanced diet of fruits, vegetables, good fats, healthy carbohydrates, and protein. Adding foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids such as ground flax seeds, olives, and nuts will help maintain balance in your body. Try switching to organic dairy products made from cows not treated with artificial hormones. And finally, avoid junk food and sugar, which aggravate hormone problems.

Get checked: Talk to your Naturopathic Physician about getting your hormone levels checked. Remember the problem can run deeper than a simple estrogen imbalance or a thyroid problem, so it’s important to take all of your endocrine glands (thyroid, adrenal, and the sex hormones) into consideration. Your Naturopathic Physician can help you establish a program specific for your needs.

If you would like to learn more about hormonal health and how it can impact your life, please feel free to contact Dr. Alisun Bonville at Grain Integrative Health for a free 15 minute consultation. Dr. Bonville will be giving a live webinar on this topic on November 16th.  Stay tuned for more details and to learn more!

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