STRESS IS LINKED TO WOMEN’S HORMONES
I
attended a talk by a fellow naturopathic doctor the other day on the subject of
female hormones and she started the conversation by quizzing the audience of
what we thought the top 3 causes of stress were. We shouted out a number of
options including money, work, kids and (many women shouted) men! Laughter
aside, stress is one of those things that we underestimate when it comes to our
health, especially our hormone health.
Stress,
no matter what the cause, has an important physiological impact on your body.
Understanding its role will help you better understand how to manage your
symptoms, be it menopause, PMS, anxiety or even chronic fatigue syndrome. When
we are stressed, your adrenal glands (two almond sized glands that sit on top
of your kidneys) secrete the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine as well as
cortisol. These hormones help us with our “fight or flight” response during
stressful situations. Our heart rate goes up, blood sugar goes up and blood
flow increases to the brain and muscles in order to help us survive a perceived
threat. This survival mechanism comes in handy when you have to run away from a
perpetrator or get out of a burning building, but this day and age stress has
become part of our everyday lives. Bills have to be paid whether or not we have
the money to pay them, traffic makes us anxious and late for work, our boss is
nagging us to get work done faster or the threat of job loss makes us lose
sleep, we are not happy in our relationships, and so on. Over time even a low
to moderate grade of chronic stress will tax your adrenal glands to the point
that they become less efficient and less able to help you deal with life’s
challenges.
This is
what many Naturopathic Doctors refer to as adrenal fatigue. Many symptoms can
be experienced during adrenal fatigue, which ranges from mild to severe,
including hormonal imbalances. Whether you are experiencing PMS, peri-menopause
or full blown menopause, your adrenal glands are an important factor in how you
feel overall.
Take
perimenopause for example, this is the gradual cessation of menstrual periods, estrogen
and progesterone (the two main female hormones) are starting to rise and fall
which can trigger hot flashes, night sweats, headaches and mood swings.
Progesterone’s key job is to balance out estrogen, but if you are stressed and
your adrenals are secreting too much cortisol to deal with it, the cortisol
actually blocks progesterone receptors and therefore progesterone cannot do its
job. During long periods of stress, progesterone is actually “stolen” by the
body to make more cortisol leading to a decreased production of estrogen and
other hormones and therefore making symptoms of perimenopause worse. This is
just one simplified example of the complex hormonal impact stress plays on our
hormones but it does serve to illustrate how stress hormones essentially trump
all other hormones in the body.
If you
want to figure out how much your adrenal glands are stressed and how this is
impacting you, see my blog http://nbasque.blogspot.ca/ for the ADRENAL STRESS INDICATOR test. In the mean time, try these
lifestyle tips, as shared by Dr Schauch, to reduce the strain on your adrenal
glands:
§ Develop healthy
coping mechanisms. Try yoga, meditation and going for walks in nature. Try deep
breathing at work or in the car when you feel tension coming on. Avoid
stimulants like alcohol, coffee, smoking and emotional eating.
§ Sleep 8 hours a
night. This is the time that your body regenerates and truly gets restored.
§ Journal. Get things
off your chest. Bottling emotions up does not make them go away and is
perceived as stress in the body.
§ Sing at the top of
your lungs!
§ Watch comedies rather
than dramas or crime shows. This alone will decrease your cortisol levels and
help you relax.
For more
ways to support your adrenals consult your Naturopathic Doctor for key
supplements that can help you balance your hormones by addressing your adrenal
glands. Your ND will customize a
prescription specific to you and address your case as a whole.
Dr Nicole Basque, Naturopathic
Doctor, practices at The Pear Tree Naturopathic Clinic located at 1067
Champlain Street in Dieppe (857-1300). Fluent in French and English, Dr. Basque
practices family medicine and is currently accepting new patients. Call for an
appointment today and join us on facebook. You can also follow her on Twitter @nicolebasqueND and her blog at http://nbasque.blogspot.ca/
