How Stress Influences Hormones

Why do I ask about stress and sleep so often? 

They are two of the top influencers over hormone balance. 

Let me walk through what happens when we are under stress. 

When we are stressed our body makes cortisol, the stress hormone. This is the hormone that helps with fight or flight. We need it if there is danger! The problem comes when we live in a chronic state of stress and the cortisol levels do not come down. Cortisol tells our body to be aware of danger and ready to run or fight. Heart rate increases, blood pressure comes up, we stop digesting food, our blood sugar is increased, muscles tense, we stop making our other happy hormones like progesterone, our immune system is suppressed, we begin to store deep belly fat as fuel.

We also stop sleeping well. If the cortisol remains high at night we get that "tired and wired" feeling. Our body is so tired but we can't fall asleep. Or maybe we fall asleep but our body keeps us in a light sleep because it still thinks there is danger and so we wake up often or wake up in the morning still tired because we never got deep restorative sleep. 

When we don't sleep well our cortisol doesn't reset and so we begin the next day already on edge. Anxiety increases, we feel unable to handle the daily life stresses we used to handle just fine. Cortisol increases... you get the idea of the crazy cycle that starts in our body!

As this continues our adrenals work overtime to make all that cortisol. We have a choice to make cortisol (stress hormone) or progesterone (the feel good happy hormone). The longer we battle managing stress the more imbalanced our hormones become. We also very quickly deplete the ingredients we need to make hormones. These deficiencies further the imbalance and lead to adrenal fatigue. 

It is so important to intervene in this cycle! Manage stress, get deep restorative sleep, replenish the vital minerals and vitamins we have depleted and supplement with natural progesterone as needed. 

The shift you feel as you reset stress and give your body what it needs to balance is life changing. 

Stable moods, regular painless cycles, headaches gone, sleeping well, and your body functioning as it was created.

So what does it look like?

• Reset and manage stress: My favorite product to reset stress is cortistop. I have a quick 5 step process to managing daily stress here 3 minutes on stress
• Sleep deep: Turn off those screens! Routine, epsom salt baths, essential oils that help release melatonin like cedarwood, low lights, cool the room, breath deep and meditate. 
• Feed your adrenals: B vitmains are called stress vitamins. They are the first thing to be depleted during stress. Minerals are vital to every body system working well. 
• Supplement with natural progesterone as needed: Progessence plus is my favorite. Naturally derived and easy to absorb and utilize. 

You are not alone on this journey! Please reach out and allow us to come along side you.

Here is a great place to start: hormone questionnaire