In addition to that, when your body creates more cortisol, it lowers the amount of progesterone in your body. This is vital because high levels of cortisol over time can cause thyroid dysfunction, high blood pressure, increased glucose in the bloodstream, and can suppress both the digestive system and reproductive system. StressĬhronic stress can affect your adrenal glands by increasing your cortisol levels. Are any of these following sources a possible cause of your hormone imbalance? Let’s take a look. While there are tons of causes, these are the major sources I see in my patients. There are numerous factors that can affect the levels of your hormones. If you are experiencing any of the symptoms below, there is a possibility that you are dealing with a hormone imbalance where your hormones are either too high or too low. What are the Symptoms of Hormonal Imbalance? If one of these is unbalanced, there’s a chance that it can affect the levels of another hormone, causing even more disruption and chaos in the normal functioning of your body. Some of the most common hormones that people have issues with are thyroid, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, cortisol, and insulin. Because hormones play such an essential role in the body, even a slight change in levels can cause your body to go out of whack. Hormones play a role in regulating appetite, emotions, sleep, growth, sexual development, and your menstrual cycle. Since there are hormone receptors (aka where hormones can bind and set off a cascade of events) all throughout the body, these messengers can control and regulate the activity of cells and organs (ultimately affecting functions in your body). Hormones are created by different glands or organs and travel all throughout the body via the blood. They allow different parts of your body to communicate with one another. Hormones are the body’s chemical messengers of the endocrine system. Instead of covering up the symptoms of unbalanced hormones, they look to fix the root cause. However, functional medicine providers look at this in a different light. Not only that, but due to our higher usage of beauty products and household cleaners, women are exposed to more hormone-disrupting chemicals than men, which makes matters even worse.Ĭonventional medicine usually treats symptoms of hormone imbalances with a laundry list of prescriptions and devices. While men and women can have imbalanced hormones, women tend to have more hormone imbalance issues because of the biological phases we go through- puberty, pregnancy, menopause, etc.
Stop being so hard on yourself, girl! There could be a very likely reason for all of these signs - like hormonal imbalance. Maybe you’ve been trying exceptionally hard to lose some extra weight, but the pounds aren’t budging. Have you not been feeling like yourself lately? Maybe you are feeling more fatigued than usual or you are finding yourself having unnecessary anger and/or overwhelming emotions.