Stress And Hormones – Keep Calm And Follow My Top 3 Practical Tips

We all have times when we feel more stressed, whether because of menopause symptoms or things happening in our everyday lives.

It’s usual to ignore stress, but anyone who has had it and seen how it affects many body functions, including hormone balance, knows it’s very real.

Stress makes our bodies get ready to fight, so it first deals with the most pressing problems, and to the body, unreasonable moodiness, weight gain, or hot flushes are not pressing – no matter how much you might believe they are!

Hot flushes especially are very sensitive to stress, which is why it’s smart to increase your dose of bioidentical hormone cream when stressed.

This happens because stress causes tiredness in the adrenal glands and some hormone problems, and the important stress hormone cortisol is made from progesterone, and you want to have enough of it.

That’s why it’s helpful to increase your progesterone levels to help you manage better when stressed, although if it’s very bad, you might need both progesterone and oestrogen.

Simple tips to help you cope:

I am certainly no stranger to stress myself, and so I wrote a book to help others cope with it. These are my top tips on how to reduce your stress load:

Step 1 – Reduce your stress load

I know – easier said than done  – but really you need to take a good look at what is stressing you and find a way to handle it. You may need to postpone changes in your living situation, reduce the pace of change in your life or cut down on your social, work or school obligations.

Important advice – learn to say NO more often – if this is hard for you then think of it not saying no to someone else, but saying yes to yourself.

Step 2 – Take Positive Action

There are a few ways to do this, but a good beginning is with what you eat. When we are stressed, we reach for things that make us feel better, but these are not always the best choices for keeping us in good health to help our bodies manage the extra pressures that stress creates.

Make sure your food choices help you, rather than tire you out. This means keeping your blood sugar steady with more slow-releasing carbohydrates like bread, pasta, and rice, and eating more fruits and vegetables.

Don’t let yourself get too thirsty; drink lots of water, but drink less of things that get you going like coffee, tea, and alcohol.

Help yourself by taking vitamin B complex and C – they are called ‘the stress vitamins’ for a good reason! Having enough of these will help you handle stress better.

I have found that a natural aid is Rescue Remedy, which you can buy at a health store or online. You can put a few drops directly on your tongue, or add them to a glass of water and sip it through the day; this is a good way to lessen feelings of worry.

Having balanced hormones is very important, especially if you have too much oestrogen, which many women do at menopause. Raise your progesterone levels to improve your mood and don’t keep your feelings inside: talk to a close friend, family member, or therapist.

Important advice – make sure to put your own health first. Thinking of yourself first doesn’t come easily to women, but if you don’t do this, no one else will!

Step 3 – Find time to relax 

No matter how busy you are, there will be a time each day when you can find time for yourself, even if it’s only 15 minutes. Think of it as a rest period instead of a tea break.

What you do is less important than the time you set aside for yourself to make time for you. Believe it or not, this is important.

This could be an activity you already enjoy, or you might choose to try something new that will capture your attention, or you can simply listen to calming recordings or music that helps you escape your daily life.

For many, meditation is helpful, or if you need something more active, then yoga or Tai Chi can have the same benefit.

If you find it difficult to relax, many women find that natural progesterone helps them to relax, and it also helps with sleep, which is often the first thing lost when we are under pressure.

Important advice –  know that you deserve to take time just for yourself. Don’t delay relaxing until later, because as we all know  later never happens.

Step 4 – Try wellness journaling 

A very well-known and helpful suggestion when you are feeling overwhelmed is to take 5 to 10 minutes and just sit down and write about what is bothering you.

This is not a writing project. It’s a method for getting the things that are making you anxious and worried out of your mind. and by writing them down, it is often easier to understand the cause of the issue. This approach is well-known and used to help with mental health problems and stress in the NHS and major companies.

If you want to try the method made famous by Julia Scott Cameron and her book The Artists Way then you simply sit down with a blank piece of paper and a pen and write whatever is in your mind.

You do not control it, you do not criticize it you just let it all out and you try not to stop for at least five minutes or she advises for three pages. Although it is appealing to do this on a computer or tablet, it does not have the same emotional advantage as simply writing it out by hand.

Important advice –  When you are done, put the pages aside and do not be tempted to read them for at least 24 hours, but at that time it is useful to look and see exactly what has been occupying your thoughts.

Helpful information:

Sadly, stress impacts all parts of your body, and that definitely includes your hormones.

You might notice your menopause symptoms get worse and need more or a different blend of bioidentical hormones to help fix the imbalance.

Progesterone is generally the hormone. Most women are deficient in at Menopause and is very helpful for no mood, sleep and weight gain. However, if your symptoms are more severe  worried or if your skin is dry and you need a bit more oestrogen, a Twenty to One the combination of progesterone and oestrogen may be more effective for you than Serenity which is progesterone only.

If you don’t know which hormones you need, this article might help.

https://blog.wellsprings-health.com/which-hormone-or-hormones-might-you-need/