The effect of stress on your hormones!
Oct 21, 2020
We're all living under a stressful time. But stress can negatively affect our hormones. See how hormones dictate our health in this piece by Dr. Kam.
Today I'm going to teach you all about the effects of stress on our hormones. Womanly ones 😊
This is the root to healing from PCOS, PMS, Hormonal migraines, mood swings, breast cysts, fibroids.
#1. Stress comes in many forms
Even if you're not mentally or emotionally stressed, inflammation, sound pollution, allergies, the toxin load of our food and air counts as bodily stress. While stress is good, our bodies are chucking out too high levels of cortisol. Being late for work is being interpreted by the body as going in for a confrontational hunt or kill.
#2. Cortisol levels affect hormones
So cortisol levels are consistently high, all the time, in the 2020 human being. Cortisol is made from the progesterone metabolite 17-OH progesterone. If you're pushing out lots of cortisol on the daily, you can therefore expect your progesterone to fall.
#3. Why progesterone is vital
Progesterone is vital for the immune system, to keep you calm and chill, for optimal fertility, heart and bone health, and a normal period and less PMS.
#4. Consequences of low progesterone
When your progesterone is low in relation to estrogen, you get all of the consequences of low progesterone (less chill, more PMS, poor immunity, poor heart health, poor bones) AND all the consequences of unopposed estrogen dominance.
#5. Symptoms of estrogen dominance
Estrogen dominance symptoms include depression, hair loss, bad PMS, belatedness and water retention, swollen and painful breasts, cyclical migraines and headaches and generally feeling "hormonal". Increased risk of endometrial and breast cancers.
#6. Effects of high cortisol level
Cortisol rises lead to sugar and insulin rises in the body. This leads to insulin resistance, which in turn leads to high testosterone and a propensity for PCOS (Polycystic ovarian syndrome)
#7. Cortisol and Adrenal activity
High levels of cortisol and adrenal activity are resource-intensive. Your body will tend to downregulate the thyroid function in order to wisely conserve energy. This means you will appear to have a low thyroid function. (an unusually low TSH, via the pituitary pathway) This brings along weight gain, lethargy, fatigue, hair loss to name a few.
