Hormone Effects on Sleep in Women: Estrogen and Progesterone
Is there anything worse than hitting the pillow exhausted from a long day only to toss and turn for hours, unable to fall asleep? Or perhaps you fall asleep but bolt awake a few hours later? Although sleep difficulties can have many causes, hormonal fluctuations can steal many hours of precious sleep. Low progesterone and problems sleeping Low progesterone seems to have become increasingly common among women and can play a large role in sleep problems. Progesterone is referred to as the “calming hormone” whereas estrogen is more excitatory, and low progesterone is associated with sleeping difficulties. Chronic stress can impact progesterone levels. Every time you experience stress your adrenal glands release cortisol, a stress hormone. When demand for cortisol is constantly high the body borrows pregnenolone, which is needed to make progesterone and other hormones, to make cortisol instead. This is called “pregnenolone steal” because the body steals pregnenolone from the hormone cascade in order to keep pace with the demands of stress. Stopping pregnenolone steal may help improve hormone function and improve sleep. Strategies for stopping pregnenolone steal include an anti-inflammatory diet, which eases the body’s burden of stress. You may also need to work on restoring gut health, taming chronic inflammation, or managing an autoimmune disease appropriately, approaches that benefit from the guidance of an experienced practitioner. Estrogen and sleep problems When estrogen is too high and progesterone too low, it can cause sleep problems for the obvious reason—there is too much of the excitatory estrogen compared to the calming progesterone and the brain can’t calm down enough to rest. A proper ratio between the two is important. Low estrogen can also contribute to sleep problems. Estrogen is intimately connected with serotonin, a brain chemical that is converted to the sleep hormone melatonin. Low estrogen may lead to low serotonin activity and contribute not only to sleep problems but also depression and anxiety. The female brain is highly dependent on sufficient estrogen for normal function in general, and low estrogen can also cause symptoms that include brain fog and memory loss. Strategies to support hormone balance Tending to adrenal function and other health issues may help correct hormonal imbalances. This includes not only reducing lifestyle stress, but also eliminating dietary stressors. Eating a diet lower in carbohydrates to prevent blood sugar swings, avoiding foods that cause an immune reaction, not drinking too much alcohol, tending to bacterial gut infections and other aspects of digestive health, and supporting immune balance are all whole-body approaches that can foster proper hormone function and improve...
Read MoreChew your food well to better thyroid health
Although what you eat is important when supporting Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism, how you eat deserves equal attention. Research shows chewing thoroughly and eating slowly helps prevent weight gain, improves digestion, and is less stressful on the body. When supporting an autoimmune condition such as Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism, you want to facilitate good digestion, which directly influences the health of the immune system. Chewing your food thoroughly suppresses appetite A series of recent studies show chewing each bite thoroughly reduces appetite, lowers caloric intake, and can aid weight loss. That’s because the hormones that leave us feeling satiated don’t kick in until 20 to 40 minutes after you begin eating. For people with Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism, chewing thoroughly and eating more slowly can be one way to aid weight loss to better manage your autoimmune condition. Chewing your food thoroughly improves your Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism The process of digestion begins in the mouth, not the stomach. Saliva contains enzymes that begin the breakdown of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. Exposing food to saliva for longer periods of time in your mouth creates less stress on the rest of the digestive tract, which frees up more energy so you feel better. Taking the time to eat slowly and consciously also gives the digestive tract ample notice to secrete stomach acid, pancreatic enzymes, gallbladder bile, and other chemicals to completely digest your food for maximum nutrient absorption. By wolfing down your meal you throw improperly digested food into an unprepared digestive system, which can create symptoms of bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea, or stomach pain. The health of the digestive system is extremely important for those with autoimmune conditions such as Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism. The immune system resides largely in the gut, which makes improving digestive health and repairing intestinal permeability, or “leaky gut,” vital to managing autoimmune disease. Chewing your food thoroughly will help improve gut health and manage Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism. Healthier foods require more chewing You may have noticed that many processed and fast foods are so easy to chew you hardly need teeth. Whole foods, on the other hand, tend to require more chewing. Simply choosing a whole foods diet free of refined foods can encourage you to chew more thoroughly. Proper management of Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism also requires following a whole foods diet free of inflammatory foods, especially gluten. You may need some outside reinforcement to develop a better chewing habit. Here are some ideas: Take the time to sit down and calmly eat a meal Take small bites Count so you chew each mouthful 32 or more times—until your food is completely liquid Pay attention to the taste, texture, and flavor of your meals; avoid reading or watching TV while eating Try to make meals into lengthy, relaxing occasions as often as...
Read MoreHormone-Trio: Ovaries, Thyroid, and Adrenals
Your hormones make deep, meaningful music on a daily basis, each one playing over the other. Together, every 24 hours they cover a number of topics including your metabolism, temperature regulation, growth, cellular repair and regeneration, reproductive organ control, sleep, mood, energy and appetite, to name a few. Your brain and nervous system are the main conductors of this well-orchestrated “hormonic” orchestra, also known as the endocrine system. The endocrine system is made up of eight individual glands, including the pineal body, hypothalamus, pituitary, thyroid, parathyroids, adrenals, the reproductive organs (ovaries and testes), and the pancreas. All of the glands produce and secrete hormones, which act as chemical messengers on all of the organs in the body. Hormone levels are directly affected by stress, immune system changes, fluid changes and nutrient-content in the blood. When it comes to women, there are three key players: the adrenals, the thyroid and the ovaries. Here’s how they work: the adrenal glands are responsible for our ‘flight or fight responses’ in situations of stress. They produce cortisol (also known as the stress-hormone) and epinephrine. After menopause, they also produce estrogen and progesterone. Interestingly, cortisol has the capacity to directly affect progesterone levels, so in cases of prolonged stress or increased activity of adrenal glands an estrogen-dominant state occurs. At the same time, progesterone is used to make cortisol so as the need for cortisol arises more often, progesterone levels decrease. Excess amounts of cortisol can suppress your cell’s ability to respond to thyroid, which can compromise the function of the thyroid gland. Both estrogen and progesterone can directly affect the thyroid gland. Estrogen tends to block thyroid hormone production, while progesterone facilitates it. As high levels of estrogen suppress the thyroid gland, it often results in increased rates of hypothyroidism amongst post-partum and peri-menopausal women. That’s why working on rebalancing the estrogen and the progesterone levels will often restore the normal function of the thyroid. If the female hormones are ignored entirely, the thyroid function will not restore. Similarly, if the thyroid is completely left out in an attempt to balance out the female hormones, both estrogen and progesterone levels will continue to vary in the blood. Either way, the orchestra continues to play! It is a finely-tuned system, and when one of its members plays out of tune, everything is thrown off...
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