Like most women in America, you are bombarded with stress daily. Stress from work, finances, a busy family life – the list goes on and on. During the holidays, that stress can often feel intensified. Between the baking, the shopping, gift wrapping, decorating, holiday parties, dealing with extended family, and more, it’s easy to see why so many women feel downright burnt out this time of the year. But did you know that chronic stress can lead to hormonal balances and so much more.

One of the main culprits behind a hormone imbalance is STRESS

Not only does stress impact your mental well-being, but it can also wreak havoc on your body and your hormones, making you feel even worse. Keeping your hormones in balance is essential to your overall health, both physically as well as mentally. Although it’s impossible to eliminate all the stress in your life, especially during this busy time of year, finding ways to counteract the adverse effects of it is crucial.

Your body treats stress as a threat and tries to protect you

When your body perceives a threat, such as stress, your brain sets off an alarm prompting your adrenal glands to produce a flood of hormones like adrenaline and cortisol.

Adrenaline increases your heart rate, raises your blood pressure, and provides quick energy. Cortisol increases sugars (glucose) in the bloodstream and curbs functions in the body that it deems unnecessary in a stressful situation. As a result, your immune, digestive, and reproductive systems suffer.

What’s worse, under chronic or constant stress, your body cannot keep up with the demand to produce cortisol. As a result, your body will begin to steal the hormone progesterone to convert it to cortisol. When this happens, you end up with an imbalance between progesterone and estrogen, also known as estrogen dominance. When estrogen is dominant, symptoms like mood swings, headaches, anxiety, sleep issues, low energy, stubborn weight, are likely to occur.

Is your “check engine light” on?

When the check engine light comes on in your car, it’s meant to warn you that something is wrong. When this happens, you have a few choices. You could simply ignore it, hoping the issues will go away. You could choose to put off looking into it for a while, assuming it’s nothing serious. Or, you can have it checked out right away. Hopefully, that warning light isn’t something major, but sometimes, it is. 

Your body may not be a car, but your hormones work similarly to that check engine light. Your hormones send signals to your body, telling it what to do and what it needs. And you don’t just have one “light,” you have over 50! When your hormones are in balance, your body can function at optimal performance. On the flip side, when out of balance, it can disrupt simple functions like digestion to more complex systems like reproduction. Your hormones don’t only impact your bodily functions, and they also affect your mood, mental clarity, sleep patterns, energy levels, and more.

So, if you are constantly stressed out, over-exercising, or taxing your body with processed foods or an overabundance of sugar, your body might be trying to warn you. Symptoms related to PMS or menopause are like that check engine light. They are telling you, “Something is out of balance. Please help!”

Symptoms stress may be causing hormonal imbalances:

• have trouble falling or staying asleep at night
• wake up feeling tired and irritable
• struggle to lose weight, despite regular exercise
• have lost your desire in the bedroom
• experience PMS symptoms
• have mood swings or bursts of hostility
• are suffering from hot flashes and night sweats
• have cravings for sugar and alcohol
• need coffee to get through your day
• have issues with your thyroid 
• have PCOS
• are easily stressed out or feel anxious
• have headaches or migraines regularly

Pulling it all together with BeBalanced owner Paget Rhee

Click below to watch this informative interview with Paget Rhee, passionate owner of three BeBalanced Centers located in York, Harrisburg and Camp Hill, PA. 

Paget explains how our program is specifically designed to combat the adverse effects of stress, helping to bring the body into balance quickly and naturally. As a result, we are helping women not only to lose frustrating weight but to also experience improvements in mood, sleep, energy levels, night sweats, hot flashes, mental clarity, and more! 

 

At BeBalanced, our mission is to help women (and men) improve their overall quality of life through hormonal balance

If you or someone you know is dealing with symptoms associated with a hormone imbalance, we can help. One of our compassionate specialists will meet with you and discuss your individual needs and goals during a FREE consultation.

Click here to find a BeBalanced center near you! 

Think you could be suffering from a hormone imbalance?

Take our free hormone assessment to find out.

Be well!