Does Stress Disrupt Our Hormones?
When in a stressful situation, the body releases cortisol and other stress hormones as part of its ‘fight or flight’ mode (also known as the ‘adrenal response’ or ‘stress response’).
In this ‘fight or flight’ state, we may experience increased blood flow, a faster heartbeat, dilated pupils and increased sweating. Under intense or prolonged stress, the body can also shut down the gastrointestinal and reproductive systems, as it does not need these in survival mode – this may explain why some people tend to eat very little when they are stressed, as metabolism slows down for energy conservation. Stress management is often recommended for couples who are trying to conceive as from an evolutionary point of view, the body senses pregnancy would take up too much resource if survival is a priority.
How Does Stress Disrupt Our Hormones?
Hormones are important for every bodily function. They are the chemical messengers that coordinate the many different metabolic processes that take place in the body throughout the day, and they exist within a delicate balance.
When you get stressed, the hormone that increases as a result is cortisol. Cortisol is our survival hormone, and it takes precedence over all the other hormones in stressful situations. When cortisol undergoes an abnormal increase through extreme stress, all other bodily processes are compromised. The body goes into fight or flight mode, which means that all of its energy goes into supporting cortisol, while all other hormones are put on the backburner.
5 Steps To Reduce Stress For Hormone Balance
1. Follow an anti-inflammatory diet
An anti-inflammatory diet consists of unprocessed fresh food, good lean protein, good fats such as avocados, nuts, seeds, extra virgin olive oil and oily fish. Whole grains and legumes are important for gut health and fibre and a wide variety of rainbow-coloured fruit and vegetables provide antioxidants and phytonutrients. Eat organic as much as possible to reduce consumption of pesticides and toxins which act as endocrine disruptors and affect hormone balance.
2. Spend time in nature
It is important to get outdoors every day to spend time in the sunshine and engage in gentle exercise. This can help to boost your mood and regulate your sleep. Just 20 minutes spent in nature each day will help lower stress hormone levels. This 20 minutes could be spent taking a walk, a light jog, or other non-strenuous activity.
Intense cardiovascular exercise can actually increase cortisol levels. Therefore, if you feel very stressed, replace strenuous exercise with lighter workouts that engage your parasympathetic nervous system or ‘rest and digest mode’, such as gentle stretching, tai chi and yoga.
3. Practice good sleep hygiene
Try to achieve seven to eight hours of undisturbed sleep per night. This is because sleep is very important for detoxification via the glymphatic system, so a full night’s sleep will provide your body with the best chance to complete this hoovering process for optimal health. A study found that cortisol levels significantly increase as soon as the next evening following partially or totally deprived sleep, and suggested that ‘sleep loss could thus affect the resiliency of the stress response’.
In addition to achieving an adequate amount of sleep each night, you can avoid blue light by removing phones and laptops from the bedroom in order to reduce disruption to your circadian rhythm (your body clock) and expose yourself to direct natural light first thing in the morning to increase melatonin production, encouraging a better night’s sleep the following night.
4. Set boundaries
It’s important to achieve a good work/life balance and practice self-care. You cannot give from an empty cup. In spite of our culture of long working hours, set boundaries to say ‘no’ to extra work that is outside of your capacity, or responsibilities outside of work that might drain your energy. Remember that you cannot be everything to everyone!
5. Improve your social contact and find your purpose
Sharing thoughts and emotions with friends, family, colleagues and even neighbours is important for building strong relationships and networks, which in turn contributes to better mental health and possibly lower stress levels (as the well-known saying goes, ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’).
Secondly, finding one's purpose and having defined goals provides joy and contributes to better mental health. When we are engaging in something that we enjoy, whether it is a hobby or a career, this helps to reduce stress by increasing the ‘happy hormones’ dopamine and serotonin.
About The Marion Gluck Clinic
The Marion Gluck Clinic is the UK’s leading medical clinic that pioneered the use of bioidentical hormones to treat menopause, perimenopause and other hormone related issues. Headed up by Dr. Marion Gluck herself, the clinic uses her method of bioidentical hormonal treatment to rebalance hormones to improve wellbeing, quality of life and to slow down ageing.