5 Signs Your Hormones Are Out Of Whack
JAMES COLQUHOUN
Do you feel like something is just not right? You’re not sick. You’re not in physical pain. But something just isn’t quite letting you feel 100%. It could be your hormones!
If you’re eating more, sleeping less, and feeling frazzled and stressed out are your default emotions, even when things are going pretty good for you. It’s likely you’ve got a hormone imbalance.
Symptoms do vary, and it’s best to check that everything is A-OK with your health professional before making assumptions, but if you’re saying yes to some or all of these five signs below, then it’s time to check your hormones:
1. You Feel Constantly Tired
Chronic stress tends to leave us feeling fat, frazzled and frumpy thanks to high levels of cortisol taxing our adrenals and fluctuating our feelings from being highly stressed to totally exhausted and no real in-between. When your adrenals are pushed to their limits, they start to protest and not function optimally, resulting in lethargy, low mood and a foggy head.
2. Your Cravings Are Intense
If you’re finding yourself feeling addicted to chocolate, or constantly ravenous for all kinds of food (and drinks!), then your hormones may be playing up. High cortisol or insulin can cause intense urges for wine or sugar, whilst electrolyte imbalances caused by adrenal dysregulation may have you reaching for the salty snacks.
3. You’re Putting On Weight Or Can’t Shift Those Pesky Pounds
You may be exercising regularly and eating really well, but the weight just doesn’t budge. Then perhaps you tried to overcompensate by exercises for longer and harder, and eating even less. But still nothing changed! Sound familiar? Your hormones play a key role in your metabolism and how much weight you hold onto. No matter how hard you workout, if you’ve got a hormonal imbalance, you’ll have extreme difficulty dropping those last few pounds. Balance your hormones first by getting the all clear from your health professional, then adopt appropriate lifestyle and dietary choices for your body’s needs. You may even need to exercise less!
4. You’ve Lost Your Sex Drive
Despite the media portraying women’s interest in sex as a psychological issue, estrogen is a woman’s main controller of libido. A dominance or low level of estrogen can result in a lack of sex drive. The same goes for low testosterone levels for men. Plus, if you’re stressed and not getting much sleep, it’s likely high cortisol levels are playing a role in this too! It’s no wonder sex is the last thing on your mind!
5. Your Mood Is Unpredictable
Moodiness is often labelled as PMS in women and seen as something we just have to put up with. Whilst we can’t always control nature, women who have balanced hormones tend to not have such extreme mood swings throughout their cycle. If you’ve cleaned up your diet and lead a healthy lifestyle, yet still find yourself swinging from high to low moods quite severely, then it may be time to check your hormones.
There are many things we can do to keep our hormones happy such as meditation, yoga, reconnecting with nature, limiting caffeine, having less ‘screen’ time, eating healthy fats, reducing our intake of sugar, and getting adequate sleep. These changes take time so if you’re feeling overwhelmed with the thought of changing your lifestyle cold-turkey, try one or a few changes that you can implement initially and build on the hormone-healthy habits over time.
How Do You Keep Your Hormones Happy?
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James Colquhoun is the filmmaker behind Food Matters, Hungry For Change, and Transcendence Seasons 1 & 2 and founder of Food Matters and FMTV. Along with Laurentine ten Bosch, James founded the Food Matters community following the release of the 2008 documentary, giving people the tools (films, books, articles, and guided programs) to take charge of their own health. From here, FMTV was born! It was designed as a place where you can access vital information by watching all of your favorite inspiring documentaries, expert interviews, & recipe videos in one place, and in early 2020 FMTV found it's new home on Gaia.