Hormones & Stress: What to Do with Them

First, let’s talk about the effects of long-term stress on our bodies.

Recall the way our natural stress response works. When our body perceives a threat, our hypothalamus sets off an internal “alarm.” Our adrenal glands release adrenaline to increase our heart rate and elevate our blood pressure, thus boosting our energy levels to help us deal with the high-stress situation. The adrenals also release cortisol, which temporarily curbs nonessential bodily functions like immune responses, growth processes, and digestive functions. Our body is then able to direct the required energy toward the body’s fight-or-flight response.

Ideally, once the perceived threat has subsided, our hormone levels will return to normal.

Unfortunately, too many of us live or work too often in a high perceived stress state. Our alarm systems are consistently triggered, which means our fight-or-flight is always activated. This overexposure to stress hormones affects almost every single function of our bodies, causing a multitude of health risks:

Anxiety
Depression
Digestive problems
Headaches
Heart disease
Heart attack
High blood pressure
Impaired memory and concentration
Muscle tension
Sleep problems
Stroke
Weight gain

How can we re-balance our hormones?

Hormones affect our weight, our appetite, and even our mood. What actions can we take to reset our systems and move us out of the infinite stress response? Your naturopathic physician can work with you to create a series of lifestyle changes and healthy habits to promote your body’s hormone balance.

Here are some suggestions to get started:

Improve sleep habits. The imbalance of hormones like cortisol, insulin, leptin, ghrelin, and HGH is often linked to poor-quality sleep. You may attempt to compensate for low energy by increasing caffeine intake or reaching for high-calorie, low-nutrient snacks and meals. Adequate sleep helps restore energy and increases our chances of making healthy choices in other areas of our well-being rather than reaching for the caffein or high-calorie snack.
Practice stress-reduction techniques. Prayer, journaling, Tai Chi, meditation, and other calming practices will begin to normalize cortisol levels—even at only 10-15 minutes per day.
Exercise regularly. Insulin is the hormone that allows cells to take sugar from our bloodstreams to utilize for energy. Insulin resistance is a major risk factor for diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. When we exercise, we increase our hormone receptor sensitivity, reducing insulin levels and increasing insulin sensitivity. Both cardio and weight training are effective forms of regular exercise.
Take good care of your gut. We are always encouraging our patients to maintain a healthy gut microbiome for so many reasons. Calorie-burning short-chain fatty acids are produced when our microbiomes ferment fiber. These fatty acids also prevent insulin resistance and increase the “fullness hormones,” GLP1 and PYY.
Integrate more protein and fiber into snacks and meals. A high-fiber diet will help stimulate those “fullness” hormones and also improve your insulin sensitivity. Protein provides those amino acids your body can’t produce on its own, and your body needs to make peptide hormones that affect energy, growth, stress, appetite, reproduction, and metabolism. Protein consumption will decrease your hunger hormone, ghrelin. You can easily add protein-rich foods like lentils, eggs, chicken breast, fish, and lean ground turkey to most meals.
Add healthy fats to your diet. They’ll reduce insulin resistance and help control appetite. Good options include avocado, almonds, walnuts, olive oil, coconut oil, and canned tuna or salmon. Omega 3 reduces bodily inflammation and improves brain health, both of which will lower your body’s stress levels.
Lower your sugar intake. When you minimize added sugar, you optimize your hormone function and reduce your likelihood of diabetes and obesity. Diets high in sugar will reduce the body’s production of leptin (the “fullness hormone”). They also disrupt the balance of bacteria in the gut and promote insulin resistance. Unfortunately, many common foods contain unexpected amounts of sugar; check the labels on your ketchup, tomato sauce, and sports drinks.
Bring awareness to your stress. When you become stressed notice your self-talk, breathing and heart rate. Then slow your breathing by counting to 4 while breathing in through your nose, hold for a count of 4, then breath out through your mouth while counting to 5. Repeating this will help you gain control over your physiology to reduce your stress response.

You can begin to adopt these lifestyle changes right away. And when you schedule your next appointment with your naturopathic doctor, he or she will personalize your wellness plan to include therapies, vitamins, minerals, botanicals, lifestyle changes, etc., specific to your needs. As always, writing down your questions and concerns will optimize the effectiveness of your wellness appointment.