When was the last time you thought about your hormones? For some the word alone fills us with dread as symptoms from conditions like PCOS and endometriosis govern our lives. Others will only ever pause to think about our hormones when they’re causing chaos in our bodies - perhaps it’s during the time of the month, or maybe it’s when you are thinking about starting a family or if you’re going through the menopause.
Angelique Panagos by Sidey Clark Photography
The truth is, our hormones are actually hard at work all day, every day, and are responsible for all kinds of things. They essentially act as clever little messengers in the body and can control things such as our va-va-voom in the bedroom, our quality (or lack of!) sleep, and our mood swings.
In fact, I think hormones need more airtime so here are ten facts about hormones:
- Hormones are crucial in our enjoyment between the sheets. For starters, testosterone – in both sexes - can help you to have that va-va-voom and boost your libido. Happy, balanced hormones can also help us to hit better highs during sex, while orgasms trigger the release of oxytocin, the so-called love hormone.
- Hormones scramble us out of danger’s way when we’re stressed or scared. This fight or flight technique means that our bodies produce cortisol, the stress hormone, in times of stress. When we’re in survival mode, or perhaps running from a tiger or a bear, this can save our lives – but, when we’re not and we live in a constant stress state, it can be damaging.
- The female body is pretty amazing, and we have hormones to thank for our gorgeous curves. Oestrogen is responsible for our fabulous female characteristics, such as hips, breasts, and even our pitch of voice.
- On the flip side, hormones can give us a dreaded muffin top. When we eat too many high sugar, refined carbs, which causes us to store excess fat. Too much cortisol can also feed our muffin tops! Hello stress again….
- Some hormones such as melatonin (our snooze hormone) give us a helping hand in a good night’s beauty sleep. However, too much stress (cortisol) and blue light from mobile devices can wreak havoc on this and send our bodies out of synch, causing us to toss and turn well into the small hours.
- New mamas, nourishing our little ones by feeding them breast milk, or enjoying skin-to-skin contact with babies can trigger the release of our "love hormone", oxytocin.
- Many of us suffer from cold or blue hands and toes. Yet, there’s a hormonal link here, too! Cold hands and feet can indicate an underactive thyroid, if you always have to wear socks to bed even in summer have your thyroid checked.
- We have special hormones that control our eating patterns: Ghrelin tells us when we’re feeling hungry, while leptin lets us know when we’ve eaten enough. When the two aren’t balanced, our waistlines can suffer!
- High testosterone levels- in both men and women - are known to make us feel confident.
- To stay healthy, our hormones need a constant supply of nutrients, fat and protein. Together these provide the building blocks for healthy hormone production.
