![]() Red flags: If you are feeling seriously depleted during your bleed, this can be a symptom of low iron levels–which can also drag you down mentally (5). Remember to be compassionate, and if you need a break–take it! Tracking your period and the days you feel in a funk can really help to remind yourself your mental health dip might be because your period is on the horizon. Top tips: This is your monthly moment to slow down, take stock and recenter yourself. Just before our periods, many of us can feel awash with uncomfortable emotions, berating and belittling ourselves about our mental state, only for it then to alllll make sense when our period comes in. Dropping estrogen, and it’s feel good factors, can leave us feeling vulnerable, fatigued and emotional–whilst a collapse in progesterone, and it’s calming qualities, can cause irritability and anxiety. Just before menstruation (your period) starts, estrogen, progesterone and testosterone completely collapse to their lowest levels. So now we know how our major sex hormones can impact our mood, let’s see them get to work. ![]() On the flip-side, too little testosterone can feel us leaving quite the opposite, low, languid and lacking in libido. Mainly helping us regulate muscle mass and boost our libido (4) (especially when it peaks just before ovulation), temptress testosterone helps us feel fiery, fierce, and frisky. This is because progesterone is literally preparing the body to grow a fetus and support it throughout pregnancy, so prompting us to stay in, be calm and quiet is in our baby-growing favour. The under-dog, pensive, placid and generally a party-pooper, progesterone has distinct calming qualities which leave us feeling more subdued, introspective and sometimes, on-edge (3). It boosts our levels of serotonin and dopamine (the happy hormones), increases production of endorphins (our natural painkillers), boosts libido, and if that wasn’t already enough, dampens the effects of our stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol (2). Estrogen makes us glow, feel and look fabulous. O’ so good, estrogen really is the matriarch of female sex hormones. So, we hear a lot about the physical changes they bring about… but what about changes to our mental health? Here’s a super quick 101 of how our sex hormones impact our mood: So, without further ado, let’s take a journey–from our cycles to our synapses. Appreciating the magnitude of the mind-body connection can help us to cultivate more compassion towards ourselves–allowing us to start working with our hormones and mental health, symbiotically. Understanding just what the actual ( insert expletive here) is going on with our hormones each month and how they’re influencing our moods, can help us to view our mental health in a whole new light. Regardless of which camp we fall into, the state of our mental health is inextricably linked to our hormones (1) Women are nearly twice as likely to experience depression than men (1), and research suggests that fluctuating estrogen levels during the menstrual cycle and perimenopause can be a predominant cause of depression in women (2). ![]() Whilst some of us might feel like we swing from Jeykll to Hyde (and then all the way back again), others may only notice subtle shifts, or even none at all (alright, don’t rub it in). ![]() Throwing shade aside, it’s true that for us folxs with cycles, the highs and lows of our hormones each month can bring about immense emotional changes. It’s possibly the oldest insult in the archives, a real humdinger.‘you’re just hormonal’.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |