By Mike Kocsis | 10 minutes read | Last updated: March 12, 2020 Categories: Hormone imbalance Lifestyle Nutrition & diet Testosterone
Medically Reviewed by Dr. George Touliatos
If you are dealing with a hormone imbalance, then you know the many struggles that can arise when your hormones are not at regular levels. Hormones are critically important, and for a man, one of the most important is testosterone. Testosterone plays a crucial role in almost every process that we experience in our body and without the right levels of hormones, there are many negative side effects that can occur. In the event that you find you have an imbalance in your hormones, you may be wondering about how you can balance your hormones in a natural way. There are medical treatments for conditions such as low testosterone for balancing hormones, but those do not always represent the best path forward. If you are looking for a natural and safe way to balance your hormones, this guide to some steps that you can take will be of great use.
Consequences of Imbalanced Hormones
If you know anything about hormones, you might already know that they are very important and help control bodily functions. In a male, the testosterone hormone is responsible for various crucial functions in the body. There can be severe consequences for those that have imbalanced hormones or don’t have the right amount of testosterone in their bodies.
These symptoms can include fatigue, sexual issues like ED, depression, loss of muscle mass, and many other things that are not just convenient, but can interfere with your day to day life. If you want to eliminate these side effects, one of the best ways is through a variety of natural methods that you can start implementing today.
Why Balance Your Hormones Naturally?
If you are facing an imbalance in your hormones, one of your first thoughts might be to address that imbalance using a mixture of medication. While this is by far the most popular way to deal with imbalances in testosterone, it is not always the best option. In fact, there are times when serious medication can make the problem worse. It is always best to try and improve testosterone levels or other hormone levels naturally by making positive lifestyle changes such as fixing best diet and exercise practices before seeking medical treatment, and only if you are unable to balance your hormones naturally you should then seek out professional medical help. There are of course many reasons why you may need medical help and be unable to balance your hormones or testosterone levels naturally and when this is the case we recommend contacting Balance My Hormones for professional advice.
Natural methods of balancing hormones aim to address the problem at its core instead of relying on medication. This can lead to less side effects and less dependence on medication to regulate the hormone levels in your body. You’ll be free from taking medication or at least taking less of it and paying for it on a regular basis, and you might even feel better on a day-to-day basis. Whether you choose to to try and balance your hormones naturally or with medication, the most important step is understand why you need to do this in the first place, and we highly advise getting a fully comprehensive blood test that will check your overall health and hormone levels first. Our advanced blood tests will analyse a variety of hormones in your body, from thyroid function to liver, kidney and testosterone/oestrogen levels and will give you a great picture of your overall health before you decide on what you can do to improve it further.
Ways To Balance Hormones Naturally
Hormone levels are a delicate thing, and they must be treated with care. Even when you are not using a medication, you must be wary of your treatment methods and ensure that they are really best for you. With that being said, here are several ways that you can balance the level of hormones in your body and ensure your testosterone levels are at an agreeable level.
Get Enough Protein
When you’re talking about hormone and testosterone levels, the amount of protein that you eat is a critical part of that discussion. It is very important to eat enough protein if you want to have healthy testosterone and hormone levels. The main reason for this is that protein provides amino acids that are essential to the body. These are proteins that the body isn’t able to produce by itself, and they are necessary to maintain health in your muscles, bones, and skin.
Another part of the body where protein has heavy influence is in the appetite. Protein is largely responsible for the release of various hormones in the body that help to control your appetite. A balanced amount of protein in your diet will make you feel fuller through this hormone reaction and lead to a healthier eating life.
Not only is protein important in regulating the hormones that are released into the body, but through this process, it is actually effective at keeping you in better and healthier shape.
More Movement
Another thing that you can do is exercise more in your daily life. Physical activity and exercise can play a major role in the healthy levels of your hormones. The main reason that physical activity can help is that it is known to reduce the level of insulin in your body and increase the level of insulin sensitivity that you have. Insulin, as you might already know, is an important hormone that allows cells to process sugar for energy.
There are millions of people who have too much insulin which causes health problems such as diabetes, cancer and inflammation. Too much insulin in your body can be very dangerous to your health, but physical activity helps to regulate the level of all hormones in your body and reduce the risk of this happening.
The great thing about using exercise to help with this is that you can use a variety of different physical activities to reduce the risk of diabetes (alongside proper dieting) heart disease and other conditions. That means that you can do whatever exercise you truly enjoy such as aerobics, endurance-based exercise, and even weight lifting.
In addition to generally helping to balance your hormones, exercise can also help to directly increase the amount of testosterone in your body, which is known to decrease with age. If you are searching for a natural way to fight the effects of imbalanced hormones, physical activity is a great way to do so.
Watch What You Eat
A great way to keep an eye on your hormones and stay healthy on a day-to-day basis is to avoid foods that contain high levels of sugar and refined carbs. These two things have been linked to various health problems that can cause serious disturbances in your health and life. Avoiding them can be a major benefit to not only your hormone levels and testosterone levels, but also in your general health in preventing obesity, diabetes, and other health risk factors.
If you are looking to avoid these things and return your hormones to healthy levels, it is a good idea to avoid foods that are dense in sugar and carbs such as junk food, candy, bread, and pasta. There are many studies to support the idea that these foods are poor for your health.
Manage Stress More Effectively
While many people see hormone imbalance as the direct result of a poor diet or a problem that is occurring internally in the body, that is not always the case. There are many external factors that could be affecting your hormone levels and causing an imbalance. There are two main hormones that are often affected by stress levels. These two hormones are adrenaline and cortisol.
Cortisol is a hormone that is directly responsible for helping your body cope with the stress that you might be experiencing in your life. Adrenaline, on the other hand, is a hormone that provides your body with energy to deal with emergencies and severe situations. While each of these hormones is tied to our natural responses and rooted in our history as a species, they are now triggered all the time in our busy and overwhelming lives.
When you are constantly elevating these homrmones, some pretty severe side effects on your life can arise. When you are exposed to prolonged periods of stress in your life you can gain a lot of weight and experience other conditions like high blood pressure, anxiety and other mental health problems.
To avoid all of the negative effects that come from prolonged periods of stress, there are things that you can do to manage and lower your stress on a day-to-day basis. These include breathing techniques, listening to music, yoga, and massage. With these strategies, you can help to reduce stress and return your hormones to a healthy level.
Consume The Right Fats
While many believe that fats in food must be avoided at all costs because of their bad reputation, that’s not actually always the case. There are plenty of times where a good amount of the right fats can actually be very beneficial to your health. One of those times is when it comes to regulating normal hormone levels in your body, it’s important to have the right kind of fats in your system.
When you consume high-quality fats in your food, it will help to reduce the amount of insulin resistance that you have and through that, also reduce your appetite. The types of fats that you will want to consume are called medium-chain triglycerides, which are also known as MCTs for short.
In many studies, MCTs have been shown to help reduce insulin resistance and help those that are overweight regain control over their weight. To get your proper dosage of healthy fats, you can consume foods like olive oil in salads and nuts. When determining your diet, it is important to be able to identify healthy fats as opposed to unhealthy fats. Healthy fats can help you to rebalance your hormones and live a healthier lifestyle.
Eat The Right Amount
When the topic of eating healthy is discussed, it is often thought that the only problem is eating too much. However, when it comes to your hormones and testosterone, in particular, there is definitely a balance to be struck. You don’t want to each too much, but you also don’t want to eat too little. Either of these things can lead to an imbalance in your hormones.
Overeating is the most common condition out of the two, and it can contribute to an increase in insulin levels and reduction of sensitivity. Alternatively, undereating is just as much of a problem for your hormones, albeit less common. If you have cut your calorie intake too much, it can increase cortisol and stress, which can actually contribute to weight gain. Having your cortisol hormone in the right balance is critical for your health and comfort.
The best way to combat these effects is to know exactly how many calories you need to consume and stay within that window. If you stray from that amount, you could be causing an imbalance in your hormones that makes it difficult to be healthy.
Green Tea
There are no one-size-fits-all magic foods or drinks that you can consume to repair your hormone imbalance issues altogether, but there are a few products that you can consume to help. Green tea is widely regarded as one of the healthiest things that you can consume. It is known to have several beneficial health effects such as boosting your metabolism and increasing insulin sensitivity. For this reason, it is a very valuable tool for anyone who is looking to lose weight. It’s also important to note that insulin is one of the most important hormones in the body and being able to regulate it effectively represents a massive health benefit.
Get Quality Sleep
Aside from consuming foods that are high-quality and made from the right ingredients, there are other actions that you can take to improve your hormone imbalances. One of the steps that you can take is to get quality sleep on a consistent basis. There are few things that are more important to your health than a good night’s sleep. When you have poor sleep or inconsistent sleep cycles, you can suffer from an imbalance in hormones such as insulin, ghrelin, leptin, and cortisol, among others. When you get the right amount of sleep, it allows the body to balance itself and ensure a healthier life and proper hormone levels. There are various levels of REM and NON-REM sleep cycles, it’s important you get enough of both so that your body and mind has time to rest and recover from the days events.
Conclusion
If your testosterone levels or other hormone levels are imbalanced, you should always aim to improve your levels naturally and get your body in the best shape it can be in prior to adopting medication into your lifestyle. There are very effective and actionable steps that you can take to improve your own situation and treat your body in a healthy way. With these steps, you can help to rebalance your hormones and enjoy the benefits of a well-balanced body. We understand that it is simply not always possible to fix every bodily function / hormone naturally and that’s why we are here, to help you correct hormone imbalances and improve your wellbeing when natural fixes are simply not an option, so feel free to contact us and discuss your concerns.
Evidence Based Research
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