Understanding Your Hormone

For most women, hormones are some of the most major players in their lives. Maybe they affect your sleep, your relationships, your decision making, even how you feel about yourself. What if someone who makes a daily or weekly study of this could help you decipher this complex imbalance and even advise you on nutrition and life choices that could change your hormones from feeling like a constant pain and mystery to a source of strength and knowledge.

In 1999, Gabrielle Lichterman—a  nationally-known health and lifestyle journalist and author of 28 Days: What Your Cycle Reveals about Your Love Life, Moods and Potential, developed what she calls Hormonology; a way of explaining to women how they can better understand their menstrual cycles, and  predict virtually every aspect of their days.

Lichterman calls it a “hormone horoscope” and though it has nothing to do with astrology, it is a daily list of tips and tricks to help women make the most of their cycles and work through the worst.

On her site, My Hormones Made Me Do It, Lichterman describes how breaking our cycles into four weeks, is the best way to help yourself feel better and comprehend what your body is going through.

Week 1.  Personality Challenges

This is the onset of your period, a time when you may be feeling blue and tired—due to the rise in estrogen. Lichterman suggest eating iron rich foods like beans or lean meat or taking at an iron supplement. Iron can raise your energy, elevate your mood, increase sharpness, and even make you feel pumped up.

Week 2. Eight days after period—during ovulation.

This is the time to be daring. Ask for a raise or go out on a blind date. Take a class, pull an all-nighter, this is the time you’ll have the most confidence and feel the most extroverted. Your estrogen and testosterone are at their highest.

Week 3. After ovulation (around day 14 of a 28 day cycle).

This time will be the start estrogen levels begin dropping. Libido is lower, you’re starting to feel moody, and beginning to feel the symptoms of PMS (Pre Menstrual Syndrome). Lichterman suggests listening to upbeat music, drinking small bits of caffeine throughout the day, or eating some dark chocolate, all of this will help to combat PMS.

Week 4. True PMS week kicks in.

Feelings of anger, depression, and moodiness.  Lichterman says taking a mulit-vitamin, 1,000 miligrams of Calcium daily, Omega 3, and 400 IUs with Vitamin D, are all shown to cut PMS symptoms by 40 percent.

In general, diet and exercise can play a large role in fighting the many challenges presented by normal fluctuations in hormones. But being aware of what’s happening in your body, can also help us to feel at ease about our cycles and even surviving the difficulties of PMS.

Pict: Khoworthy.com