In the body, the endocrine system circulates hormones, which perform various functions throughout the day. Even the smallest changes in hormone levels can result in adverse effects, including extra stress on the body. Symptoms can grow worse over time and hormonal imbalances can even lead to chronic issues. For most people, making simple lifestyle changes can help restore proper hormone levels. In this article, Human Health Hub explores 12 natural habits to balance your hormones.
Our top 12 daily habits to help balance your hormone levels include:
- Protein (Protein heavy breakfasts have been shown to keep blood sugar and energy stable)
- Regular exercise
- Maintain a moderate body fat to muscle mass ratio
- Consistent, high quality sleep
- Gut health
- High fibre nutrition
- Hydration
- Lower sugar intake
- Healthy fats
- Stress reduction techniques (Breathing exercises)
- Mediterranean nutrition
- Exposure to real sunlight
Keep reading to learn more about how to improve your hormone levels.
How To Improve Hormone Levels
Hormones are chemical messengers that have profound effects on your mental, physical and emotional health. They play a crucial role in controlling your appetite, weight and mood. Generally, your body will produce the precise amount of each hormone needed for various processes to keep you healthy. However, sedentary lifestyles and Western dietary patterns may affect your hormonal environment. On top of this, levels of certain hormones also decline with age, some people experience a more dramatic drop than others.
A nutritious diet and other healthy lifestyle habits may improve your hormonal health, allowing you to feel and perform at your absolute best.
Here are 12 natural ways to balance your hormones:
Protein
Consuming adequate amounts of protein is extremely important for hormone levels. Not only does protein provide essential amino acids that your body cannot make on its own, but your body also needs it to produce protein-derived hormones, also known as peptide hormones.
These hormones play a vital role in regulating many physiological processes, such as growth, energy metabolism, appetite, stress and reproduction. For example, protein intake influences hormones that control appetite and food intake, communicating information about energy status to your brain.
Research has even shown that eating protein decreases the hunger hormone, ghrelin, whilst stimulating the production of hormones that help you feel full, including peptide YY and glucagon-like peptide-1.
In one 3-month study, 156 teenagers with obesity associated a high protein breakfast with increased PYY and GLP-1 levels, which resulted in weight loss due to increased feelings of fullness. Experts recommend eating a minimum of 20-30 grams of protein per meal. You can do this by including high protein foods such as eggs, chicken breast, lentils or fish at each meal. Research shows that eating at least 20 grams of protein at breakfast can help satisfy your appetite and stop you overeating throughout the day.
Engage in Regular Exercise
Exercise may be one of the most well known methods of improving hormone levels. Aside from improving blood flow to your muscles, exercise increases hormone receptor sensitivity, meaning that it enhances the delivery of nutrients and hormone signals. One of the major benefits of exercise is its ability to reduce insulin levels and increase insulin sensitivity. While some researchers still debate whether these improvements come from exercise itself or from losing weight or fat, evidence shows that regular exercise may improve insulin resistance independently of body weight.
Here are some examples of physical activity that help prevent insulin resistance:
- High-intensity interval training
- Strength training
- Short duration cardio
Being physically active can also help boost levels of muscle-maintaining hormones that decline with age, such as testosterone and human growth hormone. For individuals who are unable to perform vigorous exercise, even regular walking may increase these hormone levels, improving strength and quality of life.
Maintain a Low Body Fat to Muscle Mass Ratio
Weight gain is directly associated with hormonal imbalances that may lead to complications in insulin sensitivity and reproductive health. Obesity is strongly related to:
- Development of insulin resistance
- Hypogonadism (reduction or absence of hormone secretion from the testes or ovaries)
This means that obesity is strongly linked to lower levels of the reproductive hormone testosterone in men and contributes to a lack of ovulation in women, both of which are common causes of infertility. Studies indicate that weight loss may reverse this condition.
Get Consistent, High Quality Sleep
Even if you have the most nutritious diet or consistent exercise routine, if you are not getting enough restorative sleep, your hormones will be affected. This is because poor sleep is linked to imbalances in many hormones, including insulin, cortisol, leptin, ghrelin and HGH. Here are some factors that are associated with lack of sleep:
- Impaired insulin sensitivity
- 24-hour increase in cortisol levels, which can lead to insulin resistance
- Increase in ghrelin
- Decrease in leptin levels
Your brain needs uninterrupted sleep to undergo all five stages of the sleep cycle. This is particularly important for the release of growth hormone, which occurs mainly at night during deep sleep. To maintain optimal hormone balance, you should aim for at least 7 hours of high quality sleep per night.
If you’re hoping to achieve better sleep, take a look at our Ultimate Deep Sleep Combo at Human Performance Hub.
To read more about the importance of sleep, take a look at our articles, ‘How To Sleep Your Way To Better Health’ and ‘The Science & Sensibilities of Sleep’.
Take Care of Your Gut Health
Containing more than 100 trillion friendly bacteria, the gut produces numerous metabolites that may affect hormone health both positively and negatively. Your gut microbiome regulates hormones by modulating insulin resistance and feelings of fullness. For example, when your gut microbiome ferments fibre, it produces short-chain fatty acids such as acetate, propionate and butyrate. Both aid weight management by increasing calorie burning which helps prevent insulin resistance.
Here are some of our top tips to improve your gut health to positively affect your hormones:
- Eat a range of foods (lots of vegetables and fruit – aim for 30 different types)
- Eat prebiotic foods (foods that promote the growth of beneficial bacteria in the gut) For example, sauerkraut, pickles and kimchi.
- Eat high fibre foods (Eg: Apples, Avocados, broccoli, beans)
- Eat a real animal protein combined with plant based nutrition
High Fibre Nutrition
Fibre is absolutely essential for healthy nutrition. Studies have found that it increases insulin sensitivity and stimulates the production of hormones that make you feel full. Although soluble fibre tends to produce the strongest effects on appetite by increasing fullness hormones, insoluble fibre may also play a role.
As such, we recommend that you try to eat several high fibre foods each day. Take a look at Human Performance Hub’s Fibre and Apple Pectin Powder if you’re struggling to get adequate fibre. Start with 1 scoop in the morning before breakfast and 1 scoop in the evening after dinner, mix in with a little water.
Hydration
Hydration is crucial when it comes to improving hormonal health. This is because being well hydrated boosts blood circulation within the body. Blood flow directly impacts how your hormones are regulated. According to Stacy Sims, Ph.D., exercise physiologist, athletic performance can be improved by sufficient blood volume circulation.
At Human Health Hub, we believe that the best way to kickstart your day is with a glass of water containing lime (lemon) and salt as it boosts energy, immunity, gut health and decreases stomach fat.
Lower Your Sugar Intake
Minimising added sugar intake can be instrumental in optimising hormone function and avoiding obesity, diabetes and other diseases. Simple sugar fructose is present in many types of sugar. Fructose intake has increased exponentially in the US since around 1980 and studies consistently show that eating added sugar promotes insulin resistance. Long-term fructose intake has been directly linked to disruptions of the gut microbiome, which may lead to other hormonal imbalances.
Subsequently, reducing your intake of sugary drinks and other sources of added sugar may improve hormone health increasingly. This includes “no sugar” soda pop.
Consume Healthy Fats
Incorporating high quality natural fats into your nutritional routine may help reduce insulin resistance and appetite. Medium-chain triglycerides are unique fats that are less likely to be stored in fat tissue and more likely to be taken up directly by your liver for immediate use as energy, which promotes increased calorie burning.
Healthy fats such as omega 3s help increase insulin sensitivity by reducing inflammation and pro-inflammatory markers.
Take a look at our blog, ‘What are the benefits of fish oil and omega 3?’ for more information or try our HPH Omega 3 Ultra Softgel Capsules at Human Performance Hub.
Stress Reduction Techniques
We can all agree that stress harms our hormones in many ways. The hormone, cortisol, is known as the stress hormone because it helps your body cope with long-term stress.
Let’s delve into how this works. Your body’s response to stress activates a cascade of events that leads to cortisol production. Once the stressor has passed, the response ends. However, chronic stress impairs the feedback mechanisms that return your hormonal systems to normal. This means that chronic stress causes cortisol levels to remain elevated, which stimulates appetite and increases your intake of sugary and high fat foods. In turn, this may lead to excessive calorie intake and obesity.
Research has shown that you can lower your cortisol levels by engaging in stress reduction techniques such as meditation, breathing exercises, yoga and listening to relaxing music. Try to devote at least 10-15 minutes per day to these activities, even if you feel you don’t have the time.
Mediterranean Nutrition
Interestingly, research has shown that the Western nutrition, primarily composed of refined sugars and animal products, is linked to higher levels of oestrogen (the hormone involved in both female and male reproductive health). Alternatively, mediterranean-style nutrition is rich in whole grains, seeds, fish and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower. This helps reduce oestrogen levels, which in turn, reduces the risk of cancer.
Exposure to Real Sunlight
Whilst we do have to be careful about being exposed to too much sunlight, the right balance of sunlight can have many mood-lifting benefits. Exposure to real sunlight is thought to increase the brain’s release of a hormone called serotonin. If you aren’t already aware, serotonin is the hormone associated with boosting mood and helping a person feel calm and focused. Without enough sun exposure, your serotonin levels can dip which can cause health issues such as depression and anxiety.
On top of this, sunlight also affects your sleep, which inadvertently affects your hormones. Sunlight directly affects your body and its natural rhythms. This is because it determines your circadian clock, an internally driven 24 hour cycle that helps you regulate your sleep/wake cycle.
Message To Take Away
Never underestimate the importance of our hormones. They are involved in every aspect of our health and are needed in specific amounts for our bodies to function optimally.
To summarise, hormone imbalances may increase your risk of:
- Obesity
- Diabetes
- Heart disease
- Other health conditions
This is why it is so important that you take steps to manage your hormone levels correctly. Whether it’s consuming nutritious foods, exercising regularly or engaging in other health-promoting behaviours, we should all value the importance of our hormone levels.
To find out more about the services we offer, take a look at our blood and hormone testing analysis.
Functional Nutrition At Human Health Hub
At Human Health Hub, we understand the importance of managing hormone levels. Our functional nutrition consulting services focus on improving cellular functions to optimise health and wellbeing to improve both physical and mental performance.
Our programs consider a number of factors including lifestyle, nutrition, genetics and the notion that each and every client is unique. This approach allows us to completely tailor your healthcare to fully optimise your health, performance and body composition in a way that works for your individual circumstances.
Get in touch today to find out more about our nutrition programs or book a free consultation call to find out how we can help you.
