Connie's Esthetics

Certified Esthetician

stress

Hormonal Imbalance Series 2

Let’s evaluate natural ways to balance your hormones.  Normally your endocrine glands produce the precise amount of each hormone needed for various processes in your body.  However, hormonal imbalances have become increasingly common with today’s fast-paced modern lifestyle. In addition, certain hormones decline with age and some people experience a more dramatic decrease than others. 

Fortunately, a nutritious diet and other healthy lifestyle behaviors may help improve your hormonal health and allow you to feel and perform at your best.

This post will review 8 natural ways to balance your hormones

1. Eat Enough Protein at Every Meal

Consuming an adequate amount of protein.  

Protein provides essential amino acids that your body can’t make on its own and must be consumed every day to maintain muscle, bone, and skin health.   Also, protein controls the release of hormones that control appetite.

2. Engage in Regular Exercise

Physical activity can strongly influence hormonal health. A major benefit of exercise is its ability to reduce insulin levels and improve insulin sensitivity.

Insulin is a hormone that has several functions. One is allowing cells to take up sugar and amino acids from the bloodstream, which are then used for energy and maintaining muscle. Performing strength training, aerobics, walking or other forms of physical activity can modify hormone levels in a way that reduces the risk of disease and protects muscle mass during the aging process.

3. Avoid Sugar and Refined Carbs

Sugar and refined carbs have been linked to several health problems.

Indeed, avoiding or minimizing these foods may be instrumental in optimizing hormone function and avoiding obesity, diabetes, and other diseases.

Diets high in sugar and refined carbs have been shown to drive insulin resistance. Avoiding these foods and reducing overall carb intake may decrease insulin levels and improve insulin sensitivity.

4. Learn to Manage Stress

Stress can wreak havoc on your hormones. Two major hormones affected by stress are cortisol and adrenaline, which are also called epinephrine.

Cortisol is a “fight-or-flight” hormone that provides your body with a surge of energy to respond to immediate danger.

Adrenaline is also a “fight-or-flight” hormone released as a response to stressful, exciting, dangerous, or threatening situations.

However, unlike hundreds of years ago when these hormones were mainly triggered by threats from predators, today they’re usually triggered by people’s busy, often overwhelming lifestyles.

Engaging in stress-reduction behaviors like meditation, yoga, massage and listening to soothing music can help normalize your levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

5. Avoid Overeating and Undereating

Eating too much or too little may result in hormonal shifts that lead to weight problems. Consuming too many or too few calories can lead to hormonal imbalances.

6. Get Consistent, High-Quality Sleep

No matter how nutritious your diet is and how much exercise you get, your health will suffer if you don’t get enough restorative sleep.

Poor sleep has been linked to imbalances of many hormones, including insulin, cortisol, leptin, and growth hormone

Let’s face it this is the area where most of us need to get more consistent to stay healthy.   Inadequate or poor-quality sleep has been shown to decrease fullness hormones, increase hunger and stress hormones, reduce growth hormone. 

7. Stay Away from Sugary Beverages

Sugar in any form is unhealthy. However, liquid sugars appear to be the worst by far.

We all love to have that Starbucks latte and sugary sodas but avoiding sugar-sweetened beverages may be one of the best things you can do to improve your hormone balance. In addition, research has shown that drinking sugary beverages leads to excessive calorie intake because it doesn’t trigger the same fullness signals that eating solid foods does

8. Consume a High-Fiber Diet

    Fiber, especially the soluble type, is an important component of a healthy diet. Although soluble fiber tends to produce the strongest effects on appetite and eating, insoluble fiber may also play a role.

High fiber intake has been linked to improvements in insulin sensitivity and the hormones that control hunger, fullness, and food intake.

The Bottom Line

Your hormones are involved in every aspect of your health. You need them in very specific amounts for your body to function optimally.

Consuming nutritious foods, exercising on a regular basis, and engaging in other healthy behaviors can go a long way toward improving your hormonal health.

Thank you, Connie

Stay tuned for next week’s pro tips. Series 3 hormonal imbalance

How To Keep Negative Thoughts at Bay

“Think positive!” is a phrase a lot of people say. But it’s hard to do that under all the stress and anxiety that comes with our everyday life. There are just too many things to worry about – jobs, money, health, relationships and family.

Did you know that simply drinking more water can have a positive effect on reducing stress levels? Dehydration can certainly add to our stress, and every organ in our body needs fluids to function properly. Being well hydrated helps to lower the levels of stress hormone cortisol, thus decreasing stress’s overall effects on our system.

Getting more water intake might not solve all the problems leading to your stressed state, but it can help your body and mind to feel more regulated as you work past them. It can also help reduce headaches caused by stress, further easing your mind from more troubles!

Accept That Some Things Happen as a Part of Life

The simplest way to keep negative thoughts at bay is to stop fighting them acknowledge the feeling and choose the next best feeling you can find.

Thoughts only have as much power as you give them. My actual negative thoughts did not matter, only the fact that I believed them.

Once you can accept the fact that negative thoughts do not control your life, you can move on.

Meditate and Seek out Mindfulness

Mindfulness is about reality. It is about focusing on the moment that is right in front of you.  Forget about memories from the past or the endless possibilities of the future.

You might have a thousand different worries and thoughts in your mind right now. Our daily lives are very complex these days It is hard to find the time to step back and take a break.

If you can somehow manage that time, then mindfulness and meditation will help you keep negative thoughts at bay.

Live a Healthy and Active Lifestyle

People who live healthy, active lifestyles are generally happier. They are not as affected by negative thoughts.

The simple explanation is that when you are active, you are focused on what you are doing in the now. If you are working out or playing an active sport, you will be focused on the moment rather than future worries. Being healthy means you feel better about yourself.

When I felt down one of the things, I did was start working out regularly. It was hard to find the motivation at first, but eventually, things got better.

When we exercise, our bodies produce a chemical called dopamine. Dopamine is basically what makes us feel happy or satisfied. When your body is producing dopamine, you can keep negative thoughts at bay more easily.

Hang Around People Who Uplift You

There are some people who are overly critical of others. If you hang around them, they could destroy your confidence and make you feel worse about yourself.

On the other hand, staying around positive people who encourage you to do your best has the opposite effect. Positive reinforcement can build up your confidence and dispel doubts. If you are having negative thoughts, friends and family can uplift you.

Remember, you don’t have to fight the negativity alone. Your friends, family and loved ones can be right there helping you keep negative thoughts from occurring just reach out to them.

Seek Out Positive Communities

There are communities out there that are focused on a positive outlook on life. Whether it’s by sharing news of positive and uplifting things, or by simple sharing uplifting intentions.

Other Ideas:

To start your day – Do not open your email first thing, or else you may start worrying and stressing immediately. Do not check the news first thing, because it sensationalizes various bad things in order to get views. Don’t go on social media, since it can be toxic and rewards envy and outrage more than positivity.

Thanks Connie,

Hope your day is stress-free. Stay tuned to next weeks tips. 

Tips to Promote Brain-skin Connection

Last week we discussed stress and the skin lets investigate ways that you can incorporate some new habits to find the better you.

Many medical professionals recognize that a natural balance must be maintained between our sympathetic (fight-or-flight/high activity) and parasympathetic (rest-and-digest/relaxation) nervous systems for optimal health. Unfortunately, in our modern world, many of us experience “Sympathetic Overdrive,” which means the time we spend in a state of high activity is significantly greater than the time we spend in a state of relaxation.

A key part of decreasing stress is to increase our time spent in the parasympathetic state, or relaxed state. While living in this fast-paced world makes it impossible to avoid stressful situations, we can modify how we handle stress to prevent it from building up. See below for a few ways to incorporate regular stress-reduction practices into your daily life.

Meditation

 A daily meditation practice can relieve stress and reset your mental state.

Those who practice regular meditation had higher brain activity in the areas that deal with stress and concentration. Healthy ways to manage stress can help ease depression and anxiety.

Meditate for 5 minutes each morning to calm your mind. Be kind to yourself, make your mental health a priority by trying some Energy Healing Frequency Music (YouTube video Energy healing 528)

Other Stress Relievers include:

Prioritize Sleep

Exercise More

Balanced, Nutrient-Rich Diet

Focus on Things that Make You Happy

Decrease Toxins in Your Body

Let’s start a challenge this week. Are you ready?  Yes, you are ready!

Put Your Phone Down

It’s time to pick your nose up from your screen and put the phone down. When you spend too much time on your phone instead of interacting with the people around you, you are taking away from your family and friends. Now are you getting the bigger picture, put your phone down and look around.

Some of us spend most of our day scrolling through various social media posts.  the simple solution for this is to log out of our accounts or turn off notifications. The real world is much better than the virtual world if you know where to look.

Instead of spending your time knowing about the life events of unknown people, like Kim Kardashian, spend the time with family and friends, get to know your neighbors, or simply pick up a good book.

Social media is for entertainment so therefore use it as a form of entertainment – not more than an hour a day. Break it down to 30 mins in the morning and then again at night, don’t spend your whole day on the apps. I stay off social media on Sundays to spend quality time with my family. Let’s see if you can realize the benefits of incorporating some of these habits into your day.

Thanks-Connie

Stay tuned for next week’s post.