How do hormones affect the female body and mind
Hormones play an important role in your everyday life. Everything from metabolism, body temperature, appetite, heart rate, sleep cycles and reproduction can all be affected by hormones. For women, the right levels of oestrogen and progesterone play an important part in feeling our best throughout our life.
Not having your hormones in check can cause you to feel all kinds of ways. It can affect your mood, cause weight gain, stress, and ability to sleep, to name a few issues. Physically you might experience sweats or hot flashes, headaches, and sensitivity to temperature.
Types of hormones
There are two groups of sex hormones produced by the ovaries, estrogen and progesterone. Estrogen and progesterone are needed for reproductive development and fertility. Female sex hormones also include small quantities of testosterone.
What is estrogen?
The main part of the female hormone estrogen is produced in the ovaries and is probably the most well known sex hormone. A smaller amount of estrogen is also produced by the adrenal glands and fat cells. When it comes to sexual development, the hormone estrogen plays a central role.
What is progesterone
The hormone progesterone prepare the body for pregnancy and helps stabilize menstrual cycles. Levels of this hormone affect how regular your periods are and if you might experience difficulties in conceiving amongst other things. Progesterone are produced in the ovaries, placenta and adrenal glands.
What can cause an imbalance of hormones?
If you have too much or too little of a certain hormone in your body, it could have serious effects. It’s no news that hormone levels change when we age and for women this happens in connection to menopause. Another reason for imbalance is due to diseases affecting the hormone thyroid.
Hormone disruption could be caused by medications, stress, cancer treatments, eating disorders, injury or hormone therapy, amongst other causes.
How can you detect hormonal imbalance?
There are several signs or symptoms that could indicate hormonal imbalance. Depending on which hormone is disrupted, symptoms and signs will vary. Common signs for females include:
- Irregular periods
- Vaginal dryness
- Vaginal atrophy
- Pain during sex
- Acne
- Hair loss
During puberty, pregnancy, breastfeeding and menopause your normal hormonal cycle changes naturally.
How hormones affect your mind and mental health
A disruption in hormonal levels can have an impact on several parts of your body and health, which in turn can affect your overall mental state. Feeling tired, gaining/losing weight, experiencing loss in sexual desire, decreased levels of hunger/thirst are all examples of situations when your mind might not work the same way that you’re used to.
It’s important to try and figure out what’s causing you to feel like this, to be able to do something about it and get the quality of life back to where it should be – on top!
Hormones in medicine and treatment – good or bad?
There are situations when you might not be a suitable candidate using medications containing hormones, for example if going through certain medical treatments or breastfeeding.
In the past, non-hormonal options weren’t as effective as hormonal alternatives for treating vaginal dryness. This is no longer the case, as VagiVital has been proven to cure and relieve even more severe symptoms connected to vaginal dryness – read more about our research and clinical study.
VagiVital Active Gel is a hormone free alternative that can be found over the counter and here through our website.