Lifestyle
The Benefits of a Healthy Lifestyle
A healthy lifestyle can help us to live a vibrant and energetic life well into our later years. In order to do this we need to look at our lifestyle: learn to recognize and control our stress levels, make time for friends and social life, get regular exercise, eat a clean and healthy diet and be mindful of the products we buy and use.
Controlling our stress levels pre and post menopause is vital as when the stress response is activated Cortisol, the stress hormone, is required by the body and this can be at the expense of our sex hormones. Pregnenolone, a pro hormone, is then used to produce cortisol, which would otherwise be used to make the main sex hormones that we need; progesterone, estrogen etc. This has an overall affect on our hormone levels causing more imbalance and therefore more symptoms. Finding exercise that you enjoy can help. Walking, dancing, yoga and meditation are all good ways of controlling stress.
Shopping mindfully, really thinking about what we are feeding ourselves, whether we are meat eaters, vegetarians or vegan, eating clean and healthy foods buying organic where possible. We need to avoid sugar as much as possible and it is hiding in so many products these days. Read labels and do your homework, some things that say ‘healthy’ are actually not! Look at the household and beauty products you are using every day and again make good choices, avoid chemicals wherever you can. The chemicals in pesticides, preservatives and plastics which are everywhere can mimic estrogen in the body causing further hormonal imbalance and again putting us at risk of becoming 'Estrogen Dominant'. This can also put extra stress on the liver and add to our toxic load. It makes sense then to be mindful of what we buy and use.
Reviewing our life direction at this mid stage is also sometimes necessary and by doing a little 'life laundry' we can not only clean up our own act but can ensure our life is fulfilling our needs for our highest good.
Refs.
www.drnorthrup.com/estrogen-dominance
www.drnorthrup.com/audio/the-effects-of-stress
Dr. Anna Cabeca. 'The Hormone Fix', The Natural Way to Balance Your Hormones (ISBN 978-1-52940-137-0) p149-151 'Stress You and Your Hormones'.