Stress and its effects on your hormones

Stress alters the balance of your hormones and influences fertility, inflammation and your metabolic rate.

Fear and stress serve a purpose! Above all to get you into a situation where you can adapt and deal with a dangerous or fearful incident.

Adrenaline and cortisol rise and travel to target tissue such as muscle. This response preps the body to fight or escape from a potential threat.

It’s perfectly fine to have your body react and adapt to a situation, but the problem arises when you are in constant stress and when small non-life-threatening conditions cause this stress response, and it creates even more of an issue when you are not able to rebalance after the stress response.

Functions of Cortisol

Modulates immune system
Regulates blood sugar
Regulates metabolic functions
Modulates gluconeogenesis
Supports thyroid  and pancreatic function
Supports brain function and memory retention
Regulates glycogen stores

The Adrenals

The adrenal glands are made up of two parts, The adrenal medulla and the adrenal cortex.

Both parts serve different purposes; the adrenal medulla produces adrenaline and noradrenaline. Whereas the adrenal cortex secretes other hormones like cortisol, testosterone, estrogen, DHEA and aldosterone.

But, it’s cortisol and adrenaline which are the two primary stress adaptation hormones.

Stressful situations

Your body can deem various conditions as fearful or dangerous even life-threatening. But other things you may  do and not even think about triggering the stress response, such as:

Food intolerance
Illnesses
Physical trauma
Daily stress like traffic jams or just being late
Blood sugar fluctuations
freight or scare
Getting a bad haircut
Environmental chemicals 

Let’s have a look at how acute stress affects your hormones

When your body produces cortisol and adrenaline, they have to come from somewhere. Which means other hormones such as estrogen, testosterone and progesterone get put on the back burner and can be left out of balance.

Progesterone

It’s progesterone which bears the brunt of stress. Due to Progesterone being at the top of the hormone synthesis funnel and unfortunately competing for pregnenolone with cortisol.

Being at the top means when you get stressed your body will go into survival mode and will prioritise cortisol. Progesterone gets downregulated during acute and chronic stress.

Over time this can lead to ovulation issues, fertility problems and menstrual cycle issues due to progesterone lowering and being unable to rise back up due to the stress response. 

Aldosterone

Aldosterone is a hormone which regulates mineral and fluid balance in your body.

When cortisol is high aldosterone elevates, causing water and sodium retention and encourages potassium and magnesium excretion. This may leave you electrolyte deficient but also gives you symptoms such as puffiness, thirst, dehydration and water retention.

Stress causes dehydration and salt cravings

Progesterone & Aldosterone

It is common for many women who are progesterone deficient to experience symptoms such as puffiness, fatigue and water retention. These common symptoms are  usually because with low progesterone you might experience high cortisol and high aldosterone, leading to all the telltale symptoms of electrolyte imbalance, such as:

Water retention
Craving salt
Feeling thirsty no matter how much you drink
Heart palpitations
Reduced bicarbonate
Low Magnesium
Insufficient Potassium
Puffiness
Acidosis

Thyroid Hormones

Acute stress and chronic stress leads to more cortisol flooding your body. Cortisol has a nasty nack of binding to hormones, this mainly happens with thyroid hormones.

Cortisol causes the hormones to be inactive; this leads to low metabolic function and symptoms such as:

Weight gain
Cold hands and feet
Hair loss
Anxiety

Estrogen, DHEA & Testosterone

These hormones can do different things at different times for different people.

Usually, DHEA will lower overtime as cortisol rises, this again is due to the theft of Pregnenolone. You may experience elevated levels of DHEA  in acute stress circumstances.

Funnily enough stress in men causes estrogen to rise, and in women can cause testosterone to elevate. This difference shows how sensitive hormones can be. And of course, it can depend on your glucose resilience and insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance in men  = high estrogen
Insulin resistance in women  = high testosterone

Over time, however, stress can cause an estrogen dominant state in women. The estrogen excess can be due to many factors including over function adrenals and ovaries, hyperinsulinemia but also the fact that cortisol triggers fat storage, fat storage equals more production of estrogen.

Excess cortisol causes inflammation, hyperinsulinemia, more fat deposits which leads to conditions like PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), fibroids, estrogen excess and endometriosis.

It’s not all bad news.

There is plenty you can do to treat and support acute stress, nourish your adrenals over time and address the symptoms at hand.

Four steps to nourish you down from stress

Breathe

Breathing seems so simple for you to do. However, it’s the best thing you can do in an acute stress situation. As a result of deep breathing, your brain is signalled that everything is ok, you’re not in danger, and you’re not going to get eaten by that tiger that was stalking you.

Start by taking a long breath for 3-5 seconds in through the nose, hold for 3-5 seconds then release the breath for 3-5 seconds. Repeat this ten times.

Eat Slowly

Why is this so hard?? It seems simple, but so many people eat fast, is it a result of middle child syndrome, maybe you never had much food growing up, or perhaps you watch TV and don’t think about what you’re doing. But eating slowly just by itself will get your body out of stress.

Bang it out

If you have experienced an acutely stressful situation, you might have the adrenalin sitting in your muscles causing shaking, tension, cramps and also heart palpitations. For many, it feels like anxiety.

Therefore,  giving your muscle a rub or hit with the palm of your hand, or even jumping up and down, will support acute stress, it is this physical movement that helps to release adrenaline from your muscles.

Drink your greens

High cortisol can cause excess sodium, and this can, in turn, prevents cortisol from being metabolised and excreted. If you have a high potassium drink such as barley grass juice, cucumber juice or 10 ml of apple cider vinegar in water. These high potassium foods will help the cortisol rebalance, as well as improve your bodies electrolyte balance and fluid.

So next time you feel that stress feeling again, remember to take action on dealing with it at the time so that acute stress doesn’t flow over and start wreaking havoc with your hormones.