E238: Is Your IUD Or Birth Control Pill Messing With Your Mood? New Research + How To Feel Better

Have you ever wondered if your IUD or birth control pill might actually be the reason your mood feels off? Like, one week you’re fine, and the next you’re snapping at everyone, and just feeling not yourself?

You’ve probably been told, “It’s just stress.” But that gut feeling you keep getting, the one whispering something changed since I got this IUD? Let’s talk about that.

In this episode, we’re getting real about what the latest research says about hormonal birth control, especially hormonal IUDs, and how they can affect your mood, anxiety, and overall mental health.

Here’s a sneak peek of what you’ll hear:

• 02:54 The 2023 and 2024 studies show a real connection between hormonal IUDs and mood changes, and what that means for you
• 03:47 What synthetic progesterone does in your body (and why fake progesterone acts nothing like the real thing)
• 13:47 The simple steps to start feeling like yourself again, whether you decide to keep the IUD or take it out

You might be surprised by how much your body’s been trying to tell you, and how simple it can be to start feeling clearer, calmer, and more grounded again.

So grab your earbuds, fold that laundry, or sneak in a quiet walk, and let’s chat about the truth behind birth control, mood, and what it actually takes to feel good in your body again. Because once you hear this one, you won’t look at your IUD the same way again (in the best possible way).

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Disclaimer: Nothing in this podcast is to be taken as medical advice, please take informed accountability and speak to your provider before making changes to your health routine.

This podcast is for women and moms to learn how to balance hormones naturally in motherhood, to have pain-free periods, increased fertility, to decrease PMS mood swings, and to increase energy without restrictive diet plans. You'll learn how to balance blood sugar, increase progesterone naturally, understand the root cause of estrogen dominance, irregular periods, PCOS, insulin resistance, hormonal acne, post birth-control syndrome, and conceive naturally. We use a pro-metabolic, whole food, root cause approach to functional women's health and focus on truly holistic health and mind-body connection.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we're sure you'll like ours too!
Pursuit of Wellness with Mari Llewellyn, Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, Found My Fitness with Rhonda Patrick, Just Ingredients Podcast, Wellness Mama, The Dr Josh Axe Show, Are You Menstrual Podcast, The Model Health Show, Grounded Wellness By Primally Pure, Be Well By Kelly Leveque, The Freely Rooted Podcast with Kori Meloy, Simple Farmhouse Life with Lisa Bass

Chapters

• 2:54 The 2023 and 2024 studies show a real connection between hormonal IUDs and mood changes, and what that means for you
• 3:47 What synthetic progesterone does in your body (and why fake progesterone acts nothing like the real thing)
• 13:47 The simple steps to start feeling like yourself again, whether you decide to keep the IUD or take it out

Transcript

[00:00:00] If you have a hormonal IUD or have had one and think that it might be affecting your mood, I am gonna answer that question for you today.

 [00:00:00] today we're gonna talk about birth control, specifically the IUD and what their research shows when it comes to depression, anxiety, and mood changes. If you don't have an IUD, you may feel like this completely doesn't apply to you, but if you happen to still be around anyway, accidentally, I just wanna encourage you to listen to this episode because you are gonna learn some things about how our bodies work, how our moods work, and how the IUD specifically does affect these things that will be helpful for you maybe in the future, or.

For the mamas around you, for your sister, for your friend. So I always just believe that even if an episode or a topic doesn't directly relate to you right now, if you're that mama who wants to be empowered and wants to empower others, then I would love for you to listen because we all need this information.

And when you have a friend, you know, six months down the road who's like, dang, I feel like I'm. Insane right now. And I got this IUD after my last baby, and we don't want babies you can send them here, right? I just want [00:01:00] you to stick around if you're still here. If you are here because you have an IUD and you want to know more about this topic for yourself, then buckle up buttercup because we've got some good stuff for you today and I'm excited to dive in.

This episode is inspired actually by two emails that I've gotten in the last couple weeks. And one of them was a woman who reached out to me and was sharing that she had had some experiences with her IUD, where she was having a lot more anxiety and she actually got it taken out and was feeling much better.

And then someone else reached out to me. Recently as well, who was saying that she is having a lot of mood changes, anxiety, depression kind of feelings, and she was wondering if the IUD could be contributing more than the birth control pill that she took before because she felt like she was doing better mood wise with just the typical mini pill or like a birth control pill versus the IUD and was just essentially wondering like.

Is this right? is this gut feeling that I have, right? And so [00:02:00] my initial reaction was, yes, you're right. I trust your gut and I think that this is probably on point and let me do some research. And so I went into. PubMed and did some research on several different studies that are more recent in the last couple of years, 20 23, 20 24, that actually show a real link between hormonal birth control, specifically hormonal IUDs at a higher rate and mood symptoms like depression or anxiety.

So I'm gonna share some of those with you. The initial study that I found was done in 2023, and it found a significant association between Levonorgestrel, which is , the form of synthetic progesterone that is in the hormonal IUD, like the marina, Collina, Skyla, like all of those IUDs. This is not applied to copper.

IUD, by the way. Directly. I'm really talking about hormonal IUDs today, and now that I said that, I'm like, how would the copper affect this? Maybe I'll come back around to that in the [00:03:00] future. Let me know if you want that, but I'm really just focused on the hormonal IUD today, There is a significant association between that and psychiatric symptoms, and especially for women who used an IUD as their first hormonal contraception or contraceptive, they had a higher risk of developing depression, especially within the first few months after insertion.

So I can just speak to this for myself. I took a lot of different birth control, not a lot, maybe a few different pills. And then I did the IUD after my daughter. And I not only had headaches, like way more headaches, which is something that my body has been prone to in the past. but I also was like, I feel like my mood is a hot mess on this.

IUD And I even asked my husband after a couple months, I feel like I'm crazy. Am I? And he was like, no. Is it safe to say yes? Right. So I can just speak to some of my own. Issues with this as well, and I actually ended up getting it out and did so much better. I just didn't tolerate it well, but.

 There is [00:04:00] actually a link in this 2023 study where it shows specifically that the Levonorgestrel form of synthetic progesterone has a higher risk of anxiety, depression. There is another, analysis from 2024 that found a. Dose dependent relationship between the hormone level and IUDs and depression risk.

So larger Levonorgestrel doses correlated with increased incidents of depression. Specifically what that means is, you know, you've got the marina, the Skyla, the Lina, and each of those is rated for a certain number of years, right? So say there's like one that's three, one that's five, and one that's seven.

Don't quote me on the seven because I can't remember for sure and which one is which, but. The, I think the Mirena is five and that's kind of the most typical one. With that being said, they have to load that tiny little IUD with enough progesterone. I'm saying progesterone loosely. This is synthetic progesterone.

It is not the same as real progesterone. They have to load it with enough of that to last your body for five [00:05:00] years and it's just like released super small amounts, but it is really hard to know exactly how that can be controlled over five years in the body. So there is another link there between Levonorgestrel specifically and depression and anxiety.

And then there have been some studies that show kind of like a mixed quality of evidence where it's like some women who had preexisting mood disorders, they didn't typically have worsening depression with IUDs, but the overall picture hormonal contraceptives did. Associate with an increased risk of first time antidepressant use, which is really interesting.

So it is a correlation that someone who is on hormonal birth control has a higher risk of also being on an antidepressant for the first time. That relates to both IUDs and the pill, but it does seem like there is a slightly higher or maybe moderately [00:06:00] higher. Evidence of increased depression and anxiety in the IUD itself.

We can kind of like take that information and then the question would be, what do we do about it? Right? The most obvious answer in my book is like, get the IUD out right now. With that being said, there's a reason you have that IUD. It's not just for fun, I would assume. Not just like, Hey, I, I think it's really fun to get an IUD inserted, inserted because, you know, it feels great and it's just a great little day trip for myself when I could just have coffee with a friend instead.

 So clearly like there's a reason you have the IUD, so you gotta weigh that. Do you have the IUD for contraception? Do you have the IUD because of hormone symptoms? Do you have the IUD for other reasons? really questioning what those reasons are. If you have your IUD for hormone symptoms. I would be here to tell you that we can fix your hormone symptoms without an IUD and that we need to work on those foundations and work on you being able to make hormones well and detox hormones well, and that would be my answer for you [00:07:00] is we can do that.

We can start working on that while you still have the I Uud in, or we can take it out and we can start working on it. And that's totally up to you. If you have the IUD for contraceptive purposes, then the question is, are you and your husband willing to. Take the time. Take the, essentially there is some risk to it of learning how to track your recycle really well with fertility awareness method so that you are confident and can prevent pregnancy without an IUD.

Are you wanting to have a conversation with your husband having a vasectomy instead? Is this a short term contraceptive? Is this a long term contraceptive? Those are questions that you need to ask, but if you have a gut feeling and correlation that this is causing you anxiety or depression, then.

In my book, it's probably worth removing it and seeing if it gets better. And one of the women, again, who inspired this episode, she told me she was feeling a lot better with anxiety, [00:08:00] but that her hormones were still a mess. when you have. An IUD. A lot of times you do have it because your hormones are a mess.

And so this is again, this is something that we can work on. We just have to start slowly but surely putting the foundations in place. That's my answer of what we do about it. Remove the IUD if you can and if you feel comfortable. but either way, starting to work on the foundations, I would argue that you.

Would have a decreased risk of depression and anxiety if your body has what it needs to make hormones Well, regardless of IUD. Or not, IUD. So what that comes down to is really getting focused on the foundations that I teach over and over again, which is getting the nutrients in that you need to be able to produce enough energy for your life.

That means balancing your blood sugar, it means supporting your. Minerals that have been depleted because you've probably had a baby or two in the process before you got this IUD or maybe [00:09:00] not, but you've, you've done a lot of other things that are stressful. That mean that your minerals need to be replenished.

It means getting a handle on whatever's happening in your life, stress wise, and that can feel really hard. I'm there with you on that, and I think that we often throw in the towel and just throw up our hands and be like, whatever. I'm just, I just have a stressful life, or This is a stressful season, I can't do anything about it.

And we can, we can make it better, even if it's like 2% better, 10% better, we can change the way we're handling stress, which will change the way our bodies are able to respond to it. This is also something that we work on in coaching, is really being able to look at your. Lifestyle as a big picture and see where your body is getting the signals that things are not safe consistently, so that we can start to move the needle in the right direction.

So if we look at anxiety and depression from a really simple standpoint, right? We're not going into the weeds [00:10:00] of neurotransmitters and we're not going into the weeds of, medications that could be causing it. We're not going into any of those things, but it's like anxiety is based in fear.

Depression, I believe, can be based in a lot of different things. It can be based in rejection, it can be based in, fear. It can be based in lack or scarcity. It can be, there can be so many emotions that, or beliefs that contribute to it. And I just want you to know I'm not oversimplifying it by any means because I realize that it is truly.

An epidemic and a huge problem in our population. I'm not telling you, there's just like a super simple answer, but with that being said, when we reduce stress in the body, when we increase signals of the brain telling the body that things are safe, your mood is going to be better.

Does it fix things? 100%? Maybe not, but it could. I have plenty of women. Who have come to me with especially cyclical [00:11:00] mood symptoms, but also just mood symptoms in general, like anxiety all the time, and we see a drastic decrease in anxiety. When your body has enough minerals, when your blood sugar is balanced, because the alarm bells are not just going off again and again and again and again saying things are not safe.

We don't have what we need. Cortisol is spiking, blood sugar is dropping. We don't have any resources. Like those things going off in your head all the time will lead to anxiety. They just will and. Being anxious all the time can make you depressed and just feeling out of control of your circumstances. So there is a lot of correlation truly between what I do for hormone balance and just building up the body in general and supporting the mood in general.

So I just want to hit on that a little bit. If you are like. I'm not sure if it's my IUD or not, but I'm having a hard time then this is something that we can work on, but we just need to have the right steps in the right order so that you can actually work on it. And this is something that I really focus on with my [00:12:00] clients, is making sure that things are reasonable and realistic.

And so when I say, Hey. I did your hormone audit, you started working with me. Here's your hormone audit and it has six steps on it, or it has seven steps on it. I put the number one at number one. So start with that. 'cause you're already anxious, you're already overwhelmed, you're already not feeling your best.

So start with number one and then go to number two. And just slowly snowball as you start to feel better until you've got these things incorporated that are really gonna build you up at a foundational level because I see that improve. Health is so much better than throwing complicated protocols and just a million things at you where you are overwhelmed and can't even get out from under the paralysis to start.

So looking at, what you're dealing with right now. Whether it's hormone symptoms, whether it's mood symptoms, whether it's all of those things and energy symptoms and asking like what is the first foundational piece that we can put in place that's going to make this better so that we can start to snowball in the right direction is a really [00:13:00] important question to ask.

And when we are looking at anxiety, we're looking at depression. I just also think that it's really important to have a conversation about beliefs. what are those beliefs? And I would encourage you to sit down and , regardless of your IUD status or what you're gonna do about it, I would just encourage you to sit down and actually journal on this a little bit and ask yourself like, when I'm feeling anxious, what am I believing?

 And there may be a lot of things. There might be layers and layers, but like, what am I believing? I'm believing that I'm not safe. Why am I not safe? And really getting down to the root of it. Asking why? Asking why, again. And then looking and saying like, okay, I found the belief that I'm not safe because I don't have enough money.

I'm not safe because I don't have enough support. Where is that true and where is it not true? Where do you have enough? Maybe you don't have enough in this one area, but maybe you do in these other areas. Really [00:14:00] questioning those beliefs I find to be really, really helpful. But another thing that I think can be actually and truly life changing in and of itself in its 100% free is I am statements and finding.

an I am statement that you want to be true about yourself and your life. That isn't true right now. So let's talk anxiety. you're anxious, right? And so you're telling yourself all the time, like, man, I'm just anxious. Maybe I'm just an anxious person. Or Right. You're speaking that over yourself.

I am anxious. I am anxious. I am anxious. Your brain is saying, great. Thank you so much for the information. Thank you for the program. I understand I am anxious. I know how to act. Here I go, right? It's doing a wonderful job of exactly what you told it to do. Now, why did you tell it you were anxious?

That's a whole different story. I have told myself that I'm anxious too and I'm working on it. Okay? So I'm here with you and I feel like I have [00:15:00] really good reasons for it, really good reasons. With that being said, it's not how I want to stay, because I don't wanna stay anxious. I am really careful not to speak over myself.

I am anxious. I can say I feel anxious. I feel anxiety coming up, I feel like I'm having an attack with anxiety, things like that. I can say all of those things, like I feel whatever, but I'm not saying I am anxious, I am not. I am myself. I'm a person. But I'm not anxious. Even just separating that a little bit, separating the emotion.

From yourself, but instead, like , what's the opposite of that, that you want to feel? I'm joyful. I am peaceful. I'm calm, I'm happy. What is it for you? For me, I have a hard time being happy and anxious at the same time. But dang, I love to be happy. I wanna have fun. I wanna be fun, I wanna be happy.

If I was to use that example, I would say I'm happy. I'm joyful. Maybe joyful. 'cause that feels deeper to me than just happy. When [00:16:00] I'm anxious, I might be present, but I'm hyper-focused, hypervigilant present. But when I'm joyful, I can say like I am joyfully present. That's a whole different feeling.

And so if I speak to myself in those moments or other moments where I say I'm joyfully present, then I can say, I can ask myself if that's true, how would I act right now? So if I'm feeling anxious. And instead I say, what's actually true is I am joyfully present. What would I change? How would I act right now if I was joyfully present?

I would laugh more. I would think of something funny to say. I would chase my kids around in a good way, not in an anxious way. I would cut their sandwiches cute for lunch instead of just being like, I'm anxious. I just have to put something on their plate because I just have to get through this. Do you see the difference?

And this is like so good for me to keep speaking over myself too, but while you're figuring out the underlying stuff, this can [00:17:00] change your mindset and we can have our beliefs wired and different levels, right? So I think anxiety can be a spiritual attack. Fear definitely can be a spiritual attack. And with that being said.

If you've taken care of it in the spiritual, you've prayed about it, you've rebuked it, you've cast it out, whatever it is that you, you feel called to do and you need to do, then sometimes it can be a brain rewiring that needs to happen because you've had trauma, because you have good reasons to be anxious.

I'm not discounting that for you. And if you don't wanna stay there, then we have to make a choice to try something different. Realizing that it's gonna take some brain rewiring, it's going to take showing up for the same situation in a different way, to be able to see the impact of that, it's really, really key and really important to be able to make progress forward.

And this is not a one time thing, this is not a two time thing. This is something you have to do consistently over and over [00:18:00] and over and over again for a long time. So your brain starts to go there automatically where you wake up in the morning and someone's like, who are you? Because everyone asks you that first thing in the morning and you're like, I'm joyfully present.

What's something, What's a trait about you? I'm a joyful person instead of I'm an anxious person, I'm a joyful mom. I am calm, I'm peaceful, right? I have the fruit of the spirit versus the fruit of fear and anxiety, . I just want to always pull back and try to take as the most holistic view I can.

And I also just know that so many of you are going through a hard season and you've been through hard seasons, and I am too, and I understand that, and I just personally don't wanna stay stuck. If I can change my mindset a little bit. Enough that I can get out of the anxiety spiral enough to say, Hey, you know what, now that I'm joyfully present, if I was really taking care of [00:19:00] myself, I would do an adrenal cocktail right now.

, Not just like I'm just trying to survive. Don't try to give me carrot salad. It opens up that capacity a little bit more to do some of the things that you need to do to actually make progress forward in the physical too. And so I just never think it's one thing. I don't think it's just physical.

I don't think it's just emotional, and I don't think it's just spiritual most of the time. I think that all of those things are working with each other and we have to , step back and take that big picture approach so that we can understand where to go next. I kind of like, came full circle.

I don't know that I went, it's not really a circle. I probably went down like a squiggly line. With that being said, this can relate to you if you have an IUD 100%. This can also relate to you if you don't have an IUD, and so I just wanna encourage you that you have so much more not control than you think you do.

'cause control is really an illusion. But you can be empowered no matter what your situation is, to see things a little [00:20:00] bit differently or to make one step forward. That could be the snowball that just like goes down the hill and turns into a giant avalanche in the best way possible because avalanches aren't good.

sometimes my analogies are just what they are. So I just wanna leave you with that. Think about how that actually affects you today. I would love for you to. Pull back, go back to the middle of the episode, think about what you need to journal through. If you're doing all the things while you're listening to this podcast, I always assume you're folding laundry, cleaning bathrooms, washing dishes, or driving or maybe taking a walk.

Those are the things I assume you're doing when you're listening. So I never assume that you're sitting there taking notes, but sometimes it is really helpful to go back, write down a few things that were takeaways, so that you can sit with them in your next time. That's quiet when the kids go to bed or.

Whenever that is for you. I just wanna encourage you actually take action on this and you will see good changes, even if they're small and even if they're just the first step. [00:21:00] So you've got this.