E257: This is the #1 Root Cause of PMS + Hormone Imbalance

Today I’m starting a conversation I’ve been feeling pulled toward for a while now - stress, safety, and why so many of us feel stuck in hormone patterns even when we’re doing the right things.

This is the first episode in what I’m calling the Safety vs. Stress Series, where we’re going to slow down and look at how our body responds to different types of stress, why it prioritizes survival over hormone balance, and how we can start creating more safety instead of just trying to fix symptoms.

If you’ve been stressed for so long that you think it’s normal now, this episode will gently challenge that idea. 

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• The point where stress stops being temporary and starts shaping your cycle
• How your body has been compensating long before you realized something was off
• Why your hormones aren’t failing you; they’re simply reacting to everything going on

This episode lays the foundation for the weeks, if not the whole year, ahead. So, invite a friend or two to listen together. I promise this is a conversation we all need. As you listen, jot down what stands out and feels true for you. And if you'd like someone to talk it through with, email me; I’d love to be that support for you.

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Don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode, and leave a review. Your support helps us reach more women looking for answers.

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

Transcript

[00:00:00] If you know that you're stressed, but you think that it's just normal and it's fine, and you'll be able to balance your hormones anyway, 

that might be 

not quite as true as you think, and we're gonna dive into that today.

Hey friends, for the month of January and part, or maybe all of February, we are gonna be diving into a series that I'm calling either the Safety Series or the Stress Series, and it's kind of really like the safety versus stress series to be honest, and we are really going to dig in and explore. Why stress is such a big deal for hormone balance and how it really does affect your health, and even when there is emotional stress, physical stress, everything present in your life, how we can make our bodies more resilient and our hormones more resilient to the stress, and also how we can get really honest with ourselves about what stress.

Is ours what? Stress is something that we can get rid of [00:01:00] versus we're stuck with it and we're just gonna dive into all of it over the next six to eight weeks or so. And so today I'm specifically going to set the foundation, lay the foundation. Four. Why Stress directly impacts your hormone balance.

This means your progesterone, your estrogen, your PMS mood swings your periods, and this is why you notice maybe even you're noticing right now after the holidays that you cycles might be telling you. Things are a little bit off after some physical, emotional, maybe spiritual stress as well. So we are gonna dive into all of that today, and I'm really gonna lay those foundations for essentially why this series is so important.

And then I am so excited to walk through this with you and I would love for you to invite a friend or two maybe who don't listen to the podcast or who haven't listened in a while because I know that this is so needed for me. I'm doing this with you. [00:02:00] And I also know that this is so needed for most of us, especially as we kind of get into this New Year's energy where we're trying to change things or maybe we're feeling defeated and we don't even know how to change things, or we have this masculine energy come in that's like, knock out all these goals, lose the weight, fix the house, or whatever it is.

Right? Let's lean into how we can. Impact our bodies for the better with stress and safety, how we can create more safety in our bodies, create more safety in our homes, create more safety in our marriages, create more safety in our finances. I have experts coming in for all of these conversations. Some of them are recorded now and some of them aren't, and I'm so excited for all of it because we.

Collectively need this. So it would mean so much to me if you send this to a couple friends and say, Hey, will you just do this with me? , Will you listen to this every Monday for the next six weeks? And let's talk about it. make it like a book club. Make it like a little like, Hey, we're gonna check in [00:03:00] on each other.

We're gonna check in on our stress. We're gonna see how we can together as friends in our own little local communities, how we can. Impact our homes for the better and our lives for the better. And I really think we're gonna walk away from this feeling lighter. That is my goal. With some really practical, simple, free tools that we can use and identify and actually stick with.

To make an impact on our stress and the safety in our bodies. So that is my goal. I am praying over this. I'm praying over you, and I'm, so, I'm just, I'm excited to do this. , It feels like a perfect next step for the new year.

Before I do dive into the safety series for today, I want to tell you that I do have finally the new. Secret podcast series available for you that walks you through the most important things you need to understand to [00:04:00] start changing your hormones. So stress is like this big overarching picture, and you are going to learn about that in the safety series.

But if you haven't grabbed it yet, you can also get this free podcast series. I was going to charge for it, but it's still free right now. So grab it while it is you'll be able to. In 20 minutes, girls like I know. And so I made it as short and sweet as possible, understand how to support your body better, and why your hormones are a mess.

I really tried to make it so short and sweet and you can grab that in the show notes. It's actually ready if you're on the wait list. You should have received it by now. And if you have been on the wait list for, a minute because it took me a minute to get this together, then Okay, let me know.

If you didn't get it, send me an email, but you should have it in your inbox if you haven't signed up yet, sign up for that and you will be able to get it immediately.

 Okay, so today I am really just gonna walk you through as in as simple and focused of a way as [00:05:00] possible, why safety in the body is so key to hormone balance. And next week I'm gonna talk to you about the physical safety signals and how. To start to shift those. So we're gonna start with the physical safety in the body, and then we'll start to move into the emotional safety and other pieces there.

We're gonna start with physical safety today, and I'm just gonna walk you through what the stress response in your body does. To your hormones and for your hormones. Okay, when I say stress, what I mean is an emotional or physical stressor. It really can be either one and it can respond in the same way.

And so I'll explain kind of like what some of those are to start with. So emotional stressors, we know what those are, right? Like we're running late, something bad happens, we're anxious about something, we're ruminating. All of those things are. Emotional stressors. Physical stressors are things like, and hidden physical stressors that we don't even realize are things like blood sugar imbalance, where we have these [00:06:00] blood sugar drops throughout the day or throughout the night.

That causes cortisol to spike. That's our stress hormone inflammation in the body that can come from, , the gut, especially. It can come from other areas too. It can be undereating or under nourishing as a. Signal to your body that things are not safe because there's not enough food, is what it's gonna interpret from that.

And over exercising or exercising without enough fuel in the tank. All of those things can be perceived stressors to the body, whether or not they feel emotionally like a stressor to you or not. So for example. If you don't realize you have blood sugar imbalances, but you are having anxiety on and off throughout the day, or you sometimes get shaky or you just get tired in the afternoon or you crave a lot of sweets, any of those things can be signs that your blood sugar is actually imbalance over exercising is a big one for, especially for athletes or for women who have always worked out or just enjoy working out or work out for [00:07:00] the stress relief benefits.

sometimes. The over exercising doesn't feel like a stressor. It feels good, and it feels good because you are used to being in this fight or flight mode. You're used to running on cortisol and adrenaline, and it just keeps you in that mode. So one of the first realizations is to check in with yourself.

I want you to check in with yourself right now and ask yourself like, where do I live on a daily basis when it comes to stress? If 10 is the worst day I've ever had in my life, everything is literally going wrong. Really big things. One is I'm laying on a beach, I can't even remember a problem that I have.

And you know, if you're not a beach girl, then if insert happy place, okay, beaches it for me. So I want you to just stop where you are right now and think about like, where am I right now? I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm probably at a six and nothing's really happening. everything's actually fine right now.

[00:08:00] It's, for me right now, it's the anticipation of something going wrong, essentially. This is something that I have become very aware of and it's something that I'm really working on. And if I'm at a six doing nothing, then what am I living at? I'm probably living between a six and an eight a lot of the time, and this is why I know that this is so important for me and for so many of us.

So I'm just gonna be very open with you that I know the things. And I'm working on it. This is where, the radical responsibility comes in where we have to start to make these changes because no one else is going to make them for you. So check in with your stress right now and just kind of think about like, where do I live on a daily basis?

Where am I at my most heightened point of the day, where I'm at my most chill point of the day? And what do we do? About that, right? The what do we do about it? We're getting to, so just check in with yourself and assess how stressed am I and what does that feel like in my body? , Where do I feel it? Is it your shoulders?

Is it your neck? Is it your stomach? Is it just this feeling of heaviness, fogginess? What [00:09:00] is it that you're noticing with your stress? So check in there. When we have these stressors, the emotional physical stressors that I talked about a couple minutes ago, the nervous system shifts into sympathetic dominance, also known as fight or flight mode.

Okay? So this is, you know, , the classic example of your body thinks that you're running from a bear, something bad is happening, and so it goes into that fight or flight pathway. The brain. Activates that stress pathway through your HPA axis, which I know a lot of this, you girls are very well educated.

You're like, okay, I know, I know. Just listen anyway because it will be a refresher and it will help you remember why this is so important. For those of you who are also living at a high level of stress right now, or even just like you. Medium that's still gonna be activating this HPA axis. So the hypothalamus gland in your brain signals a pituitary gland in your brain, and then the pituitary gland signals your adrenal glands.

And the adrenal glands are , what is going to be releasing cortisol. Cortisol, we all know. Is a stress hormone. And I [00:10:00] think a lot of us would say that cortisol is bad or it , feels like it's a bad hormone. It is absolutely not bad. It keeps you alive. You need it. You need a healthy spike in the morning.

You need it to keep your energy up during the day. Cortisol is a good hormone. It really is. . When it is activated too often is when we start to see negative effects in the body. We will talk more about , the full body effects, but some of the symptoms of excess cortisol that I'm sure you've seen floating around on the internet are like facial puffiness, belly weight gain.

just feeling this . Overwhelming feeling of stress or anxiety, when cortisol is made to help you survive and is kept elevated to help you survive and to keep blood sugar stable. It is very energy intensive and it is very intensive to your mineral stores. So you need a lot of minerals and a lot of energy to keep yourself in this high cortisol state.

So to provide that safety in the body and to provide the, energy [00:11:00] needed to help you survive right now, because your brain is interpreting this as this is an emergency. Really, all resources are going to go toward keeping those stress hormones where they need to be to keep you going essentially.

And so pregnenolone is kind of like the parent hormone of a lot of different things. Cortisol is one of them, but also estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and some of the other hormones that we want to be able to have and balanced amounts in our body. So when you are under stress and under stress consistently, your body prioritizes.

Making that pregnenolone into more cortisol instead of making it into more progesterone so it can actually steal that pregnenolone that would be made into progesterone and steal it and make more cortisol. What happens then when we do not make enough progesterone? Or when we are making it and then it gets stolen, is that you have less progesterone available for keeping your cycles regular.

So you may see like shorter luteal phase, you may see spotting, you may see shorter cycles. In general, you [00:12:00] may not see as adequate of ovulation, so for some women, it actually lengthens out your cycle where you're not ovulating as soon as you should be, and so your cycle is longer because of that. When progesterone is in balance, when you have enough progesterone, it's very calming to the nervous system.

It's very anti-inflammatory. It's very pro thyroid. It's very pro metabolism, and it helps balance estrogen as well. So when you have an adequate amount of progesterone in the body, it actually helps keep estrogen balance, especially in that luteal phase after ovulation occurs. If it is not available in significant amounts because it's being stolen, to make more cortisol, to keep you in this adrenaline fight or flight stress, the F out state that you have been living in, it is going to drain.

Not only your progesterone stores, but your minerals as well. So this can create estrogen dominant symptoms like painful periods, breast tenderness. You girls know what estrogen dominant symptoms are, and if you do not, if you're new to the podcast, I have so much for [00:13:00] you. Go back to the beginning and episodes.

I think six and seven are going to tell you mostly everything you need to know about estrogen and progesterone. So go back to those. If you're like, I am still not following you, that would be where to start. Finish this episode because , I'll stick with you on this. But then go back to those, when minerals are depleted and a lot of times blood sugar is also dysregulated in this state of stress, then stress is going to deplete magnesium, which helps with stress, sodium.

Bioavailable copper and potassium. Potassium is so important for blood sugar balance for your thyroid, for your progesterone production, and just for so much in your body. And so many of us are so low in potassium, magnesium, sodium, and bioavailable copper because of stress directly. So this can also win.

Minerals are depleted. When estrogen is more dominant, it can slow the liver clearance and bile flow, which kind of just like [00:14:00] makes the cycle worse. So you're going to have poor bile flow. You're not gonna be detoxifying the estrogen you made as well. And then you still don't have enough progesterone to balance it out and you don't have enough minerals to support your liver either.

So this is kind of creates this loop where. Estrogen dominance creates more inflammation. More inflammation creates more stress, more stress creates more cortisol, and then you just have this cycle repeating. So it is so important for us to, I think it's so easy to be like, okay, I just have to jump off this cycle.

I have to fix it all at once. Honestly, that creates even more stress. So instead of thinking I have to fix everything at once, we have to start with identifying , where are you with stress? what is yours? What is reasonable to expect to change, and how do we start to identify first steps versus.

Every step or like I have to overhaul my whole life or have to get rid of my family or whatever it might be, right? My job, like these really, really big choices that we make [00:15:00] under stress and in panic mode, and we don't have to do that. Okay? We can do this from a regulated place and we can make changes from a regulated place to be able to see.

slow, but sure progress in the right direction. I know this for a fact because I've done it myself in many different seasons. I'm in the process of doing it again right now, and I have seen so many of my clients be able to do this too. So this is not something that is like, okay, I'm just here to tell you gloom and doom.

If you have any stress in your life, your hormones are gonna be a hot mess. You might as well just go on birth control. Don't do it. That's not what I'm saying at all. I am here to help you sort this out. And understanding the main patterns and pathways, I think is one of the most important places to start for this.

So now that we've laid that foundation, I do want to actually give you a little bit of an assignment. What I would love for you to do is take a little bit of time. I know this is the second I say take a little bit of time. It's like, okay, [00:16:00] sure. I'll do that later. Ian, then probably never, How about. Let's say five minutes, and you can even do this as like a voice note. Put this in your phone, write it on a piece of paper, whatever you want to do. But I would love for you to assess for yourself not only what I asked you earlier, what number are you living at with stress, but how do you think it's affecting you?

If you can take 10, 15 minutes to journal this out, that would be amazing and I think really valuable. But how do you think it's affecting you? My stress level is a six on a daily basis. It's affecting me because I am not showing up. As well as I would like to for myself, I am allowing myself to feel overwhelmed and busy, and I'm not prioritizing feeding myself well.

For example, it could be my stress level is causing me to think that I don't have the capacity or time to parent the way that I want to. It's causing me to think that I don't have the [00:17:00] ability to be in my marriage the way that I want to. I'm too busy, I'm too stressed, I'm too tired, whatever it is. So I would love for you to take this time.

Start writing down, like, this is how my stress is affecting me. If you want to include hormone symptoms, like my periods are this, my BMS is this, that would be awesome as well. And honestly, if you want to email this to me, I would love to hear it. I love being able to connect and do this with you. So , for the brave email this to me.

This is your, accountability. Pretend that we're coaching and give me some of your homework. Really think about that. How is this affecting me in my body, in my mind, in my emotions? And what I want you to really watch for something that we're gonna get into as we go forward is the I am statements. I am overwhelmed.

I am tired, I am whatever, unhealthy, overweight, anything that you are speaking and believing over yourself, that is something to circle and [00:18:00] note and check in with. The statements that you write. I only gave you an example of negative ones right now, so hopefully you have some positive ones too as you write this out.

But when you are writing it out, circle anything that you say I am versus I feel, right? So anything that you are believing about yourself is an I am statement. Circle those and question them. First of all, are they true? Second of all, do you want them to be true if they are or aren't? Do you want them to be true?

And if you do not want them to be true, what could you believe instead? If you actually spend 10, 15 minutes writing things out, you might have a lot of these, and you may not want to refute every single one of them in the moment. But if you just have a couple things. Start with a couple things, no matter how many you have what feels the most important, what feels the biggest to you?

Just check in with that. So for example, it's like I'm exhausted, I am overwhelmed. , Let's question that. Do you want that to be true? Of course not, right? Of course you don't want that to be [00:19:00] true. So what could be true instead, if I am overwhelmed is not who you actually are and not how you want to function, then what could be true?

I have a beautiful full life. I have complete control over how I spend my time. I am. Intentional with my time. Okay. This feels hard. I know this feels hard in a lot of ways, and I want you to sit with that. Sit with the hard, sit with the uncomfortable, and just question how much of what I'm seeing in my stress in my life, in how things are turning out for me right now is because of these beliefs it is honestly amazing how quickly things can change, not turn perfect, but how quickly things can change when we understand what we are telling ourselves and what we're believing and what we're telling our brain to the programs we're giving our brain. I am overwhelmed. And your brain's like, ding, ding, ding.

I've done this program before. [00:20:00] Totally know what to do with this. And you're just , gonna look for all of the ways that you were overwhelmed. But instead, if you're like, if I don't want to be overwhelmed, I want to be joyful or peaceful or slow, it's like, okay, then instead, we are, we, you can explore this.

This is, becoming an impromptu mindset coaching session here, but. Exploring. Okay, I'm overwhelmed, is what I believe. Now, why do I believe that? I believe it because the kids, the house, the work, , all the things, right? Write down the things, but how many of those are you truly able to make some different choices for?

Not totally in control. You're not totally in control of your life. I understand that other people are doing things around you, but you are not a victim to that, or it will not help you to believe that you're a victim to that. So it's like, I'm overwhelmed because the kids X, Y, Z, never do blah, blah, blah.

Got it. Hear you understand? And what could you believe differently that would change things? So instead of like, I am overwhelmed, [00:21:00] what if it's, I am peaceful? I am peaceful. So the next time you feel overwhelmed, you say, Hey, actually I am peaceful. What could I do differently? If I was peaceful, maybe I wouldn't yell.

Maybe I wouldn't start throwing all the toys into the bin. Maybe I would believe that I actually can make dinner. Or maybe it's, I am capable, I am thriving. Whatever those words are that you want to believe. Look at your biggest I am belief that is stressing you the heck out. And think of what it could be instead.

Pick one or two things that it could be instead. And think about how you would act if that was how it could be. And start writing it down every day if you can. Or if not every day, write down. I am capable on sticky notes. And put them several places that you need to remember that you're capable. And then when you start to feel overwhelmed and you start to feel like everything is out of control and it's chaos, you say, I'm capable.

And because I'm capable, how would I act? It truly changes the [00:22:00] game, this is my very first step to start to change stress. And this is something that truly works, that works for me in the moment when I start to believe a different program for my brain. When I start to believe a different program for my emotions, I can change how I'm acting and how my stress feels in the moment, even when my circumstances don't change at all.

This is one of the biggest steps that you can take to. Start to move forward without changing your food, without changing your environment, without anything in your life. Changing is just changing what you are believing about it. I really wasn't even planning on going into that today, but I feel like it's just really important to start to take stock in that and start to assess that.

And so I hope that was a little helpful piece for you. And I really, really hope that you actually. Do something with it because even a few minutes of sitting with that of asking yourself some good questions and responding [00:23:00] will make a difference in how you feel today and tomorrow and the next day, as long as you can.

Start to shift that mindset just a little bit. Next week, like I said, we are gonna get into the physical safety signals, and so I'm gonna go deeper into blood sugar and minerals and thyroid and all of these things that are so necessary for physical safety and how we can support those. That is coming next, and then we'll get into more emotional and mindset .

If you start with mindset now and then we start thinking about the physical things, you are gonna have such a bigger impact on your minerals and your hormones and your overall energy and health, and you're gonna see those results faster. So that's what we're always here for, right? See you ladies next week.