Your body goes through countless processes, day in and day out. Whatever you feel, emotionally and physically, hormones have a part in. Hormones help regulate your body temperature, heart rate, metabolism, sleep cycles, reproductive cycles, and growth and development.
However, with all the essential roles these chemicals play, they can also get out of balance. Too little or too much of any hormone can cause health problems. Men and women are both prone to hormonal imbalances, which are driven by several factors, including chronic stress, poor diet, lack of nutrition, endocrine glands injury, and diseases such as diabetes and cancer.
Hormonal imbalances can be signs of severe underlying conditions, so it’s crucial to be aware of the symptoms.
Here are some signs that your hormones are out of balance:
You Have Mood Swings
Maybe you’re having a bad day, but if that happens pretty often, that’s possibly due to your hormones. You may have lower or higher levels of estrogen and progesterone, which affect the brain’s production of serotonin. This brain chemical is what controls your mood.
You Gain Weight Unexpectedly
If you struggle with unexplained weight gain, you may have low levels of thyroid hormones (hypothyroidism) or elevated amounts of cortisol in the bloodstream (Cushing syndrome). They affect your body’s metabolism and appetite, making you gain weight even when you’ve been eating and exercising as you used to do.
You Have Frequent Skin Problems
Acne? Skin rashes? Dry skin? It can be irritating to experience skin problems that don’t seem to go away. That could be due to hormonal imbalance, too. You may have decreased estrogen and progesterone levels or increased androgen.
You Can’t Sleep Well
If you’ve been tossing around in bed and counting sheep to fall asleep but to no avail, it’s possible that you have a hormonal imbalance. When estrogen levels are falling, it can lead to insomnia, poor-quality sleep, and night sweats. If so, you might wake up feeling fatigued in the morning instead of well-rested.
You’re Struggling to Conceive
Hormonal imbalance can also make it difficult for you to conceive. In women, it can be due to high levels of follicle-stimulating hormone or low levels of luteinizing hormone. Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and early menopause can also affect infertility. In men, hormonal imbalance can cause a low sperm count.
You Have Headaches
Women tend to experience hormonal imbalances around their menstrual period, so you might experience headaches at some point in your cycle. It happens as your estrogen levels decline.
You Experience Brain Fog
Do you find it hard to concentrate or remember some things? Hormonal imbalance can be the culprit. You may have low estrogen levels or a problem with your thyroid. It’s also common among perimenopausal and postmenopausal women who have depression or trouble sleeping.
You Feel Fatigued
You may find yourself feeling fatigued all the time, and one reason for that can be fluctuating hormones. Low progesterone or thyroid hormones can affect your sleep or lead to depression, which results in fatigue.
You Have Reduced Sex Drive
Hormonal imbalance can reduce your sex drive, too when you have low levels of testosterone. It happens to both men and women.
You Have Hair Loss or Decreased Body Hair Growth
Have you been losing hair or noticing that you have reduced body hair growth? Hormones could be responsible for that as well. It happens when your thyroid is producing excess hormones. Women sometimes experience hair loss after giving birth or during menopause.
Talk to Your Doctor
When you notice these symptoms occurring frequently, making you uncomfortable and affecting your daily activities, it’s best to talk to your doctor immediately. You need to get the proper treatment to restore the balance of your hormones, such as by taking hormone replacement medications, birth control pills, or prescription creams.
Without proper treatment, hormonal imbalances can result in more complications, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, depression, anxiety, sleep apnea, sexual dysfunction, breast cancer, and kidney problems.
Aside from medications, you must also consider lifestyle changes. You need to manage your weight properly, exercise regularly, eat a balanced diet, avoid drinking alcohol and smoking, and practice proper hygiene. These are all contributing factors to hormonal imbalance.
