Women have come to me during many times of their lives and especially in menopause, complaining, “I don’t feel like myself.” They’re experiencing all sorts of emotional changes - irritability, mood swings, anxiety, and depression.
What gives? Certainly, you can get your life in order, but can you?
You might think you can control your own behavior, but most of the time your hormones do – which is why I emphasize in my book, The Hormone Fix, that your physiology drives your behavior. Even the tiniest swing in hormones can have a dramatic effect on your moods.
To be more precise, hormones such as progesterone, estrogen, and others have started their natural decline, making you cranky (okay, bitchy!). You may not be producing enough oxytocin, the bonding hormone, and you feel depressed and disconnected. Cortisol is involved in driving behavior too, particularly if it is waging war with oxytocin. Cortisol keeps you stressed, while oxytocin keeps you calm. If cortisol wins the battle, you’re prone to feeling irritable, fatigued, unfocused, and frustrated; your life feels chaotic.
Your doctor may want to simply palm off your emotional discontent with antidepressants or other mood drugs or tell you to just power through it.
I’m here to tell you … no, you do not have to succumb to any of this. In my book, The Hormone Fix, I reveal ways you can conquer mood swings, anxiety, depression, and other uncomfortable emotional symptoms with diet, supplements, herbs, natural hormones, and other lifestyle changes.
A good example of how well The Hormone Fix works is Deborah. She was really struggling when she came to me. She felt sad all the time, and her moods swung all over the place. “I’ll be somewhere and suddenly burst into tears or anger for no reason.”
Fortunately, Deborah decided she was ready to change. She got serious with my Keto-Green Diet and lifestyle, provided in The Hormone Fix. Within weeks, her troublesome, life-limiting symptoms vanished. She also lost ten pounds, two inches from her waist, and three inches from her hips.
Her renewed mood and spirit can be yours too. Here’s a peek into how The Hormone Fix can “fix” your mood and get you off your emotional roller coaster.
Eat these mood-boosters. As featured in The Hormone Fix, my Keto-Green Diet is loaded with foods that improve mood and restore hormonal balance. For example, you get to eat plenty of probiotic-rich foods, such as pickles, sauerkraut, and yogurt with active cultures. These foods empower certain gut bacteria that help boost brain levels of feel-good serotonin. Also, the spice turmeric, a well-known anti-inflammatory, also prolongs the activity of serotonin in the brain. Foods containing the amino acid tryptophan such as turkey, dates and sunflower seeds, and foods with high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, such as cold-water fish, flaxseed oil, and walnuts, also help boost serotonin levels.
You also want to ramp up another brain chemical – dopamine. Falling levels are linked to a sense of emptiness, sadness, irritation, and boredom. To ensure a steady production of dopamine, supply your brain with the nutrient building blocks of dopamine like phenylalanine, found in beets, edamame, nuts, eggs, and meat.
There’s more. I’m referring to gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which gives your brain the peace and calm it needs. My Keto-Green Diet includes GABA-boosting foods: cherry tomatoes, shrimp, green tea, and any food high in omega-3 fats, such as salmon.
Treat yourself to dark chocolate. Would you believe that dark chocolate makes us happier? Chocolate contains a variety of mood-enhancing ingredients, such as tryptophan. Tryptophan stimulates serotonin. So consuming tryptophan can elevate our mood. Another chemical in chocolate is anandamide, which gives us a sense of well-being because it binds to the dopamine receptors in our brain. There is also theobromine, which increases a positive mood. So feel free to enjoy a couple of ounces of dark chocolate for dessert a few times a week.
Rub on this hormone. For mood issues, one of my favorite remedies is bioidentical progesterone, applied as a cream or taken orally. Progesterone produces metabolites that work on mood. Try my Balance cream, a formulation of bio-available progesterone and pregnenolone. You should see an immediate improvement in your mood, even your sleep quality with topical progesterone, mood, and other symptoms.
Take these natural antidepressants. I’m talking about 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP). 5-HTP is converted into the feel-good brain chemical, serotonin, which relaxes and calms us. It is best taken on an empty stomach prior to bedtime. Typical dosages of 5-HTP can be from 50 to 200 milligrams. Take it with vitamin B6 for best results.
And don’t forget the herb maca, the prime ingredient in my Mighty Maca® Plus. While visiting Peru years ago, I experienced the healing power of maca myself. Each day, I drank it while trying desperately to regain my own emotional footing after a personal tragedy. I felt its benefits almost immediately—more energy, a better mood, and just feeling more like my old self. Two scoops a day of Mighty Maca Plus in tea or a smoothie will do the trick.
Feel happier fast with yoga. When it comes to physical activity, the best “hormone fixer” I’ve found is yoga. One study published in 2016 in Complementary Therapies in Medicine involved eighty-eight postmenopausal women who were randomly assigned to one of three groups: control (no intervention), exercise, and yoga. They all filled out questionnaires about their menopausal symptoms, and the researchers did lab work to check levels of various hormones. After twelve weeks, the women who practiced yoga showed dramatically lower scores for menopausal symptoms, stress levels, and depression, as well as significantly higher scores in quality of life, when compared to the control and exercise groups.
The researchers concluded that yoga is a great complementary therapy for women undergoing hormonal changes with age.
One big reason why yoga (and other forms of exercise) work so well is because oxytocin increases when you exercise. Excess cortisol and other stress hormones are dissipated. With exercise, endorphins—the feel-good hormones—flood your body.
If you consider that as women, we live about one third or more of our lives in menopause, don’t you want to feel as emotionally and physically vibrant as you can? Of course you do!
With the right nutrition, an optimized lifestyle, and simple, loving actions, you can dramatically alter your emotional health. By following the strategies in The Hormone Fix, you’ll learn to live the most beautiful and vibrant life that you absolutely can. You are worth it!
