EP. 096 Hacks For Healthy Hormones - Part Two

Easy, Deep & NaturalHonestIn this episode, you'll learn how to re-establish hormone balance, using fully natural approaches.

You'll find information on the following -

• Blood sugar levels and their relation to hormones and cortisol
• Methods to regulate blood sugar levels
• Circadian rhythm - the hypothalamus and pituitary glands' sensitivity to light
• How to use light to strengthen and help the hypothalamus
• Night light and blue light
• Mimicking the natural light cycles
• Sleep & its effect on the hypothalamus
• How the hypothalamus helps your hormones
• Tips for better sleep
• Boosting progesterone - eating tips
• Athletes and hormones
• Stress and its effect on hormones - tips to radically reduce stress
• Key nutrients for progesterone production
• Super foods for Vitamin B
• Magnesium for hormones
• Zinc for hormone production
• Natural bioavailable forms of Vitamin C
• Herbs to support progesterone
• Boosting oestrogen levels - eating tips
• Cholesterol and its function in hormones
• Phyto-oestrogens
• Reducing high oestrogen levels
• Menstrual problems & reproductive tissue growths
• Cruciferous vegetables
• Bowels need to be working to remove oestrogen
• Xeno-oestrogens (fake synthetic oestrogens)
• Supporting adrenal health to help hormones
• Thyroid supports hormones & nutrients to support the thyroid
• Common mistakes that cause hormonal imbalance

RESOURCES

Ep. 094 Sleep Easy, Deep & Natural Podcast

Ep. 095 Humble Honest Hormones Podcast

Ep. 029  Iodine - The Universal Medicine Podcast

GRATITUDES

Thanks to the generous and great music creators

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

You're listening to Limbic Light Podcast. I'm Manisha Blunchley, your host. I'll be sharing great tips with you to inspire you, to educate you, and to empower you so that you can reestablish your health and well-being using safest and natural tips and therapies, including light, colour, sound, superfoods, and other great methods. Welcome to the show. Hello and welcome everyone. We're back for round two, part two of the episode all about hormones. In this episode, we'll be looking at natural approaches to balancing your hormones. So let's dive in and have a look. If you haven't yet listened to part one, it's very valuable to get some background and just take a little listen. I'll put the link in the show notes so that you can get some background information first. The very first thing I would like to say is rebalancing hormones is not an easy fix. It's not as simple as just giving a particular supplement or a particular herb or doing a certain thing or taking bio-identical hormones. It's more of a holistic large approach. And what we want to be looking at, and what most naturopathic approaches do consider, the best method to balance hormones is it's it's usually a signal of some deeper imbalance. Very rarely is it just a hormone balance on its own. It's not the root problem. So we want to look at helping the metabolism, helping the nervous system, very importantly, the circadian rhythm, which is our exposure to light and our sleep and awake cycles, and also look at our nutrient status. So I'm going to go through some of these things as well as talking about some herbs and supplements which can actually help. So the very first, the very foundation, the most important thing is to establish regular and stable blood sugar levels in your body or in your blood. And this is a huge issue for particularly progesterone, but for any of the hormones. So what generally happens is if the blood sugar levels crash, which is typical when we're having quick carbohydrates, we get a fix and we get a high, and then suddenly it crashes way down low. So those crashes are particularly known to raise our cortisol levels. Basically, what happens when it crashes, those sugar levels, then we get a surge or a spike in stress, and that is the cortisol hormone. In response to the raise in stress and the cortisol, then we get a decrease, a big drop in progesterone. And if this is happening regularly throughout the day, all of these drops in our blood sugar levels, you're going to expect to have more chronically lower levels of progesterone. And in fact, if your blood sugar levels are up and down all over the place, you're going to have a whole lot of hormone chaos. So that's one of the very first things that you can do to help stabilize your hormones, to balance your hormones, is to take a look at your diet. Take a look at certain things that are affecting your blood sugar levels. So I'm just going to give you a few practical tips here. The very first thing is to eat within one hour of waking. Now, this is interesting because a lot of people who have been doing intermittent fasting don't do this. They wait till maybe 12 o'clock in the middle of the day or 11 o'clock. Some people even don't feel hungry in the morning, and so they really stretch out that period of so-called fasting when they're not actually eating. Now, when it comes to regulating blood sugar levels, this is actually not a great thing at all. So, in other words, eat within an hour of waking, don't skip meals. See if you can have regular small meals throughout the day. Make sure that you combine any of your carbohydrates that you have, which are the fruits or if you eat grains, although it's probably good to limit those, not to have too many grains. But when you do eat carbohydrates, make sure you mix them with protein, a decent amount of protein, and also healthy fats. And what happens when you do that? Basically, your blood sugar levels are going to be more sustained. In other words, it's like a type of slow release of the fuel or of the blood sugar levels in your blood. So you're not going to get this up-down, up-down effect. You're going to get a nice slow rise and then a very gentle, gradual decrease in the blood sugar levels. And if you do eat regularly, you'll find that your blood sugar levels should not drop below the zero point to a low level. It's going to be sustained in a nice gentle curve throughout the day. And this is what we want. This is a type of stability for our hormones and also for our moods and our nervous system. I know it's so super simple, but it's often the most simple things that work the best. The second thing that I mentioned is the circadian rhythm reset. So hormones, as I mentioned at the very end of the last episode, all about hormones, we have a master gland, it's called the hypothalamus. It sits at the very center of our brain. It's nicknamed the brain of the brain. It's really the master of the brain. And this hypothalamus controls the pituitary gland. It sits right on top of it. And the pituitary gland, here's a quick lesson in physiology in the body. The pituitary gland is the master of all the hormones. It controls the adrenal glands, it controls the thyroid and the ovaries, testes, all the adrenal glands, including the pancreas. So the hypothalamus is super sensitive to light. And by adjusting your light exposure, you're going to get the very biggest changes in the hypothalamus. In other words, you're going to be able to regulate and strengthen the hypothalamus's action on all of your body's hormones. So I'm just going to go through a few tips on how to do that. What you need to know is that the hypothalamus is super sensitive to light and in particular certain types of lights. There are different wavelengths that will activate and strengthen the hypothalamus and wavelengths that tend to disrupt the hypothalamus, particularly in relation to the daily cycle. So the very first thing is to get sunlight in your eyes within 30 to 60 minutes of the sun rising. This means getting up early for all of you who like to stay up very late. There is great benefit to your health if you do get up at a fairly early hour. You can of course go with the seasons and wake up very close to when the sun naturally rises. And what I like to do is just to place myself outside. It might be with a nice cup of hot drink that I enjoy drinking. Sometimes I have my certain affirmations that I like to say or gratitudes. Sometimes I even do self-hypnosis, but it doesn't matter what you do. The idea is to seat yourself outside, preferably somewhere where you can see the eastern horizon where the sun rises, and expose your eyes, if possible, if it's not too cold, also part of your skin, to the early morning rays. And as you know, they're a type of really lovely golden, sometimes orange, sometimes red type of tint. And that is because that sunlight early in the morning is very rich in the near infrareds, which is just beyond the red spectrum. And these are the ones that are going to open and switch on the hypothalamus and get your hypothalamus into action, starting to help stimulate other parts of the brain, the pituitary gland, to start producing those really valuable hormones and neurotransmitters. So not only is it good for enhancing your hormonal health but also for your mental nervous brain health. So getting up into the sunlight for at least 20 minutes in the very early morning time is highly beneficial. As well as that, as well as that, what you do with your exposure to light at night time is also really crucial to the hypothalamus. So what you want to do is to reduce your exposure to blue light. And that can be quite simple in many ways in a practical way. What that can mean is putting a little setting on your phone. If you do use your phone in the evening, there is a low light or a screen saving or a protective eye shield type of setting, which will eliminate the harsh blueness of the light. Also, dimming it down is really helpful. On your computer, you can also have settings that are similar. There's a free app by the name of F.lux, which you can set so that at evening time it will dim those blue wavelengths and instead replace them with those really nice orange amber coloured wavelengths. There are a lot of new computers that will have a setting on them, so just check that out. You may not need to get the F Lux app. As well as that, it's really important to dim the lights wherever you are in the evening. Try to avoid really bright lights. So where possible you can use incandescent lights or very low wattage lights if so that there's a warm hinge, a warm glow, a halo of this orangey amber colored light. You can also obtain different light globes, even little reading lights and bedside lights that provide low blue, and also these amber-colored wavelengths at a particular store, online store called Block Blue. There's a wide variety of different products, including glasses that you can put on, which shield your eyes from the strong blue wavelengths. So that's really handy to do, but the most important is really to avoid those really bright lights in the evening. If there's any way that you can use dim lights, then you're way ahead for your hypothalamus. Just remember that you want to mimic the natural rhythm of light during the day and the dark during the night. So whatever you can do to mimic that will set your circadian rhythm and your hypothalamus in sync, in synchronization with those natural rhythms, which is going to enhance your hormonal health. The other thing that's going to help the hypothalamus is to aim for consistent sleep time. In fact, all of your body systems does like consistency. So if there's any way that you can aim to go to bed at a not too late time, maybe something between 9 to 10 pm is usually ideal, is going to also help your hypothalamus. And when you can help the hypothalamus in this way, you're going to enhance ovulation if you're a menstruating female. So having good progesterone by having a healthy hypothalamus action is going to help you in all those ways. The other way that the hypothalamus is going to benefit you if it's nice and strong and healthy and regulated is that it's going to enhance the melatonin production in your body. And melatonin is super important for supporting all of your hormonal balance, including, of course, inducing a really nice, restful, nourishing sleep. So I don't want you to skip over this one, it's really important. Getting your circadian rhythm right, enhancing your hypothalamus by all these light directives is super important. Don't underestimate it. In fact, there is a neurosurgeon by the name of Dr. Jack Cruz who claims that our exposure to light is much more important than actually what we eat when it comes to determining our health and our vitality and our mood status. So just take that in. The third thing that is going to help hormonal repair and balance, and again, it's a very simple free thing, is helping yourself to get a really decent sleep. So what happens when you have poor sleep? It generally decreases progesterone, which then decreases the estrogen, and in turn increases the cortisol, which is the stress hormone. So it's a little bit like a vicious circle. I shouldn't call it vicious, but it is a cycle, a circle. Not only will low progesterone mean a poorer sleep, but poorer sleep will decrease your progesterone and estrogen levels. And not only poor sleep will increase those stress hormones of cortisol, but having high stress and high cortisol is going to damage your sleep. So one feeds into the other. It's sort of like a feedback loop. So if there's any hacks that you can possibly do to enhance your sleep production, it's super important. So here's just a few little tips, and you might want to listen to one of my previous podcasts, which is all about healthy, good sleep. I'll put that also in the show notes for you so that you can listen to that. But here's just a few really simple tips. One of them is, and I know this sounds strange, to eat just a little bit before bed. Now, some people say that that can be disturbing to sleep, but if you have something that's very light and nourishing, some people actually say that having a little bit of honey soon before you go to bed is really helpful because it helps to provide what's known as glycogen in the liver. Glycogen is a form of sugar, but it's a more stable, slow release type of sugar. So, in other words, instead of having a quick carbohydrate, the honey is going to help glycogen release in a very sustained manner a very small amount of glucose throughout the night. What can happen with some people who have a really big drop in their glucose levels, in their sugar levels, maybe by say 3 o'clock or 2 a.m. in the morning, they will naturally have a spike in cortisol. That's a natural response. When the glucose goes down in your body, you'll have a raise or an increase in the cortisol. And when that happens, it makes us awake and alert and it makes us wake up. So if you can have just a little bit of something small before you go to bed, if you're the type that has unstable blood sugar levels, then that may assist you in a really nice, deep, restful sleep without that waking up in the early morning hours. Another little tip is to keep your room fairly cool. It's been found that people tend to sleep better when the temperature of the room is slightly on the cool side, so much so that there are even devices or particular mattresses that are made to enhance the cool temperatures of the mattress so that the person can feel cooler and sleep better. The other thing is to keep your room dark, and this is once again something super important. Even the tiniest little light, maybe a light from something nearby on your bedside table that's charging an electrical device, maybe your phone or something else, or maybe it's a little clock, a digital clock in your room, it's going to put out a faint signal of light. And when that happens, whenever there's any light whatsoever, your pituitary and pineal gland is going to register that it's daytime or it's early morning time, and it's going to prevent that melatonin that you really require to kick in really strongly, and it tends to keep the sleep a little bit more agitated, a little less deep. So, what I like to do is actually put eye pads over my eyes, it's like a little eye mask. I love doing this. I tend to have a really good deep sleep when I put that on. And even if it's full moon, sometimes my sleep is affected from the moonlight which comes through the window. Or if you might live in the city where there's a light, an artificial light, street light, outside your bedroom, then it's a really good idea if you haven't got complete blocking curtains, then to put these eye masks on. Sometimes what I like to do is put a tiny little bit of lavender oil on the mask, which also enhances the nervous system to calm down and to have a good sleep. So also the other thing to make sure you have a good sleep is to avoid intense stimulation late at night. So this goes for watching movies that might be violent or even watching news that might be disturbing or having discussions with people that might be overstimulating or upsetting. So the idea is for at least half an hour before going to bed. You want gentleness, you want calmness, you want to down-regulate the nervous system so it's preparing to shut down for that beautiful sleep. So I won't go into sleep anymore, but needless to say, if you can sleep well, your hormone production is going to be greatly enhanced. Now, when it comes to boosting progesterone naturally, if you're in the age group, and I'm talking about women here who are still menstruating, the main way that you're going to enhance progesterone is if you're ovulating healthily. So you can't actually have progesterone without ovulation. So in order to get progesterone, you need to ovulate. And so the things that are going to support ovulation, one of them is to eat enough calories. And I'm sorry to say that there's such a culture in our society that enhances slim and thin types of bodies, and that's not always the very best type of body to have. So it's really important that you do eat enough food and enough calories. Don't go on too many diets or try to fast incessantly, that's going to have a really big effect on both ovulation and also progesterone production. The other thing is that with many athletes or people who are really interested in fitness and training, if women overtrain or over push their bodies physically, it can actually shut down ovulation. And this is a really natural response, basically. To the body protects itself, it's only going to ovulate and prepare for a fertilized egg if there's enough nourishment and if there's enough body fat, enough to sustain a potential new baby. And I know we're not all interested in babies, but that's how the mechanism of physiology works. So if you overtrain your body, basically you're going to put out stress signals that there's just too much going on, you're pushing your body, there's too much cortisol. So ovulation will shut down. And if ovulation shuts down, then you're not going to also get your progesterone. And the other thing that really impacts progesterone hugely, and this goes for men, women who are either menstruating or post-menopausal, is stress. And can't overstress, I can't emphasize too much the importance of how much stress does influence our hormonal production, in particular progesterone, which is that one that we really want and need to bring our body into that calm, regulated, balanced state. So whatever you can do to help reduce stress, and of course, there's so many tips, and I won't go into it too much, but I think regular breathing, having a regular morning pattern, which is nourishing to both your mind, to your nervous system. As I said, I like to go outside. I do usually a little bit of yoga, and I will implant into my mind certain messages that enhance an easy-going day, a productive day, a healthy day, a happy day. And that sets the tone for the rest of the day. And I do think that anything that's done regularly with consistency builds up, you could say, like the muscles in your mind, in your brain, in your body. So if you do a little exercise every day, it might be a deep guided relaxation exercise, listening to beautiful audio. It might be your morning ritual, it might be even going for a walk, looking at the sun and saying your affirmations and gratitudes. It doesn't matter really what it is, but something that's going to address those stress levels so that you can manage the stress because we all do have it. So it's about managing our stress. You'll find that if you sleep well, you can manage stress better. If you do little exercises for yourself, both physical and mental, you'll be able to manage stress better. And of course, there's an art to saying thanks, but no thanks. Many of us think we should be doing so much, but it's not always the best thing for our stress levels or for our body and mind. So developing the art of saying no, no thanks means that you can take on less and give yourself more time to be in quietness or more time just to look after and take care of your body. So reducing stress is so important. Now, when it comes to helping progesterone, and I'm mostly focusing on progesterone at the moment, as I said, it's the protective hormone, which is highly beneficial for us. There are some key nutrients. One of them is vitamin B6, and this is particularly good for women who are ovulating because it supports the luteal phase. The luteal phase basically means the second half of your cycle when you've already released a little egg and that follicle turns into what's called the corpus luteum. And the corpus luteum is like the factory which produces progesterone in your body. That's why you get progesterone naturally in that second half of your cycle. So vitamin B6, it can be useful also for post-menopausal women, but definitely for still menstruating women. And I usually recommend it's best not to take vitamin Bs in an isolated format. If you're going to take a strong vitamin B, I would definitely get a complex and look for something that's got at least 50 micrograms, I think it's micrograms or is it milligrams, but 50 units of the vitamin B6 in it so that you've got a strong enough concentration. If you want to go for the natural vitamin Bs, there's some superfoods that you can take. B pollen is super super high in the vitamin Bs. And of course, a lot of the nuts and seeds and avocados and eggs are also high in the vitamin Bs. Magnesium is the other supplement or the other key nutrient, which is super useful, super helpful for helping boost progesterone production. Magnesium is calming and it just generally supports progesterone in our body. And needless to say, magnesium's one of those key nutrients that's involved in so many of our biological functions that are necessary. It's a really good idea to get some magnesium into your body. I like to soak in magnesium baths with Epsom salts. I also like to apply externally or transdermally onto my skin magnesium chloride, some people call it magnesium oil. I prefer to do it this way, but you can also take magnesium supplements. Zinc is the other one which is going to support ovulation and hormone production. In fact, when I worked a lot with fertility, zinc was one of the top nutrients that I would recommend both for women and men to help support all of their hormonal fertility and general hormonal production. And vitamin C is the other key nutrient, and vitamin C is another one of those fantastic substances or nutrients that's used in so many of our biological functions. In particular, it's been shown to support progesterone production. Once again, I prefer not to take the ascorbic acid or the synthetic versions. If you can find a natural version, such as the Acerola cherry, camu kamu, and my very favourite, which comes out of Australia, is Gabinge G-U-B-I-N-G-E, also known as the Kakadoo Plum. They're all natural, bioavailable, you could say, types of foods or dense rich superfoods that have lots of vitamin C in them. So there you go, vitamin B6, magnesium, zinc, and vitamin C. There are some herbs that also support the progesterone, and one of the most widely used herbs, it's been around for quite some time, for decades. I used it a lot also in my days when I worked a lot with women and fertility or general hormone health, is Vitex, which is also known as chaste tree. So again, Vitex is known to support the luteal phase, the second half of the cycle, also known to enhance the progesterone production. So it's thought that it works via the brain, via the pituitary, to help the pituitary. So it's not a direct effect, it's not actually putting any hormones directly into your body, but it helps to tonify, you could say, the pituitary gland, which is the gland that controls the ovaries. The other herb which is fantastic for hormonal balance, in particular progesterone, is Ashwagandha. It's also known as with ania. It comes from India. Well, its origin as a herbal medicine came from the Ayurvedic medicine, and it's actually quite easy to grow here in Australia. Be careful not to use the little berries, they're known to be a little bit toxic, but it's more the roots, which are specifically helpful and used for type of tonic. And an adrenal tonic, it helps to reduce stress and it helps to support adrenal balance. So it's been known as also a herb which is going to indirectly assist in the production and balance of the hormones. The other way to support progesterone production and hormonal production in general is by regulating the nervous system. And we've been talking about this pretty much all the way through this episode. So what happens is when there's chronic stress, ongoing stress, particularly that's been going for a long time, then progesterone production will be suppressed. So some of the really simple things to help with nervous system regulation is doing regular breath work. I really like the box breathing. It's so simple and so easy, and you can use it anytime you want. It's basically a breath in for four counts, hold for four counts, release for four counts, and then hold again for four counts. And don't stress too much. If it's not exactly four counts, it can be longer, shorter, it doesn't matter. But the whole idea is that there is a format of regular rhythmic breathing, and this is going to immediately tie into your nervous system, your heart rate. It's a very quick, very effective way to decrease stress and bring your nervous system into a state of balance. So breath work is probably one of the most powerful, effective methods. Gentle yoga is also fantastic. And if you don't have much money or time, you don't need to go to yoga classes. You can actually learn some very simple poses, as I did actually way back in my teenage years, and I still use them now. And you can practice even 10 minutes. In fact, my yoga practices are usually only about 15 minutes long at the most. And in all honesty, I think just having a short, regular, gentle movement of the body by doing something like yoga is highly beneficial, probably better than trying to do once a week or twice a month a long class of yoga. Just doing regular, short amounts is going to have a better effect long term. The other thing that's going to help regulate the nervous system is time in nature. And you might be noticing that most of these things that I'm saying are absolutely free. We often overlook the free and the simple things. And I'll reiterate that these things are really the most potent and the most powerful changes to both our mental and our physical health. So I want you to really take that in. So time in nature is also being shown to really regulate the nervous system. And you can be creative with that. I like to have most of my meals outdoors. I'll take my breakfast and sit at a little table underneath a tree and just enjoy the fresh air and the trees and sounds of the birds. You can go for a little walk after work, even a 15-minute walk around the block. You'll be exposed to nature. Whatever you can find if you're reading a book or doing a little bit of work. You might even be able to take your computer or your pad, your tablet outside and sit under a tree or sit in the shade of a little pagola and just enjoy the outdoors. It's going to benefit you greatly. I'm just going to talk a little bit about boosting and supporting healthy estrogen if it is low. But as I spoke about before in my previous episode, one of the best ways to boost estrogen is to first stimulate your progesterone production. But if your estrogen is low, here are a few simple tips. One of the first things, which is really critical, is to eat enough. Once again, don't skim on meals, don't fast too much. Don't try to diet too much. So under eating is one of the biggest causes of low estrogen. So you need to make sure you've got adequate calories and that you're eating healthy fats. I've mentioned this before, but healthy fats are critical. So you've got the avocados, the nuts, the seeds, the olive oils, coconut, all those types of fats, butter as well. They're all healthy fats. So make sure you get enough of them because they also provide the cholesterol. And not many people know that cholesterol is so super important, not only to our hormonal health, but to also our nerve system health. So hormones' main building block is actually cholesterol. So if you don't have cholesterol in your body, you actually can't form the hormones. That's why you need healthy fats. My mother, when I was young, she used to tell me, eat lots of butter, it's going to cover your nerves with healthy fat and make you happy. So she actually knew that. I didn't actually know at that time, I was too young. But what in fact she was saying was that having a decent amount of cholesterol in your body is going to help line the sheaves of your nerves. That basically means that every nerve that you have in your body, including the brain, has a covering or a sheath of myelin. And myelin is made from cholesterol. So it's like the healthy covering to all nerves is made up of healthy fats. That's it in a nutshell. So you need once again those healthy fats to cover those important nerve sheaths, your brain, and also to create all of the hormones in your body. Once again, if you want to support estrogen, you need to support ovarian function, and that means reducing stress, once again, supporting the thyroid, and I won't go into that too much today. And maintaining a healthy body fat. So there are some gentle phytoestrogens, which is advised to use rather carefully. Some people say that these phytoestrogens tend to compete with the natural estrogens. Other people think that they give a gentle estrogenic effect in your body. But in any case, I thought I would mention them. If you have them, just eat them in moderation and see if you can include some of them in your diet. And they are flaxseeds, also known as linseed. If you're going to be eating linseed, I highly recommend that you soak them first. You can actually get something called LSA, which is linseed, almond, and sunflower seed, and it comes usually in a pulverized powder. You can actually make your own. I don't recommend always buying this because if any seeds are ground up and sit on the shelf and particularly exposed to heat for some time, they're going to start to oxidize. And once you get oxidation in either nuts or seeds, you're going to get unhealthy oils that the body really doesn't like. I recommend that you do your own. You can actually buy the almonds, buy the linseed, buy the sunflower seeds, store them in the fridge. If you've got a little grinder or a little coffee grinder, something of that sort, you can just pulverise and grind up a small amount and keep that in your fridge for lasting maybe four, five days or so. Keep it cold. And what you'll need to do is to either add hot water to it and let it soak for a while, or cold water and let it soak, or just gently simmer it just for a few minutes, and then you can add it to different breakfasts. It might be yogurt or stewed fruit or whatever it might be. But the linseed is slightly estrogenic, and what it's going to do also is generally lubricate the bowel very well so that the bowel function works well as well as these phytoestrogenic effects. The other one which is phytoestrogenic is fermented soy. So you can get your tamari, tempeh, not so much tofu, but miso. And if you do go for soy, again, that's a really controversial subject. There's been a lot of negative things said about soy, and in my mind, I think probably the biggest negative thing is that they tend to be, if they're not organic, they tend to be sprayed and genetically modified. And if they're sprayed and genetically modified, they're going to have all sorts of undesirable effects on your body. So if you're going to go for fermented soy, just do it a little bit and make sure it's organic. So you can get organic kempei, organic miso, and organic tamari sauce. Tamari sauce is really just like a soya sauce. So all of these can gently support estrogen or balance it out if there's too high estrogen. So the other matter which I mentioned in the last podcast was about reducing excess estrogen, that it's a really, really common thing. It's more likely that more women tend to struggle with high estrogen levels. If you want to explore that, just go back to the previous episode and you'll hear about that. So, what you want to do to help reduce the excess estrogen is to support the liver and support the different detoxification ways that the liver naturally goes through. And some of the ways that the liver can clear estrogen more effectively is by making sure you have enough protein, which is essential. Also having bitter foods that might be bitter salads, such as rocket or arugula or dandelion leaves. Some people even like to take Swedish bitters or a few herbs that are a little bit bitter to help the liver. The other thing to regulate and bring down high estrogen levels, and I'll just mention here quickly, is that high estrogen levels are often responsible for growths in the breast, lumpy breasts, or swelling in the breasts, also for all of those menstrual conditions that are type of cyst or growth. So you've got endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome, you've got fibroids, and even some of the more sinister things, the endometrial growths that lead to cancer. So they're usually linked to high estrogen, as well as migraines and irritability and anger outbursts. So just remember that. All these things that are going to help the liver to clear the estrogen are helpful for those conditions. So the other one that I wanted to mention is cruciferous vegetables, and cruciferous is basically broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and cabbages. In fact, they're so effective at helping the liver detoxify and remove a lot of the excess estrogen from the body that a certain product has been made. I think it's called dim diindolmethyl. I'm just going by memory here. So it's basically called dim, and it's made by a concentrated form of cruciferous vegetables, so that it enhances the release and the removal of the excess estrogen. You might want to look that up if you want to take something for a period of time if you're high in those estrogens. The gut health is also really important and often underrated, particularly for removing the excess estrogen, because what happens if the bowels aren't working properly? You're going to have recycled estrogen going around and around in your body. It's just not going to be released from the body. So you need a good bowel action daily to be able to help remove that excess estrogen in the body. So, of course, you need decent fiber. In my mind, good natural vegetables with the skin on is often enough. Particularly if you have a few raw things, maybe grated carrots. And grated beetroot. And probiotics is also quite helpful as well. Now, I'll mention here if you do have a chronic problem with bowel movements, I often find that taking a digestive enzyme can be really helpful to stimulate all the gastric juices. And this is particularly helpful for women who are postmenopausal or in the more mature years because as we age there tends to be a little bit less secretion of the digestive enzymes. So if you're not opposed to getting a little bit of help in that way, just a little bit of digestive enzymes taken when you eat, particularly more heavy foods, can assist in the bowel motions. And this last one is really important for helping reduce the high estrogen levels, and that is to reduce what's known as xenoestrogens, that's spelled XenO estrogens, and basically they're type of fake estrogens or synthetic and artificial estrogens, and they play havoc on the body. What they're going to do is they're going to pretend that they're natural estrogens, but they're actually much stronger, and they will bind to the receptacles in the body so that the body thinks it's getting a huge dose of estrogen and starts to respond. And as I've mentioned before, estrogen is the hormone of growth. So if you're getting bombarded with all these xenoestrogens, you're going to have excess growth in all the reproductive tissues in your body, the ovaries, the uterus, and the breast. I'm talking about women here. Even men can actually be affected by these xenoestrogens as well, with man boobs or lowered libido and lowered fertility. So it's not just women that are at risk here. So let me tell you where you'll be getting these xenoestrogens from so that you can avoid them. So the biggest one is plastics. Now, if you're still drinking out of a plastic bottle, your nice, beautiful, clean water, I would ditch the plastic bottle and get either a metal or glass bottle. The most plastics will leach a certain amount, particularly if they're left out in the sun or heat, or if they're heated up. For example, if you're using a microwave and you're using a plastic dish, then there's going to be a certain amount of leaching of that plastic into the food. And if you put hot foods into plastic storage containers, again you're going to get leaching. So any of these plastics, particularly if they're in contact with any of your food or exposed to heat, do avoid them at all costs. The next one is synthetic fragrances, and isn't that interesting? A lot of the perfumes, a lot of the skincare, conventional skincare, also contain these xenoestrogens. So see if you can go for something as natural as possible. If you want fragrances, maybe you can go for a simple straight essential oil, which is a whole lot more wholesome than the synthetic brands of chemicals that contain these xenoestrogens. The same for skincare and cosmetics. Most of them do contain xenoestrogens. The other area where xenoestrogens are really prevalent is in a lot of the cleaning agents. So if you're a fan of doing lots of cleaning or using these cleaning agents, I would see if you can convert to a more natural format of cleaning or more natural substances, such as even borax, sodium bicarbonate, vinegar, bleach is okay. There's quite a few natural cleaning substances that don't contain all of these synthetic xenoestrogens. And that goes also for detergents. Washing the dishes in really strong detergents is also not beneficial for absorbing these xenoestrogens. So either wear gloves or see if you can find yourself a very benign natural form of dishwashing detergent so that you're not exposed too much to these xenoestrogens. So the next one is supporting adrenal health. That's helpful for estrogen and progesterone, and it's particularly important in perimenopausal women. So the adrenals basically compensate for the declining ovarian hormones after you a woman stops menstruating. So it's really important, and I'm not going to dive into too much of the adrenal support, but I did mention ashwagandha or with ania herb and all those methods to decrease stress. And when I talk about stress helping maintain a good healthy adrenal glands, I'm also talking about not over-exercising. The body will perceive over-exercising as a form of stress. So I want you just to be aware of that. So there's certain nutrients that are helpful for the adrenal glands, that's vitamin C, magnesium, which I've mentioned before, they're key nutrients, and interestingly, salt, a good quality salt, is really helpful for adrenal support. The thyroid and metabolism I mentioned before, don't overlook this, because a low thyroid function can often suppress ovulation and also lower the progesterone, and it can also lower the estrogen balance as well. So again, it often comes to the same old things, make sure you have the adequate calories, and two of the nutrients that really help in the thyroid is iodine and selenium. Now I like to use iodine, it's one of those super substances, and again, I've produced a podcast all about iodine. Maybe I'll put that one in the show notes too. There's a whole pile for you to listen to. But iodine, I like to apply lugols, a natural form of iodine, onto a part of my body. It can be an area where the skin is fairly thin so that it's absorbed really well. If you want a direct effect on the thyroid, you can even put a little bit of the iodine on the neck tissue. If you're wanting to combat breast tissue lumps, you can put it directly on the breast tissue. Iodine's an amazing nutrient. Needless to say, exercise is really helpful for the hormones. Just simple walking, and I mentioned yoga before, is really helpful. So I just want to underlie what some of the common mistakes are when it comes to hormone balancing. What people are actually doing, that's you could say the main culprits that are causing hormonal imbalances. The first one is either under eating or too much fasting. I know that's controversial, isn't it? Because fasting has had such a strong push, and everything in moderation is helpful, but I'm saying too much fasting. Another common mistake is over-exercising. I'm not going to comment too much on this. You know what it means. And another one is relying only on supplements. In other words, forgetting that the free, simple lifestyle things are the most important things. Another common mistake is ignoring sleep and ignoring what you're doing with your light exposure. So those five things are the most important, you could say, culprits or issues that people get wrong, which cause hormonal imbalance. I'll just go through them again so that you've got it. Either under-eating or too much fasting, too much exercising, relying only on supplements and not the lifestyle hacks, ignoring sleep, and not getting your light exposure correct. Okay. So with that, I'm going to leave you with a bundle of information and some really simple, easy, applicable tips that you can do that's going to make a huge difference to your hormonal health. So please take it on. Please share this with anyone who might be struggling. You never know, it might make all the difference in a person who's really having a difficult time either getting pregnant or with hot flushes or with any of these hormonal imbalance problems. Just pass it on and they can take it or leave it. So once again, thank you, thank you so much for listening. I love that I can share useful information with you. Take care, all the best, and bye for now. You've been listening to Limbic Light Podcast. I'm your host, Manisha Blunchley, and remember to share this with whoever you think may benefit and subscribe if you want to be notified about all the new upcoming releases of episodes. Thanks for listening.