#78 - NOURISH YOUR FLOURISH NUGGET | Endocrine Disruptors

There are three primary categories that lend to endocrine disruption which women need to be aware:

• diet
• lifestyle
• environment

What a woman eats directly affects how her body produces and expresses hormones, as does the way she lives her daily life. The environment in which a women lives – and especially the types of toxins she’s exposed to on a daily basis – are another major contributing factor to endocrine disruption.
Let’s cut to the chase: the average modern diet is an absolute nightmare for women’s hormones. All that sugar and all those cheap carbohydrates really do a number on blood sugar levels, ramping up production of insulin and consequently altering the way estrogen is metabolized throughout a woman’s body.
High-glycemic foods might as well be called high-stress foods, because the body tends to respond in kind by producing more cortisol, aka the stress hormone. This results in a systemic inflammatory response that further damages bodily systems, and the rest goes progressively downhill from there.
Further steps include avoiding alcohol, which actively decreases human growth hormone (HGH) and consuming foods that are naturally high in magnesium (e.g., organic dark chocolate).
Also, don’t forget to always stay hydrated, sticking with properly filtered or spring water whenever possible.
Speaking of stress hormones, paying close attention to work-life balance will do wonders in helping a women to maintain a healthy hormone profile. Stress is one of the most damaging factors that contributes to endocrine dysfunction, and it can arise from many different things.
Overworking yourself or getting bogged down with anxiety over the everyday affairs of life can contribute to an unhealthy stress response that leads to the body feeling the need to compensate by producing more cortisol.
This excess cortisol production can place an enormous strain on a woman’s adrenal glands, which can result in this important gland become fatigued and unable to produce other needed hormones. Prolonged stress that isn’t mitigated through proper rest, relaxation, and prayer, meditation, or other calming activities that give the body and mind a break is a recipe for hormone disaster.

Humanity faces a barrage of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that target virtually every glandular system responsible for producing hormones. These include the pituitary, pineal, thyroid, thymus, and adrenal glands, as well as the pancreas, testes (in men), and ovaries (in women).
EDCs can both supplant and mimic natural hormones, obstructing the way the body responds to and uses the real thing. EDCs are essentially hormone impostors that confuse the body into either producing too little or too many of its own natural hormones. This results in all kinds of systemic damage, much of which starts out small and worsens over time.

While it’s certain to be an endless battle trying to avoid EDCs entirely, there are ways to help minimize exposure, so long as a woman knows what to look for and what to avoid.

There are a number of endocrine disruptors that can throw hormone production autopilot effect completely out of whack.

Factors such as poor diet, stress, and exposure to toxins represent a few of the more prominent examples of endocrine disruptors. When this scenario occurs, grabbing hold of the hormone wheel and taking over may be necessary to help steer your hormones back on course.
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