Episode 3: Hormone Imbalance

Hi, I'm Dr. Tabitha, the functional gynecologist. I'm a board certified, OB, GYN and functional medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey. And I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place. I want to be your functional gynecologist. So welcome. Hi, guys. Welcome back to the functional gynecologist. I'm your host, Dr. Tabitha. Today. Today, on episode number three, we are going to understand hormone imbalance. I'm going to explain the major causes of why your hormones aren't functioning properly, what symptoms you might be experiencing, and what you can do about it. Okay? Being the superwoman that you are, maybe juggling a job, a career, going to school, raising kids, trying to get pregnant, nurturing your spouse or some other relationship, trying to be in shape, eat right, and pursue your dreams. Most likely, you've been through a period of time where you just aren't feeling the best. You're feeling off. I hear it from my patients all day long in my office. I don't feel right. I think my hormones are out of whack. Why can't I handle things the way I used to? That is a super common issue amongst us superwomen. Well, let's take a look at how our body responds to stress. When your brain senses danger, the section responsible for emotional processing called the amygdala signals the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus activates the sympathetic nervous system, and in turn, you get this fight or flight response. Like, I'm either gonna fight you or I'm gonna run for my life. This process leads to a chemical cascade releasing the stress hormone cortisol and neurotransmitters norepinephrine and epinephrine. There are two parts to the stress response. Turning it on and turning it off. When danger is no longer perceived, the parasympathetic nervous system initiates the relaxation response and brings the hormone balance back to normal. Here's the problem. Our body perceives physical and emotional stress in the same way. So if you're stressing over an exam or work deadline or your kid getting bullied, your body responds with the same chemical cascade of event as it would as if you were being chased by a tiger. So all of those situations we encounter every day, all day long, it's like living in the savannah, fighting for our lives, trying to survive. So you may think this is normal everyday stuff and you couldn't possibly be dealing with too much stress, so that's not your problem. But I would argue otherwise. Just because we're all doing it doesn't mean it's normal or healthy. We are all over stressed. We load our days to the max from dawn to dusk and wonder why we feel like crap. So let me explain this further, okay? Although there are other hormones at play, cortisol is the major stress hormone. Like I said, it's vital for our survival. It's made from cholesterol in the adrenal glands. The reason why that's important is because all of our sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone and testosterone are also made from that cholesterol base. So if you are making cortisol all day long to survive your tiger chases in air quotes, you won't have enough ingredients left to make your sex hormones. I'm not saying cortisol is all bad. It's an important hormone. It increases your blood sugar from glycogen stores in your liver for your brain to use fuel when needed in times of stress. It increases your protein, fat and carb metabolism. It regulates your fluid and electrolyte balance to help you maintain a normal blood pressure. It helps regulate the effects on the response to the stress of your hypothalamus, pituitary gland, other areas of your brain, and it helps regulate that adrenaline production. But prolonged stress or high levels of cortisol continuously throughout your days leads to many negative health effects like high blood pressure, high blood sugar. So then you get increased risk of diabetes. Then you get the abdominal fat that nobody wants around their waistline. You then have an increased risk of heart disease. You get hypothyroidism, slower wound healing, you're more susceptible to infections, and voila, hormone imbalance. So, like I said, neurotransmitters are also part of the stress response. These are chemical messengers which translate various functions within our body, such as heart rate. Many neurotransmitters are synthesized or made from amino acids from protein that comes from our diet. When they're not balanced properly, you get negative health conditions. A number of neurotransmitters can also act in the body as hormones. However, they're quite different. So neurotransmitters belong to the nervous system and are produced by neurons and send signals through the synaptic connections, whereas hormones belong to the endocrine system and are produced by endocrine glands and deliver signals through the blood and bind to receptors. Despite the differences, it's important to note that the levels balance of hormones are influenced by neurotransmitters. Today, I'm going to focus on the following neurotransmitters. Epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin. Epinephrine and norepinephrine are two neurotransmitters that also serve as hormones. You might have heard of these, like the epipen has epinephrine in it. It makes your heart rate. It gets you going. Their hormone function stimulates the central nervous system. Epinephrine communicates with receptors in the heart, lungs and arteries, while norepinephrine can only communicate with arterial receptors. So epinephrine, also known as adrenaline, and norepinephrine both function in the body by increasing your blood sugar levels, increasing your heart rate and heart contractility. Additionally, epinephrine allows the relaxation of smooth muscle in your airways so you can breathe as you're running from that tiger that's chasing you. Norepinephrine causes your blood vessels to narrow, so that increases your blood pressure so you can keep going. But chronic stress can result in levels being either deficient or too high of both of these transmitters, both of which are negative for your overall health. Deficiency in these neurotransmitters can contribute to anxiety, depression, fibromyalgia, low blood sugar, migraines, restless leg syndrome and sleep disorders. Excess levels can contribute to high blood pressure, anxiety, excessive sweating, heart palpitations and headaches. Dopamine and serotonin are powerful neurotransmitters that influence both mood regulation and brain concentration. So whether levels are low or high, the effects can be detrimental to your health. Dopamine is responsible for pleasure and satisfaction. Cocaine, alcohol and food stimulate dopamine receptors to make you feel good. A lack of dopamine is associated with a lack of motivation, low energy and poor digestion. When triggered by the stress response, however, dopamine can help you perceive and process the threat. Figure out the appropriate response, avoid an unpleasant situation. Learn and remember to avoid that particular stress event in the future. Redirect blood flow by dilating blood vessels in certain tissues and inhibiting noradrenaline release in those tissues. Unlike the dopamine, serotonin doesn't have the stimulatory effects in the brain. Instead, it's responsible for calming and evoking positive moods. Serotonin helps regulate appetite, sleep cycle and suppresses pain. It makes sense that Deficiency is most closely linked to depression. Serotonin is what the class of antidepressant medications SSRIs target they're selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. So they keep serotonin attached to the receptor longer to make you feel better. So the body responds to stress dependent on the type and amount presented by releasing the appropriate amount of stress fighting chemicals, which, like I said before, stress can be psychological, physical or physiological. The origin may be internal or external to you and its manifestations can either be mild, severe or anything in between. Stress hormones are protective during stress as they act to maintain vital signs by increasing your blood pressure, oxygen and sugar to best prepare you and cope for that impending stress. However, adverse reactions occur when stress triggers a high level of response. This is seen during chronic stress. Your hormones do not have time to properly rebalance and therefore you get disease. The degree of hormone response and the amount of stress hormone released depends, like I said, on the type, degree and duration of the stress. How you perceive the stress, your life experiences with that stress, before your age and gender, how frequently the stress is occurring. That's a big one. And the context or environment of the stress. So how exactly does this cause hormone imbalance in women? So like I said, our primary sex hormones are estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. I want to stress again. Cortisol production steals the ingredients that you need to make those hormones. So that's first and foremost. Secondly, cortisol blocks the secretion of your body's main fertility hormone called gonadotropin releasing hormone, or GnRH from the brain. GnRH is responsible for telling your ovaries and adrenal glands to release sex hormones into your circulation. So if cortisol is stealing the ingredients needed to make your hormones, the level is going to be low and then it's blocking the ability of it to be put into the circulation. That's a double whammy. While this is okay during periods of acute stress, chronic stress can result in lasting effects. So both men and women may experience low libido and decreased fertility. It's clear this can be an issue if persistent. Right? Like you guys get this. Sex hormones control some of the most influential processes in the body. I'm sure you guys already know this, including pregnancy, puberty, regulating your periods, which I discussed the importance of back in episode two. If you haven't listened to that, I urge you to go back and check that out. Our sex hormones control menopause, hair growth, skin complexion, muscle density and fat storage. Those are major for us Women, these sex hormones can complement each other or function as opposites, which is why it's so important that they're present in the right ratio. So during chronic stress, your body may think it needs more cortisol in order to make more. The body steals from your sex hormones using progesterone to make cortisol. This can quickly become a vicious cycle. Honestly, the majority of women in my office have low progesterone from their chronic stress. It may look like estrogen excess symptoms, and I will talk about that. So estrogen is needed in fairly high amounts for women. Its primary function is growth and development, but affects nearly all our body systems. Estrogen deficiency as seen in menopausal women, can cause foggy mind, hot flashes, depression, memory lapses, headaches, vaginal dryness, really irregular periods, urinary leakage, sleep disruption, and bone loss. Excess estrogen can cause heavy bleeding, breast tenderness, bad PMS symptoms, fibrocystic breasts, ovarian cysts, weight gain around your belly. That's why we get that in our 40s and 50s we got too much estrogen compared to progesterone. It can also cause anxiety, irritability, water retention, and increased triglycerides. So obviously, estrogen is one of the most important hormones for women in terms of our health. Any imbalance, whether it's a deficiency or excess, can cause a ton of issues. Testosterone is the predominant hormone in men, responsible for healthy muscle mass, stamina, energy, bone density, memory and strength. But we women make it too, and we need it too much. Testosterone can cause aggression, depression, impotence for men, and excessive libido deficiency, however, affects more than just your sexual function. Both women and men are faced with complications when they don't have an adequate supply of testosterone. Testosterone deficiency is associated with, like I said, a decreased sex drive, but increased depression and anxiety, fatigue, which I see a ton in women, inability to concentrate, a decline in their memory and cognitive skills, which is important after menopause. Decreased muscle mass and strength, loss of body hair, decreased bone mass that may lead to osteoporosis, increase in that belly fat again, and sleep issues. Wow, I sound like a parrot, don't I? These same issues keep getting repeated. Hormone imbalances can be a result of many different factors. Some of the most well studied include under eating. So so many fad diets don't take into account hormone balance. Also, in general, frequent weight loss and weight regain is a huge factor in hormone imbalance. This is where intermittent fasting comes in and it does a great job of balancing those hormones. Getting off that sugar insulin roller coaster of a ride will get your hormones back into balance. Keep listening because future episodes we will definitely be discussing intermittent fasting and the ketogenic diet and the benefits that it has on hormone balance. Also, toxin overload. Toxins enter the body through our food and environment. So too many toxins overburden our liver, which detracts from breaking down our excess hormones. So this leads to higher level of hormones being redistributed in our system and creates hormone imbalance because of the significant toxin toxic burden that we are bombarded with all day long in our lives through our pesticides in our food, chemicals in our cosmetics and cleaning products, xenoestrogens in our plastics and water supply, heavy metals, molds, all those things cause toxicity in our cells and make it harder for the hormone receptor to hear this signal coming in. So I'm now offering a true cellular detox program through my website, www.drtabitha.com. that's three A's, no I's, because we all need to be detoxified. We need help binding those toxins and getting them out of our system. Once pesticides are absorbed through our foods and water supply into our cells, our cells have a very hard time letting go of them. They're fat soluble, they like to stick around, they have a carbon base, but our body doesn't know how to get rid of it. And so it builds up, especially in our fat cells. There's a new, you know, the newer theory out there is we can't lose weight because we are carrying such a high toxic burden. All of our fat cells are full of toxins to try and protect our brain and our kidneys and our liver. So you try to lose weight, you might feel horrible because those toxins are getting out into your bloodstream and your system is protecting you by not letting you burn those fat cells off. So what you need to do is you need to take supplements to bind those toxins to flush them out of your system. The true cellular detox program has been amazing at transforming that resistant weight loss, that brain fog and chronic fatigue. You can finally get your life back and have energy again and get your hormones balanced. And because toxin overload is a huge issue. So if you're interested in that, you can check that out on my website. Like I said, so we've mentioned eating issues, toxin issues, chronic stress. Aging is another factor leading to hormone imbalance. The reason for this is progesterone production decreases faster than estrogen production as we age. The so you get Estrogen dominance or excess. Like I mentioned earlier, this is especially true for women with longer periods of perimenopause. Because when you don't ovulate each month, when you're having like irregular periods, you're skipping periods or they're coming randomly, that means you're not ovulating. And if you're not ovulating, then you're not producing enough progesterone. So therefore you probably have excess estrogen. For men, as they age, testosterone levels decline. However, they do have estrogen, surprisingly, and their estrogen declines at a slower pace. And then they get hormone imbalance with their testosterone and estrogen and you see man boobs in our 40 and 50 year old men. That is part of that reason. So two types of problems tend to occur when hormones are out of uncomfortable symptoms that change how we think, feel and act. Those are what usually bring women in to see me in the office. But it's my job to think about the other type of problems that occur. Those are increased risk of chronic illness such as depression, Alzheimer, heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, and certain cancers. So obviously these both negatively affect the quality of your life. But some people might not realize that because they are uncomfortable and symptomatic that they might not realize that it actually leads to disease. Common hormone imbalance signs, like I said, irregular periods, infertility, unexplained weight gain or weight loss, anxiety and depression, fatigue, insomnia, low libido, changes in appetite, digestive issues, hair loss, much, much more. As I alluded to earlier, our diets are filled with foods known to impact our hormone balance. So common mistakes negatively impacting our balance include not getting enough healthy fats. So eat organic cold pressed olive oil every day, Avocados, ghee, butter, nuts and seeds. We need those healthy fats to make the membranes of all of our cells and we also need them to make our hormones. Not getting enough fiber into our diet is huge. So we need to eat our vegetables. That fiber helps balance your sugar and your hormones. You need your bowels to be moving regularly. Constipation is actually a major contributor to estrogen excess. So if you are not moving your bowels regularly every day, the estrogen metabolites that have been broken down and excreted into your stool to leave your system actually have the chance to be reabsorbed and put back into your system to be used again. So you gotta be moving those bowels along. There's a reason your body is excreting these toxins. It's trying to get rid of stuff. So don't be suffering from constipation. That needs to be dealt with. A lot of times it's actually just you need more fiber and magnesium in your diet, which is from vegetables. So eat your rainbow. Too many simple carbohydrates, like white stuff, refined breads, pasta, saltine crackers, white rice, all of those simple carbohydrates. Carbohydrates, get them out of your diet. They're not doing you any favors. Another common mistake is eating too much soy. Soy has estrogenic and anti estrogenic properties. So I want you to eat a balanced amount of it, not too much. And if you're going to, it has to be organic. Soy is like number two for the top food categories that are genetically modified and full of glyphosate. So it's really important to avoid that unless you're eating organic. Too much alcohol causes hormone imbalance, too many unhealthy fats. So I said you want to get your olives, olive oil, avocados, dark chocolate, ghee, butter. But you need to also avoid unhealthy fats that are inflammatory like vegetable oil, sunflower oil, canola oil. They sneak them into those coffee creamers, coffee mate flavored coffee creamers that so many women love. Those are destroying your hormones. Quit drinking that crap. Salad dressings, that's another one. Try and switch out to something else. Use coconut milk. Use almond milk in your coffee. Go black. Go to green tea. As far as salad dressings, get organic. Use olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. Get away from those highly inflammatory unhealthy fats. Too much sugar creates hormone imbalance. So stop drinking pop. If you do nothing else for yourself this year and you're a pop drinker, quit drinking pop. It will do you a world of good. And lastly, eating too much processed foods. So stop eating out of bags and boxes. Start prepping real food, real meats, real vegetables. No more bags and boxes. So now that we've removed some stuff from your diet, I would love to see you add some things. Flax seeds are great. There's a compound found in flax that binds to to your estrogen receptors and helps excrete excess estrogen from your body. Cruciferous vegetables are huge. These are like broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, brussels sprouts. These contain important nutrients that prevent estrogen related cancers and help eliminate excess estrogen due to their high fiber content and property called Indole 3 Carbinol. It's a phytochemical dim or diindylmethane is found naturally when Indole 3 Carbinol is broken down in the gut. Oftentimes women will take dim with calcium D glucarate to help that detoxification process in the liver to get rid of those excess estrogens that helps with your symptoms. Lentils are another great food to add to your diet. Lentils provide a great source of protein and fiber so that you get reduced estrogen levels like I explained with more regular bowel movements. But it also adds zinc which can raise your testosterone level. Sweet potatoes. These tubers are high in vitamin B6 and they help with your liver detoxification process. Also super important so that your liver is able to metabolize those and get those out of circulation. So those are only a fraction of the yummy foods that work in your favor for hormone balance. But add those in. Those will be a nice couple additions if you're not already doing them up. Next, I'm going to explain what constitutes a hormone balancing diet. So the foods we eat regularly can either work for us or against us. Ladies first, A word on gut health. Overall health as well as many diseases has been linked to our digestive health. Research has now proven that gut or digestive health equals hormone balance and vice versa. Our guts house trillions of bacteria, both beneficial and problematic. The key is to make sure the good outnumber the bad. So this is best done through our diet. The Chinese, Indian and Japanese medical traditions have actually known this for thousands of years. The following can improve hormone balance Healthy fats Probiotics Digestive enzymes Supplements Adaptogenic herbs. Your body needs various forms of fat to create hormones. This includes short, medium and long chain fatty acids. Saturated fat and cholesterol fats are essential building blocks for hormone production. Remember I said hormones are made from cholesterol? It turns out that cholesterol isn't as bad as we thought it was. That low fat diet of the 90s wreaked havoc on our hormones. Some of you may remember that healthy fats with good omega 3s also keep inflammation levels down. They boost your metabolism and promote weight loss. So you want to aim for at least 15 to 30 grams of healthy fats a day to aid in stabilization and production of your stress hormones. Cortisol and adrenaline. Omega 3 fatty acids are important for cell to cell communication in the brain especially. But for them to work their best, they need adequate amounts of good omega 6s. Here's the confusing part. Some omega 6s are inflammatory like I mentioned before. So it's Best to avoid sunflower oil, safflower oil, cotton seed oil, corn oil, canola, soybean and peanut oil whenever possible. A healthy omega 6 containing food like hemp seeds is rich in gamma linoleic acid or GLA and these help support healthy progesterone levels. Some people take this in a supplement. Good sources of anti inflammatory healthy omega 3 fats. I already mentioned coconut oil, avocados, flaxseeds, chia seeds, walnuts, grass fed butter and wild caught salmon. So eat these instead. Also, the benefits of avocado in particular are amazing. I probably will say this on most podcasts. These include improving your heart health, lowering inflammation, controlling your appetite, giving you your daily fiber and nutrients. Avocados are amazing, so add them to your diet every day. Okay, so let's get on to probiotics. They're known as the beneficial bacteria found in your gut. The right balance of probiotics can improve your production and regulation of key hormones. That's cool. Foods that contain these healthy probiotics are actually kefir, bone broth, sourdough bread, low sugar kombucha, kimchi, sauerkraut, natto miso and apple cider vinegar. Aim for at least 2 servings per day of these yummy healthy probiotic foods. Additionally, high fiber foods such as chia seeds and flax seeds naturally feed the probiotics in your gut. So super important what we are feeding the bacteria living in our gut. Just as important. If we are feeding them sugar and processed foods, the bad guys are going to replicate and flourish and outnumber the good guys and we are going to be way off balance. If we are feeding the good guys fiber and nutrients, then they are going to flourish and our system is going to get back into balance. Some common culprits linked to the destruction of the healthy gut bacteria are over prescription of antibiotics, excessive sugar, like I said, emotional stress medications, alcohol, lack of exercising, over sanitation. There's a huge one. In the past decade we've been using hand sanitizers and Clorox wipes and just over sanitizing our environment to the point where we have also wiped out the good guys and now we can't fight things off as well because it turns out they were protecting us. So stop being OCD with the cleaners. It's not necessary. We were actually meant to live in harmony with these microscopic bacteria. Smoking and poor sleeping also contributes to the destruction of our healthy gut microbiome. So we know not to smoke, but sleeping is super important. Another important issue is digestive enzymes so the body naturally produces enzymes to break down food. For example, some people have trouble digesting fat and could benefit from a digestive enzyme with lipase so that they can metabolize it better. Other enzymes can also help your gut break down your food into smaller particles, making it easier to process and absorb those nutrients. So if you're having discomfort or pain with eating, bloating or heartburn, it may be because you need digestive enzyme support. Look for supplements that contain amylase to help you break down starch or carbs. Lipase to aid in the breakdown of fat, protease to help you break down your proteins. And betaine HCL is actually helps digest your food. Overall, it's an acid, and we need acid to break down the food in our stomach. Many people don't produce enough acid, so the food sits in their stomach too long, causing reflux. This can actually be worsened by taking acid blockers like Zantac Nexium and Protonix. Yeah, they help the symptom of feeling that reflux, but they only magnify the problem in the long run because they are actually suppressing your body from producing the necessary acids and enzymes needed to digest your food. That's why so many people get stuck on these meds for years when they try to go without it, Their body doesn't know how to digest properly. Getting off those medications can be challenging, but actually functional medicine physicians can help you with that. We get to the root cause of why you're having the symptom in the first place and get you back into balance. It's also important to realize that getting all the nutrients we need through our diet alone can be very challenging. Fortunately, supplementation can help with this, specifically with magnesium, B vitamins and D. Magnesium is a mineral needed for a multitude of functions in our body. For example, it helps calm our nervous system, prevents the production of excess cortisol. Deficiency is on the rise because we've had a drastic decline in the food source of magnesium over the decades. We've over farmed our soils and depleted the necessary minerals we're supposed to get out of our food that we eat. And we're eating less real food in general. The latest report I read was that magnesium content in vegetables has declined 80% since 1950. And typical grain refining processes for bread and pasta remove about 80 to 95% of the total magnesium out of there. That is why I would say most of us are requiring a magnesium supplement these days. Vitamin D deficiency is also on the rise. Vitamin D actually acts as a hormone inside of our body and helps to keep inflammation levels low. It works to regulate estrogen levels in the body. Did you know that? That's amazing. And thyroid, hello. Vitamin D is termed the sunshine vitamin because the body actually creates it. When our skin is exposed to sunlight, however, most of us slather on the sunscreen and rarely see the sun. Especially if you are in the northern part of the hemisphere like I am and don't see the sun from October to April. So supplementation super important. You want those levels up between 50 and 70 to be getting the maximum benefit. B vitamins play many vital roles in the body. Because there's so many different B vitamins, it's recommended taking a methylated B complex to ensure you're getting the proper intake of each of them. So B vitamins are responsible for liver detoxification, detoxification, mood elevating effects, nerve function, thyroid hormone activation and maintaining estrogen balance. So even if you're taking a B supplement, you may not be getting a methylated version, which is the active form of that vitamin. And a lot of us actually don't have the necessary cofactors to activate B vitamins. So I always recommend taking a methylated B complex for maximum benefit. While it's possible for you to get those required nutrients through your diet, it's super difficult, like I said. So ultimately supplementation is your best bet. Another awesome way to balance your hormones is with adaptogens. Adaptogens are a unique class of healing plants that help to restore imbalances and normalize our physiologic functions in the body. A number of herbs have been investigated for their adaptogenic properties. They promote hormone balance and protect the body from a wide variety of diseases, including chronic stress related illness. For example, ashwagandha, medicinal mushrooms, rhodiola and holy basil have been studied and proven to offer the following. Improved thyroid function, lower your bad cholesterol, naturally reduce anxiety and depression, reduce brain cell degeneration, stabilize blood sugar and insulin insulin levels and support adrenal gland function. Ashwagandha in particular can be extremely effective at balancing hormones and can also help overcome adrenal fatigue. Its effects on cortisol stress tolerance, internal stress responses have been studied for decades. I see this in my office all the time. I put women on an adrenal supplement that has Ashwagandha in it and and they can manage their daily stress again and get some sleep. You can use it as a powder and make tea. You can do half a teaspoon of Ashwagandha powder with a cup of hot water and a teaspoon of lemon. That's a quick, easy one, but you can also take it as a pill or in a liquid. Holy Basil is another great adaptogen. It helps to regulate our cortisol levels, making it a viable natural remedy for anxiety and emotional stress. So studies actually reveal hormone imbalance related to chemical stress from pollutants and heavy metals can be restored with the addition of Holy Basil and a detox program. So if you do do my true cellular detox program online at www.dr. tabitha.com, I would recommend adding Holy Basil to that to your regimen. After you finish that 90 day detox, I'm going to have an entire podcast episode dedicated to adaptogens because they are so effective at balancing our hormones. So look for that in an upcoming episode. Lastly, essential oils are a natural way to combat all the chemicals that we're exposed to, you know, in our beauty care products, in our Glade plug ins, in our cleaning products. Most beauty products have harmful chemicals like dea, parabens, polyethylene glycol and sodium lauryl sulfate. These disrupt hormone function and encourage imbalance. So some of the best essential oils for hormone balancing are Clary sage, fennel, lavender, sandalwood and thyme. Clary sage definitely helps to balance estrogen levels. You can put three to five drops of that in your diffuser to help balance hormone levels and relieve your stress. Fennel can relax your body, improve your digestion and gut health, and boost your metabolism and reduce inflammation. Add one or two drops of fennel to a glass of warm water or tea and drink it. It's amazing. Lavender oil promotes emotional balance as it can help with anxiety, depression and stress. I love adding it to a hot Epsom salt bath or you can add it to your diffuser to reap the benefits. Sandalwood triggers peaceful feelings and results in an overall reduction of stress. Try adding a few drops to a diffuser or just put some in your hand and inhale it. I actually did that thanks to my good friend Holly Cole. I did that before I gave my big speech at the bee event this past year and it calmed me right down. It was amazing. So thanks Holly. And lastly, thyme oil. Thyme improves progesterone production and helps to balance hormones naturally. So try adding a couple drops of thyme to a warm bath or rub two to three drops with equal part coconut oil onto your lower abdomen, your pelvic area. If you have a favorite essential oil or adaptogen or food hack to balance your hormones, I would love to hear about it. So share it with me on Facebook or Instagram @Doctor Tabitha. Well thanks for joining me today ladies. I hope you found this information useful. It's super important to balance those hormones, to feel better and to prevent disease. Sharing this with people who are eager to transform their health excites me. So pass this episode on to your friends, your sisters, your co workers, moms, whoever you think would benefit from this information. I'd be super honored if you'd leave me a five star review on itunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. It will let me know that what I'm doing is worth my time and it will get this information out to all the women who need it. So please follow me on Facebook or Instagram @Doctor Tabitha and if you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to direct message me. I want to hear your feedback. You can also check out my website like I mentioned@www.dr. tabitha.com. I am here to support you. Thanks for letting me be your functional gynecologist. Now go out and conquer that world.