Estrogen & Your Mood 🫤
I can't believe it's mid-November already…?! Brrr. ❄️
While winter can make us all a little less sunny an bright, if you’ve been struggling with your mood, there may be more to it…
As your estrogen starts to fall in the middle/later stages of perimenopause, your mood can really suffer.
And if you’ve been skipping periods regularly, this is a tell-tale sign your estrogen has declined.
I was actually just talking to a client - let’s call her Susie - who hadn’t had a period in 4-6 months and was feeling a lot of depression and lack of connection which was new for her. 😢
Estradiol is the most potent form of estrogen in your body, and it’s the one that tends to fall first in peri.
It plays a big role on how you do or do NOT make serotonin and oxytocin.
Serotonin can play a role in our mood, and oxytocin plays a role in our bonding, attachment, and that surge of 'loving' feelings. 💗
When levels drop down (as in Susie’s case), this negatively affects both hormones.
If you're hitting the stage where estrogens are lower because of skipped periods OR you're menopausal, AND you're noticing your mood has sunk, you're not feeling loved or loving, and overall kind of blah - this could be why. 🙁
BTW - Please don’t feel bad if you feel like you wanna strangle your partner/kids/boss on the regular these days…this is SO normal, as per this hilarious IG post (which made me literally LOL this morning!)
In Susie’s case, we talked about neurotransmitter support as an option, like tryptophan, vitamin B6 (the P5P form), 5HTP, and hormone replacement options including estradiol and progesterone….
And as I explained to my her, tryptophan is NOT my go-to because she needs estradiol to convert it from tryptophan to 5HTP (which then goes on to make serotonin).
It should go like this:
Tryptophan ➡️ 5HTP ➡️ Serotonin 🙂
…If you have decreased levels of estradiol, you might struggle to get to ➡️ 5HTP.
Susie was not on any anti-depressant medication and decided to talk with her prescribing doctor about hormones and 5HTP (the supplement), while working on the health foundations of sleep, stress, community, movement, etc… and it made a big difference. 🙌
But before you run to the store, please talk with your healthcare practitioner about what's right for you if you're feeling this way!
One of the best things you can do to boost your mood RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT?
Go outside and get bright, natural, unfiltered light (no sunglasses) in your eyes, even if it’s cloudy and cold. As I wrote in a previous post, light is profound medicine and can truly make a whopping great difference to your mood and hormone health!
❤️
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