How do we know the state of our hormonal health if we don’t understand our natural cycles, or worse if we create artificial cycles with pharmaceutical (artificial) hormones?
But before we get into that, lets examine the major hormones throughout our lifecycle. Before we are even born we develop our sex hormones, particularly in our gonads (testicles and ovaries). Our mother’s state of health during the pregnancy also helps determine our epigenetics and the tendencies that we will carry with us after we are born.
For a female our ovaries are developed and all our eggs are produced before we are even born. It is from there that some of our main reproductive hormones are produced. As a child these generally lie dormant but once we hit puberty this is where our menstrual cycle begins. Our ovaries produce hormones to create and perpetuate the cycle and initially at puberty there is a couple of years where our body is still calibrating to get things right.
Sometimes this can be challenging and in this modern day and age there are many hormonal controls given to women to supposedly help regulate the menstrual cycle (the pill being a major one), but in actual fact they do not regulate our natural cycle, they just turn off the regular cycle and either create a bleed to make us think we are still having a normal cycle or turn off the period all together. The outcome is that women lose touch with the rhythms of their body.
During the reproductive phase of a woman’s life she is always working cyclically. Traditional cultures acknowledge this and allow women to rest when in the down phase or the bleeding part of her cycle. Women are encouraged to use this time for rest, recuperation and even to strengthen their intuitive powers. If this occurs, the woman is set up to have a fruitful time for the remainder of the cycle – often being more creative and productive during the other side of the cycle. Two fabulous women in the UK (Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurliltzer) have written a book – Wild Power – about the super powers of a natural menstrual cycle, which I believe is one of the keys to regaining strength and power during your reproductive years.
If you’re a woman with health challenges, looking for support, get in touch. I’m here to help guide you in a way that allows you to take control of your health now and in the future.