Why Boosting Oxytocin Is a Key Puzzle Piece to Balancing Hormones
Most of us are familiar with sex hormones – estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.
But do you really know how they affect your health?
Do you know why they’re important?
Like many things, we don’t give them much thought until something goes wrong.
When your hormones are balanced, you feel good, have energy, and sleep like a baby. But when your hormones are out of balance, they can affect your whole body from the inside out. Whether you’re aware of it or not.
Hormones impact your:
Mood
Skin
Hair
Muscles
Bones
Energy
Fertility
…and so much more.
Hormones control what happens in your body and are key puzzle pieces in helping you build better health. (1)
I’m Dr. Martina Sturm, a functional medicine doctor at Denver Sports and Holistic Medicine. In today’s blog, I discuss why balancing hormones is vital to your health. We’ll also talk about why boosting your “love” hormone, oxytocin, is foundational in helping you feel and look your best.
Hormones Are the Chemical Messengers in Your Body
Hormones are chemicals released from organs in your body into your bloodstream. They deliver essential information to the brain, which impacts many of your body’s functions including:
Growth and development
Metabolism
Electrolyte balance
Reproduction
Hormones are part of the endocrine system. This system is highly complex and involves many types of hormones, including your:
Adrenal Glands
Thyroid
Pancreas
Ovaries
Testes
These organs and others communicate to specific parts of your brain – the hypothalamus and pituitary glands.
When the hypothalamus and pituitary glands receive chemical messages from the body, they analyze the information and then tell the body how to respond. The brain then sends a message back to those specific organs to release more or less hormones. This feedback loop continuously delivers these messages to help the body maintain homeostasis (balance).
There are times when the body needs to respond in a big way, like during pregnancy, menstruation, and menopause. Hormones make that happen.
But hormones aren’t perfect, and the system can be disrupted. When you make diet and lifestyle choices that overload your system, go through hormonal shifts as you age, or experience stress it affects the release of hormones in your body. (3) Toxins in your body and environment can affect your body’s hormone production. Toxins can include:
Pesticides
Food preservatives/additives
Alcohol
Teflon cookware
Unfiltered water
Heavy metals
Medications
Processed food
These can either stimulate the body to produce too much of a hormone or too little. The brain, in return, sends mixed signals to the body and negatively affects how your body functions and how you feel. (2)
Understanding how one hormone communicates to another is key to helping you balance your hormones naturally.
Understanding the Hormonal Hierarchy
The hormonal hierarchy is how your body decides which hormones it needs. Depending on the situation, the brain tells the body to either turn on specific hormones or turn them off.
Dr. Mindy Pelz describes the hormonal hierarchy as a traffic control tower. Using her analogy, the hypothalamus and the pituitary glands act as air traffic control and tell the body which hormones are needed and which are not. They organize and coordinate information coming from our endocrine organs and send messages back to the body, determining which hormones will help the body. (3)
And just like there are different kinds of planes, ones that carry passengers and ones that carry cargo. Some hormones have different responsibilities in the body.
Oxytocin
Oxytocin, your “love hormone”, is your 747. It's your most influential hormone and carries messages to all the other hormones in the body, including your sex hormones.
Your body gets boosts of oxytocin from:
Hugging
Holding a baby
Petting your dog or cat
A loving, safe touch
Yoga
Massage
Sex
Meditation
Mindful conversation
Oxytocin is your calming hormone, and when you have a meaningful conversation with a friend or practice yoga, the boost in oxytocin sends a signal directly to your hypothalamus. This tells the brain that you’re safe and decreases the hormone cortisol, your stress hormone. (3)
Cortisol
Cortisol is your stress hormone and prepares your body to respond to danger. It's the hormone that puts you in “Fight or Flight”.
In today’s modern world, women often experience changes in hormone balance by trying to manage more than ever before, which increases cortisol production. By trying to care for your household, work, kids, and fit in some self-care, you’re constantly telling your body you’re in a state of crisis.
When cortisol surges throughout your body, your brain tells the pancreas to release insulin. The pancreas releases sugar into your bloodstream to help your body have a sudden burst of energy so you can escape danger.
In the Paleolithic era, you needed this sudden spike in blood sugar to help you run away from a sabertooth tiger. But in today’s world, your sabertooth tiger looks more like an overwhelming schedule.
Your crowded schedule can increase your blood sugar so much that it's like you just ate a piece of chocolate cake. The problem is you’re not burning it off by running away. And most of us keep pushing through and doing our best to keep up with the demands of our world. We try to compensate by overexercising and sleeping less which only increases cortisol and can directly lead to weight gain.(4)
This constant state of stress also sends messages to your sex hormones to shut down because your body is focusing on surviving and not thriving.
Estrogen
Estrogen thrives when our insulin is low. It's an important sex hormone in females that prepares the uterus for reproduction.
Estrogen is produced by your ovaries and later spikes during puberty to help the female body develop breasts and start menstruating.
As your body ages and moves into menopause, estrogen levels decrease, telling your body it no longer needs to procreate. Not only is estrogen important in reproduction, but it also supports your:
Heart
Brain
Muscles
Bones
Mood
Libido (5)
When insulin is high and estrogen is low, your body cannot function in an optimal state.
Testosterone
Testosterone can be found in both men and women. It impacts:
Sex Drive
Muscle mass
Bone mass
Mood
Energy
Red Cell Production (6)
If testosterone is too low or too high, especially in women, it can lead to Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), tumors, and changes in adrenal function. (7)
Women typically feel their best when testosterone and progesterone are in balance during the ovulation phase. (2)
Progesterone
Progesterone thrives when cortisol is low. In women, progesterone supports reproductive health, specifically the lining of the uterus and the implantation of a fertilized egg.
If you conceive, progesterone increases in your body to support a growing fetus. Other important roles of progesterone are to regulate:
Bleeding during menstruation
Thyroid function
Mood
Lactation (8)
Each sex hormone responds differently to cortisol and insulin. And when they are out of balance, they can really affect your health and how you feel. (2)
Four Reasons Your Hormones Are Out of Balance
Your hormone function is a delicate balance between your endocrine organs and the brain. And it's not hard to understand how this dance can be easily disrupted. There are four elements impacting your body's ability to maintain this balance. They are:
Age-related changes
Lifestyle
Environmental
Medical conditions
Medications
Ready to make a change? Let’s dive in.
Age-Related Changes
Throughout your adult life, your body and its ability to function begin to gradually decline. Changes you may notice are:
Weaker bones
Loss of muscle
More fat
Reduced mental clarity
Forgetfulness
Our bodies become more sensitive to the hormones produced, especially cortisol.
Your body is unable to function like it did when you were in your 20s. Other factors like inflammation, nutrition, and the onset of chronic disease affect how you age. Add in natural hormonal changes, and it is hard to separate from one another. (9)
Lifestyle Factors
How we sleep, what we eat, and how we move have a vital role in helping you balance your hormones.
Being intentional with your sleep hygiene, limiting inflammatory foods, and getting enough movement have the power to improve your health and optimize your hormone function. (10)
But these aren’t the only lifestyle factors affecting your hormone function. The quality of your relationships and how you connect with others also help to regulate cortisol and can increase your oxytocin levels.
The more oxytocin in your body, the more calm you feel. When you’re feeling relaxed, your brain can filter, organize, and communicate with other parts of your body. This helps the systems in your body function more efficiently and optimally. (2)
Environmental Toxins
You come into contact with natural and human-made chemicals every day. Some of these chemicals can interfere with your hormone function. These chemicals change the way hormones communicate with your brain.
Examples of where you may encounter some of these chemicals include:
Most cosmetics
Conventional cleaning products
Pesticides
Toxic packaging
Certain synthetic fabrics
Teflon cookware
Heavy metals
Plastic containers/water bottles
Aluminum cans
Unfiltered drinking and shower water
Non-organic food
Processed food
Seed oils
Apeel on organic fruits and vegetables (12)
Some symptoms related to chronic exposure to chemicals found in your environment include:
ADHD
Autoimmunity
Emotional disorders
Digestive issues
Poor blood sugar regulation
Early puberty
Infertility
Cancer
In today’s world, avoiding all endocrine-disrupting chemicals is virtually impossible. But finding ways to limit your exposure to these types of chemicals can help support your ability to balance your hormones. (12)
Medications
One of the most common reasons my patients seek help is because they’re looking for a more natural way to feel better.
Many of them have taken or are currently taking medications that change how their hormones function. Over-the-counter and prescription drugs like:
Pain medications
Steroids
Acne creams and medications
Psychiatric medications (14)
These are just some of the drugs that can disrupt your hormone function. But how do you know if your hormones deliver information straight to your brain?
Common Symptoms of Hormone Imbalance
There are over 50 different types of hormones in your body. Imbalance happens when your endocrine organs release too much or too little of any of them.
Common symptoms of hormone imbalance are:
Fatigue
Poor blood sugar regulation
Anxiety and depression
Difficulty regulating your body temperature
Hair loss
Sudden changes in your weight
Excessive thirst and frequent urination (13)
And because we’re all different, the symptoms you have may differ from someone else’s. Identifying early signs and symptoms of hormone imbalance in your body is key to regulating your hormones and managing your symptoms. (13)
How to Balance Hormones Naturally
Oxytocin is a powerful hormone that helps calm your body and manage the release of cortisol. It has a direct impact on your sex hormones. The cool thing is you can enjoy boosts of oxytocin to make you feel better and positively impact those around you.
You can help balance your hormones by participating in oxytocin-boosting activities like:
Physical Touch (hugging, massage, holding hands, sex, cuddling)
Yoga
Meditation
Essential oils
Exercise
Meaningful conversation with a friend
Helping others
Playing/petting your pets
Giving/receiving gifts (1)(14)
By understanding the hormonal hierarchy and recognizing oxytocin as a foundational hormone, you can better manage your health and how you feel. Adding intense exercise and fasting for longer periods of time can also be effective in balancing your hormones. But how do you know if these strategies are right for you?
Get the Help You Need at Denver Sports and Holistic Medicine
Hormones are tricky. They are complicated. And having a thorough understanding of how the systems in your body work together are crucial to digging down and discovering the root cause of what is impacting your health.
By combining the best functional medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine, I act as a guide to help your body move in the right direction.
I partner with you and help you make small lifestyle shifts that can have a huge impact on your health. I’m here to help you along on your health journey. Book a free consultation and discover how balancing hormones can build better health.
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