The hormonal balance translates to feeling better and living longer. Hormonal balance entails having the proper quantity of each hormone and a healthy and resilient physique. Hormones have a role in every area of your health, and you require them in precise amounts for your body to work correctly. Hormone imbalances might raise your chances of developing obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems. Hormonal imbalances can cause various unpleasant symptoms, including tiredness, weight gain, itchy skin, and depression.
Ayurveda is a combination of two Sanskrit words: ‘ayus,’ which means ‘life,’ and ‘Veda,’ which means ‘science,’ thus Ayurveda means ‘life science.’ Ayurveda emphasizes healthy living rather than disease treatment. Ayurveda is a Sanskrit term formed from two roots: ayur (life) and Veda (knowledge). Science is the orderly arrangement of proficiency with reasoning. Ayurveda eventually became known as the science of life. Dhanvantari, the gods’ physician in Hindu mythology, is credited with learning Ayurveda from Brahma.
Today, we will discuss a few ways you can support balanced hormones with Ayurveda.
Fight-Or-Flight Hormones
Stress is an epidemic in today’s world. Doctors are prescribing antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs at higher rates than ever before, with one in every six people using them. In addition, one in every four women currently takes mental medicine, compared to one in every seven males. The fight-flight-or-freeze response originates in the amygdala, which signals the body to release a cascade of chemicals such as cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine.
Pay attention to your physical body and be aware of the following indications of elevated stress:
- Breathing quickly
- Heart rate has increased
- Flashes of heat
- Thoughts that race
The body’s capacity to participate in fight-flight-or-freeze mode is a sign of health, and this age-old survival mechanism of the neurological system is valuable. It allowed our forefathers to defend themselves against predators, which is why we are still here today.
Hormone Balance and Diet
Ayurveda offers tools to assist us in building resilience against the hormonal imbalances we are prone to. The mind and body alternate between two states: rest and digest (parasympathetic) and fight-or-flight (sympathetic), which we might compare to Prakriti or our natural condition, and vikriti, or disharmony. When we go from Prakriti to vikriti, parasympathetic to sympathetic, digestion is the first thing to go offline. It doesn’t matter what’s for lunch if there’s a tiger at the door.
Supporting the digestive fire, Agni improves communication between the body and mind via the enteric nervous system. Ayurveda recommends working with herbs that kindle the digestive fire (deepana) and herbs that aid digestion (pachana) to minimize ama, or poisons, and safeguard Agni’s vigour.
Ways to Help Agni:
- Take Easy Digest liquid extract, a fantastic tridoshic combination for Agni support.
- Cook using ghee to increase your intake of healthy fats.
- Follow dosha-appropriate diets, limit processed foods, and modify your diet seasonally.
- Learning to practice mindful eating is the most beneficial practice for digestion since Ayurveda teaches us that when we eat, we take in the food we are eating and the emotions there.
- It is critical to reducing tension at mealtimes.
If you are anxious at work, eat the smallest meal at lunch and the most substantial meal in the morning.
Increasing Emotional Resilience
Repairing the hormonal body might also entail mending the emotional body. Fear, wrath, and grief are often encountered emotions; we lack originality, innocence, and delight and often don’t know where to go for them. Working at a Los Angeles integrative psychiatry clinic has taught me that mending the emotional body does not always include talking about and processing trauma or dealing with guilt and shame. It is about discovering our most sensitive aspects and integrating them into ourselves.
Being willing to confront our fears and breathe through the discomfort. Finally, pranayama is significant to women’s hormone homeostasis. In practice, it causes the body to enter a relaxation response, or rest and digest, which conserves energy by slowing the heart rate, increasing intestine and glandular activity, and relaxing sphincter muscles in the gastrointestinal tract.
Hormones act as messengers between the mind and the body, and Ayurveda can teach us how to maintain our thoughts and bodies in harmony and the hormones that regulate them.
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