Hormones can play crazy games with our emotions, brains, and bodies, right? We’ve all experienced that plenty of times.
But from those first confusing flashes of adolescence, do you know really what your hormones are — and why they’re important to your health and wellbeing throughout your life?
Hormones are about way more than just sex, and they’re nothing to be afraid of or embarrassed about. We’re also talking about weight gain, sleep, emotions, concentration, and more.
Let’s have a little science lesson today with these “fun facts” about hormones:
- We have more than 50 traveling throughout our bodies, and they’re responsible for a wide range of functions, like growth, metabolism, and fertility.
- Our brains tell our glands when to put certain hormones into the bloodstream. The glands are the endocrine system. So, if you’ve ever heard of something messing up hormonal functions, it might’ve been called an “endocrine disruptor.”
- Our sex glands are involved, of course – ovaries and estrogen in women, testes and testosterone in men.
- Having too much or not enough of certain hormones can cause common health problems, ranging from diabetes, thyroid disease, irregular periods, infertility, and obesity.
So, in a nutshell, hormones are super-important to our entire existence. And lots of factors and lifestyle choices can disrupt them – from pregnancy to the environment, from medications to stress.
If you’re feeling lethargic, having trouble with your weight, or experiencing disruptions in your cycle or sex drive, then please talk with your primary care physician about hormone health. He/she can test for possible imbalances or other issues and suggest a course of treatment.
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