When it comes to our mental health, we know there are dozens of things that can have an impact. Environment, diet, circumstance, social support, stress and trauma are all things that can cause your mental health to decline. But there’s one thing that has much more of an impact than we think - hormones. Particularly in women, who experience more hormonal fluctuations every month, and whose hormones will change as they age. But why do hormones play such a big part in women’s mental health, and is there anything we can do to tame them?
When Are The Major Fluctuations In Hormones?
Reproductive hormones in particular can fluctuate throughout a woman’s life, and change throughout their monthly cycle. However, there are some key points in a woman’s life where hormonal fluctuations happen, and it’s important to know when these are so that you can be prepared:
Puberty: The first big hormonal shift for any woman hits in puberty. Your body releases a special hormone called gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), which triggers the release of luteinizing hormones and follicle-stimulating hormones. These target the ovaries and start the production of oestrogen.
Periods: Almost all women experience a monthly hormone cycle, otherwise known as menstruation. Hormones change throughout a month-long cycle, and around the time of your period they peak, causing physical and emotional changes like heightened emotions, mood swings and irritability. Some women experience this more severely than others, and can suffer from depression, anxiety mood swings and more. In some cases, you can develop PMS (premenstrual syndrome) or PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder).
Pregnancy: Pregnancy brings on rapid hormone changes that can feel overwhelming at times. For a start, your body will make more oestrogen than you do in your entire non-pregnant life, along with big doses of progesterone and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which all help your body grow a baby.
Postpartum: After childbirth, your body goes through a period of adjustment, and once again your hormones are in freefall. Postpartum means your hormone levels can fluctuate wildly, which can lead to some serious mental health issues including postpartum depression, anxiety and even postpartum psychosis (though this is very rare).
Menopause: As we age, our ovaries produce lower levels of oestrogen and progesterone, eventually stopping altogether when we hit menopause. This drop in hormones can cause a lot of different symptoms, including:
- Hot flashes
- Moodiness
- Headaches
- Problems with short-term memory
- Low sex drive
- Sleep issues
And more.
Hysterectomy: If you need to have a hysterectomy, you may have one or both of your ovaries removed. This will essentially put you straight into menopause, and trigger all of those hormonal changes. If only one of the ovaries is removed, this can delay menopause or cause it to happen more slowly, as well as potentially cause a hormone imbalance that takes a while to settle into a new rhythm.
How Does All Of This Affect Mental Health?
Because our hormones are the driving force behind our moods, emotions and mental health. Your hormones are constantly changing throughout your day, and they change over the course of your life. They guide our growth and development, and many of the hormonal changes you experience will affect your emotions and overall mental well-being.
This is because the endocrine system (the glands responsible for creating hormones) releases dozens of hormones into your system on a daily basis. The ones we know are most linked to mental health are:
Serotonin: A neurotransmitter that helps regulate your mood and behaviour. It’s known as one of the ‘happy’ hormones, and imbalances in serotonin play a role in many mood-based psychiatric conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD and OCD.
Dopamine: The neurotransmitter dopamine, along with the dopamine receptors scattered all through your body are another important contributor to mood and emotion, as well as governing the reward system in your brain.
Cortisol: The ‘stress’ hormone, it’s a steroid hormone that controls stress in the body. Its most important role is to activate the ‘fight or flight’ system in your brain, and all of the bodily functions that go with it (like rapid breathing and increased heart rate).
Thyroid Hormone: Created by your thyroid gland, these hormones influence your metabolism, heart, lungs and muscles.
Sex Hormones: Reproductive hormones (for women oestrogen and progesterone) that change throughout your life. They play a huge role in mood, emotions and sexuality.
The timing of when these hormones are released, what is and isn’t released or how much is released can all have a significant impact on your mental state. For example, too much or too little thyroid hormone can cause anxiety. Not enough serotonin can cause depression, and elevated cortisol can lead to a permanently ‘stressed’ feeling.
Can Hormonal Changes Be Managed?
The good news is that, while hormones can impact your mental health, they can also be managed in a variety of ways. The first port of call should always be lifestyle changes. Things like getting enough sleep, exercising, eating a good whole-food diet and sharing your feelings can all help bring your hormones back into balance, and this works well for minor imbalances.
You can also try therapy options. These will be more or less effective depending on the type of symptoms you’re experiencing. For example, depression might be treated with CBT, behavioural therapy or talking therapy. Anxiety is often treated with CBT, exposure therapy and acceptance & commitment therapy, and PMS can be helped with relaxation therapies like meditation and breathing exercises, as well as CBT.
Finally, the next step is to speak to your GP, and see if there are any medications that can treat the mental health issues commonly brought on by hormone imbalances. This might include thyroid medications for hypo or hyperthyroidism, birth control, antidepressants or anti-anxiety medicines.
When it comes to the hormonal changes brought on by menopause, you can opt for hormone replacement therapy (HRT). There are a few different ways it’s administered, but the idea is that it replaces the oestrogen and progesterone your body has stopped producing, tapering down over the course of 2-5 years to reduce the symptoms of menopause.
At MELP, we provide a range of mental health support for individuals and businesses of all shapes and sizes. Whether that’s providing education to school children on the impact of hormones and how to manage them, delivering talks and training to businesses looking to support their employees, or access to our mental well-being app MELP. If you’d like to know more, just get in touch with us today.