As women, our hormonal health is an integral part of our overall wellbeing. It affects everything from our mood and energy levels to our reproductive health and beyond. Yet, it’s common to feel overwhelmed or unsure about how to manage our hormonal health naturally. With the vast amount of information available, it can be challenging to know where to start.
Whether you’re dealing with PMS, menopause, or infertility, or simply want to improve your overall hormonal balance, this article is for you. We’ll discuss lifestyle factors that can impact hormonal health, the benefits of natural remedies such as herbal supplements, and specific recommendations for supplements like Affron, Ashwagandha, and medicinal mushrooms. Remember, it’s always essential to consult with a healthcare professional before starting any new supplements or treatments.
Understanding hormonal health
As women, our hormones play a critical role in our overall health and wellbeing. Our hormonal balance is a delicate system that involves many different hormones, including estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, among others. Hormonal imbalances can cause a wide range of symptoms, including mood swings, irregular periods, fatigue, weight gain, and even infertility.
Read more: How to help ease menstrual cramps
Understanding our hormonal health is essential to manage and improve it. While hormonal imbalances can be caused by a variety of factors, including genetics, diet, stress, and environmental factors, it’s crucial to note that hormonal imbalances are not a personal failing. They are a normal part of being a woman and something that we can work to manage and improve.
Balanced hormones are essential for our overall health and wellbeing. They can help regulate our menstrual cycles, support healthy pregnancies, and even affect our mood and energy levels. Hormonal imbalances can cause a variety of health issues, including PMS, menopause, and infertility, to name a few.
What are the different stages of the menstrual cycle?
The menstrual cycle is a critical part of our hormonal health as women. It’s the monthly cycle that our bodies go through to prepare for a potential pregnancy. The menstrual cycle is divided into four phases: the follicular phase, ovulation, the luteal phase, and menstruation.
The follicular phase begins on the first day of menstruation and lasts for approximately 10-14 days. During this phase, the hormone estrogen begins to rise, which helps prepare the body for ovulation. As the follicular phase progresses, the lining of the uterus thickens in preparation for a potential pregnancy. There is an overlap with the menstruation phase during this time, which can last around 3-7 days for women. Some women will experience longer periods than others.
Ovulation occurs when a mature egg is released from the ovary, usually around day 14 of the menstrual cycle. During this phase, the hormone estrogen peaks, and the hormone luteinizing hormone (LH) surges, triggering the release of the egg. Ovulation is the most fertile time in the menstrual cycle, and it’s essential for women who are trying to conceive to understand this phase.
The luteal phase begins after ovulation and lasts for approximately 10-14 days. During this phase, the hormone progesterone begins to rise, which helps prepare the uterus for a potential pregnancy. If the egg is not fertilised, progesterone levels drop, and the lining of the uterus sheds, resulting in menstruation.
Natural ways to improve hormonal health
There are many natural ways to manage and optimise our hormonal health. Lifestyle changes can play a factor by maintaining a balanced and healthy diet, regular exercise and finding ways to manage stress. However, these options don’t always provide the best solution in managing the side effects our hormones can cause.
Jodie and Paris Welton, sisters and business partners discovered adaptogenic herbs when their bodies and rhythms started to change post 40. Perimenopause caused Paris to suffer with insomnia, brain fog and intermittent achy joints that prompted her to go down an online rabbit hole of googling arthritis and bone cancer at 3am. Jodie started to experience an irrational annoyance of everyone and everything during the days leading up to her period, never afflicted by PMS before, the strength and voracity came as an unwelcome surprise.
After shying away from modern pharmaceutical options, they began researching traditional plant-based medicine and stumbled across Ashwagandha, a powerful adaptogenic herb. After using this successfully, they soon discovered that they didn’t need it every day but did recognise a pattern connected to their menstrual cycle; by listening to the body, it became obvious that they needed something else to support the different phases of the monthly cycle and embarked upon a journey to learn which plant-based food supplements could help them with the ebbs and flows of each phase.
The sisters experimented with herbs and supplements but were unable to find anything effective enough to support them naturally. This led to the pair creating the world’s first four-phase menstrual cycle supplement, with the support of expert herbal alchemists.
The carefully crafted, potent adaptogenic blends, include Affron® and medicinal mushrooms to support the body at just the right time. Jodie and Paris began cycle synching and taking the right blends at the right time of the month and the results were outstanding. Jodie’s irritability and dark moods turned into love and light, elevated by the daily Affron® dose and hormonally supported by the adaptogenic herbs and mushrooms. Paris no longer felt exhausted, sleeping all night and energised in the day, she took up her life-long love of horse riding again and that dodgy joint pain is nowhere to be seen.
Their first product to market; ‘Harmony’ has been developed by female hormone health herbalists to gently bring the menstrual cycle into natural alignment and alleviate ‘normalised’ dis-ease associated with having periods, such as PMT, pain, cravings, insomnia, headaches, anxiety and more.
Harmony offers four intelligent, adaptogenic herbal blends designed to support a women’s natural cycle by using targeted, traditional ingredients with specific qualities relevant for each of the phases: menstruation, follicular, ovulation and luteal. All the blends include Affron®, clinically proven to help maintain a good mood, a state of relaxation and mental and physical wellbeing.
The adaptogens used in the Harmony blends nourish the body throughout the menstrual cycle, for all women with a natural cycle aged 18+. There are also specific benefits that can help alleviate the unpleasant symptoms that often appear at specific life stages:
For women aged 18-30, it can settle mood swings, heavy periods, cravings, bloating etc, reduce painful cramps, reduce hormonal skin breakouts, and regulate cycle length.
For women in their 30’s, it can aid fertility, maintain a healthy mood, alleviate stress, craving, bloating, headaches, reduce premenstrual water retention, and support detoxification.
For women in their 40’s, it helps aid good sleep, supports normal cognitive health, overall mental wellness and contributes to relieving perimenopausal symptoms, supports healthy libido, reduces anxiety, and supports healthy metabolism.
The groundbreaking way Harmony works
The Harmony blends support the vastly changing needs of the female body during the four distinct phases of the menstrual cycle. Ovulation presents a very different hormonal landscape to menstruation for example, so the herbalists at Adaptogenic Apothecary have carefully crafted their blends to offer maximum changing support for each phase.
Harmony includes 28 individual herbal sachets that guide women from day 1 of their cycle, right through to the end, carefully nourishing the body throughout the natural changes and fluctuations.
“Our actual physiology and energy demands change throughout each stage with intricate dynamic shifts of our hormone balance.In each of the Harmony blends there is a combination of ingredients working in synergy to support the female body optimally during every stage of the cycle.”
Sara Rooney, BSc Hons, Ba Hons, NIMH, female hormone health herbalist
Ingredients
Harmony’s finely tuned adaptogenic herbal blends include the power of Affron®, the heroine patented ingredient found in all the blends. Published clinical studies prove Affron® is effective for alleviating occasional stress, maintaining a healthy mood and avoiding occasional sleeplessness. Affron® also supports normal cognitive health, overall mental wellness and contributes to relieving menopause symptoms.
The menstrual blend is a delicious grounding blend to support women through the ‘winter-time’ of the cycle. It includes food state minerals and mood enhancing phytochemicals to help rest, nourish and restore, including cacao, ashwagandha, Affron® and chaga mushroom.
The follicular blend supports and nourishes the body after bleeding when the hormone oestrogen gradually rises. The ingredients are energising and nutritive to support vitality during this ‘spring’ stage of the cycle, including goji berry, rosehip, reishi spore and Affron®.
The ovulation blend helps women during the crescendo of the female cycle, the ‘summer’ of the cycle. This is the peak time for physical activity and sport. When in balance during ovulation, women are most energised and their athletic ability (and libido) increases. The ingredients support healthy hormone balance and aid detoxification as well as enhancing libido.
The luteal blend is designed to support the ‘autumn’ phase of the menstrual cycle. Women often experience more fatigue, irritability, anxiety, constipation and cravings driven by blood sugar imbalances. The luteal blend is designed to soothe any potential symptoms of this stage by supporting the nervous system, levelling out mood swings and creating a restful balanced state in the build-up to menstruation.
Each of the harmony blends include an optimised balance of:
- Adaptogens: A category of herbs and medicinal mushrooms that help the human body adapt to stress, support normal metabolic processes, and restore balance. They increase the body’s resistance to physical, biological, emotional, and environmental stressors and promote normal physiological function.
- Tonics: Herbs that are used to invigorate, tone, or restore balance in the body. Tonics are widely used in traditional systems of medicine like the Chinese and Ayurvedic systems.
- Medicinal Foods: Herbs, spices and plants that are rich in phytochemicals and antioxidants. They are very nutritive and contain high levels of beneficial vitamins and minerals. Often, containing high levels of flavonoids with healing and anti-inflammatory properties.
“Our Harmony blends are designed to empower women to ride the waves of their feminine nature with potent ease and grace. Affron® is clinically proven to elevate mood while the carefully selected herbs and mushrooms work with your body to bring about harmony where there once was dis-ease.”
Paris Welton, co-founder of Adaptogenic Apothecary
Harmony is now available to buy for £80 for a one-month supply (28 sachets).
As women, our hormonal health is critical to our overall well being. Understanding the different stages of the menstrual cycle and natural ways to manage and improve hormonal health can help us support our bodies and live a healthier life.
Remember, it’s essential to listen to our bodies and seek professional help when needed. Hormonal imbalances can have significant impacts on our physical and emotional health, and it’s crucial to address them promptly.
By taking a holistic approach to our health, including a balanced diet, regular exercise, stress management, and natural remedies like Harmony, we can support our bodies and improve our hormonal health.
Let’s take care of ourselves and each other. We all deserve to live healthy and fulfilling lives, and by prioritising our hormonal health, we can achieve just that.