You were fine all day, but suddenly and like an unexpected tidal wave feel a strong surge of anger and sadness. You just want to quit working, stop responding to the never-ending messages you’ve been receiving all day fighting for your attention, and curl up under your fluffy blanket and stay there for eternity. Or at least until you can feel like a balanced person again. What gives? You begin to wonder. Ahhhh, you think to yourself, as the answer hits you like a giant boulder. It’s that time of the month……

But women aren’t the only ones experiencing sudden and very much felt hormonal changes. This happens to all of us and can negatively or positively alter the direction of our day and our week. Hormones are our body's chemical messengers and they are released by our glands into the bloodstream. Once this process occurs, they can act on our various tissues and organs and control how we feel and how our entire body functions. Basically, everything that we do has some kind of a hormonal reaction. Even something as simple as standing up straight and placing both of our hands on our hips can increase testosterone, for example. Hormones affect us differently depending on the stage of our life. And some are responsible for growth, while others are in charge of mood regulation.  

Our hormones impact our mood by making us feel balanced and euphoric. But they can also do the opposite and make us feel tired, moody, and angry. When out of balance hormones can make us feel tired and depressed. Luckily, a healthy-diet, exercise, sunshine, sleep, socializing, and music can all support a more balanced hormonal health.

In this article I am going to write about various hormones and how they impact our mood. From our low mood to our happy mood to how well or how poorly we sleep. Our hormones have a huge impact on our physical and mental health and wellbeing.

Hormones Can Make Us Feel Depressed, Anxious, and Angry

Depending on which stage of life we are in, hormones can have various effects on us. From toddlerhood to teenage years to adulthood and menopause. For instance, women in their 40’s tend to experience a decline in their thyroid health or experience hypothyroidism, the thyroid hormone responsible for body temperature regulation, our metabolism, and our brain chemistry. When we have an underactive thyroid then our body isn’t producing the correct amount of hormones and that can lead to an inability to cope with stress, feeling overwhelmed by things, anxiety, depression, and volatile mood-swings.

Next are our adrenal hormones, which play a big role in controlling our mood and keeping the chemicals in our brain stable. Unfortunately, too many people are living in high-stress environments which ultimately negatively impact their hormones and in turn their mood. Overrun adrenals can be caused by stressful jobs, relationship problems, kid problems, financial worries, too much exercise, and living in polluted environments such as in the cities. All of this can cause our adrenals to overexert and produce too much cortisol and not enough adrenalin. This can negatively impact our mood by impacting our energy levels and cause us to feel extremely moody and tired.

Males who experience a drop in testosterone, which is another hormone and tends to decline as we age, have been observed to become a lot less competitive, more tired, moody, and depressed. Luckily, the right foods, exercise, and even hormonal replacement therapy can all be used as a very effective tool to increase testosterone again, even as we age.

Hormones Can Make Us Feel Amazing 

Dopamine, Endorphins, Oxytocin, Serotonin…...oh my. Or those feel-amazing neurotransmitters that carry messages across the spaces between nerve cells. A healthy dose of those hormones, from exercising to hugging and kissing, can make us feel amazing and is a guaranteed way to lift us out of a not-so-great mood. But be careful, though, as everything has a dark side, which means that even too much of a good thing can lead to addiction and the craving for more.

Want to increase those beautiful hormones and feel better in an instant? Follow these tips:

• Exercise

• Talk to a positive person or a great friend

• Eat nutritious and whole foods like fruits and vegetables

• Read a motivating and inspiring book

• Do charity work and help other people

• Go out into nature and get some sun

• Play with your kids or your pets

• Hug a stranger or if that’s too weird then hug your parents or friends

• Listen to uplifting music with high vibration

• Meditate

• Travel

• Think of something amazing and imagine as if you are there

• Help your neighbor

• Connect to your higher self

• Do some shopping

• Have sex

• Bake some healthy goodies

Hormones Can Negatively or Positively Affect Our Sleep and Make Us Feel Rested or Tired

What if I told you that your whole Circadian Rhythm can be negatively affected by going outside and wearing those “fashionable” sunglasses while smudging yourself in a heavy sunblock. Did you know that through light and sun exposure our bodies produce certain hormones like melatonin which helps us sleep better and the increase of it throughout the day helps us get ready for sleep. By artificially interfering with this natural process, we hinder our sleep by disrupting our hormones and in turn negatively impact our mood and overall wellbeing.

According to avenamedical.com, “the sun's spectrum is made up of different wavelengths of light. Longer waves that carry more heat are part of the red light spectrum, whereas shorter, more energetic waves are part of the blue light spectrum. We get natural doses of blue light from the sun throughout the morning hours, which signals our body to wake up. The levels of blue light decrease as the day goes on until sunset, which is made up of mostly red light. This red light triggers our body to increase melatonin levels and prepare for sleep. Similarly, levels of UV irradiation change throughout the day, with late morning and afternoon having the greatest amount. The UV portion of the spectrum stimulates production of hormones critical to our circadian processes, particularly melatonin and dopamine. By wearing sunglasses, we block the sun's critical messages and our bodies can't effectively tell time. The result is mismatched circadian signaling, which manifests as mitochondrial inefficiency, hormonal imbalance, metabolic disorders, and cognitive dysfunction.”

Some strange thing that I’ve noticed is that most of us are being pushed into wearing sunglasses and sunscreen in order to prevent skin-cancer and to prevent us from being exposed to the sun's harmful radiation. However, why aren’t we being educated and warned about these huge implications of using these so-called “safety” tools? From messing with our hormones and ultimately our mood to dangerous and toxic substances that are put into sunscreen that have been known to disrupt our endocrine system.

In Conclusion

Our hormones are a huge factor in determining how we feel. From making us depressed, anxious, and angry to making us feel like we are on top of the world. Stress, poor diet, polluted environment, relationship problems and certain stages of your life can have a negative impact on your hormones and in turn make you feel down in the dumps. While exercising, great company, cooking, and feel-good activities can alter and improve your hormones so you feel renewed and energized. We are more in control than we realize and by utilizing various methods we can lift our mood and positively impact our wellbeing. And ultimately we can improve our sleep hormone, melatonin, and stop interfering with our Circadian Rhythm, by discontinuing our crazy obsession with sunblock and sunglasses during the day. This can help us sleep better and ultimately help balance out hormones and help prevent nasty mood swings.