7 ways to balance hormones naturally (men and women)

Hormone replacement therapy is all the rage lately and if you've gone to see an MD or a primary care doctor they might have told you we can give you bioidentical hormones. Guys, see through what's marketing. But let's say you actually do want to work on your hormones. Let's say you're a guy who has low libido, not enough oomph and you're a little bit fatigued, or you're a woman having changes in your menstrual cycle, or your period's been very very painful, or there's something else that's been going on. There are actual alternatives that you can utilize for improving your hormones. Now let's take it a step further and let's say you can't see me, you don't want to take any herbs or supplements, but you still want to rebalance hormones. Well actually there are seven lifestyle practices you can do that will alter certain hormones and in this video we'll discuss the seven different practices, which hormones they specifically alter, and basically what you can do on a daily basis if you never spend a dime and never see a medical professional. Hey guys I'm Dr. Alex Haim, board licensed doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine and author of the health book Master of the Day. So let's jump in. Lifestyle practice number one that you can do if you never take any of the Chinese or Western herbs that I give you is certain changes to your diet. We'll give you four of these you can utilize. The first being incorporating healthy fats. Fat sources like avocados, nuts, seeds, olive oil, and fatty fish often have omega-3 fatty acids which can help regulate hormones like cortisol and insulin. The second is proteins. So protein-rich foods provides amino acids necessary for certain kinds of hormone production, particularly insulin and growth hormone. So sometimes people come in, they're training really hard, even yoga can be very very difficult, and they're not eating enough protein to get the growth hormone to build more muscle. Even if you're a woman and you don't want to be huge, you still want to have that muscular and lean and toned and tight look, you still want to have enough protein. The third food group is low glycemic foods. Avoiding sugar spikes by focusing on whole grains, vegetables, and legumes which can help stabilize your insulin levels. So for so many people today who have type 2 diabetes, one of the main ultimately causes of death in many developed countries. So incorporating this to keep your body very insulin sensitive is very important. The fourth is cruciferous vegetables. You've probably heard this term but in terms of the vegetables they are, it includes veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and actually they support estrogen metabolism. So that's very interesting because while we do have some foods and like kind of food grade herbs like yams called Shan Yao in Chinese, which can also increase female hormones, certain foods can as well. Now the second overall lifestyle practice you can do is a cluster of practices that will manage your stress levels. So for example, if we talk about meditation yoga, these have been shown to decrease levels of cortisol, a key stress hormone. So for so many people who are having circadian rhythm issues with sleeping, you're feeling on edge all the time or you're feeling anxious, it can be related in part due to cortisol and exercise in general but these two in particular can really benefit that. Secondarily, adaptogenic herbs, if you want to go more in the herbal route, can really help manage your cortisol levels as well. Like for us, for example, Chinese medicine herbs Renshan, ginseng is very very effective for regulating cortisol. Huangqi, astragalus, very good for managing stress levels and regulating immune function. Non-TCM herbs include things like ashwagandha or rhodiola. Those have pretty interesting scientific research on specifically how they affect cortisol and your adrenal function. Now sometimes it's not always easy to know where your symptoms are coming from and I've taken the time to put together this free quiz. You know, according to traditional Chinese medicine, your symptoms are likely coming from this organ or this physiological functional pathway. It's the first link below this video. You can also just go to dralexhaiming.com forward slash quiz. We've taken a lot of time to put together this 10-page handout that you can score yourself on and at the end of it, we've actually linked to some of our top videos on that specific organ or functional pathway. So go through that quiz because it will help you suss out where many of those symptoms are coming from so that you're not quite lost in the woods anymore. Now the third lifestyle practice is to get more sleep. I know it's obvious but let's talk about what hormones it actually disrupts. So I would recommend the lower level, seven hours of sleep. Below seven hours is where I start to see certain compensations in the body. Now on one level, you have how poor sleep disrupts hunger hormones, leptin and ghrelin for example. But on the other side, poor sleep can increase your cortisol levels, your stress levels, also can disrupt your melatonin levels. But of course it does regulate your stress levels too. That's why after a really good night of sleep, you feel a lot more resilient. The fourth practice is make sure you're exercising regularly. Now I put yoga, swimming, qigong, weightlifting, all of that into the exercise category. And I would say the minimum I've noticed is four by forty. Four days a week, forty minutes at a time, seems to be the minimum level for body composition changes, significant changes in hormone profile, better sleep, lower stress. In particular, moderate aerobic exercise, like even walking and swimming, and resistance training, lifting weights, are linked to improving your insulin sensitivity and also reducing your cortisol and adrenaline levels. You know, we talk about this diagnosis in traditional Chinese medicine called liver qi stagnation, which is basically that pent-up stressed feeling you get where you feel like someone needs to just put a pin in you and let the steam out. Now the best way to circulate what doctors in my profession call qi stagnation is physical exercise. So I highly recommend this as one of the most underrated practices to not only regulate your mood, but also to pretty much assuredly live a long life because you are mitigating the daily effects of that stress. The fifth practice is to avoid hormone disruptors. Reduce your exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, for example those found in plastics, even certain personal care products and pesticides. Try to go for glass containers, organic foods, and natural products. Now many of these are also called xenoestrogens, and you can think of these as basically foreign estrogens coming from outside in the environment. And if you consider, for example, how many women have estrogen-sensitive breast cancer, it's kind of scary the amount of fake estrogens in our environment that we are consuming via plastics and other environmental exposure. I mean, it's quite scary in a way. The sixth lifestyle practice is to optimize your gut health. So we do know that the gut not only affects your nervous system, but also lots of the neurotransmitters, like for example serotonin, commonly implicated in, for example, clinical depression, are produced in your gut. A healthy gut microbiome helps metabolize and regulate estrogen and other hormones too. Also, don't forget what we just talked about. It helps with neurotransmitter production, these neurochemicals that are not just in your brain but also in your gut that help regulate your mood. If you include fermented foods like yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, and fiber-rich foods, it can repopulate and alter your microbiome. Now the seventh is to prioritize certain micronutrients. Now certain vitamins and minerals that you're missing can just be supplemented with. For example, I use a Berkey water filter and I will just add trace minerals, for example, which are high in magnesium, into my water again to remineralize it a little bit. But you can also get some of these by just having a more diverse or specific diet. Magnesium you can find in leafy greens and nuts. Vitamin D is really important for maintaining hormone balance, especially reproductive hormones like estrogen and testosterone. On top of that, you have zinc and selenium, which are really, really crucial for thyroid function. So sometimes having a more diverse diet will improve the amount of micronutrients and overall nutrition that you're getting on a day-to-day basis in general. So those are seven practices you guys can do if you never see a medical practitioner that will help to rebalance hormones for both men and for women. And while we primarily focus on testosterone here, if you're eating this way and you're a man, you will, I promise you, feel much, much better and you are living this way. That's what I have for you today guys. Don't forget, I work with a limited number of new patients every single month in my clinic in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine. If you want to get in contact, just go to dralexheim.com forward slash clinic and also the information from my clinic, our number to call or email is right below this video here. And then before you go, I have another great video on rebalancing hormones right up here.