The Rocky Horror-monal Show

Hormones ~ what the hell are they really, and how in the world can they wreak such havoc on someone’s life?  I remember during my teen years, when innocence gets replaced by a tsunami of hormonal upheaval, trading hopscotch for cramps, Chinese Jump Rope for headaches, and the monkey bars for a face full of breakouts ~ it doesn’t seem quite a fair exchange.

Later, after I had given birth to my daughter, my hormones just seemed to be pissed off.  Of course, there was still the steady supply of bloating and achiness, but now they were accompanied by an incredible 3-day migraine that became a permanent monthly fixture. They were also accompanied by blurry vision, nausea, you know, the whole enchilada.  Then came the night sweats (luckily I didn’t have too many hot flashes, like my best friend, Virginia, who always exclaimed she was going to tear off her clothes and run down the street naked ~ and I’m sure she made good on that exclamation a time or two.)

But probably one of the worst things, and the one thing most misunderstood by the innocent bystander (usually the men in our lives and our children) are the mood swings.  These moods swings would randomly and without any notice, show up and have me crying, depressed, grouchy, and definitely not a pretty picture to be around. They were accompanied by more drama than a daytime soap opera. My then husband (lord help him) would collect my daughter and patiently take her out for Chinese food, or anywhere, just to have some peace for a short time. He would give me what he hoped would be ample time to sulk in my own misery before calling to make sure the coast was clear before they headed home.

 

Now 25+ years later, and I’m still dealing with it.  It seemed I had broke through, rounded the corner, that I was free for awhile.  But no, recently I woke again with night sweats, and those familiar pounding headaches.  And, they’ve been lasting three days. 

Hormones are not something that we only have to deal with periodically.  They are here to stay, fluctuating and changing their minds on a regular basis. Sometimes they get out of whack, go into hiding and then reappear like a game of hide and seek.  And they always jump out from around the corner and scare the hell out of you. But taking hormone replacement therapy scares me even more.

So, here I am now with what I hope to be some good news.  I just discovered something called seed cycling and have just started doing this.  This is new to me, I have no idea how long it has actually been around, but I’m guessing a long time.

Seed cycling integrates different seeds into the diet at different times to support optimal hormonal balance.  Basically, you eat a tablespoon daily of certain seeds for two weeks, and then the same amount of different seeds the remaining two weeks of each month.  The idea is that seeds carry certain oils, vitamins and nutrients that can help support the body’s production, release and metabolism of hormones.  Different seeds contain different types and amounts of lignans (a chemical compound) and essential fatty acids.  Lignans help our body bind up excess hormones, whereas fatty acids help with our hormone production.

I could tell you all about it, but I think if you just Google it, you’ll find much more than I can offer. I will post one link here where you can go to read up on this practice. The author knows a lot more about it, is clear and precise, making it easy to follow. Seed cycling ~ oh yeah, I’m all over it.

http://www.mountainlakewellness.com/blog/seed-cycling-for-hormone-balancing