Rethinking Hormone Balance.

What hormone balance actually means, how it feels in real life and how to create it.

Most people think being ‘hormonally balanced’ means having perfect hormone levels all the time. But from my perspective as a naturopathic nutritionist (who has proudly helped thousands of women improve their hormonal health and cycles and written a whole book on the topic) hormonal balance isn’t about perfect test results and its certainly not about trending diets or the latest expensive biohacks, even when they look polished and shiny enough to believe.

Real hormone balance is about restoring internal rhythm, it’s living in partnership with your body rather than working against it. Your hormones respond directly to the environment you create through how you eat, sleep, think, move, and live. That’s so very empowering because it means you have real influence over your health today and the trajectory of it tomorrow.

It’s about taking the proactive, intentional and conscious steps to start creating the rhythm your hormones will actually respond to and will thank you for!! This is how you will create and embody hormone balance from the inside-out.

What actually are hormones?

Hormones are chemical messengers, constantly communicating with your brain and body to regulate:

• Energy

• Mood

• Sleep

• Metabolism

• Reproductive function

They naturally rise and fall with your cycle and are influenced by lifestyle factors- including sleep, rest, recovery and stress -and of course the food we use to nourish our bodies plays a PROFOUND role in how our hormones behave and how ‘balanced’ they are.

What True Hormonal Balance Looks Like

Being ‘balanced’ means creating internal safety by living in harmony with your body, honouring its needs as those needs change through the different seasons of your life and responding to its feedback with care, kindness and targeted intention through food and lifestyle choices.

Signs your body may be out of rhythm include:

• Consistent low energy / fatigue

• Slow metabolism / weight gain (even if eating healthily)

• Poor sleep / night wakings / hard to fall asleep and wake-up (even when you go to bed early)

• Feeling a baseline level of stress or in a state of fight-or-flight

• Irregular cycles or severe PMS

• Consistent low libido

• Headaches, anxiety, or low mood

When you focus on the foundational pillars of health (I call them Nature’s Biohacks), the simple, consistent habits and rituals that become part of your everyday life- your body will start to listen, to trust this safety, this predictability and this is where the magic and change will start to happen, you will literally feel it and see it in your body.

When your hormones are in balance, you feel:

• Steady, consistent with energy instead of unpredictable spikes and crashes

• Stable mood and able to handle things

• Like you’re getting restorative sleep and wake-up refreshed and recharged

• Overall sense of feeling ‘well’ - the most underrated feeling in the world!!

Balance reflects whole-body health, not just healthy hormone levels. Supporting your liver, gut, nervous system, and neuroendocrine system is just as important as supporting your hormones (I’ve dedicated a whole chapter to each of these systems in The Hormone Balance Handbook).

Daily choices like skipping meals to ‘save the calories’ (my old, highly unhelpful thinking!) ordering that second or third coffee to ‘give you energy’, drinking that glass of wine as a reward or to numb a hard day, mindlessly grazing on processed, refined sugary snacks, and staying up late overstimulating yourself with dopamine-giving screens can all disrupt your precious internal hormonal rhythms, EVEN if your test results appear normal / ‘within range’.

I could write a whole article on the topic of results being ‘within range’ - but I’ll save that for another day.

For now, I’ll leave you with this- you really do have to be your own health investigator.…. because what functional nutritionist practitioners like me look at and aim for compared to GP-led care are WILDLY different (no shade at all on GP’s btw, time constraints and system pressure are part of the issue). But those differences can make ALL the difference when it comes to chronic health conditions and ongoing issues - whether that’s thyroid health, fertility, or the many ‘in-between’ symptoms that never quite feel resolved… There’s a difference between ‘normal’ versus feeling truly optimal, and feeling optimal is always the aim of the game. It’s what we’re all here for right?

Start Your Day in Alignment

How you start your day will set the tone for the choices you make during the day ahead. True alignment to your body and therefore your hormones can start with something as simple as your intentional morning routine and what you consciously CHOOSE to do as soon as you wake-up to a brand new day full of opportunity… (and does not need to involve an instagram reel worthy 10 step routine wearing Lululemon).

• Pause and create space to hear your own thoughts instead of jumping straight into social media, news, TV, or emails- this is stress, and it’s not what your hormone system needs first thing! the quote ‘listen to the birds not the news’ springs to mind!

• Breathe into your body- take 3–5 deep, grounding breaths. I’m obsessed with breath-work its been such an anchor in my everyday I love Rob Rea.

• Nourish your body within an hour of waking-up with a high-fibre, high-protein breakfast to prime your body and brain use your breakfast as a key opportunity to get the nutrients your hormones NEED from you

• Move your body walk, stretch, get on your Pilates mat- whatever works for you. Movement is medicine for your body and brain and moves stagnant energy that will get momentum going (we need to actively create the momentum, not expect it to naturally come to us)

• Do one small thing just for YOU - whether it’s enjoying a quiet cup of tea before your kids wake, a short meditation, ‘activation’, breath-wrok or exercise class. Doing something intentional just to benefit yourself reminds your body you are WORTH caring for, and let me tell you this goes a hell of a long way !! the moment I started treating myself like someone I loved, someone who was ‘worth’ the effort things started to shift beyond belief.

These small rituals create the rhythm your body craves. They tell your body and hormones, ‘I’m safe, I’m cared for’. They lower cortisol, stabilise energy, and create a safe internal space which should never be underestimated if improved hormone health is your focus. Treating yourself with this care and listening intuitively to your body is how we create sustainable, long-term hormone balance.

Step 1 on how to start transforming your hormone health coming soon.

Thank you for spending your precious time and energy reading this, I truly appreciate you. With Love, Jess xx

P.S If you enjoy my content, would like to support my work (which I’d be forever grateful for!!) and would love much more of the in-depth juicy stuff (including the rest of this series) when it comes to REALLY making transformational changes to your hormonal health (plus personal updates, free meal plans and sooo much more) I’d love for you to upgrade your subscription HERE and welcome you into the inner circle!! X