You’ve almost certainly heard about hormones before, but how much do you actually know about them? For most women, hormones are only mentioned when you’re on your period. You’re aware that you become more hormonal, but what does that mean and how is it significant? Everyone has hormones in their body, and they are a crucial part of what makes us who we are. Not only that, but they also play a key role in keeping us healthy.
Today, we take a look at hormones in a bit more detail. There are two main questions to answer:
- What are hormones?
- Why are they important for our health?
So, let’s take a look inside the human body!
What are hormones?
Hormones are basically chemical substances that are secreted by your cells. Almost all your hormones are created by the endocrine system, which is made up of many different glands. In total, it’s believed we have around fifty different hormones that make their way around our bodies.
Different hormones have different roles within the human body, but they all have the same overall job description. In essence, they’re chemical messengers that travel around your internal system and find their way to different organs. So, glands secrete them, then they move through the blood thanks to loads of complex signals, finding their way to various areas of the body. Once at their destination, they trigger different responses.
For example, we have hormones that make us feel hungry or sleepy. When the body secretes lots of these hormones, we start to feel hungry or our eyes start to close.
Why are hormones important for our health?
Simply put, they are responsible for bringing balance to our bodies. If you have a hormonal imbalance, you’ll end up with some health issues. By rebalancing your hormones, you can get rid of those problems.
There are a couple of great examples of hormones in action and being unbalanced. For men, they can easily end up with high levels of estrogen, which is the female sex hormone. Some men end up with this issue if they take steroids or other performance-enhancing supplements. As a result, they have to take post cycle therapy supplements full of testosterone to even things out. Otherwise, the high levels of estrogen can cause excess breast tissue and other issues.
Another example is the hormone that suppresses your appetite. If you don’t produce enough of this, you’re hungry all the time, which can lead to overeating and excessive weight gain. One way to rebalance this is by getting more sleep.
Similarly, hormones are so important for your mental health as well. Your body can create hormones that trigger stressed responses in your body. This leads to feelings of tension and a chemical imbalance is also known to cause depression.
Overall, hormones are very important for our overall health and wellbeing as they manage things within the human body. So, it’s important to try and keep a hormonal balance to avoid any health issues. It’s well worth getting a health checkup to see if you are deficient in some hormones as you can then take the right steps to rebalance your body.