Everyday Detox: Detox Your Mind!

Hey everyone, for our last Everyday Detox for Hormone Balance Tip I’m going to share with you a quick way to Detox your Mind!

That’s right – we are going beyond physical detox and today talking mental-emotional detox! In my experience, it’s just as important for hormonal balance.

And I’m talking the need to specifically detox from all of the negative chatter we hear – from ourselves.

You know what I’m talking about ladies.

Women are notoriously hard on themselves. I know you want to stop being so hard on yourself but I also know: it is not easy. I repeat – it is NOT easy. As a recovering perfectionist (who definitely has her moments of relapse from time to time!), I can tell you from experience that this kind of mind detox from decades-long negative Self-talk takes time, practice & patience.

So let’s start right now.

The easiest way to detox our negative Self-talk is to…

Talk to your Self like you’re talking to your best friend. Your BFF, your girl who always has your back.

It makes perfect sense and is easier to understand than just telling yourself to be gentle with yourself.

Don’t believe me?

Think about what happens we make a mistake at work. What do we say to ourselves?

I suck.

I’m so stupid.

I’m such a dork.

I can’t do anything right.

Would we ever say this to our BFFs? Jokingly maybe – but never seriously. Never with the cruelty or brutality that we all too often use to talk to ourselves.

We think they’re just words – but these words repeated over years, over a lifetime – make it so challenging for us as women to believe in ourselves, believe we can do anything, believe we are good enough.

So what does positive Self-talk have to do with our hormones?

Well, let’s talk specifically about a super-important hormone for the stress response: cortisol.

When we’re faced with our long-term daily stressors: work, family, relationships – cortisol is the hormone that is released to help us cope. Ideally, we would experience the stressor, let’s say – a deadline at work, and you freak out a bit. That would lead to a release of cortisol. You would handle the stressor, get through everything okay and cortisol would lower back to normal levels.

But think about what happens with our negative Self-talk:

You face a deadline at work and freak out a bit so that cortisol is released, but you also tell yourself you’re stupid which leads to more cortisol released. Then you tell yourself there’s no way you’ll make the deadline, which makes you freak out even more and leads to more cortisol being released. And finally ,you tell yourself you’re completely incompetent so even MORE CORTISOL IS RELEASED.

In spite of your negative Self-talk, you end up handling the stressor (because you’re a rock star!) but cortisol takes much longer to go back to normal, so it stays at higher levels in your bloodstream than it’s supposed to.

What’s wrong with too much cortisol for too long?

Excess cortisol can lead to

• Continued high blood sugar levels which lead to weight gain (around your belly of all places!)
• Insulin resistance: insulin is the hormone that controls blood sugar, so this adds to weight gain and  can disrupt ovulation in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS)
• Suppression of female reproductive hormones (estrogen, progesterone) which can lead to irregular periods, heavy periods, fertility issues, perimenopausal hot flashes
• Thyroid hormone disruption: thyroid is important for metabolism, energy and healthy weight

Bottom line:

Choosing to detox your mind from negative Self-talk and speak to your Self the way you would your BFF, can improve the way you handle stress more efficiently, balancing your cortisol levels and preventing disruptions in other important hormones in your body.

So make sure you try it out this week!

Thank you!

A huge thank you to all of you who have watched the Everyday Detox series videos. I hope it has helped you work in some healthy habits that can help keep your hormones more balanced on a daily basis.

I’ll see you next week when I’ll announce my next month’s video health series.

Take good care of your Self until then!

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