How Hormone Imbalances Can Affect Your Sleep, Mood, and Energy

Many things can influence a woman’s health and wellness, but few hold as much sway as reproductive hormones. From puberty to menstrual cycles to pregnancy to menopause, the roles your reproductive hormones play during every stage of your life are major ones.

To illustrate this, the team of board-certified women’s health experts at North Atlanta OB/GYN discusses how hormone imbalances can lead to serious quality-of-life issues, including sleep disturbances, mood regulation disorders, and problems with energy and motivation. 

When hormones fluctuate

Hormonal fluctuations in women are constant and a natural biological process. For example, estrogen hormone levels rise and fall throughout each menstrual cycle. They’re also greatly impacted during and after pregnancy. 

Then, as women age and transition from their reproductive stage, they experience a big change in hormone levels during perimenopause and menopause.

While some women weather these hormonal fluctuations without skipping a beat, they are rare. Most women undergo mental and physical changes that are linked to hormonal fluctuations, and we review some key side effects here.

Hormones and your sleep

In the United States, between 50 and 70 million Americans have chronic sleep disorders for a wide range of reasons. When it comes to women, hormone imbalances likely account for a large percentage of sleep disorders.

There are several reasons for this, but a big one is a dip in progesterone, which occurs immediately after pregnancy, and then there’s a more permanent drop after menopause.

Among its many reproductive duties, progesterone also acts as a calming neurosteroid in your brain that stabilizes neurotransmitters. When levels are low, this calming effect also diminishes, which can lead to sleep issues, such as falling asleep and/or staying asleep.

In addition to the loss of progesterone, another way in which hormone fluctuations can greatly impact sleep is if you experience vasomotor symptoms like night sweats during menopause — and 80% of women do. These bursts of heat throughout the night can very much interrupt sleep, often leaving women feeling fatigued and groggy.

Hormones and your mood

Your estrogen and progesterone hormones stabilize your brain chemistry by promoting feel-good neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. So, when your reproductive hormones plummet, many women can experience issues with mood regulation in the form of depression, anxiety, and post-partum depression.

By the numbers, post-partum depression affects between 10% and 20% of women in the US, and about 28% of women face depression after menopause. 

Even without clinical symptoms, many women understand the hormonal impact on mental health as they experience a roller coaster of emotions each month during their menstrual cycles.

Hormones and your energy

As discussed, your estrogen and progesterone hormones play a role in regulating key energy neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and dopamine. These chemicals give you energy and vitality, so if their activity reduces due to low hormone levels, you can feel drained of energy and motivation.

Reproductive hormone imbalances can also indirectly influence your energy levels if they’re keeping you from getting good sleep, which can zap energy levels during the day.

Restoring hormonal balance

If your hormonal imbalances are impacting your quality of life and you want solutions, we offer several great options, including:

• Hormonal birth control to regulate menstrual cycles and PMS
• Hormone replacement therapies
• Biote® bioidentical hormones for post-menopausal women
• Lifestyle changes

It’s difficult to know what works to improve your symptoms, as it depends on what’s causing the imbalance and your goals.

To explore how you can create more hormonal balance for better living, we invite you to schedule an appointment by phone or online today at one of our offices in Atlanta, Alpharetta, or Marietta, Georgia.