MOOD & HORMONES

Feeling out of sorts, anxious and wired, stressed and tired, or low and irritable are all not ways to thrive in your body. Whether you are on medication and looking for complementary therapy or you are looking to wean off or never start, nutritional supplementation and a quality focused diet can have a significant role on balancing neurotransmitters and ultimately mood.

When the stress response of the body, the sympathetic fight or flight reactive mode is in overdrive, often the body’s parasympathetic rest-digest-reproduce regulatory mode is thrown off. Sexual hormone imbalance can be due to excess demand in the body’s hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis from chronic stress or anxiety. The body can show this imbalance with infertility, amenorrhea, heavy periods and cramping, and erectile dysfunction. Beyond the stress-hormone connection, conditions such as PCOS, estrogen dominance, and acne can be resolved with food-as-medicine, the ketogenic diet, and quality nutritional supplementation.

START WITH THESE PROGRAMS

The Anti-Anxiety Diet

The Anti-Anxiety Diet is a comprehensive book providing a thorough explanation of 6 areas of focus that can be throwing off your body’s stress response.

I developed this as a resource after 10 years of clinical experience and seeing that regardless of what I was treating; leaky gut, insomnia, weight gain, autoimmune disease, etc. if the body was in chronic fight or flight mode it truly was just symptom jumping and would not sustainably heal. In my deep research in development of this book I connect the dots of how stress can impact digestion, hormones, and ultimately whole body health. This book has detailed quizzes to determine additional functional medicine needs and 40+ recipes to support you with food-as-medicine.

Purchase this book

Virtual Ketosis

Ketones stabilize mood, reduce oxidative stress, and provide a grounding satiety, with a real food approach you can also support hormone rebalance!

When you adjust your diet to low carb, high fat, your body produces ketones. These ketones have the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier thus reducing excitatory stress chemical response and increasing your GABA influence in the brain and body for a mellow relaxed state. This is where many people describe a “keto high” where they experience bliss and feel clear headed. Also, when applying a balanced whole food keto approach, fasting insulin goes down, FSH/LH hormone ratios improve, and DHEA levels if in excess decrease as well setting up the body for enhanced fertility and hormonal balance.

Join my Ketosis Program

Does this sound too good to be true? Well sometimes it is and often when restricting carbs and calories over a period of time the body gets food insecure and the person goes from a “keto high” to a “keto slump” where they experience hair loss, insomnia, hindered metabolism, hormone imbalance, and even anxiety can return! This is where my 12-week ketosis program is unique in that we discuss how and why to consider carb cycling and additional labs and techniques to ensure you are able to hit your keto sweet spot without over-restricting and driving imbalance!

START WITH THESE SUPPLEMENTS TO BALANCE MOOD AND HORMONES

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ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL LABS

The Neurohormone Complete and Neurohormone Complete Plus panels provide a comprehensive assessment of steroid hormones as a salivary test including estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, as well as adrenal hormones DHEA and cortisol with a 4 point assessment to look at trends throughout your day. Beyond salivary assessment, this lab includes a urinary neurotransmitter test to look at 8 different analytes that play a role with mood, memory, sleep, and muscle tension including serotonin, GABA, dopamine, norepinephrine, epinephrine, glutamate, histamine, and glycine.

If you are dealing with fatigue, hair loss, nerve tingling, or random symptom shifts and you have varied demands on your body from lifecycle or lifestyle changes, consider the Micronutrient Test which assesses 35 different vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants as a comprehensive report card to your nutritional status.

Note: I strongly recommend taking my Multidefense for at least 1 month leading up to the panel to cover nutritional support as a baseline, then the micronutrient test will be additional needs over a high quality multivitamin.

Neurohormone Complete Plus (for women) Neurohormone Complete (for men) Micronutrient test

ADDITIONAL LEARNING BLOGS AND PODCASTS

Naturally Nourished Episode 106
Regulating Your Cycle and Natural Birth Control Pt. 1

Are you currently on birth control and wanting to consider other alternatives? Have you been on birth control in the past and wanting to take a natural approach to correct hormonal imbalance? Want to hear our take on all forms of hormonal and non-hormonal birth control? Tune in to hear Ali and Becki tackle this…

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Naturally Nourished Episode 80
The Stress Thyroid Connection

Are you doing everything right but just can’t lose weight? Wondering about the impact of stress on your metabolism? Want to know how your thyroid is affected by stress? Tune in to hear Ali and Becki discuss the often-referenced HPA axis in depth and how stress directly impacts thyroid function. From the function of the…

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Naturally Nourished Episode 54
Anti Anxiety Diet

Are you dealing with anxiety and want to take the reins on your life? Know there is more to the story in terms of treatment but unsure of where to start? Tune in to hear Ali and Becki tackle the often taboo subject of anxiety from defining the broad range of symptoms to Ali’s 6 Foundational Rs…

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Top Anxiety Supplements

TOP ANXIETY SUPPLEMENTS Since putting out the Anti-Anxiety Diet, I have had more people inquiring on how to get started with symptom management of anxiety, resilience to stress, and ultimately rebalancing the HPA-axis. The hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA-axis) when in overdrive from chronic stress demand or constant state of worry can keep the body in “reactive”…

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Resolving Infertility Naturally

RESOLVING INFERTILITY NATURALLY This year alone, more than 9 million Americans will experience infertility.  Infertility is big business – it’s a 3 Billion dollar a year industry that includes synthetic hormones, harmful interventions, and often extended emotional timeframes for families. The expense and stress of infertility along with side-effects of treatments are driving health trends…

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BOOSTING YOUR MOOD WITH FOOD

BOOSTING YOUR MOOD WITH FOOD During times of increased stress, our bodies use higher levels of neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin. Dopamine is the “reward seeking” hormone related to addiction and when depleted, can cause cravings for high fat or high sugar food. The combination of sugar and fat causes a temporary spike in…

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