I’m sure you’ve personally experienced the connection between your hormones and your mood. 🙋♀️
It’s a thing, for sure. It just so happens that estrogen, which is high during the first half of your menstrual cycle and throughout pregnancy, is directly involved with the productions of serotonin aka your feel good neurotransmitter. Serotonin is what many antidepressant medications are trying to increase to improve mood. Very clever, eh? Well taking it a step further and looking for the reason serotonin might be low is the way to up level the clever in this situation.
This is also super important to understand because while estrogen is high DURING pregnancy, it takes a serious nosedive after delivery, which means serotonin also drops off (hello, baby blues!). If you were already low in serotonin before pregnancy, this transition can be even harder and may contribute to increased risk for postpartum depression (lots of other factors to consider with this too). Serotonin has several functions in your body beyond mood, including appetite and bowel regulation, clotting, nausea & bone density (here’s one of the links between menopause and osteoporosis).
All of this to show, once again, the importance of considering your entire body when it comes to dealing with low mood, sadness, depression and anxiety. It’s not always just a mood issue, sometimes it’s also a hormone and a gut issue. Or it’s something else entirely. It’s worth figuring out what it is for you so you can start to heal and regulate your own happiness chemicals again. 🙌🏼
