In the adrenal glands, cortisol is literally made from progesterone, which means if you’re experiencing stress at higher levels, your body has a great demand for cortisol, which will push progesterone towards that pathway rather than being available to balance your estrogen.
This becomes even worse of an issue if you’re not ovulating, due to PCOS, hypothalamic amenorrhea or because of hormonal birth control.
That’s one of the many reasons treating hormone imbalance with just hormone therapy or medications won’t fix the problem. If you have low progesterone or any of the other conditions I mentioned above, stress management and adrenal support are a must in creating the environment for your body to heal and find it’s proper rhythm again.
Low progesterone can be found via blood, dried urine or saliva testing (I use @dutchtest) or determined by a short luteal phase (less than 10 days from the day you ovulate until the day you bleed) and symptom picture.
If you haven’t already checked out my blog article Boosting Progesterone Naturally, please do! I’d add adrenal support (which can need tonifying or calming so it’s always worth working with someone to figure out what YOU need) as tip #7 for increasing progesterone naturally.
