The Voice and the Feminine Hormones are Connected
Yes, indeed, they are. Isn’t that incredible?!
Again and again, I am amazed to find just how much of our well-being is connected to our voice and hormones. It’s so clear that as Women we are made to make sound and use our voices – it is an essential part of staying happy and healthy, just like eating and sleeping well!
Healthy and balanced hormones are an often overlooked, yet essential ingredient for great well-being and overall happiness. If our hormones are out of balance, this has a negative effect on all other areas of living and being.
A woman’s life can be explained by the fluctuations of two hormones, estrogen, and progesterone. When these hormones are in balance a woman’s life is wonderful. When they are out of balance problems follow.
Following is a list of some of the symptoms that indicate hormone imbalances:
· Night sweats
· Mood swings
· Low libido
· Weight gain
· Sudden weight loss
· Fatigue
· Increased thirst or hunger
· Anxiety or insomnia before menstruation
· Irregular menstrual cycles, spotting before menstruation, and/or heavy bleeding during menstruation
· Breakouts around the chin, jaw, or neck
· Unexplained hair growth on the face or thickening and/or darkening of bodily hair
· Premenstrual headaches or migraines
· Water retention
· Dry skin
· Puffy face
· Poor digestion
· PCOS
The good news is that there are many easy-to-do things to balance your hormones and subsequently experience greater ease, happiness and well-being.
Before we share some tips on how to balance your hormones, let’s take a look at the two most important feminine hormones – progesterone and estrogen. Their joined dance is what keeps us fertile, happy, healthy and open for social connections and lovemaking. Estrogen powers the menstrual cycle, while it is also crucial for your overall health: It regulates your bone and cholesterol metabolism, body weight, glucose metabolism, healthy hair and skin and insulin sensitivity to name a few. It is our social hormone and boosts your mood. Progesterone prepares your body for pregnancy, reduces mood swings, anxiety, maintains your sex drive and supports your body in getting pregnant and maintaining that pregnancy.
When the dance between these two hormones is in flow and in harmony, Woman feels alive, fertile, rich, thriving and in her power, physically and mentally.
The number one best thing to support hormone balance is singing and toning!
The powerful effect of the voice on the well-being being of our hormone system (endocrine system) is astonishing – which is why I created the Voice & Womb 6-month mentorship program.
During this time together we will deep-dive into various embodied practices that nourish and balance our endocrine system and literally upgrade our overall level of happiness, health and felt empowerment.
Sign up for the 6-months mentorship program, starting 4th November.
But, you don’t have to wait that long to start incorporating practices that help you balance your hormones. Here is a list of simple practices that you can do, which all bring great benefits to your endocrine system.
1) Humming and Toning
Using our voice has various positive effects on our entire system because our voice and our hormones are linked.
What? Yes! Toning and singing balances and tones our hormones for different reasons:
· It activates the Vagus Nerve and drops us into the parasympathetic nervous system, a place of rest and renewal. This is the state where our body is safe and we are not stressed, which always means that the body has time to repair, rest and detox – and it gives the body the message that all is well, which positively affects all our hormones. The more time we spend in the rest and digest phase, the more we positively affect other hormone-secreting glands, such as the thyroid gland and the pineal gland.
· Additionally, when we use our voice, we tone and activate our pituitary gland, which plays a major role in maintaining overall well-being. It is referred to as the body's master gland and directs most of the other hormone-secreting glands. Thus, singing is essential for our well-being. It is no coincidence that we all come with an inbuilt instrument, ready for use at any moment – our voice!
· And, using our voice makes us happy and when done with others cultivates our happy hormone, oxytocin, which floods us with happiness and a strong sense of belonging and safety.
The wide-reaching positive effect of toning and singing on our entire being and system is one of the reasons I created this mentorship program: for women to learn and practice powerful somatic and ancient exercises that balance, tone and nourish our endocrine system and the health of our entire being.
And ... this does not mean you have to know ‘how to’ sing! You can simply use your voice and activate your vocal chords by humming, or find other creative ways to discover what sounds you can make with the instrument that is your voice. Surprise yourself ...!
2) Tracking our menstrual cycle
We are cyclical beings and the more we can remember that and bring attention to the wisdom in our cycle, the more we can create overall balance in our lives.
What does this mean to track your cycle? It means to keep track of what day of your menstruation cycle you are on. You can either do that with an app, or you can create your own system where you note what day of your cycle you are on, together with a word or a sentence of what was the most prevailing mood during the day. Day one is the day you start bleeding. From there you count onwards ...
When we track our menstrual cycle, we bring awareness to the changes in our body and system. Through that, over time, we become aware of the dance between our progesterone and estrogen levels and are able to observe whether they are balanced or not.
This is also a simple and beautiful way to tune into the rhythms, messages and wisdom of our body. This, in turn, positively affects all our systems. And, as we know, where attention goes, energy flows. Meaning, that when we track our menstrual cycle, we give attention to the wisdom of our cyclical being. We give it our attention and energy and even ‘just’ through that, we enhance its positive flow and functioning.
Some of my clients have shared with me that as soon as they started tracking their cycle they moved from an irregular to a regular cycle, just from merely giving attention to it.
3) Getting Enough Quality Rest
Not enough rest and chronic stress have negative ripple effects on our blood pressure, digestion, inflammation levels, immune system, etc. and it causes an imbalance in the female sex hormones estrogen and progesterone. The adrenal glands produce and secrete our body’s stress hormones, which means that if we are chronically stressed, our adrenal glands get depleted and we experience adrenal fatigue. When stress levels are chronic, the body starts to transform the hormone pregnenolone into cortisol instead of progesterone and this greatly affects the ability to conceive.
High-stress levels and the prioritization of cortisol over progesterone are one of the main causes of challenging conception (infertility), mood swings, and a shortened menstrual cycle.
Being well rested is essential for hormonal balance and all our other systems – central nervous system, limbic system and digestive system. This goes beyond a good night’s sleep. It means to incorporate rest into your day. You can do this by including restorative yoga practices, meditation, yoga nidra and cat naps. It’s about creating a bit of time in our busy schedules to do nothing and truly give our system time to recharge, be, rest and repair. Even just 10 min. twice a day, for example, will work wonders.
4) Limit screen time
Screen time means permanent stimulus and exposure to blue light. Too much of this massively disturbs our hormone balance because the mind is permanently activated and the body constantly thinks it is day and gives relevant messages to the entire endocrine system (hormonal system).
Our pineal and pituitary glands are responsible for the circadian rhythm of the body and sending instructions to other endocrine glands as to when to release certain hormones. However, these glands cannot function well if we are chronically exposed to too much screen light.
Our ancestors experienced very little exposure to artificial light. For many of us today, this is no longer the case. We are constantly exposed to artificial or ‘blue light’, from our phones, computers, television screens, and even street lights. When we’re exposed to blue light, our body thinks it’s daytime, so we stay awake.
When you limit your exposure to blue light, your body will more easily sync with the natural cycles of the moon which improves hormone balance, quality of sleep, and overall experience of life.
One way to limit screen time is obviously to create more time offline and be more focused when working online (not getting distracted with mindless scrolling). Another way is to install blue light filters on your phone and PC. They filter out the blue light and make the experience much more soft and natural for the eye and the whole system. There are also blue light glasses you can wear at night and lastly turn off your internet routers while sleeping.
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Now you have an idea of what you can do straight away to better balance your hormones. Let me know how it goes ...
And, if you like to deep-dive into the connection between your endocrine system, your happiness and well-being and the use of our voice, get in touch with me and sign up for the upcoming 6-month mentorship program.
You will learn so much about hormone balance, the voice, the womb, their connection and how to fully activate and live the fullness of your feminine goodness and energies – ready to create what is yours to create.
I am offering a 50% OFF the mentorship offer is valid till 27th October. Instead of 489USD its NOW 244USD per month x 6 months.
Send an email to vanessa@vanessaholliday.com if interested.
Love,
Vanessa