Positive Health Online

What are hormones? Tricky little blighters that can mess up your life? Or molecules packed with information and instruction that ensure you can live your richest potential? Well, hormones can be both of these. If you are one of the millions of women or men who struggle with their hormonal health, then you probably feel that your hormones fall into the ‘tricky little blighters’ category. This article will explore some physiological and energetic understandings relating to hormones and how you can bring them deeper and deeper into balance. 

The Endocrine System

Hormones are molecules that are synthesized and secreted by several glands collectively known as the endocrine system. Endocrine glands include the ovaries, testes, uterus, adrenal glands, kidneys, thymus, parathyroid, thyroid, pituitary, pineal and hypothalamus glands. Hormones travel throughout the body, either in the blood stream or in the fluid around cells, looking for their target cells. These can be near or far depending on the type of hormone. Once hormones find their target cell, they bind with specific protein receptors inside or on the surface of the cell, these receptors read the hormone's message and carries out the instructions. Such instructions can produce a variety of rapid responses and long-term effects. In essence, hormones are produced by a gland and transported throughout the body transferring information and instruction between cells. They are your body’s communication system so that every specific cell knows what to do. They are molecules of brilliance!

We can tend to think of hormones as simply relating to reproduction (oestrogen, progesterone, testosterone) or relating the stress (adrenaline, cortisol), but the 250+ hormones of the human body affect EVERY biological and physiological function; muscle growth, weight, sexuality, skin condition, sleep, vitality, mood, hair condition, eyesight, heart rate...the list could go on and on. And when we understand how hormones affect every biological function then we begin to understand how millions of women, and less numbers of men, suffer daily due to hormonal imbalance with symptoms such as poor sleep, poor digestion, mood swings, sexual impotence, PMS, hot flashes, fertility issues, acne, excessive anger, fatigue, lethargy, memory loss.

Energy Medicine can Impact Hormonal Health

The good news, if you are one of those many millions of men and women affected, is that there are  many ways that you can positively impact your hormonal health and equilibrium. Balanced exercise, meditation, and good nutrition have all been shown to improve health and well-being, and it is increasingly being understood that hormones can also be greatly impacted by energy medicine.

The course of physics was irrevocably altered when Albert Einstein delivered his famous formula, E=mc2, showing that matter is a form of energy, or (very loosely translated!) ‘Energy is all there is’. In our science, old and new, we know our bodies are comprised of molecules that are in constant motion and that are continually being influenced by outside forces; electromagnetic forces and subtle forces (‘subtle’ simply means an energetic field that can’t be measured by our current technology).

More recent work done by scientists including Bruce Lipton, Candace Pert and Rupert Sheldrake further develops such scientific understanding into mainstream science and medicine. We are all aware that the medical profession utilizes electromagnetic fields with devices such as EKGs, EEGs, and MRIs; the vital role these energies play in our everyday health and well-being is well established. But for many practising more mainstream medicine, the concept of working with our more subtle energy bodies rather than those at the densest (physical) level is still a step beyond their worldview. But such understanding is increasing daily, and if you are working with your hormonal health, then that is very, very good news.

Hormones are infinitely unique to the individual and change by the millisecond, meaning that for any hormone medication to be beneficial, it has to be geared specifically to the individual taking it. Attention also needs to be paid to any combined effects that other medications may have upon the hormonal medication being taken. Due to [limited] understandings within the bio-medical paradigm and a crippling over stretching of human and financial resources within the NHS, this is rarely the case within the mainstream medical system. Thus medication supposedly taken to balance one set of hormones can adversely affect another hormones, creating side-effects of another set of symptoms and challenges. This has been aptly demonstrated by the Framingham study and the understandings brought forward regarding prolonged Hormone Replacement Therapy increasing breast cancer occurrence.

So, we need a form of personal and collective healthcare that can impact and balance hormonal health, without any negative side effects. And yes, it does exist! In my energy medicine clinic the majority of women who walk through the door are working with symptoms that are created by hormonal imbalance. And energetically, hormones are easy to affect and respond very quickly. An unspoken beauty about hormones is that they are so very quick and responsive (which is why they can get so out of balance with the modern way of life), but conversely, when you start working with ways to bring them back into balance they can do so quickly too. All of our energy systems (the meridians, the chakras, the aura, the electrics, the basic grid, the radiant circuits, the 5 Elements, Triple Warmer and the Celtic weave) affect the hormones and are affected by the hormones. And so the dance of energy begins.

I have been able to see energy since I was tiny. An energy system that is holding hormonal balance (even if there are other challenges present) has clarity and communication. When I see the energy of someone whose hormones are very out of balance, it looks like they have dense static surrounding their body.

The beautiful flow and dance of the energy systems can’t move through the static, compromising the flow of energy and well-being in the whole-body system. When someone is experiencing a hormone imbalance this static looks solid, dense and spongy. I am limited within the scope of this article to deeply share how to bring hormonal balance back to yourself, although I have written extensively on it in my blogs and have several free videos on my website - www.imaginalhealth.com  - that can start you off with exercises that will begin to balance your hormones. And below are two of the most important exercises you can do to help bring your hormones into balance.

Adrenal Health

The first place to start to help your hormonal health, whatever symptoms you have, is to help your adrenal glands. Primarily, our adrenal glands are responsible for the production of adrenaline whenever we move into the fight-flight and freeze response. Energetically, the adrenal glands are governed by the Triple Warmer meridian system. Triple Warmer is responsible for our survival, and as such can activate the adrenal glands into producing adrenaline, creating a cascade of stress hormones to ensure that we can fight off that cave man/woman or run away from the sabre tooth tiger. (Do you begin to get the idea that Triple Warmer needs some help evolving!). Triple Warmer hasn’t become very efficient at understanding modern stresses rather than life-threatening stresses. This is why when we meet stress in our daily lives, we still have an adrenaline rush, even though in our modern life, most of our stresses can’t be dealt with by either fighting or running. Next time you have a deadline for a piece of work, are worried about your teenager child coming home late, or have to stand up and speak in front of a group, try telling your adrenal glands that you really don’t need all of that extra adrenaline getting you ready to fight or flee.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu-qEwJVmFE - Massage the Adrenal Glands

Our adrenal glands are responsible for energy production and managing stress, and this is where we get to a vital understanding: it is not possible for the body to be producing stress hormones and reproductive hormones in balance at the same time. This is due to the fact that early on in the production, the body has to make a decision about how to use the available cholesterol; to make adrenaline and cortisol, or to make progesterone and estrogen. Any time you are stressed your ability to create and regulate your juicy, happy hormones becomes compromised. In this modern world with the burden of familial, financial, societal, and environmental challenges, most of us are living with chronic stress unless we are actively ensuring we are maintaining our equilibrium through our daily life-style choices.

Make a circle with finger and thumb

Mellow Mudra

The Mellow Mudra

This exercise is a very simple one that will help stress move away from your whole-body system, begin to bring new neurological pathways into the brain, return blood from the hind brain into the fore brain, and balance the Triple Warmer meridian. This all results in not only experiencing more space and ease within yourself, but also in far less emergency reactivity response into fight-flight-freeze. In other words, it takes stress out of the situation, and means that the next time you are in a similar situation, there is no stress response. Thus no adrenaline rush and therefore you are able to create and keep your happy hormones in your body!   Donna Eden calls this exercise the ‘Mellow Mudra’; done regularly, the Mellow Mudra can begin to deeply impact your hormones, your health and your happiness.

1. Bring your thumb and first finger together to make a circle;
2. Bring this circle (in whatever way is comfortable) to the temples;
3. Place your other fingers on the forehead above the eyes;
4. Maintain a light pressure on these points and hold for several breaths;
5. Enjoy the feeling of relaxation and energetic cohesion and repeat whenever you need.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLGXSP8mfkI

Chakras and Hormonal Health

The second exercise that can help to move hormonal chaos into hormonal harmony, is the Hook Up. This exercise connects the Governing and Central meridians, helping them expand their individual energies into a connective circuitry. When they connect in this way they help hold the chakras steady and safe, and as each chakra has a very close relationship with a specific gland in the endocrine system, this can greatly impact hormonal health.

• Root Chaka: Testes and ovaries
• Sacral Chakra: Uterus and prostate
• Solar Plexus chakra: Adrenals and Pancreas
• Heart Chakra: Thymus and Heart
• Throat Chakra: Parathyroid and thyroid
• Third Eye Chakra: Pituitary gland
• Crown Chakra: Pineal gland

The Hook Up

The Hook Up

To help the endocrine system through the chakras, place one finger in the belly button and one finger in the third eye. Once you have both fingers in position, push them gently into the body and apply an upward pressure so that it feels like you are pulling up on both of these points. This helps the Central and Governing meridians find their way into circuitry to create the Microcosmic orbit, balance the chakras including the endocrine system and expand radiance throughout the whole-body system.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ5rLQPJMwI - the Hook Up

Both the Mellow Mudra and the Hook Up can be done regularly throughout your day, to evolve your energy systems and thus your health, your energy and your vitality. Good luck!

Further Information

In May, Prune will be teaching a three day class on women’s health in Bristol.  For more information about Prune and her upcoming classes go to www.imaginalhealth.com

Bibliography

1.    Eden D and Feinstein D. Energy Medicine. Piatkus. 2008

2.    Eden D and Feinstein D. Energy Medicine for Women. Piatkus. 2009

4.    Feinstein D. and Eden D. Six pillars of energy medicine. Alternative Therapies, 14(1), 44-54. 2008

5.    Lipton B. Biology of Belief. Hay House. London. 2011

6.    Northrup C. Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom: The complete guide to women’s health and wellbeing. Bantum. 2006

7.    Pert C. The Molecules of Emotion. Simon & Schuster. New York. 1999

8.    Sheldrake R. Morphic Resonance. Inner Traditions, London 2009

9.    Swanson C. Life Force: the Scientific Basis. Poseidia Press. Tucson. 2003

10.  Wilson J.  Adrenal Fatigue; the 21^st Century Syndrome Smart Publications. 2002