Progesterone is a female person steroid sex hormone, oftentimes viewed as the 'good cop' female hormone that supports and balances out the effects of estrogen.

High levels of estrogen and lower levels of progesterone may lead to a negative prepare of symptoms. For that reason, information technology'southward easy to surmise that we all want healthy and high progesterone levels but the question remains, is there a fashion that we can naturally increase our progesterone levels, without the need for pills or supplements?

There are 4 ways to naturally increment progesterone levels, these include:

  • Consume foods that back up your trunk's product of hormones
  • Avoid foods and external substances that can knock your hormones out of sync
  • Reduce the corporeality of stress in your life
  • Reduce your level of body fat

See as well: Can I get Pregnant with Low Progesterone?

What foods enhance progesterone?

It's incredible how much we individually do good when we improve what we put in our bodies. Although no food really contains progesterone, by eating a nutrition rich in certain minerals and nutrients, you can assist your body produce a sufficient and optimal amount of progesterone for better physiological function.

Magnesium-Rich Foods

In adult countries, information technology is reported that 25-xxx% of women are living with a magnesium deficiency. Women over the age of 19 should be getting at least 320mg of magnesium per twenty-four hour period, with those amounts increasing as yous historic period. Magnesium helps your body blot and metabolize calcium and vitamin D.

A poorly functioning pituitary gland won't produce enough follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing (LH), or thyroid-stimulating (TSH) hormones to ensure healthy ovulation, without ovulation, your torso will probable produce less progesterone than is normal.

Dark Chocolate

You tin can have chocolate and improve your magnesium levels! You tin become 64 milligrams within a single 1oz serving. Make sure it'south existent dark chocolate and not something with needlessly added sugar or other sweeteners. It besides provides you with a nice dose of antioxidants to help y'all fight off disease.

Nuts

Almonds, brazil nuts, and cashews are particularly good sources of magnesium at around 82mg per ounce. Eat them as a snack or add together them to your smoothies or salads for a healthy boost. Nuts are too a nifty source of fiber.

Tofu

The idea of eating tofu may not exist that appealing if you're into a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle. Try focusing on the 53mg of magnesium you gain from consuming in 3.five ounces of it. You too get 10 grams of protein in this serving size along with x% of the iron, calcium, selenium, and manganese needed by your torso each day.

Avocados

You don't need to serve it on a slice of toast to benefit from the 58 mg of magnesium gained from one medium avocado. They're also a adept way of getting a nice dose of B vitamins, potassium, and monounsaturated fats helpful to the middle.

Legumes

This covers a variety of establish-based foods, from lentils to peas to your favourite beans. Serve them in soup or include them equally a side with your lunch or dinner. Information technology's possible to become 120mg of magnesium from ane serving of steamed blackness beans.

Vitamin B6 Foods

Vitamin B6 also plays a part in keeping your trunk's hormones regulated. I research written report showed that increasing the corporeality of B6 vitamins taken each solar day to around 200-800 mg per day can raise progesterone levels and reduce estrogen enough to improve symptoms of PMS. Other research shows the potential to increase fertility by upward to 120% and reduce miscarriage rates by around 50%.

The National Constitute of Health (NIH) recommends women from 19 to 50 take in at least one.3 mg per day if they're non significant. That minimum increases to one.v mg for women 51 and older.

Fish (Salmon)

6 ounces of salmon provides you lot with 1.half-dozen mg of Vitamin B6, 94% of the amount recommended each solar day. Other fish high in concentrations of B6 include tuna, snapper, and mahi-mahi.

Eggs

Information technology doesn't matter if you boil them, scramble them, or take them over easy. You can take in ten% of the Vitamin B6 needed each twenty-four hours when you take 2 of them at any meal.
Sweet potatoes
Substitute i of these for the white multifariousness and provide yourself with 15% of the B6 you need.

Milk

Drinking milk is an like shooting fish in a barrel mode of keeping progesterone levels up by giving you 5mg of Vitamin B6 per glass. Y'all can put information technology in your tea, coffee, or mix it in a smoothie if yous're not keen on drinking it directly out of a glass.

Carrots

Try crunching on these as a snack instead of something high in carbohydrate and calories. You get every bit much every bit you would from drinking a glass of milk no matter how you prepare them.

Zinc-Rich Foods

Research carried out past the World Health Organization has shown that almost 75% of Americans suffer from a zinc deficiency. Count zinc as some other mineral essential in helping your pituitary gland regulates hormones in your body. It helps the gland boost the current levels of FSH hormones. That helps your ovaries create more progesterone and estrogen needed past your reproductive system.

It's recommended that women over 19 become at to the lowest degree 8mg per day, with those amounts increasing if y'all're pregnant or currently lactating. You need to consume foods containing zinc each day since your trunk doesn't shop information technology for after apply.

Shellfish

Oysters are i of the best sources of zinc. Six oysters of medium size provide you lot with 32mg, which amounts to a whopping 290% of the amount needed by the body each solar day. Shrimp, crab, and muscles are also skilful sources, giving y'all around fourteen% of what yous demand per 100 grams consumed.

Seeds

Eating a scattering of your favorite pumpkin, squash, or sesame seeds is an excellent style to go a daily zinc boost. They also provide yous with a good dose of fiber and salubrious fats.

Whole grains

The presence of the antinutrient phytate tin prevent you from absorbing every bit much zinc as you could from whole grains. Simply it's worth adding them to your diet since they contain other vital nutrients like magnesium which besides boost progesterone levels.

Vegetables

Try combining the B6 heave received from eggs into a morning omelet containing zinc-rich mushrooms to get the benefit of both minerals. Other vegetables you can add to your nutrition include peas, potatoes, and green beans.

Low-fat yogurt

This is another great food pick to contain into your nutrition. Y'all keep yourself from consuming unhealthier possibilities while getting the zinc needed to help your progesterone levels.

How do lifestyle habits increase progesterone?

There are certain habits and foods that can contribute to throwing your hormones out of sync by increasing the amount of estrogen in your trunk.

Over the concluding xx-30 years, there has been a huge surge in the number of environmental xenoestrogens entering the food system. Xenoestrogens, meaning "foreign estrogen, are a type of xenohormone that imitates the furnishings of estrogen inside the body. Consuming foods with xenoestrogens for a sustained period of time you can overload your body with excess estrogen, which tin lead to you developing estrogen authorisation.

See as well: Estrogen Dominance: Signs and Symptoms

Here are a few like shooting fish in a barrel steps to avoid xenoestrogens:

Candy Foods

The methods used in processed foods plant in nearly supermarkets can leave harmful byproducts such as xenoestrogens. This group includes meats and any non-organic fruits and vegetables. Avoid whatever craven, turkey, or other meats not labeled as "Hormone-complimentary." Consuming processed foods with harmful chemicals, pesticides, or added hormones can disrupt the natural hormonal residue and lead to lower levels of progesterone in your torso.

Excess drinking

Consuming large amounts of alcohol on a frequent basis changes the manner your body produces estrogen. Excess drinking can raise the levels of estrogen produced while lowering your progesterone levels.

Switch from coffee to tea

Effort getting your morning boost from a herbal tea instead of your sweetened takeaway coffees. The high levels of caffeine in four cups of coffee can enhance estrogen levels past up to seventy%.

Plastic containers

Possibly y'all drink from plastic water bottles or put your food in plastic containers to heat up in the microwave - any exposure to heat can crusade the chemicals from these containers to leach into your food or beverage. That is why the biggest source of xenoestrogen exposure for most people is plastics.

How important are lifestyle changes for progesterone levels?

Making these changes tin can give you the natural progesterone boost you're pursuing. Stress and weight management largely impact your power to maintain a hormonal balance.

Stress

When yous are stressed your body triggers your adrenal glands to produce 2 hormones known as cortisol and adrenaline. The problem is that this biological process uses raw materials to produce progesterone to create cortisol instead. This ways, that if you lot are stressed your trunk actually releases your progesterone and uses it for stress hormone production.

That is why one of the best means to restore your hormonal balance is to reduce the amount of stress in your life. For some people, they have to eliminate the source of the stress, whereas others tin reduce their stress levels past balancing parts of their lives with activities they enjoy, be it hiking, meditating, practice.

Maintain a healthy weight

As you may have noticed at that place is a very strong link betwixt a woman's weight and their hormonal rest, which is normally noticeable with changes in your menstrual bicycle. It is very common for women to end menstruating if their weight drops below their ideal level, or for you to find your periods becoming more irregular and painful over time if y'all are carrying excess weight.

The human torso is very smart. Abnormally low-fatty levels signal to the torso that you are in the equivalent of famine, so instead of allocating nutrients to the reproductive hormones information technology focuses instead on using those nutrients to keep the body alive.

In the case of backlog fat, the way it affects hormone levels is a bit different. Our fat cells actually produce estrogen. So the more body fat you lot have, the more estrogen you tend to produce while progesterone levels exercise not increment with weight gain. Causing your estrogen/progesterone residue to exit of sync. The big problem with this source of estrogen production is that is it can spiral out of control.

What are the symptoms of depression progesterone?

Abnormally low progesterone levels can pb to a condition known every bit estrogen say-so. A status that occurs when your delicate estrogen and progesterone balance is out of sync. This imbalance leads to concentrations of estrogen in your body overwhelming your progesterone levels. This hormonal imbalance tin can cause all kinds of problems in the trunk.

Common symptoms of depression progesterone and estrogen dominance include:

  • Decreased sexual practice drive
  • Increased PMS
  • Irregular periods
  • Depression
  • Mood swings
  • Headaches
  • Bloating
  • Hot flashes
  • Tenderness in the breasts
  • Weight gain
  • Fatigue
  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Insomnia

low-progesterone-high-estrogen

If left untreated for a significant menstruum of time, hormonal imbalances may pb to serious health weather:

  • A complete lack of ovulation (and periods)
  • Infertility
  • Endometriosis
  • Heavy haemorrhage
  • Fibrosis
  • Uterine cancer
  • Depression-course dementia
  • Breast cancer
  • Center affliction
  • Stroke

As a consequence, it is very of import that y'all stay in melody with your hormones and become them tested if y'all recall something isn't correct.

Why do women need progesterone?

Progesterone is secreted past the ovaries afterward y'all have ovulated. It helps prepare the body for a possible pregnancy by maintaining the uterine lining for the 14 days post ovulation, assuasive the implantation of the embryo to occur. Making progesterone one of the well-nigh significant hormones in healthy conception.

These elevated progesterone levels too play a significant part in keeping your menstrual bike regular and healthy. Inquiry has shown that progesterone plays a big part in protecting you lot from developing breast and other uterine cancers as elevated estrogen levels in your body can promote the growth of cancer cells.

The biggest cause of low progesterone is age

Low progesterone tin can happen for whatsoever number of reasons at whatever age. Withal, a women's estrogen and progesterone levels first dropping at differing rates around the age of 35. Estrogen goes downward around 35%, while progesterone drops by upward to 75%. This imbalance leads to many common symptoms of menopause including hot flashes, changes in mood, and decreasing menstrual cycles.

Scientists have yet to make a breakthrough that stops the aging process. Until that happens, we have no pick merely to find other ways of dealing with the hormonal imbalances that occur as a woman ages.

The effects of low progesterone levels extend well beyond your menstrual cycle and can touch on the quality of your life. Here's what you can do to get yours up naturally and go yourself dorsum on track.

Encounter also: What Causes Low Progesterone in Women?

The biggest matter you should take from this commodity is the importance of self-care! Whether you know you have low progesterone levels or merely suspect y'all are, remember that this tin be mitigated with a few unproblematic changes in lifestyle. Low progesterone is not a life-sentence, but a bump in the route on your way to a long, salubrious reproductive life. Doing what you tin can to keep your mind and body healthy should go a long way towards helping you accomplish the results you lot desire.

See also: How do you Cheque Progesterone Levels From Home?

Written past Hannah Kingston | Approved past Medical Director Dr. Dominic Rowley