Helpful and Hormonal
[Originally shared April 2019]
I’m never going to claim to know everything there is to know about hormones. But the more I read, the more I learn! Over the past 3 weeks, I’ve been reading a book I picked up from B&N (does anyone else still browse for books??). Truth be told, I picked it over a book I’ve been wanting for my library for a looong time because of its colors. Definitely judged it for its cover. But the content inside was just as captivating.
Hormonal: The hidden intelligence of hormones- how they drive desire, shape relationships, influence our choices, and make us wiser is written by Martie Haselton, PhD, a professor of psychology at UCLA and the Institute for Society and Genetics. She basically takes all of these scientific studies, humor, societal observations, past and current politics, and personal experience and writes comprehensively to show what I already felt was true about females and their hormones.
I enjoyed reading this book for a fresh perspective on hormones and the reasons they are important to pay attention to them.
To keep it simple as possible, I’m going to boil down a few of my favorite bits of knowledge. If the female hormonal cycle is something completely new to you, you can read more in detail about it on my blog post called Cycle Syncing 101 to familiarize yourself with the phases!
Here are my TAKEAWAYS on Hormonal:
As much as I sometimes hate to admit (because, granted, we have highly developed brains), “human female behavior during fertility echoes animal behavior” (20). When we enter the ovulatory phase of our cycle (the fertile phase about midway through the menstrual cycle), our physiology AND our outward behavior changes: competitiveness increases, risk taking increases- however, we are more cautious when feeling vulnerable, flirting increases, and even our dressing style becomes sexier and more revealing! This is all for attracting the best mate and continuing our lineage through producing thriving offspring!
Progesterone does a lot more than I thought. Reminder- it peaks in the later half of our menstrual cycle, after ovulation and then takes a dive before menstruation. In terms of PMS, the author suggests that instead of seeing it as a syndrome or side-effect of being a woman, we can look at it as a strategy. When this drop happens and we have similar feelings to “withdrawal”, including irritability, physical discomfort, and antisocial feelings, we can actually use it to our advantage and from an evolutionary standpoint, can weed out or ward off unwanted partners for reproduction.
In pregnancy, those high levels of progesterone and estrogen serve a purpose, creating the “Mama Bear Effect” and “Mommy Mind” that are real AF. Progesterone clues a woman into who and where is safe for her to be, to protect against any kind of threat, so that her offspring will survive through the pregnancy. The high levels of estrogen are correlated to specifically poor verbal recall, where a woman can’t quite think of the right name/word/phrase, especially towards the end of pregnancy and even three months postpartum. I’m going to let this be a good reminder for my mamas that this is totally normal and NECESSARY when your body and brain are literally just trying to keep you and your baby (or babies) alive and well.
Of course, there is SO much more knowledge to glean from this book. I’m hopeful that you found this helpful and that you choose to pick up Hormonal to read so that you can see for yourself how important it is to understand what your hormones are doing in your body and how they actually affect you- with a scientific approach!
Let me know your thoughts below or if you have a book about hormones, women’s health, or cycles that YOU love.
