Postpartum University® Podcast

Part 2: Balancing Hormones

August 08, 2021 Maranda Bower, Postpartum Bliss Coach  Episode 20
Postpartum University® Podcast
Part 2: Balancing Hormones
Show Notes Transcript

For full show notes go to https://marandabower.com/part-2-balancing-hormones-podcast-ep20/ 

This is going to be Part 2 of a 3 part series in the podcast on Balancing Hormones, Part 4 is shared in my Facebook group The Postpartum Circle, so be sure to go join!

These episodes will be spaced out and released through the month of July and August so make sure you are following the podcast so you don’t miss out! 

Why are so many women experiencing imbalances during postpartum? Your hormones are responsible for everything. Healing from the inside out will help you regulate your hormones and allow you to heal faster and fully after having a baby.

There are four key components to hormone imbalances. Nutrients, sleep, support, and stress. Each one affects the next and when you are not taking care of yourself these can be exacerbated. Come listen to part 2 of balancing your hormones where I dive in a little bit deeper on this journey inward to healing your body and your hormones no matter where you are in your postpartum journey.


In this episode, I’m sharing with you:

  • Inward to healing your body and your hormones 
  • Hormones are greatly responsible for how we live our life
  • How you healed and what balances or imbalances you had in postpartum will affect the experiences you have during menopause
  • Depression, anxiety, feeling constantly overwhelmed is not a place to live
  • You should be thriving, not drowning
  • Hormone imbalance is a symptom, not a problem
  • The four main reasons why your hormones are out of balance
  • Nutrients, sleep, support, and stress/trauma
  • Lack of nutrients, lack of sleep, this lack is causing the imbalance
  • In postpartum your brain changes immensely
  • The postpartum hormone cycle
  • Investigate how you are feeling
  • Assess where you are


- Holistic Postpartum Nutrition Training for Professionals is now open! Learn more and register here: https://www.MarandaBower.com/Training 

- Join my Facebook group The Postpartum Circle
https://www.facebook.com/groups/postpartumcircle

- If you'd like to work with me, or need support, reach out here!     

Feeling inspired and ready to learn more about how you can actively revolutionize postpartum care?

We all get it: postpartum and the years after having a baby is no walk in the park. But you know what? It isn't just about depression or anxiety either. Hey, my friend, I'm Maranda Bower, a homesteading mama with four wild kids whose life passion and education is all about supporting mothers and providers in understanding the science, the art, and the sacredness of healing after birth. What we know as common sense in the postpartum years has many women feeling just plain awful. It's time to bring back the truth, get you the tools you need to heal, and thrive in motherhood and beyond. Welcome, my friends.

I'm Maranda Bower, your host for the Postpartum Circle Podcast. Today's episode is part of a four-day series. And so, we've already released the first episode, which you can find in the podcast that was episode number 18. So, you can go back and listen to part one, and then today, we're going to do part two. Part two is really diving into some very key components to balancing your hormones, especially in the years after postpartum. If you have not done so already, you can also download your workbook, which is a part of the Postpartum Circle group on Facebook. So, you can go to that, the link is in the show notes, and download your workbook so that you can play along. Enjoy this episode, and I can't wait to hear your thoughts.

I am so excited to do this second-day training. This is going to be significant. I have a lot of things that I'm going to share with you today. I'm also going to do my absolute best to keep it short like I did yesterday because, you know, #momlife. Or, moms, we get it. So, let me know if you can hear me and see me. Say hello. I want to make sure that you are on, and we are good to go. Alex says, "I can see you and hear you." Thank you, beautiful, so we can get started.

So, yesterday, we dived into some really hot topics. We talked about the significance of hormones in the body. We talked about the symptoms of hormone imbalance, right? That went deep. And we talked about the relationship between your brain and mental health and your hormones, okay? Really, really big topics were covered yesterday. If you have not had an opportunity to view that, please go take a look at that immediately after this. Some really big things were talked about. We talked about lots of important and very significant key points. And now, today, we're going to dive in a little bit deeper on this journey inward to healing your body and your hormones, no matter where you are in your postpartum journey.

And here's why this is so important: because our hormones are greatly responsible for how we live our life, okay? The way you feel about your baby? Hormones. The way you communicate with your partner? That's hormones. The way you look at your own body? Hormones. The way you experience menopause years later? That goes back to how you healed and what balances or imbalances you had in postpartum, okay? Depression, anxiety, feeling constantly overwhelmed, weepy, like you just can't deal with life, that is hormones. And quite frankly, those moods are no place to live. Sure, we have them once in a blue moon. Sure, that happens because we're human and we're living life, right? But this is not a place to live and a place to be for a long period of time, okay? Yes, it's common. No, it's not your fault, but you should be thriving, not drowning. We're at the very least holding your head above water, barely breathing, right? So as smart women here, I know you already know how incredibly important it is to really have your hormones in balance. You know how it impacts your entire life.

Some of the private messages I got last night asking about certain issues, and if they were hormone-related — the Hashimoto's, autoimmune diseases, gallbladder issues, constant bloating, yeah, hormones. That's huge hormones right there. So here's the thing, the hormone imbalance that's happening in your body, that is a symptom. It is not the problem, it is the symptom, okay? So take that in for a minute. The imbalance you are experiencing, the hair loss, the night sweats, the mood crashes, those are symptoms of the actual issue that you're experiencing. They're not the issue itself, okay?

But what I'm gonna talk about now is the four main reasons why your hormones are out of balance, and then I'm gonna explain how you get that back on track, okay? So the image that I'm trying to show you is an image of the postpartum hormone cycle. So our hormones work in a cycle, right? We have a chart, essentially is what I'm trying to show you, and at the very top, there is nutrients. And then it's sleep, and then it's support, okay? So, support, emotional support, right? And then it's stress and trauma. And each one of them, they go in a spiral, okay? And they are all interrelated, every single one of them.

So we're gonna go through this a little bit more. Let's talk about the first part of this hormone cycle. The first part is the lack of nutrients, right? We have a lack of nutrients, lack of sleep, lack of emotional support, and stress related to life trauma and/or negative self-talk. Those are the four points of this hormone imbalance cycle, okay? Lack of nutrients, lack of sleep, lack of emotional support, right? And stress related to life trauma and/or negative self-talk, okay? And these four are part of this cycle. When you don't get enough sleep, you eat less, and you don't eat as you should because you don't have time. You're exhausted, right? Eating doesn't sound like something that you wanted to when you're exhausted, right? That's a normal biological response. And let's face it, as moms, if we're exhausted, we don't cook for ourselves. We already know that, okay? So, you are under-slept, right? Didn't sleep. Now you're under-nourished, and then you feel worse, and you start saying things like, "I should have done this. Why can't I get this together?" Okay?

This is stress. Many times, this is a habit that you have probably started in childhood, but it comes out strongly in the years postpartum. These childhood traumas and patterns come into full swing, and then that creates even more stress. To be clear, exhaustion, not eating well, and negative self-talk are already stressors on the body. However, it becomes exponential. It becomes exacerbated at this point because, if you remember, yesterday I shared with you how everything is felt more intensely.

Okay, now let me tell you something that amplifies all of this. Are you ready for this? I'm going to give you a neuroscience lesson here. I'm sorry you guys aren't seeing it. That's really frustrating. I will make sure to post it though after this live so that you can get the hormone imbalance chart. No problem. But let's dive into this.

In postpartum, your brain changes immensely. You lose volume. Your ability to draw information from your brain slows to the point that you forget common words and how to do tasks that you've done for a really long time. Right? Things stop making as much sense. It makes more sense on a feeling level than it does on a mental level. This way of functioning is very masculine. The go-getter, linear-thinking part of who you are is very masculine. And it slows down considerably postpartum, often without your permission. At the same time, your senses, your feelings increase. Your sense of smell is heightened, your ability to feel is extraordinary. You can act and move in a flash without a single thought as to why - like when that cup gets nearly knocked over the table, or your baby almost rolls off the couch. You literally sense danger, like when you have that scary, horrifying image pop in your brain when you're near the stairs, a railing, or when you hop into a car.

The problem is, those thoughts are simply warning signs. They're scary, and because we don't recognize them as a normal biological function that tells us, "Hey, look out, things are scary," we get even more scared. This triggers more of those thoughts because the fear hormone induces the fight, flight, freeze, thaw, and response. It becomes an out-of-control spiral. The more these thoughts happen, the more scared we become, and the spiral continues. By the end, we're left thinking, "Oh my gosh, what's wrong with me? Why am I having these scary, horrible, awful thoughts? I must be a terrible mother. What's going on?" And now we have depression and anxiety.

This is your brain when you have a baby. It's more feminine, more sensing. It's not how the world is run. It's based on feeling, fluidity, and intuition by nature. We don't live in a world that supports that, coupled with the unknowing of how to support a new mother in postpartum. This results in the struggles of postpartum, increased anxiety, and numerous scary thoughts and experiences of depression. Especially for high achievers, those who are successful and strive for a lot, suddenly embracing these biological brain changes can be difficult. It's hard to embrace this more fluid and feminine nature.

So, there's your neuroscience lesson. Now, back to the postpartum cycle and hormone cycle. This amplifies everything for you. These brain changes, this heightened sense of danger, need to be supported by the four points I'm discussing: nutrition, sleep, emotional support, and lack of stress. When they aren't, that's why we develop depression and anxiety. That's why it's so easy to fall into it. It affects all areas of your life: driving, getting out of the house, bringing your oldest to piano lessons, and even communicating with your partner. All of this becomes exponentially more difficult, leading to increased stress and lack of sleep.

As I explained yesterday, this is the basic knowledge you need to start in order to understand the four sacred hormone hacks that I'll share with you. The very reason my clients have so much success balancing their hormones is because of what I'm giving you in this series. I have a 100% success rate. This is partly because I only take on clients I know I can fully support. These are the tools and knowledge I provide them with so they can heal. Tomorrow, I'll dive into the actual hacks and address these issues. I want you to see the postpartum hormone cycle, and I will post that image soon. Hopefully, Facebook will allow it. If not, I'll pin it to the top of our group.

Take some time, grab your workbook, and reflect on how your brain has changed postpartum. Name these changes. Share what's going on. While you don't have to share here, I encourage it. Women need to see how interconnected we are in our struggles and joys. Being open is part of the healing process. Okay?

And I want you to think about these key points: the nutrition, the sleep, the emotional support, and the stress and trauma. How are they influencing you in this postpartum hormone cycle? How is that influencing you? So, today, I really want you to sit back and start investigating. How is this affecting my life? How are things shifting and changing in my body? How are my brain changes and my hormones affecting my everyday life? What is it affecting?

Like, all of those are going to be significant in answering the questions that I'm giving you today, okay? And moving forward with the healing that I'm going to give you tomorrow and the next day. Like, we're going to dive deep into sleep. I'm going to talk about getting you better sleep. I'm going to talk about some really key things that you want to address in terms of your nutrition that's going to give you the most and best benefit. Like, I'm going to go through all of those key pieces. I'm going to talk about emotional support. I'm going to talk about birth, pregnancy, and postpartum trauma. Did you know that was a thing?

Okay? We're going to talk about all of those key points. I'm even going to get into your period, okay? Because even if you're two to three years postpartum, if you're weaning, this cycle affects you. If you're getting your period back for the first time after breastfeeding and after having a baby, this affects you, okay? If you're still struggling with imbalances, mood disruptions, constant headaches, period pain, major hair loss - this applies to you. Everything that I'm sharing with you here, okay?

So, I'm going to leave you with that information. These are meant to be quick. Address some significant information for you and then dive into the big components. But first, I really want you to look at this hormone cycle. Again, I will post it shortly, and I want you to assess where you are. I want you to get real with yourself. Bonus points if you share that information with us here, and please reach out if you have any questions whatsoever. Feel free to drop them in the comments. Drop your aha moments. Let me know how this feels for you. We're going to dive into nutrition and sleep - some pretty big topics, but they're going to be absolutely amazing for you.Okay, bye. 

Thanks for tuning in and taking the time to learn about how to support your body in deep healing. We don't do this work just for us or for you. Your healing impacts your children, your relationships, and your community. We do this work because the health and vibrancy of our world begin with its mothers. I hope you have taken some valuable information today and applied it to your own life. 

If you aren't sure where to begin, reach out about working together one-on-one or, at minimum, learning about my postpartum nutrition plan, which is where I start every single one of my clients. And you can do that by going to MarandaBower.com. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Let us know by leaving a review, and we will see you next time.