My Hormone Nourishing Routine with Demi
By Demi Spaccavento, Bright Girl Health
Demi Spaccavento is a menstrual educator and founder of Bright Girl Health, and we’re happy to welcome her to the QENDO Blog to share how she supports her hormone health and overall wellbeing with this hormone nourishing routine. As a menstrual educator, Demi knows that knowledge is power and that better understanding your body and how to work with it can make an important difference to how you cope with your menstrual cycle, or with chronic conditions like endometriosis, adenomyosis, PCOS, infertility and fibroids.
My daily hormone nourishing routine as a menstrual health educator that you can do too!
I’m Demi and I have what I think is the coolest job ever! I am a menstrual health educator and founder of Bright Girl Health school menstrual health presentations. I travel and speak in high schools, teaching the students the golden information about periods that so many of us never learned from our health teachers!
I, like so many other people, left school know NEXT TO NOTHING about the way periods worked, thinking that hormones were just things that made you moody, and definitely not having ever heard terms like endometriosis, adenomyosis, fibroids or PCOS! Fast-forward 10 years after leaving school, I now view my period as an intelligent function of my body, I’m grateful for it and I know how to use my lifestyle choices to help me have the best period I possibly can (which I share with you in this article!)It’s my mission to make sure every menstruator leaves school empowered to embrace their cycle and equipped with the tools to use it as their superpower!
This is what we SHOULD be learning in school about the menstrual cycle
When I speak in schools I ask the students a couple of questions…
“Who here has heard of PCOS before?”
“Who here has heard of endometriosis before?”…
Maybe 5 hands go up in a room of 100.
Considering 1 in 10 menstruators and 2 in 10 menstruators experience endometriosis and PCOS respectively, and the symptoms of these conditions can begin in teenage years, it is not ok for us to leave school having never even heard the terms for these conditions.
Unfortunately, the trend is for many students to accept their miserable period pain, chronic acne, heavy periods and horrible period experience as ‘just what it means to menstruate’.No wonder the average delay in diagnosing endometriosis is 7-10 years6! Students need to be equipped with tools to listen to their bodies, and then to advocate for themselves with health professionals to get answers and the right support.
This is where I come in. Through Bright Girl Health presentations I teach students how to listen to their period symptoms as an intelligent way their body communicates with them. The students learn tools for connecting with the right health professionals to have their voices and concerns actually heard. I also teach the students the most effective ways they can use their daily routine to balance their hormones to minimise period symptoms and have their best period ever!And I’m going to share those tips with you too!
My daily hormone nourishing routine
One of the most empowering things I learned about my periods is that I actually have the power to influence my period symptoms. I have the power in every day to support my hormone balance so that I can have a better period!Before I tell you what I do every day to nourish my hormones, I will acknowledge that everyone is different.
These strategies might work quickly for some, but slowly for others.
These strategies don’t replace seeing a professional.
Some people need more hormone support and professional intervention than others.
People with conditions like endometriosis, adenomyosis, PCOS and fibroids can all use these tips but may need additional support for success. Everyone is different and these are the foundations we can all be using and adapting to suit our own bodies.
Nutrition
What we eat has a huge effect on our hormones.
Food is one of our most powerful tools to impact our hormone balance, both positively and negatively.
Here’s what I do with nutrition to support my hormones:
Eat multiple veggies at every meal
This is one of the philosophies I adopt when preparing my food. I try to eat multiple vegetables at every meal! Vegetables are rich in vitamins and nutrients, which our body needs for a healthy menstrual cycle! Veggies are also high in fibre. Fibre is so important for hormone balance as it helps the body to effectively get rid of the hormones it has broken down ready for elimination. This helps maintain hormone balance.
Invest in my gut health
The health of your gut will influence how effectively your body eliminates hormones it does not need in order to prevent hormone imbalance. If your gut health is poor, your body could be reabsorbing hormones like oestrogen that it’s trying to get rid of, leading to excess oestrogen that is a driving factor in period pain, heavy periods, endometriosis, fibroid growth, and further throwing out the balance of your other hormones.
Optimal gut function will also help you absorb the most amount of nutrients from all those veggies you’re eating!
Support the liver - this is where hormone detoxification happens!
Our liver is our body’s superhero of breaking down unneeded hormones (and toxins) to get them ready to be eliminated from the body. I like to give it all the support I can so it can do this job well! Foods like broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, bok choy are all great for supporting the liver! On the flip side, lots of alcohol and coffee can put extra load on the liver, potentially minimising its efficiency.
Eat foods with Omega 3 fats
Omega 3 fats can be anti-inflammatory in the body. Inflammation = pain. If you’ve got period cramps, then omega 3s can be your best friend! I like to consume omega 3s through hemp seeds, flax seeds, leafy green vegetables, chia seeds and walnuts, but you can also consume it through fatty fish.
Avoiding gluten, dairy and refined sugar
These foods can be unhelpful when trying to balance your hormones for a few reasons:- They can cause inflammation. Inflammation = pain - They can negatively impact your gut health, and increase gut permeability. As we learnt above, gut health is very important for hormone balance, as well as digestion and overall health.
Whether you’re allergic to gluten and dairy or not, if you’re trying to achieve optimal hormone balance, I encourage you to cut them (and refined sugar!) out for at least a few months to see the difference it makes to your digestion and to your period symptoms! If you’re someone with PCOS you know that avoiding sugar can help keep your insulin levels in check and thus control your hormone balance and period symptoms. PCOS or not - sugar can impact your levels of cortisol, adrenaline, insulin and glucose, which can in turn impact your period hormones. Ditching (or highly reducing) sugar can do wonders for your hormone balance.
Here are a few more quick things I do with my food preparation
I don’t store food/water in plastic. Hormone disrupting chemicals from the plastics can leech into your food, especially when heating food in plastic and these affect your body’s oestrogen balance. BPA free plastic can still contain other endocrine disruptors.
I drink filtered water - let the water filter do the work instead of your liver!
Meal prep on a sunday so I’m never caught without a health meal ready to go! Prepping healthy snacks that are easy to grab and go is a life saver too!
Stress management
Stress is your period’s worst enemy.
Essentially, our stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline) fight our period hormones in our body. And they win, causing our body to push the role of making healthy period hormones WAYYY DOWN on the priority list.
When we are stressed, our body’s fight or flight mode is switched on. This activates our sympathetic nervous system and tells our body that fertility and periods DON’T MATTER RIGHT NOW! As a result, our body diverts its resources away from making healthy period hormones in order to keep us safe from ‘danger’ (usually we’re not in any actual danger, but our stress is telling our body that we are).
Bottom line is, if you want healthy hormones and the best period possible, you need some tools up your sleeve to manage stress! Here’s a few things I do:
Deep breathing
Breathing is powerful and a lot of us do it ineffectively. Breathing slowly into your belly so it inflates when you inhale and deflates when you exhale is the most effective way to use your breath as a tool to calm your body. I outline my favorite effective breathing technique in my book, The Bright Girl Guide. Deep breathing signals to your brain that your body is not in danger, stimulating the vagus nerve and helping to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, where your body is able to rest and prioritise making healthy period hormones! I set aside time each day to do some deep breathing, or even just give myself a few moments to take a few deep breaths if I’m feeling stressed.
Meditation
Meditation is about mindfulness and being in the present moment - it’s not as hippy dippy as it has been made out to be. Stress and anxiety, for a lot of people, can take the form of worrying about the future, or thinking about situations outside the present moment. Bringing your focus into the present moment can help bring clarity and relaxation.
I like to use an app like Headspace to do a guided meditation. I wish I did this every day, and I'm working towards that, but at the moment I probably do it a few times a week. On days when I don’t do a guided meditation on my headspace app, I feel the difference and it makes me realise how effective taking 10 minutes out of my day for mindfulness really is!
Journaling
Writing down the things that are worrying me, either on paper or on my phone, is a great way to visually see what’s bothering me and help it seem more manageable. Sometimes once I write down my thoughts, I realise there really isn’t as much to stress about as my mind made it seem. It also helps me to brainstorm how I can deal with my stressors.
Make time for FUN
Work. Rest. Play. These are 3 separate things.We can rest by doing the above tips - but that’s not the same as PLAY!Setting aside time to do something that is FUN is so important for your mental health, and will in turn help your body to produce adequate levels of progesterone, leading to a more regular period with less symptoms!Go for a bike ride, see some friends, dance to your favorite playlist. Whatever ‘play’ looks like for you, do more of that!
Consume adaptogenic herbs
Adaptogens help your body to adapt under stress. They help to take the load off your adrenal glands (which release your stress hormones), which in turn can lead to healthier period hormones. Examples of adaptogens: Schisandra, maca root, ashwagandha, chaga mushroom, reishi mushroom, and holy basil.
Movement
Exercise and moving our body is a fun and easy way to invest in our hormone health!
I exercise multiple times a week
Not only is exercise great for your mental health but is also helpful to maintain hormone balance in the body! DOUBLE WHAMMY!
I listen to my body. At different times in my menstrual cycle I feel more or less energetic. I never push my body to do more than when I feel capable of on that particular day.
Overexercise can be a bad thing!
Exercise that is too frequent or too strenuous can put a lot of stress on the body, which can in turn impact the body’s HPA axis and progesterone levels, and lead to delayed ovulation/delayed period, or more period symptoms. Find a happy ‘sweet spot’ for your body at this point in your life, where you’re not over exercising or under exercising, but giving your body a chance to move and feel good as often as you can!
I view exercise an an opportunity for ‘me time’, not as a chore
If exercising if stressful, then it can cause more harm than good to your hormones!
Find the way you like to move your body that makes you happy and is enjoyable and won’t just be a phase. You don’t need to be doing high intensity activities for exercise to be effective! Walking with a friend or doing light yoga are valid ways to move your body and get the benefits for your hormones! But if you love running and HIIT workouts, that’s great too! As long as it makes you feel good and it’s not something you’ll get over after 2 weeks.
You have so much power and influence over your hormones! In each and every day you can make decisions with what you eat, how you move your body and how you handle stress that can make such a huge difference to your hormone balance. Making small changes in these areas helps to give your body a lot of support so it can go about its work of making healthy hormones!
Want to unlock more secrets about how your hormones work?
If you’d like to understand more about what hormones control our menstrual cycle and what their roles in the menstrual cycle are, my book ‘The Bright Girl Guide’ helps to make hormones simple!
You can use the code “QENDO10” for 10% off!
This book comes as a paperback book and an eBook and is available internationally from www.brightgirhealth.com/shop
For LOTS of info about how you can have a better period, you can also follow me on instagram and facebook:
Instagram: @brightgirlhealth
Facebook: www.facebook.com/brightgirlhealth
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Demi Spaccavento is a passionate women's health educator, author, high school teacher and the founder of Bright Girl Health. Demi is the most sought after menstrual health presenter for schools in Australia. She has presented to thousands of students, empowering them to be in tune with their body and never have to dread their period again.
Demi has no filter when it comes to talking about period and believes that we should never be kept in the dark about our own bodies. She believes that the menstrual cycle does not have to be your enemy - it can be your greatest tool for better health and wellbeing!
Sources
Trickey, R. (2011). Women, Hormones and the Menstrual cycle (3rd ed.). Victoria, Australia: Trickey Enterprises.
Fucic, A., Gamulin, M., Ferencic, Z., Katic, J., Krayer, v., Bartonova, A,, & Merlo, D.F. (2012). Environmental exposure to xenoestrogens and oestrogen related cancers: reproductive system, breast, lung, kidney, pancreas, and brain. Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source, 28(11). doi: 10.1186/1476-069X-11-S1-S8.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/is-plastic-a-threat-to-your-health
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-ap/chapter/functions-of-the-autonomic-nervous-system/
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