Elusive Estrogen

Oh, yes, estrogen the female essence of sexuality. Where does it go when we need it the most? It’s the hormones that keeps our skin soft and moist, our hair and nails strong, gives us our sexual curves, keeps the vaginal wet and some studies indicate that it is the presence of this hormone that makes men desire and chase us. The greater the estrogen the sexier the lady! But let that hormone take a nose dive and all of us know the moods, the self loathing, and the lack of desire.
Throughout our lives it waxes and wanes and then through a slow process it almost dwindles away. This is known as menopause. Estrogen of course is just one of the hormones that is effected by menopause but for this blogs sake let’s just look at what it is; what it does and ways we might stimulate it through diet and exercise.
Estrogen is known as the female hormone. As menopause approaches estrogen begins to fade. As it fades we experience mood swings, hot flashes, night sweats, dryness, exhaustion, and brain fog. Most people don’t know that estrogen improves cognition, stabilizes moods, increases performance, reaction time and endurance. Estrogen helps us to maintain skin tone and helps to keep our bones strong as well as prevent heart disease. As to our sexual role, estrogen helps maintain a level of receptivity. It generates an attractive body odor, keeps the vagina soft and moist, and improves our overall body tone and function.
Estrogen helps to prevent depression, reduces stress levels improves taste and smell and decrease appetite. Estrogen is a woman’s friend. When we ovulate it is the high level of estrogen giving us that sexual allure and a general overall feeling of happiness and sexiness. Estrogen makes us feel good.
So how can we keep the estrogen flowing? Well first it is important to acknowledge that a healthy diet is good for both your over all health as well as your sexual health. Staying in shape, eating healthy, exercising, and living a healthy lifestyle will keep the sexual juices flowing.
There is increasing evidence that peri-menopause and menopause can be treated nutritionally. Studies show that a loss of estrogen and nutritional deficiencies may affect the sex drive and our energy levels. Therefore if we add estrogen supporting foods to our diets we can increase the body’s natural response to a loss of estrogen.
Studies show that adding soy products, tofu, sage, vitamin E, ginseng, calcium, zinc, and B-complex vitamins are good for sexual health.
Vegetables (leafy greens) and legumes(soybeans) plus ginseng contain phytoestrogens or natural plant estrogens. When estrogen levels are low in the body, phytoestrogens are able to exert some estrogenic activity and when estrogen levels are high phytoestrogens reduce overall estrogen activity. Therefore, adding these foods to our diets supports our sexual health as well as our bones, hearts, and brains. Eat, drink, and be sexy!
Doctor Lynn
www.doctorlynn.com