Hormones are the chemical entities in your body that control many vital functions by sending messages to organs, muscles, and tissues. They travel through the bloodstream and perform many pivotal body processes.
Disturbed hormonal balance is reported to affect mental health. Undeniably, what you feel from the inside will reflect on the outside and significantly affect how you deal with others.
Does Hormone Affect Mental Health?
Mental health and hormonal levels are correlated. Nerve cells in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain, release hormones per the body’s requirements. These hormones communicate with your body to produce effects; hence they are also substantial in expressing your mood, whether positive or negative. Imbalance or simply change in hormonal levels can have a significant impact on one’s emotional well-being. Regulating hormones level can help a patient relieve many mental issues.
A typical example is the hormonal imbalance during pregnancy or menopause that leads to an alteration in mood. Apart from that, contraceptives also contain progesterone which elevates depressive feelings. A hormone that plays a significant role in stressing an individual out is cortisol. It is released in higher quantities by adrenal glands when a person is going through a stressful situation.
Thyroid hormone has excellent potential to topple over your mental health. Insulin acts as a mood hormone, and if your body cannot utilise the insulin properly, you may face mood alterations.
Does mental health affect relationships?
Your mental health and relationships run parallel with each other. Both influence the other. Mental well-being is a collection of social, psychological and emotional states. How your brain feels affects how it perceives things, regards them and acts in response. Your choices are heavily influenced by how your brain is feeling. Disrupted mental health leads to social isolation and dramatically disturbs relationships with your spouse, children, siblings, friends, colleagues etc.
It has been observed that a decline in serotonin leads to sadness and irritability. This overshadows your behaviour and leaves a sour taste in your relationships. A drop in testosterone leads to low sex drive and anxiety. This may influence romantic relationships. Testosterone is also interlinked with aggression; hence a higher level of this hormone may lead the person to show their angry side.
Studies also suggest that the elevation of estradiol in women leads to lesser physical attraction towards their partners and low sex drives.
How to deal with mental issues and improve relationships?
People usually ignore hormone profiles while looking for the cause behind their constant depressive state and disturbed state of mental health. Getting your hormones checked for an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan is vital. Regulating hormones have proven beneficial for your emotional well-being and resolve your mood swings. Medications have been proven successful in treating hormone issues, such as metformin for diabetes and PCOs, levothyroxine for hypothyroidism etc.
Hormone therapies have been saviours for many marriages. It reaches the root cause of aggression, irritability, and depression and treats it.