Psychiatrist: What most women don’t know about their hormones

A renowned psychiatrist has revealed the reason why most women turn to unhealthy habits like drinking alcohol and smoking in their 40s.

California brain specialist Dr. Daniel Amen explained the biological reasons that lead women to make lifestyle changes in the decade before menopause hits.

The psychiatrist often shares information that explains common phenomena that baffle the general public.

In a recent videorevealed that the drop in progesterone levels ten years before menopause causes insomnia, anxiety, severe cramps, frequent migraines, and irritability.

“Your hormones can improve your life,” the doctor said. They are extremely important.

“An interesting thing about hormone absorption that most women don’t know is that progesterone, which makes you feel calm, starts to decline ten years before women enter menopause.”

The main function of progesterone occurs during a woman’s childbearing years, when the hormone prepares the lining of the uterus for a fertilized egg to implant and grow.

Progesterone thickens the lining of the uterus and is essential for maintaining a healthy pregnancy.

But levels drop later in life because the hormone is extremely difficult to produce and is produced only after ovulation.

When women stop ovulating in their forties and start their anovulatory cycles, the body stops producing progesterone naturally.

“So around the age of forty, I’ve noticed a lot of women start to feel anxious or have trouble sleeping and are more irritable, but they don’t understand why.”

He continued: “So they start drinking more alcohol or smoking more marijuana, or they end up on antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds and sleeping pills.”

“But the best thing to do would be to measure your progesterone levels on day 19 or 20 of your menstrual cycle and talk to your doctor about the best ways you can get natural progesterone to regulate your mood.”

Many women in the comments were unaware of the importance of progesterone.

“I’m thirty-nine years old and my anxiety has skyrocketed recently and I never sleep,” wrote one woman. “Most doctors don’t trust women and tell us that feeling like this is normal when it’s not.”

‘Thanks for sharing this information. I am in my fifties and take progesterone every night. I sleep like a baby and have no hot flashes. No alcohol!’