Often for a female’s behaviour, hormones are termed to be blameworthy. Obviously, they play a major role in her behaviour but there are few things that a man should know about female hormones.
1. Women and their hormones:
Hormones are everywhere. Dozens of glands in the human body are pumping out various hormones all the time. If particularly talking about hormones, it should be made clear that no hormone is good or bad. These chemicals released in our bodies constantly interact with each other and other compounds in the body just in order to stay in balance.
Women’s mood is no more a secrete to anybody. Mood swings are one of the most talked-about topics among millennials today. You might have noticed your wife, girlfriend, mother, or sister sometimes have mood swings and flies off the handle at little things from time to time. All this makes you feel like you have to walk on eggshells around her. But it is important to understand that there is an actual physical reason for this – the hormones.
2. It’s not just about Estrogen:
Estrogen is the most talked-about women’s hormones in discussions. Estrogen is the primary female sex hormone and it is responsible for a lot of different functions, including the growth of breasts and the maturation of the genitalia during puberty. Estrogen is the most fluctuating hormone in women’s body and is therefore in charge of most changes in her moods and her physical appearance.
Estrogen plays an important role in the menstrual cycle and influences a number of other functions in the body that have nothing to do with sex. As women enter menopause, estrogen deficiency occurs which results in insomnia, hot flashes, and mood swings. In an attempt to readjust the hormone levels in such conditions causes mood swings. However, it should be noted that there is more to a women’s hormones and it’s not just about estrogen.
There is another major hormone called progesterone that helps a woman to prepare the body for pregnancy, supports the baby growing inside her when she is pregnant and even decides when a pregnant woman goes into labour or starts lactating. Apart from these two hormones, there is another hormone that plays a role throughout a woman’s life. The third important hormone is – the male sex hormone, testosterone. Yes, both males and females have testosterone, just like both men and women have estrogen. Testosterone plays a role in female sex drives and affects their bone density.
Female hormones are always considered complex in behaviour as well as in nature. It is no wonder because there are so many in number. Apart from the above three hormones in females, there are few more hormones produced by the pituitary glands that regulate normal menstrual cycles.
3. Hormones are different for every woman:
This is a basic truth that hormones are not the same in every woman, they vary from one woman to another. You must be a witness to this if you ever dated a woman and get close enough to discuss intimate details with her. If you date another woman after her, you will sooner learn the fact that hormones work differently for every woman.
It is necessary to note that though women possess similar hormones but still they function in a slightly different manner for each one of them. Levels of hormones in a female’s body not only rise and fall each month in a complex pattern based on their menstrual cycles, but they also vary based on their age and on the woman herself. So really, there is no way to decode hormonal changes in women.
So, the best way to understand a woman is to try and analyse the hormonal changes she goes through every month. It is also important to understand that it sometimes becomes necessary to comfort a woman when she is irritated or cranky over a certain thing in order to make her feel good.
4. Healthy libido means normal hormonal levels:
Changing hormones equals changing libido. Women’s hormones do figure prominently in a healthy libido. These hormones are also known as ‘sex hormones’, and fluctuation in the levels of libidos is not always good news for a person’s sex life. Hormonal imbalances are the major reason that leads to several female sexual dysfunction cases.
Just like men feel low when their testosterone level declines, women also suffer low sexual activity women’s hormones start to decline – so it goes both ways. If you’re wondering what testosterone has to do with a woman’s interest in sex, the answer is everything. Testosterone is a natural female libido enhancer. Testosterone is crucial to a woman’s libido. According to a study, women immediately lose 50% percent of their circulating testosterone when she undergoes total hysterectomy or enters menopause.
However, there are many other factors that affect libido, it’s not just about the hormones. The other factors might include health conditions, certain medications, or lifestyle factors like drug, or alcohol abuse. Lack of intimacy, depression or body image issues may also result in sexual dysfunction in women.
5. Menopause can be distressing:
Menopause is a stage that is certainly believed to be as the time when a woman is no longer fertile. When the monthly period of a woman stops at a certain age in life, she is probably going to suffer from various side-effects of the process. Men should understand that menopause is a gradual process.
Menopause is a pretty tough situation for many women as when a woman enter menopause she goes through months of skipped periods and fluctuating hormones, which makes it difficult for a woman to cope with.
6. PMS is more than what it just looks like:
Some people, including medical professionals, have dismissed the concept of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) as a legitimate disorder. They believe PMS is nothing but an excuse that women have conjured up for behaving badly for a few days each month. But yet, some doctors believe that PMS can be disturbing for some women leading to different experiences that involve mood swings, intestinal distress, headaches to even insomnia.
This premenstrual syndrome can be overcome over a period of time by maintaining a healthy lifestyle by women. But sometimes a woman goes through extreme symptoms like anxiety, stress, anger, and irritability that are out of her control. Such cases need to be treated with patience and care and sometimes also require medication and therapy.