Lifestyle

We began our site to ensure that people of San Antonio, TX and across the US have access to learning healthier habits, and how nutrition and exercise can change your overall health. Those changes can make a difference in every part of your body, especially your hormones. Your hormones are your body’s messengers, similar to neurotransmitters but created in the endocrine glands. They affect your body, health, and behavior. Stress hormones are necessary to survive but also cause damage when left unchecked. Hormones can affect your mood, and an imbalance could cause mental illnesses.

Hormones can make you feel hungry or full.

Most people think of sex hormones when they hear hormones, but there are 50 different hormones besides testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. Each one has a task or tasks they have to start. Hormones also have an opposing hormone. For instance, ghrelin is a hormone that makes you hungry, while its counterpart, leptin, makes you feel full. The two can get out of balance. If you get too little sleep, the body makes more ghrelin and less leptin. You’re hungrier and eat beyond where you’d otherwise feel satisfied. That’s an invitation to weight gain.

There are feel-good hormones and imbalances that make you feel out of control.

Almost everyone has heard of dopamine. It’s both a neurotransmitter and a hormone. It’s a feel-good, reward hormone that triggers the brain’s pleasure center. It’s responsible for motivation and addiction. Too much cortisol or norepinephrine can make you feel stressed and anxious. Oxytocin is the love/relationship hormone that helps parents and their children bond. Testosterone is in both male and female bodies since it performs other tasks that aren’t related to sexuality. Too little testosterone causes depression, anxiety, a low sex drive, lower energy levels, and increased anxiety.

Insulin is necessary for your body to survive.

Insulin tells the cells to open to receive glucose. It’s created when there is too much glucose in the bloodstream. You need insulin for the cells to have the energy to survive. It also is responsible for storing excess glucose in the form of fat. It has an antagonist, as most hormones do. That hormone is glucagon. It signals the liver to release glucose and put more in the bloodstream. It causes fat cells to break down, while insulin causes them to increase. Both must function to avoid diabetes.

• Norepinephrine is both a neurotransmitter and a stress hormone. One function is constricting blood vessels, raising blood pressure. Acetylcholine, prostaglandins, and histamine are hormones that make them wider, lowering blood pressure.
• Even though serotonin is often called the “feel good” hormone, it’s not a hormone. It isn’t created by a gland, or by the body for that matter. Beneficial microbes in the gut create serotonin.
• Oxytocin may be the love hormone that is released during group activities, during romance, and between parent and child, it also can cause aggressive behavior to anyone outside the group.
• HGH—human growth hormone—is considered a hormone of youth. You’ll have more if you exercise regularly. It controls many functions and some believe it slows the aging process.

For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit San Antonio