“Balance your hormones.”
It’s one of the most common phrases in women’s health and wellness.
There are supplements designed to “support hormone balance”, foods we’re told will “balance our hormones”, diets and protocols promising to “rebalance” them, and endless lists of symptoms supposedly telling us that our hormones are “out of balance”.
But what does hormone balance actually mean?
Because hormones aren’t supposed to remain perfectly stable.
They rise and fall throughout the day. They respond to food, sleep, stress, light, movement and our environment. And reproductive hormones such as oestrogen and progesterone naturally change throughout the menstrual cycle and across the menopausal transition.
So perhaps the goal shouldn’t be to “balance” our hormones at all.
In this episode of the Empowered Perimenopause Podcast, I’m unpacking another popular wellness phrase and explaining what healthy hormone function really looks like — particularly during perimenopause.
And I want to give you three questions to start asking whenever you hear that something will “balance your hormones”:
Which hormone?
In which direction?
And why?
What actually is a hormone?
Hormones are chemical messengers produced by endocrine glands and other tissues throughout the body.
They communicate with cells and help coordinate an enormous range of physiological processes.
And importantly, different hormones have completely different jobs.
Insulin plays a major role in regulating blood glucose and energy metabolism.
Thyroid hormones influence metabolic activity throughout the body.
Cortisol is involved in our stress response, metabolism, immune regulation and circadian rhythm.
Melatonin helps regulate our sleep-wake cycle.
Oestrogen and progesterone influence reproductive function but also have effects throughout the brain, bones, cardiovascular system and other tissues.
So when we simply say “my hormones are imbalanced”, we haven’t really identified what is happening.
Which hormones are we talking about?
Are they too high? Too low? Fluctuating normally? Is hormone production the issue at all?
Those distinctions matter.
Hormones aren’t supposed to stay perfectly “balanced”
One of the biggest problems with the phrase “hormone balance” is that it can give us the impression that good hormonal health means keeping our hormones at some perfect middle level.
But healthy hormone physiology is dynamic.
Insulin is supposed to rise after we eat.
Cortisol normally follows a daily rhythm, generally higher around waking and lower towards night.
Melatonin rises in response to darkness and helps prepare us for sleep.
And during a normal menstrual cycle, oestrogen and progesterone change significantly.
Oestradiol generally rises during the follicular phase as a follicle develops and rises particularly around ovulation.
Following ovulation, the corpus luteum produces progesterone alongside oestrogen.
If pregnancy doesn’t occur, levels fall and menstruation begins.
Those fluctuations aren’t evidence that something has gone wrong.
They are normal physiology.
So rather than imagining healthy hormones sitting perfectly still on a set of scales, it can be much more useful to think about appropriate hormonal production, signalling and response for that particular person, at that particular time and stage of life.
Hormonal health is dynamic, not static.
What happens to our hormones during perimenopause?
This becomes particularly important during perimenopause.
The ovaries don’t simply switch off one day and stop producing oestrogen.
Instead, the years leading up to menopause are characterised by changing and often increasingly unpredictable ovarian hormone patterns.
Ovulation can become less consistent.
When ovulation doesn’t occur, normal corpus luteum progesterone production doesn’t follow.
Oestrogen can fluctuate significantly — sometimes reaching high levels and at other times dropping lower — before ovarian oestrogen production eventually becomes consistently much lower after menopause.
This changing hormonal environment can contribute to many of the symptoms women experience during the menopausal transition.
But simply describing all of this as a “hormone imbalance” doesn’t tell us very much.
And importantly, perimenopause itself isn’t a hormonal disorder that needs to be “fixed”.
It is a normal physiological transition.
That doesn’t mean women should simply put up with difficult symptoms — far from it. Symptoms deserve appropriate support and, where needed, treatment.
But there is an important difference between supporting a woman through a changing hormonal environment and telling her that her body has somehow become “unbalanced”.
What about “oestrogen dominance”?
Another phrase commonly used alongside hormone balance is “oestrogen dominance”.
This isn’t a formal medical diagnosis, and the term is used to describe several different things.
Sometimes it means oestrogen levels are genuinely high.
Sometimes it refers to oestrogenic activity being relatively high compared with progesterone.
And sometimes the term is applied based on symptoms such as heavy periods, breast tenderness, PMS or headaches without actually establishing what hormone levels are doing.
These situations aren’t necessarily the same.
There are genuine physiological circumstances in which oestrogenic stimulation can occur without the usual progesterone exposure — anovulatory cycles being one example.
If ovulation doesn’t happen, a normal corpus luteum doesn’t form and the usual rise in progesterone doesn’t occur.
This can become increasingly relevant during perimenopause as ovulation becomes less predictable.
But experiencing symptoms commonly associated with “oestrogen dominance” doesn’t automatically prove that you have too much oestrogen.
Again, we need to ask:
Which hormone? In which direction? And why do we think that?
What does a “hormone balancing” supplement actually do?
This is where the language becomes particularly interesting.
Walk into a health food shop or scroll through social media and you’ll find countless products promising to:
“Support female hormone balance.”
“Restore hormonal harmony.”
“Balance hormones naturally.”
But if something genuinely affects our hormones, we need to know how.
Does it increase oestrogen?
Reduce oestrogenic activity?
Alter oestrogen metabolism?
Influence androgen activity?
Improve insulin sensitivity?
Affect thyroid function?
Influence the stress response?
These are very different physiological actions.
Something that may be appropriate for one hormonal situation may be completely inappropriate for another.
And “natural” doesn’t necessarily mean hormonally neutral.
If a plant extract or supplement has sufficient biological activity to meaningfully alter hormone production, signalling or metabolism, that’s precisely why there should be a reason for using it.
This doesn’t mean supplements are inherently bad or that they never have a place.
It means specificity matters.
The more vague the claim, the more curious we should become.
Can hormones genuinely become dysregulated?
Absolutely.
There are many recognised conditions involving altered hormone production, signalling or response.
These include conditions such as:
- Hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism
- Insulin resistance and diabetes
- Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)
- Hyperprolactinaemia
- Certain adrenal and pituitary disorders
- Reproductive hormone deficiencies or excesses
But notice the difference.
Rather than simply diagnosing someone with a generic “hormone imbalance”, healthcare professionals aim to identify which hormonal pathway is affected, how it is affected and why.
That information then guides appropriate treatment.
What should we ask instead of “How do I balance my hormones?”
If “balancing your hormones” isn’t a particularly useful goal, what should we be thinking about instead?
Start with what you’re actually experiencing.
What are your symptoms?
Is there a pattern to them?
Where are you in your menstrual cycle?
Where are you in the menopausal transition?
Could a particular hormonal system reasonably be involved?
Is testing appropriate?
Could something completely unrelated to hormones be contributing?
And then:
What intervention, if any, is appropriate for what’s actually happening?
Sometimes nutrition and lifestyle support can make a meaningful difference.
Sometimes the issue is insulin resistance or a thyroid disorder requiring specific treatment.
Sometimes HRT may be appropriate.
Sometimes sleep, chronic stress, under-fuelling or excessive exercise are affecting normal physiology.
And sometimes what we’re experiencing is a completely normal hormonal response that doesn’t need correcting at all.
Can we support healthy hormone function?
Absolutely.
The fact that “hormone balance” is an oversimplified phrase doesn’t mean nutrition and lifestyle don’t matter.
We can create an environment that supports healthy endocrine function through things such as:
- Eating enough energy and protein
- Eating a varied, nutrient-dense diet
- Getting adequate fibre and essential fats
- Moving regularly
- Including resistance training
- Getting sufficient sleep
- Supporting metabolic health
- Managing chronic stress where possible
- Not smoking
- Moderating alcohol
- Identifying and correcting nutrient deficiencies where appropriate
- Treating underlying health conditions
But these behaviours aren’t magically pushing every hormone towards an imaginary perfect middle point.
They are supporting normal physiology.
And that distinction matters.
Hormonal health is dynamic, not static
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this episode is that hormones aren’t supposed to remain perfectly level.
They’re constantly communicating and responding to what’s happening inside and outside the body.
So the next time you see a supplement, food, diet or wellness protocol promising to “balance your hormones”, pause and ask:
Which hormone?
In which direction?
And why?
Because understanding what’s actually happening in your body is far more useful than simply being told that your hormones are “out of balance”.
And in the next episode, we’re going to take one particular hormone and look at it much more closely: insulin.
What actually happens when we become resistant to insulin — and why does that matter so much for our health, particularly in midlife?
Next up in the wellness buzzwords series:
Insulin Resistance: What Does It Actually Mean?
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