Warning Signs of Hormonal Imbalance in Woman

Hormones have great impact on women’s health. The women’s reproductive health is influenced mainly by two well know female sex hormones estrogen and progesterone. In women, female hormones are important components of reproduction, sexuality, overall health and well-being.

Because female hormones play a major role in women’s bodies, women feel their hormones are controlling them. When the level of hormones fluctuates, it can have effect on woman’s ovulation, mood and fertility as well. So, hormonal imbalance has adverse effect on the functioning of woman’s reproductive system.  Following are some of the common signs and symptoms of hormonal imbalance that most of the woman experience in their day-to-day life.

• Irregular Sleep Patterns: One of the most common side effects of hormonal imbalance is lack of sleep. In women, low progesterone levels lead to poor night’s sleep.
• Excessive Sweating: Women experience night sweats or hot flashes due to the reproductive hormonal imbalance often caused by menopause and excessive use of birth control medications.
• Unexplained Weight gain or Loss: Hormones play an important role in regulating metabolism including how many calories are burnt or store them as fat. So, when the hormones are out of balance, unexplained fluctuations in weight are noticed.
• Chronic Fatigue: Hormonal imbalance often makes a body feel completely exhausted on daily basis. Due to unbalanced hormonal levels, body has to work overtime just to perform basic functions.
• Cravings and Poor Digestion: While increased cravings for specific types of food are because of nutrient deficiency, but cravings for salty, sweet foods and feelings of intense hunger when your body doesn’t need to eat are due to hormonal imbalance.

As already stated, hormones play important role in regulating metabolism, hormonal imbalance can cause discomforts of bloating, indigestion, diarrhea, nausea and constipation.

            If one or more of above signs describes you, it’s time to balance your hormones as ignoring these symptoms may worsen your reproductive health.

Does Your Child Have Sleep Disorders?

          It’s tough for any parent to find that their child has a sleep disorder. Before going to know about what a sleep disorder is, know how much sleep do children need. Depending upon their age, the sleeping schedules varies from child to child. Children who are 12 to 18 years old need around 9 hours of sleep, toddlers need 11 to 14 hours and new-born will sleep approximately 16 to 17 hours. Lack of sleep in children may have negative effects on academic performance, extra-curricular activities and social relations.

Children with sleep disorders may exhibit some symptoms such as hyper activity, restlessness and inattentiveness which are more like ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Due to this symptomatic overlap, sleep disorders may often misdiagnosed with ADHD.

Signs of Sleep Disorders in Children:

Children with sleep disorders exhibit some symptoms which are considered to get medical evaluation.

• Excessive snoring
• Bed wetting in children older than 6 years.
• Trouble sleeping
• Sleep walking
• Excessive sleepiness during day
• Decrease in day time performance

Tips to Improve Your Child’s Sleep:

Sleep disorders in children can lead not only to tired and cranky children, but also all kinds of behavioural problems in their social lives. Below are some tips to help to improve your child’s sleep.

• A fixed bed time and wake-up time helps your child internal clock to get sleepy and feel awake at specific times. The waking time should not vary from weekday to weekend more than one to one and a half hours.
• Create a relaxing bedroom environment which makes it easy for your child to drift off to sleep and stay asleep.
• A warm bath before bed time will help child’s body to reach a temperature where it’s most likely to rest.
• Avoid offering foods and drinks with caffeine to children before bed time.
• Skip stimulating TV shows, video games or computer games before bed time in favour of more calming activities, because you want the child to relax not to energize.