The Progesterone Steal

*Chesley Wellness instagram post.

THE PROGESTERONE STEAL....also called the pregnenolone steal. PROGESTERONE is GOOD for you. It's your feel good, relaxing, sleeping, (estrogen) cancer protecting hormone and MORE. Another HUGE contributing factor to low progesterone and subsequent high estrogen is STRESS - which creates 'the progesterone steal'. Due to the severity of my adrenal dysfunction, I have eat, slept and breathed this hormonal issue for 3.5 years. PREGNENOLONE is the 'Mother' hormone. It then gets used to make different hormones. Down one path it makes PROGESTERONE and CORTISOL. CORTISOL is the STRESS HORMONE. When you are stressed your body will ALWAYS take the pregnenolone and use it make MORE CORTISOL over making PROGESTERONE which leaves you LOW in PROGESTERONE. Which then leads to estrogen dominance, infertility, depression, foggy thinking, etc. See yesterday's post. (Ever wonder why you can't get pregnant when you're extra stressed? You have 'the progesterone steal' happening. You need adequate progesterone to become pregnant.) This is THE PROGESTERONE STEAL! When you're stressed, or overly TOXIC in my case, it overworks the ADRENALS which causes the body to need more CORTISOL. This is also called the Ovary - Adrenal - Thyroid Axis Dysfunction. STRESS and adrenal exhaustion wreak havoc on so many hormones and systems in your body. When you're constantly in that GO GO GO state and in that fight/flight activating the sympathetic nervous system, your hormones will be imbalanced and whole body will suffer. WHAT can you do to help stop your body from producing excess cortisol and free up your body to make MORE PROGESTERONE? RELAX! ✔️ De-stress ✔️ MEDITATE ✔️ Take a walk ✔️ Laugh ✔️ Sit on a beach. ✔️ Activate the parasympathetic NS ✔️