by Ana Hernandez

Created on: December 26, 2009

Hormonal changes are often the trigger for many women suffering from anxiety disorder.

As young women come into puberty, mothers give birth to their babies, and mature women transition through the peri-menopausal period of life, these hormonal peaks and troughs set off cascading hormonal reactions in the body.

Within that sea of hormones, the effects of unresolved uncertainties around the changing roles (e.g. maturing from child to womanhood, taking on motherhood, maturing into an independent woman past childbearing years) can make the sensation of these anxiety provoking situations overwhelmingly intolerable.

Anxiety can be sensed as a vague uneasy feeling, like fleeting 'butterflies in your belly' sensation to the extreme experience of severe and debilitating fear that leads to social phobias, to agoraphobia (fear of leaving the security of the home) and even to mental breakdown from the draining effects it can have on the adrenal glands.

The adrenal glands are the seat of a system created for handling and coping with stress. These small glands, like two sentinel walnuts sitting atop the kidneys are guardians that monitor the body's needs for hormones created to cope with the challenges of everyday living, and for healing from illness and attacks upon the immune system.

Like a well oiled system, our bodies are built with interrelated parts relying one upon the other for optimal performance, nowhere is this better illustrated than within the adrenal glands where the seat of emotions interact with the workings of the immune system through a hormonal cascade referred to as the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis. Our bodies are awash in a sea of hormones, and just as the tides of seas respond to the cycles of the moon, so does our internal milieu rely on the oceans of our emotions. This HPA axis links our thoughts to the physical manifestation of what these thoughts create within us.

Anxiety is the well worn path of repetitive fearful thoughts allowed to take up residence within our bodies unchecked and unbalanced through good nutrition and rest for the recovery of our adrenal glands and an overly stressed out system.

Take time to take care of yourself. Have rest, laugh, reward yourself for your accomplishments and don't be so harsh to judge your life based on the unmet expectations of those that may have secondary gains as motive. This would truly be a recipe tipping the scales towards anxiety disorders and hormonal imbalances sure to overwhelm the craftsmanship of your perfectly designed system.

Learn more about this author, Ana Hernandez.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.