Not Just Health & Fitness
Covering all things health and fitness, but not just health and fitness.
Expanding from the basics to encompass everything under the umbrella of living your best life, while sharing insights into my personal journey along the way.
Not Just Health & Fitness
#1 The Link Between Hormones, Happiness, and Hunger
Imagine living a life where your happiness and hunger are entirely within your control. Are you ready to discover how? This episode of our podcast centers around our body's natural chemicals - hormones. We discuss dopamine, a hormone linked to motivation, and how it's released by simply taking action. We also touch on serotonin, the hormone that plays a significant role in mood regulation and digestive health. We reveal how your behaviors influence these hormones and vice versa, and provide practical tips on manipulating this feedback loop to boost your mood.
But it doesn’t stop there. We move onto exploring the often under-discussed side of hormones that regulate our hunger –leptin, and ghrelin. This episode will shed light on the role these hormones play in appetite regulation and how they interact with each other. We'll talk about the impact of your lifestyle choices on these hormone levels, and how they, in turn, affect your happiness. Armed with this knowledge, you’ll learn how to balance your appetite, reduce stress, and enhance your joy through simple yet effective healthy habits. Ready to harness the power of hormones and live your best life? Tune in now!
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Welcome to the Not Just Health and Fitness podcast with Helena. I'll be talking all things health and fitness, but not just health and fitness. I'm expanding from the basics to encompass everything under the umbrella of living your best life, while sharing insights into my personal journey along the way. Let's get into today's topic. Hey friends, welcome to episode one. Today we're diving into an educational episode covering hormones and how they interact with our feelings of happiness and hunger, and how our behaviors influence the hormones that influence our behaviors. Some of the episodes I do are going to be very off the cuff and some will be more educational and structured, and this is one of the more structured type, just so I can make sure I don't go off on too many tangents and can make it actionable for you. So anyway, jumping in, a lot of what we do day to day is automatic. Whether we plan our morning routine or not, we generally get up and do the same things, eat the same things, think the same things, and all through the day we just repeat these automatic actions and we do this day in and day out without too much thought or intention. But what's really interesting to look at is looking into how these thoughts and behaviors might be influencing us on a chemical level by impacting our hormones, and how our hormones then influence the repetition of our thoughts and behaviors. I think we can all understand on some level that hormones control a lot of how our brain works. They can increase or decrease energy levels, sex drive, appetite, motivation, mood, emotional response and our general disposition, and today's biggest takeaway is going to be in identifying the feedback loop, that being how our behaviors influence the hormones that influence our behaviors and how we can use that to our advantage. So let's start with happy hormones or feel good hormones. There are many very popular discussions going around social media about our friend dopamine, and it's probably the one I find myself interested in the most, as it's highly involved in the chemical imbalances associated with the expression of ADHD and in bipolar and how the medications for both of those work to balance those conditions and that might be a discussion for another day, but keeping it general in a way that's going to be helpful for everyone just now.
Speaker 1:Dopamine is associated with pleasure and reward and it feels like motivation and drive, and it's highly responsible in whether we have motivation or no motivation to do the things required to achieve our goals. Dopamine is the guy responsible for getting you out of bed early and going to the gym early when you said you would ticking off boxes on the to-do list and making you feel awesome for doing so, leading you to keep it up, and it's highly addictive. One really interesting example of a rat study they had a small pile of food and a big pile of food each behind an obstacle. The low dopamine rats always went for the easy obstacle, receiving only the small food reward, whereas the rats who had been given high levels of dopamine put more effort in, went straight for the more difficult obstacle and therefore received the bigger reward. And many drugs like cocaine, opioids and nicotine feel really good to the user because they cause dopamine to flood that reward pathway. And now I'm not recommending these, but it's just how they work and why they can be so addictive. But other substances like alcohol, coffee, concentrated levels of sugar and even scrolling through the internet or playing video games can trigger a dopamine or reward response. The problem is over exposure to these things or having these as your only facilitators of dopamine can be an issue because of this addictive response.
Speaker 1:Being mindful of where you're getting your dopamine hit is important if you have goals you want to achieve, because if you're getting it all from unhelpful behaviors and substances, you're less likely to seek dopamine from positive sources. The best way to get a spark of dopamine or motivation when it's low is to try and avoid substances or behaviors that give you dopamine without achieving anything and instead take action. We've all experienced the sensation that when we do nothing, we only feel like continuing to do nothing, and it can be hard to get started on anything. But starting by ticking off something small from a to-do list will begin to release dopamine and you'll gain some momentum to continue. And then often, before you know it, you're on a roll and you can ride the dopamine high to keep showing up and ticking things off. For some low reward tasks, there can actually be utility in pairing them with something like caffeine, nicotine or sugar to increase the motivation and reward response. But essentially, if you're wanting to elevate dopamine levels, getting started and just doing something is the main key.
Speaker 1:Next up on our happiness hormones is serotonin. Serotonin is our feel-good hormone. It is often very low in people experiencing depression, and SSRI medications or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which are often prescribed for depression, act upon serotonin directly. Interestingly, serotonin also plays a significant role in digestive health. But good levels of serotonin feel like self-confidence, significance, a generally good mood, a healthy level of appetite and sexual desire, ability to memorize easily and multitask. Low levels of serotonin feel like poor memory, indifference, anxiety, fits of anger or being stuck in obsessive thoughts on insignificant things, as you're with A, with the only thing that mattered in the world. To produce serotonin, your body needs carbohydrates, so it's your bananas.
Speaker 1:Vitamin D can also be really helpful in serotonin production, and that's where the winter blues are a real thing. A good portion of the population would be low in vitamin D due to indoor work duties, but a daily dose of sunlight can make a huge difference and if you're not feeling your normal vibrant and energetic self, it could be worth having your levels looked at. General blood tests don't usually include vitamin D unless you specifically request it, which is insane to me, but it's definitely worth asking for. You can increase serotonin levels with positive thoughts, affirmations and gratitude practice. Your brain will actually release these chemicals, whether in the actual moment, remembering it or imagining it. So use that to your advantage. Think beautiful thoughts to feel, beautiful feelings type deal, while making sure your nutrition is adequate and your blood work is good. The feedback loop here is that active, positive thought and gratitude practices will lead to more serotonin, which will lead to naturally more positive thinking and feelings of gratitude.
Speaker 1:Next up on our Feel Good hormones is oxytocin. It's our love hormone or the cuddle hormone. Oxytocin is released with physical touch. It boosts the feeling of love and trust and feeling connected and a big part of why it feels good to be in a relationship and to have friends that you see. Often Good levels of oxytocin can help reduce our stress response and improve our sex drive. Feeling lonely, stressed, tired, unworthy and having a low sex drive are all potential symptoms of low oxytocin. The problem is these feelings can often lead to reclusive behaviour and self-isolation, which keeps levels low and makes it harder to then leave that cycle. So if you're feeling like you may be low in oxytocin and you don't have a partner or a fun friend around all the time, cuddles with your pet can still help or you can book yourself in for a massage for some prolonged physical contact. Also, hug your friends and family every chance you get. For those who are in a relationship, I remember reading somewhere to aim for regular eight-second hugs and four-second kisses to boost oxytocin levels, and that's a bit of fun. Another fun fact on oxytocin is that there is a sales psychology technique where, when they shake hands with the customer, they will use their spare hand to reach around and grab the back of their arm. This is often actually used to increase subconscious feelings of trust with the sales person and reduce feelings of stress from buyers, just by adding a little bit of extra physical contact. But anyway, again, the loop here is that low physical contact can lead to low oxytocin, which can lead to withdrawing from physical contact type behaviour. Conversely, actively seeking out physical contact can increase oxytocin, leading to feeling more social, more sexual, etc. And the loop continues.
Speaker 1:Last but not least, on our list of feel-good hormones or some people might actually push back on me calling all of these hormones because they're more correctly categorised neurotransmitters, but alas, last one is endorphins. Endorphins are a natural form of pain relief. It gives a feeling of a natural high of euphoria, known as the runner's high or the post-workout high. Low levels can make you feel emotionally sensitive, have low energy, have a low pain tolerance and crave comfort foods. Nutritionally, you can increase endorphins with things like avocado, olives, coconut, dark chocolate, but also sunlight, upbeat music, exercise and laughter can all cause an endorphin release. If you notice, it's often our natural response to try and make someone laugh when they're in pain. It's not just for distraction. Whether you're conscious of it or not, we are hoping to trigger some sort of natural pain relief for that person. Comedy is also really great for endorphins. Even the anticipation of laughter will cause your brain to release endorphins, which, if you've ever been to a live comedy and noticed that you're feeling a bit of a buzz waiting for it to start, that makes a lot of sense. The loop here is that low levels of activity and low nutrition quality lead to low energy and mood and seeking comfort food leading to more low energy and sedentary behavior. Actively eating more nutrient dense food, exercising, laughing can lead to more endorphins, giving you more energy and positive mood, making you more likely to continue to seek out those positive behaviors.
Speaker 1:Briefly, I'll also touch on cortisol, which is one of our common stress hormones. Cortisol is created by the adrenal glands in time of stress. Many people live with chronically high cortisol levels due to lifestyles of chronic stress. Cortisol in short bursts helps us. It pushes you through that last-minute task or helps you focus more on performance for a work deadline or a competitive sport. In those scenarios it can be positive. But chronically high levels lead to symptoms like a breakdown of lean muscle tissue, which means less calorie burn at rest and therefore more difficulty losing body fat. It leads to increased cravings and appetite, once again making it more difficult to maintain or lose body weight. Increased risk of osteoporosis. Decreased immune system, which is why many very stressed people will get sick more often, leads to memory and focus issues and irregular production of sex hormones, for both males and females, and none of that is positive. So focusing our energy on following the behaviors that boost our feel-good hormones can be what breaks the cycle of chronically high cortisol levels, and let cortisol do its job of just boosting us through the acute stress periods and then return to normal, healthy levels afterwards.
Speaker 1:Now, moving on to our hunger hormones, we have leptin, which is a satiety hormone, and ghrelin, which is our hunger hormone, which stimulates appetite. If you're trying to remember which one is which when I'm talking through this section, think ghrelin. There's like ghrelin, because when you get hungry you're like ghrel and the other one keeps you full. That's the way you remember it. But these are homeostatic hormones, which means that their job is to keep you in your state of homeostasis, or the metabolic set point which has been deemed safe due to time spent living there. When speaking about metabolic set point, we're usually talking about a weight range that tends to be where your body wants to sit. These homeostatic hormones were very useful in helping us avoid starvation in caveman days. They are not so useful in the abundant world of food and convenience we have now.
Speaker 1:Ghrelin levels are primarily regulated by food intake. It's released in the stomach and it signals the brain that it's time to eat. It can be triggered by having an empty stomach, hypoglycemia or by a reduction in body weight, and it gets inhibited by stomach distention or feeling full. Leptin, which creates a feeling of satiety, is released from our fat cells. As you gain weight, fat cells increase in size and increase the amount of leptin produced, which should mean that you're more easily satiated. Side note. Circling back to happy hormones, serotonin has been reported to stimulate leptin secretion as well, so that can help decrease your appetite.
Speaker 1:But back to fat cells. As you lose weight, the fat cells shrink and decrease the amount of leptin being produced, meaning as your body weight gets further below your homeostasis point, it can be harder to feel full and satisfied, which is one of the reasons why people fall off track and regain their weight loss efforts, because it genuinely can become harder as you get smaller, which is why, in an ideal world, we just don't get too much heavier than where we want to maintain to start with. But in reality that's not actually easy. And at the other end of the spectrum, when fat cells become very large from chronic overfeeding, it can cause leptin resistance and that is like when your brain no longer responds to the fullness signal. This becomes a problem. The brain keeps being hit by the signal to stop eating, but it's not responding, and so you're never really satisfied, hungry again straight after a large meal. In that case, to regulate the leptin response again, decreasing body fat can bring appetite back into more normal levels, at least initially, which is one of the reasons why the early days of a dieting phase can feel really easy for people who are carrying a lot of body weight.
Speaker 1:In hormonal conditions like PCOS, where people have more trouble regulating weight, a dysregulation of these hormones, among others, can be one of the reasons that fat loss may be more difficult. And these two hormones, leptin and ghrelin, have an inverse relationship. When one is high, the other is low and vice versa. Many physiological and psychological factors have come into play when speaking about our appetite, cravings and hunger, and I could do a whole podcast breaking down the difference between the three, but there is no denying leptin and ghrelin levels play a key role in weight loss, weight gain or maintenance. So the way that you can steer these hormones into a favorable balance are more high-fiber and volumous food like fruit and veg.
Speaker 1:Is these trigger the fullest cue to release leptin? Less calories from calorie-dense sources that don't take up much space in the stomach. Incorporating healthy fats to the meal can also boost leptin. Eating protein in each meal. I'm sorry, there's no magic trick here, but the unsexy regular advice to eat more whole foods, more protein, more veg and create balanced meals including carbs, protein and healthy fats is your best tool to regulating these hormones. Get more sleep and participate in regular exercise also aids a healthy balance in hunger hormones and it's not sexy, I get it.
Speaker 1:I'd love to tell you there's a magic fruit or a voodoo ritual, but the study of leptin and ghrelin proves that the people who follow these behaviors will continue to find it easier to manage hunger and subsequently, their body weight, then the people who avoid the general health advice and over-consume processed food, avoid veggies, stay up late and don't exercise.
Speaker 1:The latter will have more trouble feeling satisfied and will find themselves hungry more often. And, looking back at our happy hormones, those following the generally advised framework of eat well, sleep well and exercise regularly will more naturally feel happier as well. That is where I will leave it today, and I really hope you were able to take a tool or two out of this episode to apply in your life to feel a little bit more of motivation and joy, a little less stress, and to maintain a healthier appetite balance. If you liked the episode, please leave a rating and review and share with a friend. If you're sharing on your socials, please tag me in at Helena underscore. Underscore sly. That's the best place to contact me for feedback, topic requests or to inquire about coaching. Until next time, much love.
