Two natural things to help my hormones & mood

Continuing with the first 30 days of 2011 theme:

I caught a stomach bug, and it stunk! Literally. Figuratively. By the time it was done with my body, I was sooooooo depleted in regards to nutrients, electrolytes, etc that my hormones were putting me in a very unhappy place. Unfortunately, I've battled hormone imbalances for a while now.

When they are imbalanced, I have a tendency to be very unhappy, have difficulty making decisions, become overwhelmed easily, desire perfect order, and want to control as much as possible. Overall, it's a very bad place to be.

Back in November, I sought out a doctor's opinion on my crazy hormones. He suggested one of two routes: birth control pills or Magnesium and Vitamin D supplements. I opted for the supplement route. I struggled taking them because they upset my stomach, but the supplement route was helpful. Then, I caught that stomach bug, and the supplements tore me up!

On a really bad day after being sick, I remembered a documentary I had seen before Christmas: Food Matters.

I only made it through half the documentary so I can't speak to the whole thing, but the part I saw was very interesting. At the beginning, the subject matter absolutely pushed me into an area of slight discomfort because it's a very natural approach. However, I hung with it, and sure enough, it had some good information that I remembered in the middle of my hormonal mess.

1. Certain supplements are known to help with moods: niacin, magnesium, vitamin d, the b comlex. These are all known to be good for us. I headed to Whole Foods and found a children's multivitamin that had high levels of all of these. I chose to take it in children's form because I thought it might be easier on my stomach to break up the dose. Instead of taking one vitamin during the day, I take 3 to 4 per the dosage instructions.

2. Cashews are known to help with moods: in the documentary, they said that cashews have almost the same effect as antidepressants. Seriously! I've poked around the Internet about this for a short bit and it seems that a few other nuts might have this same benefit; I'll keep looking into it. I bought RAW cashews and eat TWO handfuls a day (per the documentary). When I don't eat two handfuls, I can notice a difference in my mood!

I felt trying these two options was a safe route to try. I figured that neither would be harmful to me so it was worth the trial. Turns out, they do help. Yay!