Male Hormone Balance

Hormone health is often thought of as a women's issue, but the truth is for many men hormone fluctuations can seriously impact their brain, muscles, cognitive function, mood, and sexual function. Major contributors to male hormone imbalance include age, stress, weight, nutritional deficiency, and lifestyle. Male hormone imbalance most often begins with stress. Often, men are putting in countless hours, sweat, and stress to make make goals happen. Stress can can have detrimental effects on testosterone, negatively impacting health.

A great way I help my clients to stop stressing out, and lead happier lives, is through meditation. This is the complete opposite of what many men have been culturally conditioned to do, which is try harder, push harder, and go for the goal. Mediation helps us to gain space in our minds and control what's going on, on the inside, so that we can be okay with what is going on, on the outside. It's about finding balance between feeling absolutely terrible and absolutely great. Most of the time we are at the end of either extreme. The secret to true transformation is realizing that happiness, which is not mental excitement, is a state of mind which is peaceful and content no matter what is going on on the outside. By cultivating a peaceful mind, you are working on strengthening the tone of your vagus nerve.

The vagus nerve communicates to various organs - including the liver, heart, lungs, stomach, and intestines - to regulate an individual's rest and digest nervous system. Think of this nerve as your phone charger. Tapping into and stimulating this nerve will recharge your battery, and help repair, restore, and recreate homeostasis in the body.

How do you begin to meditate? Learning to cultivate a peaceful mind in a world that never sleeps takes practice, patience, and persistence. It's like riding a bike, it will take practice, maybe some training wheels, and getting back on every time. There are two types of mediation.

1. Analytical mediation - used to intuitively ponder a specific instruction in order to reach a conclusion or feeling. For example, if a client has to make an important decision about their life, and they are stuck. I can help guide them in a meditation aimed for reflecting on this decision, so they can intuitively come to a decision, or a feeling that will help guide them to cultivate an answer. The best transformations come from within. We can truly trust in our own intuition, if we are able to quiet our mind, and mix it with peace about that decision.

2. Placement mediation - is about focusing on an object, breath, or feeling (like love, patience, gratitude), with the goal to keep this feeling or intention set for oneself, throughout the day. This type of meditation sets the mood for the day.

Meditation takes practice. It begins with breath. Mediation is not checking out, it's being present. Here are six helpful meditation tips:

1. Make time. No more excuses! Just like you make the time to eat, you can make the time to create peace to lessen the impacts of stress on your body and mind.

2. Plan ahead. Decide what you want to meditate on.

3. Unplug completely. Don’t check texts, emails, news, or TV before meditating, and definitely don’t leave your phone on. Set it to airplane mode, or turn on the “do not disturb” function. The last thing you want is to cultivate a mind of distraction or frustration if you get an investigative email or message. These are major distractors that you’re trying to wean yourself from.

4. Make it personal. What do you want to improve upon in your life?

5. Make it part of your day. How can you apply this throughout your day?

6. Start small and build up. Set yourself up for success and be realistic. If practicing meditation for 10 minutes is hard, do it for 5 minutes. Choose a time that works for you, and build up from there.

Bonus: Meditating outdoors can further increase these benefits.

Male hormone balance can dramatically improve overall wellness. Look out for my next post on Tips to Naturally Boosting Testosterone.