What You Weren't Taught About Your Body In Sex Ed
Do you remember sex ed class in high school? If you’re like me, you probably learned about the mechanics of sex, what STDs were, the different forms of birth control, and how to have safe sex. You probably also learned about the menstrual cycle and its role in reproduction. But how many times did your teacher talk about your estrogen and progesterone?
Maybe they called these hormones out by name so you could recognize them on a quiz. But if I had to venture a guess, I’d say that you learned next to nothing about your female hormones and their role in your body.
This is because sex ed isn’t designed to teach beyond basic concepts regarding how your body works. And that’s a shame, because you’re going to have your body for your entire life. Don’t you deserve to know how it works so you can make better decisions for your health?
Viewing Health at the Endocrine Level
The endocrine system is a super important system in the body. It’s responsible for your hormone production and function, which control everything from moods to metabolism, growth, and reproduction. When this system becomes compromised, a number of issues can occur:
Insomnia
Weight gain
Infertility
Mood swings
Anxiety and depression
Diabetes and other major diseases
There’s a huge list of things I could add here. It’s clear that keeping your hormones healthy and happy is key to keeping your body in good health. When hormones can do the job they’re designed to do, you can decrease your chances of developing serious diseases, struggling with infertility, and suffering from a lower quality of life.
Diagnosing Endocrine System Issues
I like to think of hormones as being a lot like a car: we simply expect them to work. It’s not something we think about, at least, not until something goes wrong. And even when something does go wrong, just like when your Check Engine light goes on, we can’t always diagnose the issue immediately.
Instead, we might write it off as something completely different: I’m tired because I didn’t get enough sleep. I’m grumpy so it must be that time of the month. I can’t lose weight because I’m not exercising enough.
It’s easier to make excuses based on the very little we’ve been taught about our health instead of figuring out the root cause. That’s because most people don’t know what questions to ask their doctor or go beyond a surface-level understanding to see what’s really going on with their health. Instead, they keep putting Band-Aids on a problem that isn’t healing, kind of like putting air in a tire that has a hole in it instead of patching the hole.
The only way to move forward is to take it a layer deeper and uncover the why behind your symptoms. When you know the why, you’re in a better position to work on the root cause.
It’s Never Too Late to Learn
It’s not your fault you didn’t learn what you needed to in sex ed. Most people don’t consider health at the endocrine level until they’re forced to. But because hormones control the reproductive cycle and so many other functions in the body, it’s important that they can operate at an optimal level so you can live your best life.
I designed The Cycle Solution course because I was tired of only getting a small piece of what I needed every time I went to a doctor. In my course, I help you learn more about how your body works and how you can influence your hormones that go beyond treating just the symptoms.
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