April 7, 2021
Anxiety affects 40 million adults in the United States.
Women are twice as likely to have an anxiety disorder as men. (1)
Ladies, is anxiety interfering with your life? We all know what it feels like to be anxious, but when it starts to happen all the time, it can be debilitating. These feelings are more than just uncomfortable. Things that you never used to worry about can almost paralyze you with fear. While there are many causes of anxiety, today let’s talk about a very common cause in women: a progesterone deficiency.
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is defined as a state of uneasiness and apprehension. Symptoms include being anxious, nervous and irritable, scared for no reason, fear of impending doom, feelings of panic, ill at ease or worry. People with anxiety can have excessive, persistent worry and fear about things that one wouldn’t normally worry about. Often this extreme anxiety can lead to a panic attack, or sudden surges of overwhelming fear that that come without warning, accompanied by physical symptoms such as a pounding heart, sweating, and rapid breathing. When excessive anxiety occurs daily, it becomes disabling.
Conventional Anxiety Treatment
If you go to a conventional doctor about your anxiety, you will most likely be prescribed addictive anti-anxiety drugs such as Xanax or Klonopin without discovering the underlying cause of your anxiety. Some of the side effects of these drugs include fatigue, memory impairment, blurred vision, diarrhea, insomnia, decreased libido, changes in appetite, dizziness, and yes, anxiety. Your doctor may even refer you to a psychiatrist, which usually leads to the prescription of antidepressants – another road you don’t want to go down. A word of caution: if you are taking any of these medications, please do not stop taking them abruptly. You must work with your doctor to wean off of them slowly and safely.
How Progesterone Affects Your Brain
Progesterone acts as a natural antidepressant, enhances mood and relieves anxiety. It has a calming effect on the brain. It stimulates the brain’s GABA receptors, the feel-good, calming neurotransmitters. So it is easy to understand why anxiety can surface when your progesterone levels are low.
Treatment with Progesterone
Research shows that an increase in progesterone resulted in improvement of premenstrual anxiety, irritability and nervous tension. (2) Research also shows that progesterone produced a clear dose-dependent anti-anxiety response. These results demonstrate that progesterone was most potent against anxiety when compared with all steroids evaluated. (3, 4)
Studies have shown that progesterone treatment in ovariectomized rats produces an anti-anxiety response similar to that observed after the administration of typical anti-anxiety benzodiazepine compounds. (5) A significant improvement was found in symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) relating to tension, mood swings, irritability, anxiety and lack of control. Metabolites of progesterone may play a physiologic role as anti-anxiety agents, perhaps modifying mood and anxiety, alleviating some PMS symptoms relating to anxiety and irritability. (6)
Key’s Story – How She Overcame Her Anxiety and Panic Attacks
Do you feel like you have been going along fine through life, and then things began to change? You used to feel happy, energetic and healthy. You were confident and had a healthy mindset. Now, it’s like you’re a different person. You are tired all the time, anxious, can’t sleep, and even started having panic attacks, of all things. Why is this happening?
If you are experiencing these types of symptoms, know that you are not alone. This commonly happens to women as their hormone levels decline. Let Key’s story be an encouragement to you and give you hope that anxiety and panic attacks can be a thing of the past.
Lifestyle Tips to Help Relieve Anxiety
Besides making sure your progesterone levels are optimal, there are some other things you can do to help reduce your anxiety:
• Take supplements such as inositol, 5-HTP and magnesium
• Breathe – close your eyes and take long, deep breaths
• Meditate
• Go for a brisk walk
• Get sound sleep
• Cut out the junk food – eating healthy will help your body function optimally
Bioidentical Progesterone to the Rescue
Women notice a positive difference in their health and get anxiety relief when their progesterone levels are restored to normal with bioidentical progesterone. If you are experiencing anxiety along with other symptoms of hormone imbalance, don’t wait – take our symptom checker today to find out if you could have a progesterone deficiency.
Related Content
Stressed Out? You Might Have Adrenal Fatigue
10 Reasons You Can’t Live Without Progesterone
Research
1. https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/facts-statistics
2. Nutritional Factors in the Etiology of the Premenstrual Tension Syndromes
4. Anxiolytic Activity of the Progesterone Metabolite 5 Alpha-Pregnan-3 Alpha-o1-20-one
