Do you have a community or support system on which dependency depends? Friends who visit you and register with you? Family you can rely on?
If not, this isolation and loneliness can be the cause of your health problems, especially if you suffer from severe perimenopausal symptoms.
In recent years, the link between poor health and lack of community has become apparent. There are more and more studies linking mortality with social exclusion. In fact, many functional medicine practitioners solve this problem when treating a patient with a chronic disease.
How social isolation and loneliness impair your health
When a person suffers from loneliness, he raises the production of a stress hormone and causes inflammation in the body. This inflammation increases the risk of developing heart disease, arthritis, type 2 diabetes and dementia.
Loneliness can also play a big role in your health when you enter your perimenopause periods. What for? Because it directly affects the level of hormones.
Social isolation leads to the fact that the stress hormone, cortisol, becomes elevated. High cortisol has other hormones in the body, previously estrogen and progesterone. And these two sex hormones have a big impact on how we feel, especially during perimenopause. Elevated cortisol causes an increase in estrogen in the body. High estrogen in turn pushes progesterone levels.
This imbalance is a condition that doctors call estrogen dominance. The dominance of estrogen can lead to serious symptoms of perimenopause in women younger than 30 years. For some, it may even begin at the age of 20.
The importance of friends and family
If you suffer from social isolation and loneliness, then it creates a terrible tension in your body, especially if you are a parent or a single parent. You need other adults in your life for communication and support.
I think about it. We are still tribal people. People evolved in cohesive communities. We had to work together, be dependent on each other when it gets tough and celebrate together when everything goes well. Staying in a pack helps us feel safe, secure and accepted. If we lack community in our lives, it can have a direct impact on our physical and emotional health.
Therefore, developing a community, or at least a few close friends you can rely on, is incredibly important to help you regain your health.
When you heal your body, you also need to heal your heart and mind. Spending just a few hours a week with your loved ones can work wonders in creating a happier, healthier person.
