How Women Can Release "Happy Hormones"
Stress is a cognitive process; it doesn't directly harm people, but it can lead to an "emotional cold." If left untreated, it can result in a series of serious health problems.
When people listen to a good song, admire a beautiful painting, and feel a sense of physical and mental comfort, it's because the body's "happy hormones" are increasing and being released. When a person is tense, the body releases substances like noradrenaline and adrenaline. These are "accelerator" chemicals, also known as "stress hormones." These substances make a person alert and help them cope with stressful events and activities, but they also cause blood vessels to constrict and blood pressure to rise. When the body's "brake" and "accelerator" substances work in harmony and complement each other, they can build balanced emotions, which is beneficial for physical health.
Women are emotional beings, and emotional changes affect the health of their reproductive organs.
Due to differences in the reproductive system and physical structure, men are psychologically rational beings, while women are emotional. A woman's life involves many changes: menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause-related ovarian changes. Therefore, even without stress, hormonal changes in a woman's body can lead to negative emotions. Women who juggle multiple social and family roles and face more pressure will inevitably cause an imbalance in their body's endocrine and nervous systems. Long-term exposure to this imbalance will lead to a series of health problems.
There is also a biological factor: the structure of a woman's gynecological system makes the reproductive system susceptible to infection. For example, the uterus connects to the fallopian tubes, which lead directly to the pelvis, and the cervix is part of the uterus, connecting the vagina to the outside world. During menstruation and pregnancy, infection is easy, which can lead to inflammation of the reproductive organs, progressing to pelvic inflammatory disease, peritonitis, and even sepsis. At the same time, the periodic shedding of the uterine lining and changes in the size of the uterus can easily cause damage, leading to gynecological diseases.
It is medically recognized that the occurrence of uterine fibroids and breast cancer in women is closely related to their hormone levels. Studies have shown that negative emotions can worsen the condition. A recent study on uterine fibroids and adenomyosis found that 70% of patients answered: "My mood has been particularly bad in the last one to two years, and I have been under great stress."
Some of these issues were due to unfair housing allocations, some to unfair promotions, and others to marital breakdown. Persistent negative mood can lead to poor blood flow in the uterine area, making it easy to develop uterine fibroids. A study abroad also found that women with breast cancer, before their diagnosis, experienced more negative life events and romantic failures compared to a control group of women with similar conditions who did not have cancer. This led to a long-term state of negative emotion, and they also had a shorter postoperative survival period.
To release happy hormones, you can try three approaches:
First, analyze the stress and seek solutions. Stress is a cognitive process; the pressure a person feels may be real or imagined. If it's real, find ways to turn that pressure into motivation. If it's imagined, you need to overcome your own thought patterns.
Second, be good at handling negative thoughts. Adopt a "guidance-oriented mindset," approaching pressure with a positive attitude and constructive actions to control the situation, rather than letting the situation control you.
Third, pay attention to the basic elements of sleep, exercise, and dietary nutrition to maintain a healthy and stable nervous system. Sleep is essential for the nervous system to relax and rest. Aerobic exercises such as jogging, dancing, walking, cycling, swimming, yoga, and stretching can increase the body's "happy hormones."
In terms of diet, it's best for women to have a diet that is 70% vegetables and fruits and 30% meat. The body's normal environment is slightly alkaline. Eating more meat makes the body more acidic. Stress and negative emotions also produce acidic substances, which can interfere with the proper function of many neurotransmitters. Vegetables and fruits are alkaline, so eating more of them helps maintain acid-base balance, which is beneficial for health.