Estrogen Dominance

In one of yesterday's blog posts, Women and Insomnia, I mentioned the term, "estrogen dominance". 

According to Michael Lam, MD, women from ages 35 to 50, experience a 75 percent reduction in the production of progesterone while estrogen declines by only about 35 percent.  By menopause, the total amount of progesterone made is extremely low, while estrogen is still present in the body at about one-half of its pre-menopause level.  With only a gradual drop in estrogen and a greater drop in progesterone, there is insufficient progesterone to counteract the amount of estrogen.  Estrogen dominance results.

Close to all women age 50 and older are overloaded with estrogen - even if they have not actually reached menopause yet - and at the same time are suffering from progesterone deficiency.  Excessive estrogen causes a whole host of conditions, including insomnia and anxiety, both of which stress the adrenal glands.  This then leads to a further reduction in progesterone output and ever more estrogen dominance.  After a few years, the adrenal glands may become exhausted.  This, in turn, may lead to chronic fatigue, hormonal imbalance and blood sugar imbalance.

D.

This information in this article may be found at www.drlam.com

The Tale of Epictetus

Epictetus was a Greek philosopher who began his life as a slave in the Greek-speaking Roman province of Phrygia, which is now a region in central Turkey.  After being too tightly shackled, despite his assurances to his master that he wouldn't run away, Epictetus' leg broke.  He had warned his master that if he kept tightening the shackles his leg would eventually break and loss of production would result.  When Epictetus' leg broke, as he predicted it would, instead of showing anger and pain, or any emotional reaction whatsoever, he was very calm and accepting of the situation.  His master became unnerved and asked his slave why he showed no reaction to what had happened.  Epictetus explained that as the leg was irreversibly broken and he could do nothing to change what had happened, there was really no point in getting upset about it.  The master was very impressed and released Epictetus, so that he could become a travelling student philosopher.  He even gave him money, goods and letters of introduction to facilitate his journey.  His famous idea - "it is not the things of this world that hurt us, but what we think about them" - is now widely accepted throughout mainstream psychology.  (His idea has been expressed a few different ways, but they all promote the same idea: that an individual is not disturbed by events, but rather by his or her interpretation of the events, or by the meaning he or she attaches to the events.)

This is the principle upon which modern day Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is based. CBT works by focusing on the particular way in which an individual thinks and behaves in order to rectify behavioural, emotional and social problems, issues and challenges.  Clients learn to more clearly delineate their automatic thoughts, to see how these thoughts may be creating negative emotions and any resulting negative or unproductive behaviours.  They then work to quiet or change these negative thoughts in order to more positively view the world and their own issues, problems and challenges.

D.