Ayurvedic Wisdom for Balancing the Hormones
The wisdom tradition of Ayurveda offers a healthy and discerning approach to wholeness that can help to illuminate the complex and often overwhelming subject of hormones. Grounded in a wise understanding of the natural world, Ayurveda provides a roadmap for navigating imbalances that is comprehensive, manageable, and meaningful. Below you will find a practical and personal approach to balancing hormones using Ayurveda as an Elder.
What Are Hormones?
In the ancient Ayurvedic texts, we can only deduce the notion of hormones, since the word “hormone” didn’t emerge until 1905 when Ernest Starling coined it.1 Since the early 20th century, modern science has become incredibly adept at describing the intricate behavior of hormones, pinpointing and isolating the individual roles and functions of these chemicals that our bodies create and secrete. From these advances, we have learned that hormones are used to send communications between organs and tissues, which impact physiological regulation and behavioral activities, such as digestion, metabolism, respiration, tissue function, sensory perception, sleep, excretion, lactation, stress, growth and development, movement, reproduction, and mood.2 As Jamshed R. Tata writes, “the study of hormones has led to enormous benefits to human health, social, and economic progress.”3