9 Wellness Hacks Making Your Hormone Imbalances Worse
By Louise Rumball – Integrative Health Practitioner
As someone who was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder at the age of 18, with doctors telling me it was unhealable (‘and just to take SSRIs’), I have been on the most amazing journey of wellness, therapy, and somatic healing over the last 20 years. If you’re there right now, I see you. It’s the most amazing, scary, lonely and exhilarating place to be - knowing that you can heal yourself but that it is on you to start the journey. But something I see a lot is the people who are trying their hardest, following all the “wellness girlies,” listening to all the podcasts, buying the supplements, paying to go to expensive biohacking clinics - and yet… nothing ever really changes. On paper, you’re “doing everything right” (am I right?!)
And yet… you still wake up exhausted. You still need coffee to function and get going. Your skin is breaking out. Your cycle is irregular or painful (or even too light). By Friday, you want to crash hard on the sofa (every week, without fail). You find it impossible and overwhelming to text all your friends back. You can’t sleep because your mind is racing. The truth? A lot of high-achieving women are unintentionally running themselves into the ground in the name of health. Being busy, booked, and brilliant already means you are working harder and faster than the average woman - and this constant state of busyness and constant toxic stress has repercussions for your nervous system.
From a functional medicine perspective, the body’s HPA axis (your hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal system) was designed to help you escape from short-term danger (literally: run away from a tiger). Cortisol is critical to our existance, and is brilliant at mobilising energy, focus, and strength but when it’s triggered every single day by being ambitious as hell — more to do, more emails, deadlines, news alerts, and triple-shot lattes — that chronic activation asks our adrenal glands to give more than they can offer, and over time it starts a downstream cascade:
Cortisol and adrenaline stay elevated when they should be tapering downwards
Blood sugar and inflammation creep up due to the cortisol and adrenaline
Hormones start shifting - consistently high cortisol interferes with our progesterone, estrogen and more (hello PMS changes, irregular cycles, low libido)
Energy, mood, and motivation drop, too.
Over time, our adrenals can no longer deliver what is needed and they start to shut down. And then? The wellness industry tells you to get in an ice bath to solve the problem. Not helpful. Or TikTok tells you to take ashwaganda (nope). If your nervous system is dysregulated, your adrenals are under pressure, or your hormones are already out of balance, the “high-performance” version of wellness can backfire fast. Let’s get into the
Fake Health Hacks That Are Quietly Stressing You Out
Intermittent Fasting (when hormones are imbalanced) - Yes, fasting can be a powerful tool for metabolic health, but it’s a stressor for the body. If your cortisol is already high, your blood sugar unstable, or your cycle irregular, skipping food in the morning can push your body deeper into survival mode. This means more cortisol, less progesterone, and potentially worse PMS, anxiety, or fatigue.
Cold Plunging (when adrenals are shot) - Yes, cold therapy can boost mood and resilience through an epic norepinephrine, dopamine, and adrenaline surge... but only if your stress bucket isn’t already overflowing. If you’re waking with low morning energy, relying on caffeine to function, or crashing mid-afternoon, that “hormetic stress” from a cold plunge can be one stressor too many. Most women should also avoid cold plunging at certain points of their cycle - particularly in the late luteal phase and during menstruation - when the body needs warmth and recovery to support progesterone stability and hormone balance.
HIIT Workouts (when cortisol is high) - High-intensity training can be amazing for boosting cardiovascular health, VO2 max, and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which the body needs to lay down new pathways. But HIIT is stressful on the body and spikes adrenaline and cortisol. This is great if you’re regulated and recovering well, but a disaster if you’re already in chronic stress. In functional medicine, we often swap HIIT for walking (my Shift + Manifestation Walks work best here), Pilates, or strength training until your nervous system can tolerate the intensity again.
Skipping Breakfast (while already anxious) - If you wake up anxious or without an appetite, your cortisol is already elevated, which throws off your leptin signalling (telling your body you’re hungry and it’s time to eat). Skipping breakfast in this state might feel helpful - “giving your body a break during the fast” - but it can tank your blood sugar, drive up adrenaline, and leave you feeling shaky, irritable, and more anxious. A protein-rich breakfast within 60–90 minutes of waking helps stabilise your HPA axis and calm the stress response.
Green Juices as Meals - Juices can be a nice addition to your diet, but as a meal they’re basically sugar water with a sprinkle of vitamins. Without protein and healthy fats, you’re setting yourself up for blood sugar spikes and crashes - both of which strain your adrenals and nervous system over time. And high-quality carbohydrates are critical (I REPEAT CRITICAL) to female health and hormone health.
Overtraining, Over-Supplementing, Under-Nourishing - You can’t out-train or out-supplement poor recovery and inadequate nutrition. Chronic calorie deficits, long workouts without fuel, or over-reliance on powders and pills instead of real food keep your body in a stressed, depleted state. Consistent, kind, whole food nutrition is critical.
Electrolytes Full of Colours, Flavourings, and Sweeteners - Electrolytes are POPPING OFF at the moment (and rightly so, they are the sparks to our cells yet high cortisol, busy ambitious women burn through these minerals FAST by just existing). The problem? Many mainstream electrolyte drinks are packed with artificial colours, synthetic flavourings, and non-nutritive sweeteners that disrupt the gut microbiome. Research shows these additives can alter microbial diversity, increase intestinal permeability, and promote inflammation — all of which impair digestion, hormone metabolism, and nervous system regulation. Choose clean, mineral-rich electrolytes without additives to truly support hydration and cellular energy…. no matter how good that purple lychee electrolyte might taste.
Ashwagandha (when thyroid is low) - TikTok will tell you it’s a miracle supplement, but for stressed-out, always-on women, chronic stress often suppresses thyroid function, leading to early hypothyroidism. Symptoms can include fatigue, weight gain, hair thinning, cold intolerance, and brain fog. In this state, ashwagandha can worsen thyroid dysfunction. Instead of reaching for an adaptogen, focus on the foundations: light exposure, blood sugar regulation, hydration, clean electrolytes, daily movement, and whole foods.
Any Health Hack That Ignores Stored Emotional Energy - True health isn’t just physical. If you’ve been suppressing emotions or holding back your authentic expression, your nervous system will remain dysregulated no matter how perfect your diet or supplements are. Stored emotional energy from years of “pushing it down” keeps the body in a chronic stress loop. Releasing it through somatic practices, breathwork, or other forms of emotional processing can create cascades of healing biochemicals like oxytocin, endorphins, and serotonin that regulate your system in ways no biohack ever could.
The Bottom Line
So, for many of us, even the “healthy” habits that wellness influencers tell us to follow can be a stressor in disguise. The right amount of stress — applied to the right physiology — creates adaptation and growth. Too much stress, applied to an already depleted system, leads to breakdown and burnout over time. And when we’re busy AF, our internal resilience is more likely to crack.
Wellness is not a checklist. It’s a conversation with your body. Before adding another trend to your routine, ask yourself:
Is my body asking for stimulation, or for restoration?
Am I nourishing enough for the demands I’m placing on it?
Is this habit regulating my nervous system, or dysregulating it?
Do I truly need this, or do I just think I need this?
Sometimes the most radical act of self-care isn’t adding more — it’s taking away the things that are silently keeping your body in survival mode, and learning to come home, come down, and calm down as you find your way back to the foundations of health that were once so natural to us.
