So, today we're going to talk about an interesting hormone progesterone.

So many women are focused on estrogen because they're estrogen dominant, but progesterone

is the opposing hormone, okay, so they work together.

During menopause, you have a severe drop in progesterone in relationship to estrogen,

so progesterone drops even more.

And progesterone is important because it's kind of like a pre-hormone that is there

to help turn into other hormones like estrogen and even cortisol and some of the other adrenal

hormones.

So it's very, very important, especially during menopause because if you get the severe

drop in progesterone, you may not have enough to make the adrenal hormones that are necessary

to even compensate for the loss of the ovarian hormones.

So you end up having various symptoms, vaginal dryness, atrophy, thinning skin, loss of

collagen, decreased libido, hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, and feeling irritable.

Other than that, you're perfectly fine.

So progesterone has a calming effect.

It relaxes a female.

It's great to take in the evening, so when you go to bed, you can actually sleep better.

It's also diuretic, so when you're low in progesterone, you'll get fluid retention.

And progesterone is intimately involved in almost every part of the menstrual cycle and

also involved with pregnancy.

And if you increase stress, that can suppress progesterone too.

Another reason why someone might have a low progesterone level is that it's not going through

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