Introduction
Most of your body functions happen automatically. You do not think about taking a breath or making your heart beat, those things just happen. This is true with nearly all your bodily systems and processes.
For instance, your metabolism is a complex collection of processes and reactions that are required for you to live. Metabolism in all living beings includes processes like burning calories or fat to obtain energy, and synthesizing compounds, minerals and nutrients which are required by your cells.
People generally think of others with a high metabolism as being able to burn calories and lose weight easily. If your metabolism is sluggish, you have a tendency to gain weight quickly and it is harder for you to burn calories and fat, as well as pull nutrients from the food you eat and send it to your cells.
Every major body part is made up of cells. So, if your metabolism is off, your cells suffer, and so do any physiological processes or organs that depend on those cells. As you can see, maintaining a healthy metabolism is vital to overall health and well-being.
One of the jobs of your endocrine system is to make sure your metabolism is functioning properly.
The complex system of hormone-producing glands that make up your endocrine system also work to help you get the most from your sleep, and they promote growth and development. You will see later in this report how extremely crucial the endocrine system is to mental and physical health, because in addition to those important jobs just described, there are even more vital processes this system oversees.
In this special report on endocrine system health, you will learn that there are certain essential oils that can help your endocrine glands thrive. You will learn exactly what the endocrine system is and what it does, how it can unfortunately and frequently get out of balance, and how you can identify when that happens. Let’s get started boosting your head-to-toe health, well-being and quality of life by taking a closer look at this complex system.
What is the Endocrine System?
If there is a gland in your body which produces hormones, it is a part of the endocrine system. Hormones are “chemical messengers” that travel move throughout your body, regulating and coordinating sexual functioning and development, processing of nutrients, metabolism, digestion, heart rate, reproduction and other functions. Although they are not a part of the immune system, they can influence how healthy your immunity is. Hormones may also dictate your behavior, because they can influence your moods and emotions.
The major glands of your endocrine system are as follows:
- Hypothalamus
- Pituitary
- Pineal
- Thyroid
- Parathyroid
- Thymus
- Adrenals
- Pancreas
Your pineal, pituitary and hypothalamus are parts of your brain. This shows how critical endocrine system health is for your memory, how you process thoughts and information,and all levels of mental health. The thymus is located directly between your lungs, so it influences respiratory health. The testes of a man and the ovaries of a woman can be found in the pelvic region. Your parathyroid and thyroid glands are in your neck, your adrenals rest above your kidneys and your pancreas is located behind your stomach.
Since these glands each coordinate and regulate so many important processes, you can see how the entire endocrine system must be healthy for you to experience overall health and well-being, both physically and mentally.
What Does the Endocrine System Do?
As you can see by the above list of glands, the endocrine system doesn’t do just one thing. This complex and interconnected group of processes and glands has a lot of different jobs. Let’s take a look at each of the glands in the endocrine system in turn to see what their specific job or jobs are.
Pineal gland – You may have heard of a chemical named melatonin. The principal job of your pineal gland is to produce melatonin, which helps prepare your body and mind for sleeping.
Pituitary gland – This is referred to in medical circles as the “master gland” of your endocrine system. Your brain communicates through the pituitary to give other glands sets of marching orders. Basically, your brain tells your glands what to do, and it uses the pituitary to do so. Several hormones are produced by this gland, including the growth hormone. Accordingly, an abnormally healthy or unhealthy pituitary gland can stunt growth, or cause overgrowth.
Your pituitary helps you grow and develop physically. This gland also produces prolactin, which enables pregnant moms-to-be to produce breast milk. Luteinizing hormone is also developed here. That hormone is important because it regulates healthy levels of estrogen and testosterone.
Hypothalamus gland – The nervous system is the most complex group of processes and cells in your body. Your endocrine system connects to your nervous system through the hypothalamus. It is your brain’s hypothalamus that tells your pituitary gland when to stop or start making hormones which are crucial to a number of physiological processes and developments.
Thymus gland – Although it is a part of the endocrine system, this important gland is closely related to the immune system. Its role is developing and maturing T-lymphocytes, more commonly referred to as T cells. Your T cells work to keep viruses, fungi and bacteria from causing unhealthy and possibly deadly infections. This gland is vital for the development of the immune system in children, and begins to shrink in size after puberty.
Thyroid – Your thyroid gland makes thyroid hormone. This is the principle hormone which controls your metabolism. Your metabolism is concerned with breaking down food into nutrients and then making those nutrients available to your cells, and also with creating energy. If your metabolism is slow and sluggish, your heart rate slows down and so does the efficiency of fat burning and calorie burning.
This can lead to overweight and obesity. If your thyroid creates too much of this important hormone, you may have a hard time maintaining a healthy body weight, your heart may beat at a dangerously high level, and other bodily processes speed up.
Parathyroid gland – These 4 tiny glands are located directly in the back of your thyroid. They are predominantly tasked with keeping your bones healthy, and they do so by regulating calcium and phosphorus levels.
Pancreas – This gland is so important that it belongs to both the endocrine and digestive systems. It creates enzymes that help you break food down into nutrients that your body can use. It is also responsible for developing glucagon and insulin hormones, which means the pancreas helps regulate a healthy blood sugar level.
Adrenals – You may have heard that the adrenal glands are responsible for producing the hormone adrenaline, which is most often related with the “fight or flight” response in human beings. Your 2 adrenal glands additionally produce corticosteroids that affect sexual function, metabolism and other processes.
Testes – The testes, only found in men, make testosterone. The testosterone hormone is responsible for the fact that men begin to grow bodily and facial hair when they go through puberty. The testes additionally contribute to the production of sperm, so their health is important for reproductive reasons.
Ovaries – Ovaries are found only in women, and they produce both progesterone and estrogen. As ovaries develop in puberty, they contribute to the growth of breasts in young women, and they also support healthy menstrual cycles and pregnancy.
How Does the Endocrine System Get Out of Balance?
Your hormone levels fluctuate throughout the day. The glands in your endocrine system which create hormones vital for so many functions can under or over perform for a number of reasons.
If you do not get enough rest regularly, this can throw off your entire endocrine system. Be careful to avoid environmental pollutants and toxins when you can. Cigarette smoke, whether inhaled directly or secondhand, estrogens present in some makeup, exhaust and paint fumes, plastics and pesticides, and unfiltered drinking water can all be the cause of an endocrine system imbalance.
Do you get out in the sun regularly? Did you know that only 10 to 15 minutes of sun exposure is all that is needed for your body to create healthy vitamin D levels? If you don’t get enough vitamin D, this can wreak havoc with your endocrine system. Negative emotions like stress create inflammation that can also create an unhealthy endocrine system balance. These and other causal factors can lead to the following symptoms.
What Are the Signs of an Imbalanced Endocrine System?
An unhealthy endocrine system caused by the factors just mentioned can lead to a full-blown endocrine disorder. Since your endocrine glands are responsible for producing so many different hormones, a wide variety of symptoms may develop when this system gets out of whack. Here are a few signs that your endocrine health may be suffering.
- Excessive thirst, hunger or fatigue
- Nausea, vomiting and frequent urination
- Unexplainable weight gain or loss
- Aches and pains in joints and muscles
- Problems sleeping, sleep apnea
- Vision problems
- Depression and anxiety
- Diarrhea or constipation
- Low blood sugar and low blood pressure
- High blood sugar
- Intolerance to heat or cold
- Inability to control moods and emotions
- Hair loss
- Rapid or slow heart rate
- Infertility or erectile dysfunction
- Unexplained headaches
A few endocrine disorders caused by an imbalance in this delicate system are Cushing’s disease, diabetes, adrenal insufficiency, Addison’s disease, hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, hypopituitarism and precocious puberty, which causes puberty at an extremely young age. The Centers for Disease Control in the United States tell us that more than 29 million Americans have diabetes, one of the more well-known endocrine disorders.
As you can see, several of the symptoms just listed are contrary to each other. Many are also indicative of some other type of health problem. The bottom line is this. If you ever experience any type of symptom or feeling that is not normal or healthy, get to a doctor as soon as possible. Whether the above symptoms are caused by an imbalance in your endocrine system or not, they need to be diagnosed and treated quickly.
Essential Oils for a Healthy Endocrine System
Your endocrine system is responsible for so many different jobs, and fortunately, each one of the glands in this complex system can be positively influenced by several essential oils. What makes essential oils so perfect for strengthening your endocrine system and making it work more efficiently is the fact that it uses the same delivery process as the glands in that system!
The health-boosting properties of essential oils make their way to your tissues, cells and organs through the circulatory system. Along with your heart, the circulatory system makes up your cardiovascular system. As you know, your heart is in charge of pumping blood throughout your body. Your cells need oxygen and nutrients that your blood carries, and they need to get rid of waste material and carbon dioxide. The way your heart pumps blood throughout your system helps your cells stay healthy.
Essential oils use your circulatory system to disperse throughout your body, and this is the same way your endocrine glands send hormones where they need to go. The fact that this process is familiar to both essential oils and the endocrine system means that in many cases, you can realize a very rapid and positive response from the EOs listed below.
Sandalwood, Vetiver and Frankincense – These wonderfully aromatic oils can help the overall job of your endocrine system to deliver hormones. Since these essential oils boost pituitary gland health, the “master gland” of the hormone system we mentioned earlier, they accordingly help all of the other endocrine glands do their jobs properly.
Rosemary, Basil and Cinnamon – You may recall we mentioned how important the pancreas is for helping you break down food. It additionally helps regulate your blood sugar level, and produces insulin and glucagon hormones. When your blood sugar level is healthy, not too high and not too low, your body uses energy efficiently. A healthy pancreas gets a boost from basil, cinnamon and rosemary essential oils, which means your digestive system and metabolism benefit.
Lemongrass and Frankincense – These two EOs can help your thyroid work properly. Through the release of thyroid hormone, your thyroid influences the health of your digestive system and metabolism, as well as cardiovascular function and brain development.
Geranium and Rosemary – These two essential oils ensure a woman produces healthy eggs so that fertilization and pregnancy as possible. They also influence a woman’s ovaries by helping in the production of healthy estrogen and progesterone levels. This is important for healthy reproduction and a smooth menstrual cycle.
Basil and Rosemary – Adrenal glands benefit from these two essential oils. You can use them in a blend, or individually. In men, healthy adrenal glands mean the production of sex hormones like testosterone, and the adrenals are also responsible for regulating a healthy metabolism and controlling stress responses.
Lavender, Sandalwood and Frankincense – These oils stimulate your pineal gland, which is responsible for how healthy your sleep habits are.
Frankincense, Ylang-Ylang and Patchouli – These oils benefit the hypothalamus gland. Your hypothalamus is so important because it influences thyroid and adrenal function, regulates how you handle stress, and controls your thirst and hunger. It also has input in all endocrine functions, so using these oils regularly can benefit your endocrine system in many ways.
Rosemary, Frankincense, Oregano and Ginger – Keeping your thymus healthy means immune system support that leads to overall health and well-being. These oils boost the performance of your thymus gland.
Frankincense, Spearmint and Peppermint – Among other benefits to the endocrine system, these aromatic oils promote parathyroid gland health.
As you can see, rosemary, frankincense and sandalwood essential oils promote endocrine health in a number of ways. For the best possible endocrine health, keep several of these versatile essential oils on hand.
Summary
The power of nature to heal has been known for centuries. Traditional Indian and Chinese medicine practices in ancient Eastern worlds understood very well how plants could be used to prevent disease and heal illness and injury. Those countries openly embrace natural healing practices today that have changed little from the application of oils and herbs which began curing and healing thousands of years ago.
With hundreds of essential oils at our disposal, we can use the same tried-and-true healing philosophies of Eastern cultures. That means that the application of aromatherapy or a topical use of the essential oils mentioned above can help you naturally boost your endocrine system health.
With your endocrine glands responsible for so many vital life functions, keeping them happy and healthy needs to be a top priority. Something as simple as filling your surrounding environment with an essential oil mist can regulate an efficient metabolism, help you function sexually at a healthy level, and increase the odds that you have a successful pregnancy, as well as help you control your moods and emotions.
Unlike traditional medicine, essential oils provide little to no side-effects. Put in simple terms, the essential oils covered in this report can impact so many areas of your mental and physical health in a dramatically positive way.
Resources
Websites, links
- Your Endocrine System: Facts, Functions and Diseases – https://www.livescience.com/26496-endocrine-system.html
- What Is the Endocrine System? – http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/endocrine-system-facts#1
- What Does the Endocrine System Do? – http://www.innerbody.com/image/endoov.html
- Top Essential Oils for Endocrine System Health –https://healyeatsreal.com/essential-oils-to-support-a-healthy-endocrine-system/
- http://thepaleomama.com/2015/02/essential-oils-hormone-support/
- http://essentialoilsforguide.com/body-systems/endocrine-system/
- Symptoms of an Imbalanced Endocrine System – https://www.healthgrades.com/conditions/endocrine-disorders
Books
- Balancing Your Hormones with Essential Oils: How Essential Oils Can Help to Reset Your Hormones Kindle Edition by Eve Bell (available through Amazon)
- Your Personal Tuning Fork: The Endocrine System by Deborah Bates (available through Amazon)
- The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy, Revised and Expanded: Over 800 Natural, Nontoxic, and Fragrant Recipes to Create Health, Beauty, and Safe Home and Work Environments by Valerie Ann Worwood (available through Amazon)