I’m passionate about holistic health because I’ve seen how it works firsthand. And quite frankly, I’ve seen that it works so much better than modern medicine. So, I wanted to share my holistic health journey in hopes that it awakens you to the idea that modern medicine isn’t the end all be all. That maybe you are able to heal yourself instead of relying on pharmaceuticals. And how to use essential oils to balance your hormones naturally like I did.
Holistic health is something that not everyone is interested in. Some people think its weird. Others think its too new-agey and that Christians shouldn’t partake in it. And some even think it’s complete bogus.
I don’t think I had much of an opinion about it before I started to learn about it and apply it in my life. But once I saw how much holistic remedies helped my hormones and my symptoms, I was a convert. Now it’s something that I’m so passionate about and want everyone to learn how to use it in their lives.
The biggest reason why I’m so passionate about it is because I’m a Christian. That means that I believe that God created our bodies perfectly. Of course, we live in a fallen world and with that comes sickness, disease, and suffering. But we still have the same bodies that God created when everything was good in the garden. And that leads me to believe that if we give them what they need, they will thrive and be healthy. That’s where holistic health comes in.
a little background
If you’re new to traditional living and traditional medicine, you may not know what holistic health is. So let me explain before I get into my story. Essentially, holistic health takes the whole body into consideration when addressing a symptom or an issue. The reason for that is because the whole body is connected. Modern western medicine (i.e. hospitals & pharmaceuticals) isolate the specific organ or body part that is causing problems. This is problematic because all of the systems in our bodies work together and affect each other. If you want to truly heal an issue with one part of your body, you have to pay attention to the rest of the body as well.
I’ll maybe write a more detailed post about holistic health in the future, but for now I’ll just give you a couple examples. Many people suffer from bad allergies in the spring and fall. Modern western medicine would “cure” this by prescribing allergy medicine or suggesting the person take something like Claritin. Holistic health would look at all of the different things that could be causing those allergies. Of course environmental things like dust and pollen are what is triggering those allergy symptoms. But what is happening in the body that’s causing the immune response to occur? Things like inflammation, improper lymphatic drainage, estrogen dominance, and poor gut health all affect the immune system, specifically allergic reactions. Focusing on healing those things, starting from the most basic and working your way up, can actually cure your seasonal allergies instead of just masking the symptoms with Claritin.
I’ll let the next example be my own holistic health story.
how to use essential oils to heal your hormones naturally
Another part of the body that is greatly affected by the rest of the body is the endocrine system. The endocrine system is comprised of all the hormones and the glands that secrete them. Pretty much since the time I went through puberty I had issues with my hormones. My cycle was always long, like around fifty days, but I never really thought too much about it. When I got older, my doctor told me it was fine that it wasn’t the normal length as long as it was regular and was around the same length in between periods each time.
I ended up getting on birth control for a little over a year. When I stopped taking it I lost my period completely. I read a little about it and found out that that was normal. When you take birth control, your body pretty much stops making its own hormones because it’s getting synthetic ones from the pill. Whenever you stop taking it, it can take a little while for your body to regulate out again and start producing the amounts of each hormone you need in order to have a healthy and regular cycle.
So, at first I wasn’t too concerned. But when it had been around six months and I still hadn’t gotten my period back, I started to get worried that something was wrong. So I went back to my doctor. She gave me two options: go back on birth control or take synthetic progesterone. Of course I wasn’t going to take birth control again because getting off of it was what caused this in the first place. So I decided to take the progesterone because I trusted that my doctor knew what was best.
when everything started to change
Long story short, the synthetic progesterone helped. I got my period back within the first month and my entire cycle was regular and a good length. I took it for three months, and then stopped to see if my body took over on its own as per my doctor’s instruction. It didn’t. I went a couple months without a period again and something in my gut told me I needed to do something different. I’m not sure what gave me that feeling, but I started thinking that I didn’t want to have to take those pills for the rest of my life, especially since I wanted to have kids one day.
Around this time, I started learning a little more about holistic health. I’m going to be honest and say that I have no idea where I started hearing about it, but somehow it was something that was on my radar. So, I decided that I would try to heal myself naturally and figure out the root cause of my missing period. I started out by reading this book and it completely changed the way I viewed my body, health, and menstrual cycle. The biggest thing was that it taught me that there are so many factors that affect your hormones and menstrual cycle, and that it is so possible to balance and regulate them on your own.
I learned that the biggest thing that affected it was high stress levels. What surprised me the most was how many things could cause high stress levels, especially under-eating and over-exercising. I’ll get more into the details of that another time, but again, long story short, I took that information and implemented it as best I could. I tried to reduce my stress levels by slowing down, prioritizing sleep, and creating better habits and rhythms. I also started trying to eat more calories because I was very active with college golf and learned that I probably wasn’t eating enough to support that as well as the stress of college itself.
essential oils & other lifestyle changes
Also around this time I started following some people who used essential oils. At some point, I learned that a lot of women have used them to balance their hormones naturally. So I did a little more research and made a list of some of the best ones. I decided to start with Clary Sage and Thyme, so I ordered them.
This was in April 2020, so covid was also starting to happen. As stressful as that time was in its own way, it actually helped to lower my stress. We were sent home from school after spring break, so I was doing school online. I still had all the work and stuff to do, but it was a lot more laid back and less stressful because I could do it on my own time. I also didn’t have golf which took a lot of stress off of me as well.
One month later, in May, I got my period back. The first couple months it wasn’t very regular, but towards the end of the year it finally balanced out and got regular. I couldn’t believe that I’d actually healed myself, balanced my hormones, and regulated my cycle on my own. I did more in one month myself than my doctor did in three. After this, I was converted to the way of holistic health.
where i’m at now
I was able to keep my cycle regular and a good length for almost two years. That was a huge accomplishment because that had never been the case for me. Looking back, that was because I was always overly stressed. I lived a super busy and very active lifestyle. I always played sports and always did really well in school, so I was always doing something and never gave myself time to rest.
All of that stress and exhaustion caught up with me in the Spring of 2022. There was a lot going on in my life at that time. We almost lost my grandma. I started a part time job half an hour away that ended up being my full time job after graduation, and was working on my senior honors thesis and in my last semester of college. I was an hour away from my family and boyfriend (who’s my husband now). And I was still on the golf team. Needless to say, I was very stressed out and very busy. I had never been so stressed and overwhelmed in my life.
There was one night in particular that it all caught up with me. I felt as though I couldn’t take the stress of it all any longer. Something had to give, but that was impossible because I had to continue all of those things until I graduated.
After that I lost my period again for a few months. Then I only had one in the course of a year. It’s back now, but I’m still working towards getting it to be regular again. To do that, I’m working on reducing my stress and eating more again, and also using three oils: Progessence Plus, Sclaressence, and Thyme. I’m also working on some other things which I’ll maybe get into another time. I feel better than I ever have and am finally starting to feel like myself again. I know it’s working I just have to trust the process. Healing naturally takes longer than the simple fixes that come with pharmaceuticals. But, once again, that’s because it actually heals. It isn’t just a band-aid solution that doesn’t really do anything at all.
Since this post has been so long, I’m going to make a more detailed post about each of the things I mentioned that I did at the beginning and am doing now instead of explaining them in this one. There’s also a lot more to talk about in regards to holistic health and hormone balance so I will talk about all of that stuff too. But for now, just know that holistic health works. It works a whole lot better than western medicine because it addresses the root cause instead of just covering up the symptoms.
According to western medicine, I was healed whenever the synthetic progesterone brought my period back. But I really wasn’t. I wasn’t actually healed until I healed the cause and lowered my stress. Holistic health isn’t something to laugh at or think is crazy. It actually works, and if you truly want to heal you might want to try it as well.