You’ve likely heard of hormones before. But do you know how much power they carry within the body?
Hormones are the body’s chemical messengers. They send signals into the bloodstream and tissues, affecting many different processes including growth and development, metabolism, mood, sexual function, reproduction, and so much more.
Secreted by a network of glands, hormones are part of your endocrine system. When you have too much or too little of a hormone, your internal processes – including the ones mentioned above – can be impacted.
There are over 50 hormones in the human body, but we want to cover six of them today, explaining their function. This way, you can understand how important hormones are to your overall health.
1. T3 and T4
When it comes to hormones in your thyroid, T3 and T4 are the main players. Your thyroid regulates your metabolism, meaning it plays a role in digestion, hunger, and energy levels. In addition, they modulate your weight, internal temperature, and the growth of your skin, nails, and hair.
When your body makes too much of these hormones, it’s called hyperthyroidism. Symptoms of this include mood swings, difficulty sleeping, weakness, anxiety, sensitivity to heat, and more.
When your body makes too little, it’s called hypothyroidism. Symptoms include fatigue, depression, brain fog, weight gain, sensitivity to cold, and more.
2. Melatonin
Your circadian rhythm – or sleep/wake cycle – is your internal clock, dictated mostly by hormones that signal to your body that it’s either time to relax and go to sleep or wake up and start the day.
One of these hormones is melatonin. Sunlight prevents the production of melatonin, which is secreted by your pineal gland. But as the day turns to night, your brain creates and releases melatonin to help your brain and body relax and fall asleep.
However, artificial light – from your lamps, TV, or phone screen – can inhibit the brain from releasing melatonin, preventing you from feeling sleepy or being able to fall asleep at all.
3. Progesterone and testosterone
While both hormones are present in both sexes, progesterone is sometimes called the “female hormone” and testosterone is sometimes called the “male hormone”. This is because progesterone is more present in women, being mostly produced in the ovaries, and testosterone is more present in men, produced in the testicles.
Both hormones are heavily involved in reproduction, but outside of that testosterone regulates bone mass, fat distribution, muscle mass and strength, along with the production of red blood cells; on the other hand, progesterone regulates skin health, the nervous system, cognition, and more.
When women don’t have enough progesterone, they may experience irregular menstrual cycles, headaches, mood changes, or loss of sleep.
Men with low testosterone may experience low libido, hair loss, fatigue, and reduced muscle mass.
4. Cortisol
Both short- and long-term stress triggers certain processes in the endocrine system, most notably the hormone cortisol. Known as the “stress hormone”, cortisol is what’s responsible for the fight-or-flight response and adrenaline in situations of extreme stress.
On top of that, cortisol helps control your body’s use of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates – meaning it has a large hand in your metabolism. This means it can have major implications on your overall health if your cortisol levels are not stable.
When you’re chronically stressed, your body continually makes cortisol, disrupting the systems the hormone is supposed to regulate. As such, chronic stress has been associated with obesity, cardiovascular disease, anxiety, depression, among other health issues.
5. Insulin
When you take in glucose, your body relies on the hormone insulin to properly use the sugar for energy. However, when insulin levels are disrupted, this can cause serious trouble. Diabetes is characterized as either having little-to-no insulin within the body or having a condition in which the body can’t properly use its insulin, resulting in high blood sugar.
Usually, before the development of type 2 diabetes, a person has prediabetes and insulin resistance – a condition in which the person has more glucose in their bloodstream than normal because their body is no longer as sensitive to the created insulin. As time goes on, the pancreas simply won’t be able to make enough insulin, and blood sugar will become and stay too high.
6. Vitamin D
Hang on, what? That’s correct. Vitamin D is technically a hormone. Synthesized by the sun, vitamin D got its classification as a hormone because of how it functions within the body.
Outside of playing several crucial roles throughout the body, vitamin D is synthesized by the sun, then secreted by the kidneys and liver to carry out its functions.
These functions include absorbing calcium from the gut into the bloodstream to strengthen bones, controlling infections, bolstering the immune system, and supporting a healthy inflammatory response.
Studies also show that vitamin D helps regulate mood, support weight loss, all while lowering the risk of disease. 
Is it sunny where you are?
Unfortunately, unless you work on a beach in paradise, you can’t really rely on the sun to get all of the vitamin D you need for optimal health.
Plus, even if you did, you’d need to ensure that you were also getting adequate levels of vitamin K to help the vitamin D function properly.
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