High Estrogen. Low Progesterone.

Did you take the Women’s Hormonal Questionnaire?

What were your results?

High estrogen, low progesterone is the most common hormonal imbalance in women. So common, that 1 in 3 women of child bearing years suffer with it, and it’s 1 in 2 women over the age of 35!

Do you feel like your body and emotions are on a hormonal rollercoaster each month? Mood swings, stubborn weight gain, fatigue, or heavy periods might be making you wonder, “What is wrong with my hormones?” You’re not alone, and you’re not imagining it. Many women suffer from a hidden imbalance known as estrogen dominance which is essentially high estrogen coupled with low progesterone, and experts consider it the most common female hormonal imbalance affecting an estimated half of women over age 35. Understanding why this imbalance happens is the first empowering step toward fixing it.

Estrogen Dominance: When Progesterone Goes Missing in Action

In a healthy cycle, estrogen and progesterone work in harmony, balancing each other. Estrogen’s job is to stimulate growth (for example, building up the uterine lining), while progesterone’s job is to keep that growth in check and nurture stability. But when progesterone is too low, estrogen essentially runs wild. Your body experiences what doctors call “unopposed estrogen,” meaning estrogen’s effects aren’t being balanced out by progesterone. This state of estrogen dominance isn’t usually because your body makes too much estrogen on its own, in fact it’s rare for women to naturally overproduce estrogen. More often, the issue is that you’re not making enough progesterone. As one medical resource explains, some people’s bodies don’t produce sufficient progesterone, leading to what’s called unopposed estrogen, often referred to as estrogen dominance. Without progesterone’s balancing influence, estrogen can work overtime in your body. In other words, it’s the lack of progesterone that allows estrogen to dominate and create chaos.

So why would your body fall behind in progesterone production? The answer often boils down to one word: STRESS.

How Chronic Stress “Steals” Progesterone and Fuels Estrogen Dominance

Imagine your body has a limited supply of raw materials to make hormones, kind of like a bank account for hormone production. Progesterone is not only a hormone in itself; it’s also a building block for other hormones, including your stress hormone cortisol. In fact, progesterone is the direct precursor to cortisol, as well as aldosterone, estrogen, and even testosterone. This means your body can convert progesterone into cortisol on demand. It’s a beautiful design for short-term survival, but in today’s world of constant stress, it can wreak havoc on your sex hormones.

When you experience chronic stress, your brain signals your adrenal glands to churn out cortisol, the “fight or flight” stress hormone. Your body will always prioritize making cortisol because it’s crucial for handling stress and keeping you alive. But to meet this demand, your body essentially borrows from the same resources used to make progesterone. Over time, pumping out high levels of cortisol can deplete your body’s ability to produce progesterone. One major health clinic plainly states, “The biggest inhibitor to progesterone production is chronic stress and elevated cortisol levels.” In other words, stress is a progesterone thief.

With progesterone running on empty, there’s nothing to rein in estrogen’s effects. The result? Estrogen is left unchecked, free to overstimulate your system. It’s like taking the chaperone out of a wild party… things get out of control fast.

This imbalance can happen even if your estrogen levels are normal on lab tests; what matters is that they’re high relative to your now-low progesterone.

Your body has tipped into estrogen dominance because the calming, balancing influence of progesterone has vanished.

The Domino Effect on Your Body: Symptoms of High Estrogen/Low Progesterone

Estrogen dominance isn’t just a lab value, it’s something you feel. Because estrogen and progesterone affect so many systems, having too much estrogen relative to progesterone can trigger a cascade of frustrating symptoms.

Many women with this imbalance experience:

• Irregular or heavy periods – You might have unpredictable cycles or unusually heavy bleeding. Without enough progesterone to stabilize the uterine lining, estrogen can cause overgrowth leading to erratic or intense periods.
  
  
• PMS and mood swings – Progesterone has a calming effect on the brain, so low progesterone can result in irritability, anxiety, and depression. You may feel more on-edge or emotionally volatile, especially in the second half of your cycle.
  
  
• Headaches or migraines – Many women report hormone-related headaches when estrogen dominates without progesterone’s balance.
  
  
• Breast tenderness – Estrogen can cause breast tissue to swell and become dense; unopposed estrogen often leads to sore, tender breasts.
  
  
• Weight gain especially hips/midsection – High estrogen levels (or even normal estrogen in the absence of progesterone) encourage the body to store fat. At the same time, low progesterone and high cortisol can slow your metabolism. The result is stubborn weight gain or an inability to lose weight.
  
  
• Fatigue and brain fog – The turmoil between estrogen and progesterone can leave you feeling drained. You might struggle with low energy, poor concentration, or that “foggy” feeling. Part of this is due to cortisol dysregulation as well because chronic stress can exhaust you.
  
  
• Low sex drive and other issues – You might notice your libido isn’t what it used to be. Progesterone and estrogen both influence sexual desire and arousal; when they’re out of balance your libido can tank. Some women also develop issues like fibroids (benign uterine tumors) under estrogen’s influence, or even gallbladder troubles, showing just how far-reaching the imbalance can be.

If you’re nodding along to several of these symptoms, take heart because identifying estrogen dominance as the culprit means you can start taking steps to address it. But, an important piece of the puzzle still remains… testosterone.

The Testosterone Connection: When Estrogen Dominates, Testosterone Either Suffers or Surges

You might be thinking, isn’t testosterone a male hormone?

It’s true that testosterone is considered the primary male sex hormone, but women produce it too, just in smaller amounts, and it’s absolutely vital for female health. In women, testosterone helps support mood, confidence, muscle tone, bone strength, metabolic health, and libido. It’s like a silent hero for energy and vitality. However, when estrogen and progesterone are out of balance, especially under chronic stress, testosterone can get knocked out of balance as well.

In many cases, the same stress-driven high cortisol that steals your progesterone will also suppress your testosterone levels. Physiologically, when your body is in prolonged “fight or flight” mode, it downregulates the reproductive hormones because your system senses that this isn’t a prime time for fertility, so it conserves resources. Studies and clinical observations confirm that high cortisol levels can cause testosterone levels to decrease. And when women’s testosterone drops, you can feel it.

Low testosterone in women contributes to fatigue, loss of muscle strength, weight gain, joint pain, insomnia, low libido, and even a blunted sense of motivation or joy. If you’ve been feeling weak, unmotivated, and your sex drive has flatlined, it may not just be “in your head”, it can be this hormonal triple-whammy of high estrogen, low progesterone, and low testosterone.

On the other hand, some women experience a relative increase in androgens (male hormones) alongside estrogen dominance. A common example is polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), where insulin resistance and ovarian dysfunction lead to elevated testosterone levels. Those high androgens can convert into more estrogen through a process called aromatization in body fat, meaning a woman with PCOS might have both high testosterone and high estrogen simultaneously, all while progesterone stays low due to irregular ovulation. This is another form of estrogen dominance and it shows in some cases estrogen dominance can coexist with higher testosterone.

Whether your testosterone is too low from stress or relatively high from other imbalances, the key point is that hormone harmony is disrupted. You need the right balance of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone for everything to run smoothly. When one hormone is out of whack, it affects the others. Estrogen dominance often comes as part of a package deal with other hormonal shifts which is why you might feel completely “off” in multiple ways.

Breaking the Cycle and Reclaiming Your Balance

Just because this imbalance is common doesn’t mean you have to live with it. Knowledge is power, and now you understand that your symptoms are not random or “just aging”, they have a concrete cause in your hormones. Even more empowering, there are steps you can take to rebalance your body.

Start with the root… stress. Reducing chronic stress is one of the most powerful ways to restore hormonal harmony. This might mean setting healthier boundaries in your schedule, adopting stress-management techniques like vagal nerve stimulation, getting adequate sleep, and seeking support for anxiety or emotional burdens. When you dial down cortisol production, you free up that stolen progesterone to do its proper job again. It’s as if you’re telling your body, “We’re safe now and we can shift out of survival mode.” Biblical breathwork is an excellent practice to de-stress, you can learn more about it HERE.

If you’ve ever experienced trauma you know the weight of it in terms of chronic stress. Therapy can be a powerful way to resolve past trauma, and eliminate chronic stress from your nervous system. You can find a list of Christian practitioners HERE.

Next, consider supporting your body’s progesterone naturally. Sometimes this can be as simple as ensuring you ovulate regularly. Hear me out on this. Since ovulation is how you make progesterone, pharmaceutical birth control, chronic stress, or extreme dieting, can shut it down. Nourish yourself with a balanced diet including healthy fats and essential nutrients for making hormones, and avoid extreme calorie restriction or over-exercising as those can further stress the body. Avoid birth control medications and use natural alternatives.

In terms of delivering the raw ingredients your body needs to make progesterone, 3 supplements come to mind.

Set Apart delivers the vitamins, minerals, and herbs God made to balance your hormones. It lowers cortisol, elevates progesterone, and balances both estrogen and testosterone. How can it do all of that? Because of adaptogens, which are herbs that adapt to your body’s unique needs. This supplement is made for women. You can check it out here:

Vitamin D is essential for making hormones, especially progesterone. Unfortunately most people only get enough to survive, not thrive. You have two options, either supplement it OR sunbake for 30 minutes every single day. Supplementing is the easiest way to ensure adequate vitamin D, which also means adequate progesterone:

Lastly, magnesium. So simple, yet 80% of women are deficient in it because we’re not getting enough from fresh fruits and vegetables in modern times:

Supporting healthy estrogen metabolism is essential. While the core issue in estrogen dominance is progesterone deficiency, helping your body manage estrogen can ease symptoms. This means things like: maintaining a healthy weight since excess body fat produces extra estrogen, limiting alcohol which can raise estrogen and burden your liver’s ability to detox hormones, and eating fiber-rich veggies and probiotic foods to support your gut and liver in escorting out excess estrogen. These steps prevent estrogen from stockpiling in your system.

You probably don’t know that excess estrogen is eliminated through bowel movements! You need to be having 2-3 healthy bowel movements every day to ensure adequate elimination of estrogen. If you’re having less than that, estrogen gets reabsorbed and redistributed throughout your body leading to further dominance issues.

To combat this, you can take my colon cleansing formula, designed to keep the bowels moving regularly:

But deeper than that, 44% of women have a gene mutation called MTHFR. If you’re one of those women it means your body doesn’t process folic acid, amongst other things. This affects bowel movements because folate controls the speed that your bowels move. A methylated b vitamin supplement that contains methyl folate is the perfect solution to deliver all the folate your body needs, in a bioavailable form. Praise God, He has provided one of those supplements too!

Don’t forget about testosterone and overall hormone support. Strength training or regular exercise can naturally boost your testosterone and growth hormone, helping restore your muscle tone and energy. Stress reduction will also help your testosterone recover. Essentially, as you bring estrogen and progesterone back into balance, you create an environment for all your hormones including testosterone to realign in a healthy way.

The bonus with exercising is that not only does it balance testosterone, it improves insulin sensitivity and stimulates healthy thyroid hormones too!

Lastly, listen to your body and seek help if needed. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, don’t ever forget that.

If your symptoms are severe or not improving, test your hormone levels or work with a professional. Reach out to me, and get in for a consultation for a more targeted approach. Sometimes deeper issues need to be addressed so your hormones can come back into balance. Every woman is unique, and there’s no shame in getting help to feel your best.

Dealing with estrogen dominance can be exhausting and discouraging. At times it might feel like your own body is working against you.

But remember, your body is actually trying to protect you by making cortisol under stress, and it can find its equilibrium again. The fact that this imbalance is so common means you are absolutely not alone, and there’s a wealth of knowledge and support right here for you.

You can feel clear-headed, emotionally balanced, and in control of your weight and energy again. You can have pain-free periods and a rekindled spark of libido. That vision is not far-fetched, it’s the outcome of giving your body the right support and correcting the hormone imbalances at their source. Women every day are learning to balance their estrogen and progesterone, and they’re witnessing life-changing improvements in their well-being. You can too. Take this opportunity to reclaim your health and vitality.