Hormones & Sensory Overload

Hormones can deeply influence overwhelm.

Maybe as a mom you know this already, but there are actually some surprising impacts on sensory overload.

Do you identify with any of these situations?

-You’ve been busy all day managing the kids and your own overwhelm when dad gets home, walks straight to the couch, and sits… seemingly deaf the kids’ yelling.

-You notice sounds now that you never paid attention to before you had kids, and it drives you crazy sometimes.

-Your kids’ chaos is WAY more annoying at certain times of the month, and you wonder if you’re just a crabby, moody mom.

What do all of these scenarios have in common?

You guessed it: hormones.

But exactly how do hormones affect YOUR sensory overload? And what can you do about it?

In my conversations with moms seeking help with sensory overload, there seem to be two camps:

1. Moms who say they rarely or never needed help with sensory overload before they had kids, but now it’s different.

2. Moms who say they were always sensitive but it became much more noticeable after having kids.

It’s not all in your head. In this article, we’ll dive into how hormones affect your sensory overwhelm. Hang on until the end for tips and implications for your situation as an overwhelmed mom.

What are hormones?

We talk about hormones often as women, but have you really stopped to define what they are?

Gear up for some very interesting, useful science-ese in the next sections, but we’ll keep it simple here. According to M-W it is: a hormone is:

“a product of living cells that circulates in body fluids (such as blood) or sap and produces a specific often stimulatory effect on the activity of cells usually remote from its point of origin.”

They are substances secreted in the body that carry messages to a different part of the body.

What’s the difference?

Hormones are part of your body’s endocrine system, and they are generally slower messengers compared to neurotransmitters (think serotonin, dopamine, etc.), but they are absolutely related.

Hormones are secreted by glands into the bloodstream and have a target destination. On the other hand, neurotransmitters work within the nervous system specifically, bridging the synaptic gap between neurons. It’s important to note that hormones have intricate, interconnected functions and don’t work in isolation.

This article will focus primarily on estrogen its effects on sensory overload. You’ll see that sex hormones have effects reaching far beyond just the reproductive system.

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Estrogen & Sensory Overload

Sex hormones like estrogen are shown to affect functions that we had not previously considered, with hearing being one of those.

Estrogen also affects the regeneration of taste buds and smell receptors:

Less estrogen = lower sense of smell and taste.
More estrogen=stronger sense of taste and smell. Pregnancy food aversions, anyone?

Estrogen generally has a positive effect on learning, memory, and mood.

• Too low – lower libido, difficulty concentrating, mood swings, reproductive issues, breast tenderness, hot flashes, and irregular or absent periods.
• Too high – altered sleep patterns, weight gain, hair loss, headaches, memory problems, and changes in appetite (slowed metabolism).

There are actually estrogen receptors throughout the body. Based on research about estrogen and hearing, we can infer that estrogen generally makes hearing more sensitive. Most human studies about hormonal effects on hearing have been in relation to hearing loss and show that estrogen has a protective effect on hearing. Maybe you’re not surprised by that because you always heard the baby crying before dad did, or maybe the noise just bothers you more in general.

These studies have compared hearing in aging women and men and compared the effects of hormone replacement therapy.

It doesn’t just stop there, though. Estrogen is involved in the processing of auditory input itself.

There are estrogen receptors throughout the auditory system in various species, not just in the brain. As a result, there are differences in the ear structures and nerves themselves, when comparing males and females.

For more information, see sex differences in hearing and this article from science daily.

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Monthly Cycles & Sensory Overload

Don’t be surprised if you see cyclical variations in your sensitivity to sound. That would be… normal. And it’s not just because you might be more moody.

As a woman, your middle ear structure actually has functional changes throughout the menstrual cycle, based on hormones. Your brainstem auditory neural pathways actually fluctuate with monthly estrogen changes as well.

The amount of sound it takes you to actually notice sound (threshold) is higher when progesterone levels are more dominant, especially during the last half of the menstrual cycle;

this means that in the last half of the menstrual cycle, women should be less sensitive to sound. Conversely, thresholds are lower in the first half of the cycle (more sensitive) and increase as estrogen peaks around ovulation. 

This may seem surprising, because many women report being more sensory overloaded in the days leading up to their menstrual period. Perhaps this is more likely explained by the lower mood effects caused by relatively lower levels of progesterone and estrogen. Feeling sad, anxious, and frustrated just go hand in hand with lower estrogen levels, but hormonal imbalances can definitely make this worse.

You can read more about hormonal effects of hearing throughout the menstrual cycle in this article.

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Pregnancy, Postpartum & Sensory Overload

You’ve probably heard that a pregnant woman’s brain shrinks during pregnancy, and it’s true. Changes in gray matter volume occur during pregnancy and last for at least 2 years postpartum. 

But that’s not the whole story. Other parts of the brain actually increase in volume!

By four months postpartum, fMRI’s show growth in the parietal lobe, parts of the prefrontal cortex, and the midbrain. Many of these changes are in areas of the brain responsible for social cues and empathy.

Especially notable, the parietal lobe grows, which is responsible for processing sensory input related to the body, like touch, pressure, pain, etc.

Even more amazing, the inferior parietal lobe showed growth, and this part of the brain connects to the auditory and visual cortex too!

How long do these changes last?

The short answer is we don’t really know.

Research so far shows at least 4 months to 2 years postpartum, and some of these changes may actually occur after birth.

My personal experience and the anecdotal experience of many moms tell me that it lasts a long time! But it won’t last forever. We also know that hearing thresholds gradually increase as women age and estrogen decreases. In other words, it takes more volume for the sound to be heard during menopause and thereafter, as estrogen decreases.

What about the time in between?

We can make inferences, but the research isn’t there yet. As we know, women’s health research often isn’t very well funded, especially if it is in an area like this, which isn’t particularly lucrative for the healthcare industry. Most of this research has been done in the last 10-15 years, so we certainly hope for more research to help us understand and validate the experience of moms.

To read more about how hormones impact mom’s brain during and after prengancy, read these articles here and here.

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Implications & Help for Sensory Overload

Your hormone health has wide reaching impacts in all areas of your life, including your sensory overload. It goes beyond trying to conceive or easing into perimenopause. It’s worth considering even in the in-between years of your motherhood.

What are practical ways to do that?

–pay attention to imbalances, whether or not you’re trying to conceive. These imbalances likely affect your tolerance of sensory input.

-understand healthy female cycles, relationship to nutrition, thryoid health and more with fertility friday ‘s resources.

–don’t pathologize the normal female experience. Talk about it with others and lets normalize the overwhelm so many of us feel.

–do what you can to support hormone health. Consider working with a holistic health provider to get to the root of any imbalances. Often with smaller imbalances, traditional western medicine will not intervene or may band-aid the issue with birth control.

–see self-care and basic needs post… sleep, nourishment, movement, stress reduction. Read the article about basic needs for homeschool moms here.

–chart your cycle and look for patterns of overload. Then you can practice self-compassion and model that for your kids while you communicate your needs more effectively.