Should I drink alcohol? —Michelle from TX

I made a post on Instagram yesterday where I said:

“Date night and a little alcohol helped me recovery my fertility.” In the caption, I explained that I used to be very nervous about having any alcohol at all. During the years without my period, I finally let myself have a drink again, but it was one glass of only the best Pinot Noir I could find (which for a long time I didn’t even like). I explained that alcohol was one of many things that I restricted in orthorexia (where I focused on being the absolute healthiest until I was very unhealthy). I was so pleased to see this question in my DMs as a response! 

“In your last post, you said that alcohol helped you recover fertility… My health coach told me to stop drinking alcohol. Which one of you is right?”

Michelle, like so many other things dealing with hormones, the lifestyle around it matters. While I was missing my period, I was focused on alcohol as an evil. I saw it as a stress of whether to drink it or not. I was positive that it would ruin my fantastic health. It was my mindset around drinking and dates that were off my schedule that was the problem. 

Let’s talk about alcohol, because there is a lot of truth to it being a problem with hormonal balance. 

When you drink alcohol, you don’t actually digest it. It passes very quickly into your bloodstream and then travels to every part of your body starting with your brain in the hippocampus and regulates the HPA axis (adrenals). The stress response can be hyperactive and therefore raise cortisol which isn’t good. It can also disrupt the blood sugar balance which can increase cortisol and spike insulin. Alcohol can also cause digestion and gut issues which is an issue in absorbing the nutrients from your foods, throwing off your bacterial balance, and your sleep. 

However, I am a prime example of somebody who used this information to swear it off forever. When I would drink alcohol, I would “save up the calories” all day long, refusing to eat real food. Restoring my relationship with fun foods and alcohol was crucial for me to re-establish a healthy relationship with food and quite frankly my life, which actually improved my stress. Alcohol therefore worked as a way of lowering my cortisol in the long run. While trying to get my period back, I decided to let myself have a drink when I wanted it and to also eat good food and I was rewarded with fertility.

The quick answer to this question is, TAKE CARE OF CORTISOL. Are you abusing alcohol in your current state? If so, then it's worth cutting back. If you’re like I was, maybe you need to loosen the reins and have a sip. 

Above all, your job in restoring your period and taking care of your hormonal health is to take care of cortisol. Cortisol, whether it comes from the stress of never drinking or feeling like you can’t live without it, comes in to constrict the blood vessels, hype up the brain, and spike adrenaline so your body is never at rest which is one of the biggest cause for infertility.

Thanks for this conversion, Michelle!