How I’m feeding my happy hormones (while eating toast standing up and crying in the fridge light)

In a world where TikToks replace doctors, and conflicting health/food news bombards- can you actually eat yourself happy? Disclaimer - yes, yes you can!

Let me just start by saying: my hormones are currently doing somersaults in a circus tent I never auditioned for.

Since becoming a mother of two small, sticky, wonderful lunatics, my body - and mind - have felt like a badly-run startup. Sleep is patchy at best, stress is simmering, and I’ve been known to forget lunch but still manage to eat half a family bag of crisps at 9:30pm. I’m mostly eating standing up, replying to an email, half-listening to a podcast about parenting guilt while cutting the crusts off something beige.

This is not my glamorous girl era.

This is my “feed-me-or-I’ll-cry” phase.

And while I’m endlessly grateful for the love and the noise and the squeez-y cuddles, I’ve also found myself craving some kind of control. Not in a punish-yourself kind of way, but in a “please let something feel good again” kind of way.

So, I’ve been asking myself: can I actually eat my way to feeling better? To feeling more… myself?

Because the moods are mooding. The tears are coming too fast. And the brain fog is thick enough to butter toast with.

I used to think “hormones” were just about periods and PMT and maybe some loose connection to pregnancy. But now? I know better. Hormones are running the whole bloody show.

They’re in charge of how we sleep, how we digest, how much energy we have, whether we can focus long enough to finish a thought, or whether we want to run away and live in a yurt.

And the wild bit is - while we can’t control them, we can support them. With food. With rest. With little, lovely, unsexy acts of care.

So, that’s what I’ve been exploring: what if the way I eat could help me feel more balanced, calmer, less like I’m surviving motherhood and more like I’m participating in it with some sort of hormonal dignity?

And this isn’t about diet culture. I hate that. I think it’s dangerous and deeply unsexy and as a teen of the Noughties I will never ever entertain that shit again. This isn’t “cut out sugar and become Gwyneth.” Love you Gwyneth! This is “I’m tired and I want to feel good in my bones again.”

So here’s what I’ve learned about the four big mood-making hormones, and what you can eat to give them a nudge in the right direction and there may even be a recipe video tutorial for you too…