How To Calm Tween And Teen Hormonal Mood Swings

By Jessica Drummond

Why is my once lovely girl so moody? Does the eye rolling, and tween attitude really begin this soon?

The answer is that while, yes, the tween attitude seems to be arriving earlier (and anyway, who really remembers when our own tween attitudes arrived!), there is something that can be done to smooth out the mood swings that arrive along with the hormonal swings of puberty.

The key is to buffer her adrenals, and to get your girl off of the blood sugar roller coaster!

What your daughter eats, and how she controls her stress will have a very direct impact on her hormone swings. While it is normal for hormones to swing more wildly at puberty compared with once her cycles become more regular, she doesn't have to feel so moody as these new hormones arrive.

So what's a parent to do?

1. Get your daughter off the blood sugar roller coaster first thing in the morning by sending her off to school with a good breakfast. She should eat breakfast within 1 hour of waking, and it should include a clean protein, a healthy fat, and some vitamin and mineral nutrients. One great example is a slice of savory quiche.

2. Give your daughter some tools for self-calming her anxiety. Every time that the stressful "small stuff" of life fires off her flight-or-flight response, she is stressing her hormone system. The same systems and raw materials that combine to create healthy hormone levels, also create stress hormones. But, stress hormones get priority billing. So, calming your daughter's stress response is one of the best ways to help her endocrine organs (the organs that make her hormones) to make enough calming hormones. Over time, if she's chronically stressed, she will feel more and more anxious and fatigued, have more difficulty sleeping, and experience worsening symptoms of PMS.

One of the best ways to calm her stress response is to encourage dance breaks throughout the day. When she's feeling stressed about tomorrow's test, encourage her to put on her favorite song and dance her stress away.

And, just before a big test at school, encourage the simple meditation practice called, "awareness of breath." My favorite way to do this is to put on some minty lip balm, then sit tall, rest or close the eyes, and quietly observe how the nasal breath feels as it brushes over the tingle of the minty lips. Repeat for 5 - 10 breaths. Instant pre-test stress hormone tamer.

Do you want to learn more about Powerful Puberty for your daughter? Sign up athttp://jessicadrummond.com/powerful-puberty-introduction/ for free guides to Harnessing Your Hormones and Having Great Energy and to be the first to hear about all of our programs for hormone health and power for girls and women.