Hormonal: How Hormones Drive Desire, Shape Relationships, and Make Us Wiser

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As the tone of this review probably suggests, my current attitude to mental health is relevant to how I received Hormonal: A Conversation About Women's Bodies, Mental Health and Why We Need to Be Heard.

The result is a body that constantly believe it needs to protect itself; over-alert and often in pain. In sum, while I did not feel empowered after reading this book and it did not change my thinking on the subject, I had a new appreciation for evolutionary psychology and great respect for the ground breaking work being done by Dr. this was such an interesting book, and perfectly balanced between a personal and scientific narrative. That results in a lack of vital understanding for women, particularly as those processes are inextricably connected to our mental health.

It is with a mixture of humanity and clear-sightedness that she analyses genetic and environmental influences, trauma, hormones, fertility, parenthood, medication, social stigma and language, all the while linking back to her own stories and those of fellow sufferers. I'm not going to give this book a rating as I'd rather just say it was a good resource book full of information, some of which was very confirming to me and other information that I am still not too sure about.

The reason many clinicians reject the BPD diagnosis, and why there is such a growing network of 'survivors' is because evidence shows that around 80 percent of people diagnosed with BPD remember: overwhelmingly applied to women - have a history of trauma. Obviously we learned more about sex hormones, puberty and reproduction in biology lessons (I even took biology as an A-level subject with a view of going to medical school) but until a few years ago when I had a sharp awakening regarding my fertility, I had forgotten a lot of it. It is also popular among body builders because there is some evidence to suggest that GABA increases human growth hormone (HGH) levels.

Deep, thoughtful, and eye-opening, this book teaches us that the more we know about hormones, the more we can manage our lives. If a person's "type" can change that quickly, four letters clearly offer very little insight into a person's character. I thought it was easy to read and interesting, the problem is that the science of women's bodies is just not conclusive in many ways. Hormones don't make women irrational; they help women choose mates, compete with female rivals, produce healthy offspring, and conquer other biological challenges. In my day-to-day life I have noticed that in the last couple of years the women I know increasingly want to talk about aspects of their health they may have previously felt shy about.