20/11/2025
The benefits of Reflexology 🌿
Irish Reflexologists' Institute
Our hormones influence everything. Our mood, energy, and sleep, metabolism, fertility, and emotional resilience. When they’re out of balance, we can feel it in every part of our lives.
Reflexology offers a gentle, holistic approach to supporting the endocrine system - the network of glands that produce and regulate our hormones (including the thyroid, adrenals, pituitary, and ovaries/testes).
When we’re under chronic stress, our bodies release high levels of cortisol, the primary stress hormone. Over time, this can throw other hormones off balance - affecting menstrual cycles, thyroid activity, weight regulation, and even immune function.
By calming the nervous system and promoting deep relaxation, reflexology helps lower stress hormones and encourages the body to return to homeostasis - its natural state of balance.
🧠 How it works:
Reflex points corresponding to endocrine glands are stimulated, helping to improve communication between these systems via neural and circulatory pathways.
Activating the parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) response reduces cortisol and adrenaline levels.
With less stress load, the body can better regulate hormones like oestrogen, progesterone, insulin, and melatonin.
📚 What the research shows:
A 2019 study published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research found that women who received reflexology during their menstrual cycle experienced reduced PMS symptoms, less pain, and improved mood.
In Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice (2017), researchers reported that reflexology helped reduce anxiety and fatigue in menopausal women, suggesting a beneficial effect on stress-related hormonal imbalance.
Other studies note reflexology’s potential to lower blood pressure, improve sleep, and enhance overall wellbeing - all indicators of a more regulated endocrine system.
✨ The bigger picture:
While reflexology doesn’t replace medical care or claim to “fix” hormonal disorders, it can be a valuable complementary approach to help the body find its rhythm again.
For many, it offers a sense of calm, better sleep, and renewed emotional balance - the foundation for healthier hormone function.
