Hormones, Behavior, and the Human Spirit
Abstract
For decades, we have given hormonal decline a name that feels neutral, inevitable, and strangely comforting.
We call it aging.
We say this is what happens. We say it’s expected. We say our parents went through it too—took it on the chin, tightened their belts, lowered their expectations, and carried on. We frame it as maturity, acceptance, wisdom. As though the quiet loss of vitality, desire, softness, and ease were a rite of passage rather than a physiological failure.
It is none of those things.
Hormones are not luxuries of youth. They are not cosmetic add-ons to an otherwise intact system. They are the biological infrastructure that allows psychological life to function. When they decline, behavior changes. When they disappear, the human spirit contracts. And when we normalize that contraction, we mistake deprivation for destiny.
Aging Is Not the Same as Deficiency
There is a profound difference between aging and hormonal starvation, yet we have collapsed the two into one narrative. We have taught people—especially women—to expect less from their bodies, their relationships, and their inner lives, and to call that acceptance.
Low progesterone is routinely mislabeled as anxiety. Restlessness, irritability, sleep disruption, emotional volatility, a constant sense of internal unease—these are treated as psychological problems when they are often neurosteroid deprivation. Progesterone is a primary modulator of the GABAergic system. When it drops, the nervous system loses its brakes.
Low estrogen is dismissed as “just menopause.” Achy joints. Crepey skin. Cognitive dulling. Sleep fragmentation. Loss of verbal fluency. Emotional
flattening. Women are told to moisturize more, stretch more, meditate more, and brace themselves. Rarely are they told the truth: estrogen is foundational to musculoskeletal integrity, skin architecture, mitochondrial efficiency, vascular health, and cognitive vitality. When it disappears, systems suffer.
Low testosterone—yes, in women too—is mistaken for depression or burnout. Exhaustion that does not resolve with rest. Loss of drive. Loss of libido. Loss of confidence. Loss of psychological and physical initiative. Women are told to do more, be more disciplined, try harder.
And when none of it works, we call it aging.
Women Are Expected to Endure Quietly
Women are, in fact, the least adequately diagnosed and the most conditioned to tolerate decline.
Menopause is framed as something that simply happens to women—an unavoidable passage that must be endured rather than treated. The implicit message is that suffering is normal, desire is optional, and vitality is negotiable. Women are expected to shrink their expectations along with their hormones.
They adapt. They endure. They suffer quietly.
They do everything except fix the biology.
They train harder.
They eat less.
They add supplements.
They pursue therapy.
They meditate.
They optimize sleep.
Nothing works—because biology cannot be cheated.
Men Are Treated Differently—but Not Better
Men are not exempt from hormonal decline, but the cultural response is revealing. When a man cannot obtain an erection, the system responds immediately. Not with reassurance that this is “just aging,” but with urgency. Medication is prescribed. Function is restored—at least mechanically.
But even here, the approach is incomplete.
Erectile dysfunction is treated as a standalone problem rather than a systemic signal. Drugs may improve blood flow, but they do not correct the underlying endocrine failure. Testosterone deficiency—manifesting as abdominal fat gain, fatigue, irritability, low libido, emotional withdrawal, and loss of confidence—often goes unaddressed.
This is a bandage on a bullet wound.
Function may temporarily return, but vitality does not. Desire remains blunted. Energy remains low. The broader system continues to starve.
Again, nothing works—because hormones are not optional inputs.
You Cannot Starve a System and Expect It to Thrive
This is the analogy we avoid, but must confront.
If the body lacked protein, we would not prescribe mindfulness. If it lacked iron, we would not recommend gratitude.
Yet when the body stops producing the hormones required for resilience, desire, cognition, and connection, we tell people to cope better.
Hormonal deficiency is systemic malnutrition.
The nervous system becomes hyperreactive. The musculoskeletal system weakens. Skin thins. Metabolism slows. Libido disappears. Emotional range narrows. And slowly, quietly, people adapt to a smaller life.
They don’t feel broken.
They feel flat.
They feel unlike themselves.
They feel emotionally, relationally, and sexually unavailable.
And they are told this is normal.
The Cost to Intimacy and the Human Spirit
Loss of desire is not prudishness. Avoidance of touch is not disinterest. Emotional withdrawal is not a relationship failure.
It is often biology protecting itself in the absence of resources.
I remember a close friend who began hormone therapy somewhat skeptically. A few weeks later, she called me, laughing—genuinely laughing—and said, “Oh my god. This is incredible. I let him cuddle with me the other night.” She paused, then added, almost surprised, “I’m not dead inside anymore. Or down there. I actually let him near me.”
That sentence matters.
When hormones return, people don’t become reckless or excessive. They become available again—to touch, to connection, to pleasure, to life. The human spirit does not suddenly appear. It re-emerges once the body is no longer in deficit.
Insight Is Not Enough
There is a reason this conversation makes people uncomfortable. Hormones force us to confront a truth that modern self-help culture avoids: willpower is not sovereign.
In the behavioral world, we say this plainly: insight does not produce behavioral change. Biology sets the ceiling.
You cannot talk a nervous system into calm without safety. You cannot reason someone into desire without energy. And you cannot access meaning, intimacy, or self-actualization from a hormonally starved system.
This is not weakness. It is physiology.
Longevity Is Capacity, Not Endurance
Aging does not begin with disease. It begins with narrowing—of tolerance, of desire, of imagination. By the time symptoms are undeniable, behavior and identity have often already adapted downward.
Longevity, then, cannot be measured in years alone. To live longer without preserving vitality, intimacy, and meaning is not longevity. It is endurance.
Hormonal restoration is not about vanity or optimization. It is about restoring the biological conditions required for a fully inhabited life. When hormones are supported, people stop forcing motivation and manufacturing purpose. Behavior changes organically because the system can finally sustain it.
We call it aging because it feels inevitable. It is not.
You cannot cheat biology. You cannot override science. And you cannot starve a body and expect the human spirit to thrive.
References
Brinton, R. D. (2008). Estrogen regulation of glucose metabolism and mitochondrial function. Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 109(3–5), 240–250. McEwen, B. S., & Morrison, J. H. (2013). The brain on stress: Vulnerability and plasticity of the prefrontal cortex. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17(6), 310–317. Manolagas, S. C., et al. (2013). Hormones, aging, and longevity. Endocrine Reviews, 34(4), 389–444. Traish, A. M., et al. (2011). Testosterone deficiency: A risk factor for cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and sexual dysfunction. Journal of Andrology, 32(2), 125–140. Schmidt, P. J., et al. (2015). Neurosteroids and affective regulation. Biological Psychiatry, 77(8), 704–714.
