Why Indoor Air Problems Can Feel Worse During Hormonal Changes
When internal shifts change how much the body can hold.
I kept thinking something external had changed.
The house was the same. The routine was the same.
But my reactions were stronger during certain seasons.
That mismatch made me doubt the pattern until it repeated.
Worsening symptoms didn’t mean the environment suddenly became dangerous.
Why hormonal shifts change tolerance, not truth
Hormonal changes affect how much buffer the body has.
They don’t create new problems — they change capacity.
The margin I relied on wasn’t always available.
This helped me understand why the same space felt different at different times.
Capacity shifts can reveal strain that was already there.
How internal transitions amplify environmental load
During hormonal changes, the body is already adjusting.
That adjustment uses resources.
There was less room left to compensate for the air.
This aligned with what I noticed about reduced tolerance during stress, which I explored in why indoor air problems can feel worse during life stress.
Multiple adjustments at once can overload capacity.
Why symptoms often fluctuate instead of staying constant
I expected consistency.
What I experienced was variability.
Some weeks were manageable. Others weren’t.
This fluctuation mirrored the shifting patterns I described in why indoor air exposure can cause random, shifting symptoms.
Variability doesn’t cancel out causation.
Why these changes are often misattributed
When symptoms intensify during hormonal phases, explanations turn inward.
I wondered if I was just more emotional or reactive.
I blamed myself instead of noticing the pattern.
This echoed how indoor air effects are often internalized or dismissed.
Sensitivity during transitions isn’t a personal failing.