WEBVTT
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Welcome to Skip Happens Hormones and Filters.
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The show where we decode the wild, wonderful, and occasionally WTF moments of perimenopause, menopause, and everything in between.
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We're your host, I'm Johanna Lancaster, a women's health nurse practitioner and functional medicines provider at OnlyU, specializing in empowering women to understand the root cause of your hormone imbalance and helping you feel like yourself again.
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And I'm Melissa Gaskin, a National Board certified health and wellness coach at 5CN, supporting clients through sustainable lifestyle changes for root cause healing.
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Together we are your Science Meets Soul, clinical meets real life, hormone dream team.
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Around here, nothing is off limits.
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Hot glasses, mood swings, sleep that disappears like your favorite pair of jeans.
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Yeah, we're talking about all of it.
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Our mission is simple cut through the noise, ditch the chain, and help you understand what's actually happening in your body with zero judgment and a lot of laughs.
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So whether you're shifting, pausing, or wondering why your hormones feel like they're in a group of text without you, you're in the right place.
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Grab your tea, your electrolytes, and your secret midlife snack, no judgment, and let's get into today's episode.
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What if I told you your anxiety, your irritability, and your exhaustion are not just your hormones?
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The truth, no one's really saying or talking about, is that menopause happens at the exact same time that women are raising kids, teens, caring for parents that are aging, navigating, struggling marriages, and holding everything together.
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Yeah, and over half of women that are in their 40s and beyond, we are we're in the sandwich generation, right?
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Right between the raising kids and the aging parent, caring for the aging parents.
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And during this uh window is also when our hormones go to shit.
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Absolutely.
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So you're not just too sensitive, despite what other people might say.
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Your nervous system isn't broken, it's truly overwhelmed or overstimulated.
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Yeah, today we're unpacking the real reason in hormonal transitions and why they can feel like you're at a breaking point.
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And most importantly, what actually helps beyond the just manage your stress kind of advice?
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This is shift happens, hormones unfiltered.
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Why your nervous system feels hijacked?
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Yeah, such an important episode at this time of the season, right?
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We're in May right now, end of the school year.
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We just had Mother's Day, and uh everything is kind of cumulating to this big cluster of stress.
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So um why don't you, Melissa, tell us a little bit from the paramenopausal perspective what stress feels like?
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I would say this last month, like there's this amplification of stress because of the season you just mentioned.
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And I personally, the like about two weeks ago, was dealing with um some heart palpitations going to bed.
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And I just kept thinking, what's going on?
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Is it something I ate, something I drank?
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And it was right in the middle of leading two different Girl Scout camps or attending one, leading one, and my husband was traveling and I was in the luteal phase.
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So multiple things I think were compounded or amplified that I was laying in bed and thinking, why?
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And so for me, it was a immediate, okay, work on breath, did a visualization of you know, a glowing light going up and down my body.
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And that really helped so that I was able to calm.
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Um, and then you know, in the last few weeks, I've also been like clenching fists at night and thinking mindfully, why are my fists so tight?
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Relax so that they like I can fall asleep too.
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Because I I will just hold and be like, oh my gosh, my knuckles, like yeah.
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Um so I definitely have felt the amplification of the stress through through those ways for sure.
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Yeah, I think uh those are super common symptoms.
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This um clenching, um palpitations, we see a lot, irritability, and and uh we we talked about rage and resentment too, you know, they're really um the filters off.
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We we're I feel this when you know everything, the kids and the husband, they all ask one more thing, and there's another noise that's just you know uh the the fingernails on the chalk wall kind of thing.
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Um, and you just you flip, you flip a switch of some sort, there's no more buffer, and it's just um you know, you snap at them, and and the the feeling of resentment is this really deep-rooted feeling for me, I think that originates from this.
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I'm not taking care of my needs.
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The knowledge, you know, underneath all the um irritability and emotions comes this, I'm not getting what I need here at all.
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And this is a huge problem.
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Like we've spent um decades sometimes, you know, at least 10-15 years since we've had children, and and that's the whole time we have spent caring for everybody else.
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And maybe we're we're making some efforts to care for ourselves in between there, but now the hormones are taking the buffer away, and all of a sudden everything falls apart.
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Um, so over overstimulation, um, emotional flooding, anxiety, needing more time alone and rest time.
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I think those are pretty common symptoms.
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Um, and just on a side note, we um we'll talk a little bit about um adrenal dysfunction.
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I did have a really significant adrenal dysfunction in perimenopause so a few years ago, and um was unable to cope, you know, really, really terrible fatigue that I couldn't get out of bed a lot of days.
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And this is uh serious, and we can't just push on and drink another coffee and tell ourselves it's fine, we're gonna end up with serious health problems um that take a very long time and a lot of effort to reverse.
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So take this seriously now, and we'll talk some more about that.
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Absolutely.
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So it's really stress, nervous system dysregulation.
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That's our our focus we're honing in on today.
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Um let's talk a little bit about this peak window in the sandwich generation, right?
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You mentioned sandwich generation.
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Let's let's dive into what that looks like.
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What really is that?
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Yes.
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Yeah, so I think um generally over 50% of women in their 40s, they are in this so-called sandwich generation where we're having we're still raising our kids.
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They're not out of the house yet, but we're also caring for aging parents with you know often health problems.
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And that kind of emotional burden that comes from caring for aging parents is hugely underestimated, and and you know, we just kind of brush it aside and push on and we're fine, but really this is this is detrimental, and then on top of that come the hormonal shifts and wild fluctuations in perimenopause and then menopause, no more hormones, and we're supposed to deal with all of this, absolutely.
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And in addition to that, there's this like gender role shift, right?
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We've had this evolution of gender roles where what we saw possibly in parents isn't the same that we are desiring or is more most fulfilling to us as a wife, a mom, a caregiver, etc.
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Um, so we you know, we've seen this shift and like what is um what feels right, removing external influence or what social media says all women should be doing from the picture, you know, really, really focusing on, you know, and we're gonna talk a little bit about this later, really focusing on what our needs are and what our values are and what lights us up in managing stress and being able to navigate this load that we care, you know, that we carry.
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Um, and in addition, it's this home management piece, right?
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We we typically carry that weight of booking summer camps, navigating schedules, you know, making decisions, making meal plans and food lists and ensuring all the things are taken care of, even navigating, you know, updating your garden and your lawn care and anything along those lines, it oftentimes the woman does a lot of those decisions.
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Um, even data shows women spend the majority of the money in the home.
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And so because we make the decisions, right?
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Um, so yeah, it's the season of life where there's all this, and and it's easy for mom guilt to creep in because oh, I missed that deadline for that camp, or oh, you know, we're not gonna go on that trip, or oh, like whatever it is, or the house is a disaster, right?
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Like there's I'm not enough kind of that creeps in because we are overextended in the season, yeah, and the hormones are shape changing, and so it even exacerbates some of that thought process, um, you know, neurologically because of all these shifts.
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Yeah, and even you know, the mom guilt is so real, it it seeps into everything.
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We talked about this how even when we are trying to take care of ourselves, you know, you you sneak out to get your half hour at the gym and or you're doing your little meditation or a bath or whatever it is that you can squeeze into your day to care for yourself, your mom guilt takes over, right?
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You're you're sitting there in your bathtub with all your aromatherapy, and you're already feeling like, oh, I should be doing this, I haven't done that yet, and this is next on my to-do list, and you know, it's awful.
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Um, mom guilt is real, and I haven't met a single mom yet who doesn't have it.
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So um big big piece of this.
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Yeah.
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So it's not just bad timing of all of these things going on at once, it's the really the worst timing, right?
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Our nervous systems are already under pressure with external factors, and we're having hormone changes for sure.
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Exactly.
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So let's look a little bit at the data here.
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And um, we we looked at the statistics, and we know that about 80% of women are experiencing hot flashes and night sweats as they're going through the hormonal transition.
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Women in general are two to four times more likely to experience depression during perimenopause, and about one in four women in perimenopause reports significant psychological distress.
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Um, I think that statistic is a little skewed.
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I think we're not picking up on most of what I would say the majority of women go through quite a lot of psychological distress, and this has to do with um all the all the coping mechanisms not working anymore, but we're also really experiencing huge physical shifts.
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You know, we notice, oh, we're gaining weight in the midsection, and our former, you know, metabolic tweaks don't work anymore, and we can't exercise more and eat less and and lose the weight.
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Those things we're talking about in our next episode, by the way.
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Um I also think there's a dissociation a little bit about being in the motion and not really recognizing the stressors, right?
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These things we listed off were just living life and not realizing that, oh, my nervous system is dysregulated, also and my hormones are crazy.
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So it just becomes something normal to us, which it isn't normal.
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And I think that's something that we really want to hone in on is if you feel like you're, you know, barely holding it together and you've got all these things and you're overwhelmed and overloaded, and you're trying to be an overachiever with a perfect family, perfect life, perfect everything, like you know, there's societal pressures, there's personal pressures, there's friend pressures, like it's it's real.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah, it's it's real.
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I think it's it's the picture that we're being exposed to or or that we create in our own minds from societal expectations, social media, television shows, whatever we're we're accumulating and creating this image of we need to be busy 24-7.
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You know, we need to be rocking the household, the kids have to be awesome.
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Um, we're we're throwing parties on the weekends and entertaining our friends while we're still working full-time and then um you know, taking care of the aging parents too.
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And and that's like what four full-time jobs?
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And we're supposed to do all of that with immaculate beauty and the perfect bodies, right?
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Um, not feel um a thing and be calm and happy at all times.
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That's really what I'm gathering, but for sure.
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So we want to also hone in though that pausing and resting is not laziness, and I think that's important too as we really shift into what's going on in our body hormonally.
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So, Johanna, like tell us like what's with the hormone piece of this.
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We have all these external factors, but with the hormones, we've got estrogen and progesterone and testosterone that all play a part, as well as our adrenals and our cortisol levels.
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Like, yeah, what why?
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Why is this happening hormonally?
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Yeah, so so first of all, in perimenopause and then menopause, the your sex hormones start declining, right?
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The the initial one that goes away is progesterone, and progesterone I always describe as our Zen hormone.
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It really is the calming hormone that keeps us cool and managing our stress okay, and being able to cope and being able to sleep well as well.
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So as that declines, and then estrogen also fluctuates, we see things like anxiety increasing, irritability getting worse.
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Um, you don't cope with stress, you don't sleep as well.
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You wake up at three in the morning, can't go back to bed, can't go back to sleep, and then the next morning you're tired, you need more coffee, so you're pushing through the day, and this is kind of like a vicious cycle, and and the the cortisol in in the mix there is you know, we're we're pushing through with stimulants and and with just you know making it happen.
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Um, cortisol levels will stay up there, elevated for quite some time before they start declining.
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And cortisol is really um produced with progesterone.
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So we're stealing, this is called the the progesterone steel, stealing progesterone from our system to make cortisol when we're in this constant chronic fight or flight cycle.
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Um, and that of course is hugely detrimental.
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Then we have low progesterone and high cortisol levels, and that is the frazzled and completely losing it kind of state where we're barking at the husband and the children and crying, not keeping it together, basically.
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It's like the perfect storm.
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Perfect storm, exactly.
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So that's where the season doesn't really create stress, it removes because these hormone fluctuation, it removes that buffer, it removes our body's innate ability that previously was kind of buffering the stress response, it all all of a sudden feels big.
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Yes, huge.
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But it's also not just the hormones, right?
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The things that we do hugely contribute.
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Like we don't drink alcohol to calm down before we go to bed, coffee in the morning to get going.
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You know, we maybe skip meals because we're so busy doing all the things that we're supposed to be doing.
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Maybe we're grabbing fast food because we couldn't make it to food prep.
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Um, we skipped our gym day because uh the kids had something important going on, you know.
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Our lifestyle choices greatly influenced this um this mess of hormones, of course.
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Yes.
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And I I feel like that's so important to remember too, because we are not compartmentalized and we can't just say, oh, HRT is my solution.
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It has to go in conjunction with lifestyle modifications and enhancements to ensure that you can find this right balance, that you feel good and you don't constantly feel this anxiety and overwhelm and mental health and stress and you know, snappiness, et cetera, with your loved ones.
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So yeah.
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So when we have these symptoms that I just listed, what are these, like what do we test for?
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What markers do you need to request really to find answers and dig into root cause rather than just be given a SSSR, SSRI because you're you know anxious or depressed, right?
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Absolutely.
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Yeah, so the when we um go to the primary care and request some labs, um, and and most people will come and say, you know, something is wrong with my hormones.
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And what I say to that is most of the time it's not just the hormones, right?
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The hormones might be doing something, but are we looking at your thyroid?
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Are we looking at what the adrenals are doing?
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What's your nutrient levels, what's your metabolism doing, what's your blood sugars doing?
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You know, those can also hugely influence those those symptoms.
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Um, but in general, you can go to your primary care and say, hey, I want a morning cortisol, a full thyroid panel with everything, meaning TSH, free T4, free T3, reverse T3, really important because that is your stress response and how much of the active thyroid hormone are you storing away because you're stressed and it's not available for use.
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And that one's typically not ordered.
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Not ordered, exactly.
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And then, of course, you want your luteal, if you're still cycling, you want luteal hormones.
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So around day 19 to 24 of your cycle, you want to look at FSH, LH, estradiol, progesterone, you want to look at total and free testosterone, DHEA, sulfate, those are kind of the basics for that.
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Um, that could totally be ordered by a primary care.
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If we wanted to look a little bit deeper and you you notice you know the adrenos are definitely involved, and and your morning cortisol didn't look good, then we would do some functional testing, and that's a bit uh deeper.
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That's a urinary cortisol test where we test your cortisol in your urine on four or five times during your day.
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You start in the morning, then at midday, in the afternoon, evening, and at night if you wake up in the middle of the night.
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And this lets us sort of plot a curve of how much cortisol are you producing throughout the day, and we can identify where's the dysfunction.
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You know, do you just make a ton of cortisol in the morning and then you have nothing left for the rest of the day and you're crashing in the afternoon?
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Or are you a somewhere a stage two, maybe where you're all of a sudden making a ton of cortisol at night and it's really dysfunctional?
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Or you're stage three and it's a complete flat line.
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So this is really important to identify this stage of the dysfunction because then we can address it with a very personalized targeted adrenal protocol, not just throwing, you know, a little ashwagandha at you.
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That's not gonna do anything.
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Absolutely.
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And I think marketing in our social media world, right, there's all these adapt gens and all these herbs that, oh, this can support your adrenal fatigue and do this and give you more energy and this and that.
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And oftentimes many are just throwing it in their bodies and they do not have a customized um you know, amount that they should.
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Should be taking that will actually make an impact because if you're not taking enough of some of those, you won't notice a thing, and so you're just essentially kind of wasting.
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Right.
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Um, and also you have to be careful with all the other things that are added into these products because sometimes it's not all beneficial, and it actually can be counteractive to your blood sugars or other things based on those ingredients or or what else if there's stimulants and things like that in there as well.
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It might be a false sense of energy versus mitochondrial energy.
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Yeah, and and it it can be detrimental, you know, if you take ashwagandha and you have a stage three um adrenal dysfunction with no cortisol, and you also um maybe have have thyroid disorder, then you're you're causing um harm rather than making it better.
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Um, so this really needs to be assessed um with with functional testing and a personalized protocol.
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Yeah, absolutely.
00:23:00.240 --> 00:23:13.039
So before we move on on like what what helps, what can we do lifestyle and nutritionally, etc., like there are factors, there's these external factors when you feel these things.
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We've previously talked about dismissal, but there's also relationships, there's support or lack of support from spouses or partners, there's situations of, you know, we mentioned at the beginning of this episode, like failing marriages or going through divorce, or have been navigating life as a single mom and holding it all together.
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Um, even right now, it's graduation season, and so many are losing a piece of them as they move out of the house or go on to, you know, additional education, things like that.
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There's there's major transitions that play a factor too in this, like, how can I really make these lifestyle healthy habits in this season?
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It just feels overwhelming and impossible because you're still navigating everything, right?
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Yeah.
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Lots lots of things come together in this major transition of our lives for sure.
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And and grief um definitely is a is a big one.
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I think the this transition for us is really to finding a new new self and and defining what that looks like after we've raised our kids, you know, how does caring for ourselves look like?
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What are our values?
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What you know, what are our goals?
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This is um, yeah, it's a lot, definitely.
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Yeah.
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So what really helps?
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What can we do about it?
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And we're gonna dive in a little deeper than bath bubble baths or even just common breath work.
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I mean, I'm a big advocate of breath work, but oftentimes people don't do it optimally.
00:24:56.799 --> 00:25:05.200
Um, yes, taking a deep breath and but pausing is great, but um, and bubble baths can be great if you're disconnected, right?
00:25:05.359 --> 00:25:10.880
Um not a bubble bath with a phone, scrolling or watching a show or something like that.
00:25:10.960 --> 00:25:13.759
You're not feeling the same restorative impact.
00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:16.079
A non-toxic bubble increasing.
00:25:17.279 --> 00:25:18.240
Exactly, exactly.
00:25:18.319 --> 00:25:18.960
It all matters, right?
00:25:19.359 --> 00:25:20.000
Hormone disrupt.
00:25:20.480 --> 00:25:34.880
Yeah, but let's talk about some of these lifestyle shifts because you know, bubble baths can be a great tool for nervous system regulation, breathing, and um, all of those can be good if they're done consistently.
00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:54.880
And I think the biggest piece to that is doing them not when you're only in overwhelm, but when you're in a happy-go-licky jovial state as a routine, because that's training and rewiring your brain to say, this is how my body responds with this calming state and my my vagus nervous reset and things along those lines.
00:25:55.200 --> 00:26:02.240
When I do have periods of high stress, I have a safe place to restore my body and to go back to.
00:26:02.559 --> 00:26:17.200
Um, oftentimes people only want to go to breath work and bubble baths when they're in those high state of states of stress, but it should be happening when your stress is feels lower and things are are you know calm.
00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:45.599
Um sleep is huge, and a sleep hygiene and positive schedule is huge during this season of life because that is something, even if you're laying in bed and it's the time to go to bed, but your body feels wired, still holding true to that routine and not getting up and cleaning the kitchen or getting up and doing something that just keeps you going, really think about what I can do to dump all this.
00:26:45.759 --> 00:27:02.799
Maybe it's nighttime journaling, maybe there is some aromatherapy, maybe there is some meditation or specific like binaural beats that you can disrupt the pattern in the mind to really foster better sleep routine.
00:27:03.279 --> 00:27:11.920
The opposite piece is getting outside first thing in the morning and seeing the morning sun because those go hand in hand with your body being ready at night.
00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:16.000
And so really holding true to that sleep routine is important.
00:27:16.720 --> 00:27:19.839
Movement, resistance training in midlife.
00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:23.680
I don't like that word, but midlife resistance training is vital.
00:27:23.759 --> 00:27:41.519
Like our bones need it, our muscles need it, and that's your future 60, 70-year-old that depends on your 40, 50 year old to be active and able to do the things that you want to be doing so that we aren't, you know, so brittle as we get older.
00:27:41.680 --> 00:27:43.599
Um, that being said, it's not too late.
00:27:43.680 --> 00:27:52.240
If you are in your 60s, you still can incorporate the resistance training and um building muscle strength as well.
00:27:52.480 --> 00:27:59.039
Um blood sugar and alcohol for decompression, like all of that matters too.
00:27:59.119 --> 00:28:09.599
Um, those are correlated as well when you're thinking of and protein-rich meals, all of that is important for this season of life as well.
00:28:10.160 --> 00:28:19.200
Um getting plenty of fiber too to pull out excess hormones, things along those lines, like that is that is all important as well.
00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:22.559
And those are we've talked about some of these things in other episodes too.
00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:24.720
So just touching lightly on that.
00:28:24.880 --> 00:28:40.000
Um, but finally, I think if I were to pick the most important in the season is really prioritizing values and creating boundaries around your values and what's most important for you in the season.
00:28:40.319 --> 00:28:45.359
So, you know, does that look like saying no to a kid after school activity?
00:28:45.519 --> 00:28:55.759
Does that look like saying no to potential social life that isn't filling your cup or that is draining, or you just feel exhausted afterwards?
00:28:56.000 --> 00:29:16.480
Um that that's such an important thing during the season of what what do you really need and taking that step back and maybe removing one thing for a season and jotting down how you feel consistently to see did that really make an impact?
00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:29.599
Um yeah, I I think the the um uh key words here are listening to yourself, your body, and then nourishing on the other side, right?
00:29:29.839 --> 00:29:41.599
So um really making sure that we put the things into our ourselves, uh body, mind, soul, spirit, that we need, right?
00:29:41.839 --> 00:30:03.359
And that that's food, that's movement, that's whatever it is that lights up your soul and makes you happy, that brings you joy, all of those things are things that we have to do not just once a year or once a month, but you know, on a regular ongoing basis, ideally something every day.
00:30:04.319 --> 00:30:19.599
And for this um, you know, the specific type of hormone imbalance or the specific type of adrenal dysfunction, we would uh tailor a plan for you that's really based on healing that.
00:30:19.839 --> 00:30:40.400
So if you, for example, have low progesterone, then we need to look into how can we help your body make more progesterone and really working on cyclical nutrition and cyclical cycle-supporting exercise and you know, mindfulness around where you are in your cycle.
00:30:40.640 --> 00:30:43.599
We are gonna do another episode on this whole cyclical thing.
00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:44.319
Absolutely.
00:30:44.720 --> 00:31:00.880
Um the other part is for adrenal dysfunction, for example, if somebody is in in stage two or three, they shouldn't be doing, you know, orange theory or or hit uh interval training.
00:31:00.960 --> 00:31:08.480
You know, they they need to be doing a lot of yoga and and very slow and careful strength and resistance training.
00:31:08.559 --> 00:31:15.519
So we really need to tailor this to um what your body needs, um, and that's what we do, right?
00:31:15.839 --> 00:31:16.799
Yeah, absolutely.
00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:18.720
That's what functional medicine is.
00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:26.640
100% okay.
00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:35.440
So that was our take on the whole stress um in in hormonal transition time.
00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:46.799
And what we think we need to take away from this is really that you're not failing, that everybody is experiencing this.
00:31:46.960 --> 00:31:49.519
This is not you are not alone in this.
00:31:49.920 --> 00:31:55.680
Um, and you really can't regulate a nervous system that's chronically overloaded.
00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:00.640
So at some point we have to unload, right?
00:32:00.880 --> 00:32:11.759
And the boundary setting and the nourishing really becomes not just a you know possibility, but is it's mandatory, really.
00:32:12.160 --> 00:32:13.279
Absolutely.
00:32:13.599 --> 00:32:19.680
Your body's working how it was designed, also, and I think that's a good reminder, it's it's not broken.
00:32:19.920 --> 00:32:32.799
This is our a natural occurrence of woman's body, and so there's pieces you can control and focus on that with the lifestyle and all the things that we discussed today.
00:32:33.119 --> 00:32:48.160
So if this resonated with you, be sure to check out our um future episodes and other episodes and look at all of our notes as we move on to our next topic.
00:32:48.319 --> 00:32:56.240
We're gonna be diving into hormonal, not hormonal, possibly hormonal, metabolic shift.
00:32:56.480 --> 00:32:58.480
Metabolic, that's the word I'm looking for.
00:32:58.799 --> 00:33:01.119
Definitely hormonal related, but yes.
00:33:01.359 --> 00:33:14.960
Yes, but the the flip side kind of of the metal metabolism and how right now we're in this GLP one, you know, advocating taking all these um injections for various things.
00:33:15.200 --> 00:33:17.680
And what is that doing to our metabolism?
00:33:17.759 --> 00:33:18.640
What do we know about it?
00:33:18.720 --> 00:33:21.200
So we're gonna dive into that on our next episode.
00:33:21.440 --> 00:33:24.000
Um, but yeah, we'll see you next time.
00:33:24.319 --> 00:33:25.440
Stay tuned.
00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:36.400
All right, friends, that's a wrap for today's episode of Shift Happens, Hormones Unfiltered.
00:33:36.559 --> 00:33:43.039
If your hormones are shifting and you want actual support instead of late-night googling, we've got you.
00:33:43.279 --> 00:33:52.240
Together, we offer a blend of clinical care and coaching that helps you understand your body, regulate your nervous system, and actually feel like yourself again.
00:33:52.400 --> 00:34:07.279
If you're looking for personalized hormone testing, functional medicine guidance, or support navigating pheromone costs and mental costs, and you want accountability, have the health and mindset tools to go with it, or check out your joint work program.
00:34:07.680 --> 00:34:12.400
We work with women who are ready for root cause interest and sustainable lifestyle test.
00:34:13.039 --> 00:34:16.960
You can learn how to work with us by clicking in the link in the show notes.
00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:19.119
Thanks for hanging out with us today.
00:34:19.280 --> 00:34:22.159
Your body isn't broken, it's shifting.
00:34:22.320 --> 00:34:25.039
And we're here to help you shift with it.
00:34:25.519 --> 00:34:26.639
See you next time.
00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:09.679
Welcome to Skip Happens Hormones and Filters.
00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:18.719
The show where we decode the wild, wonderful, and occasionally WTF moments of perimenopause, menopause, and everything in between.
00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:34.479
We're your host, I'm Johanna Lancaster, a women's health nurse practitioner and functional medicines provider at OnlyU, specializing in empowering women to understand the root cause of your hormone imbalance and helping you feel like yourself again.
00:00:34.719 --> 00:00:44.560
And I'm Melissa Gaskin, a National Board certified health and wellness coach at 5CN, supporting clients through sustainable lifestyle changes for root cause healing.
00:00:44.719 --> 00:00:50.799
Together we are your Science Meets Soul, clinical meets real life, hormone dream team.
00:00:50.960 --> 00:00:53.280
Around here, nothing is off limits.
00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:59.039
Hot glasses, mood swings, sleep that disappears like your favorite pair of jeans.
00:00:59.439 --> 00:01:01.439
Yeah, we're talking about all of it.
00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:10.959
Our mission is simple cut through the noise, ditch the chain, and help you understand what's actually happening in your body with zero judgment and a lot of laughs.
00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:20.239
So whether you're shifting, pausing, or wondering why your hormones feel like they're in a group of text without you, you're in the right place.
00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:28.159
Grab your tea, your electrolytes, and your secret midlife snack, no judgment, and let's get into today's episode.
00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:39.040
What if I told you your anxiety, your irritability, and your exhaustion are not just your hormones?
00:01:39.359 --> 00:01:55.519
The truth, no one's really saying or talking about, is that menopause happens at the exact same time that women are raising kids, teens, caring for parents that are aging, navigating, struggling marriages, and holding everything together.
00:01:55.840 --> 00:02:03.120
Yeah, and over half of women that are in their 40s and beyond, we are we're in the sandwich generation, right?
00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:08.240
Right between the raising kids and the aging parent, caring for the aging parents.
00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:13.840
And during this uh window is also when our hormones go to shit.
00:02:14.560 --> 00:02:15.120
Absolutely.
00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:19.520
So you're not just too sensitive, despite what other people might say.
00:02:19.919 --> 00:02:26.400
Your nervous system isn't broken, it's truly overwhelmed or overstimulated.
00:02:26.879 --> 00:02:36.400
Yeah, today we're unpacking the real reason in hormonal transitions and why they can feel like you're at a breaking point.
00:02:36.719 --> 00:02:43.680
And most importantly, what actually helps beyond the just manage your stress kind of advice?
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This is shift happens, hormones unfiltered.
00:02:47.360 --> 00:02:50.319
Why your nervous system feels hijacked?
00:02:50.879 --> 00:02:55.520
Yeah, such an important episode at this time of the season, right?
00:02:55.599 --> 00:02:58.719
We're in May right now, end of the school year.
00:02:58.879 --> 00:03:08.400
We just had Mother's Day, and uh everything is kind of cumulating to this big cluster of stress.
00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:17.120
So um why don't you, Melissa, tell us a little bit from the paramenopausal perspective what stress feels like?
00:03:17.439 --> 00:03:23.439
I would say this last month, like there's this amplification of stress because of the season you just mentioned.
00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:33.680
And I personally, the like about two weeks ago, was dealing with um some heart palpitations going to bed.
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And I just kept thinking, what's going on?
00:03:37.039 --> 00:03:40.319
Is it something I ate, something I drank?
00:03:40.639 --> 00:03:49.919
And it was right in the middle of leading two different Girl Scout camps or attending one, leading one, and my husband was traveling and I was in the luteal phase.
00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:57.759
So multiple things I think were compounded or amplified that I was laying in bed and thinking, why?
00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:07.280
And so for me, it was a immediate, okay, work on breath, did a visualization of you know, a glowing light going up and down my body.
00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:10.400
And that really helped so that I was able to calm.
00:04:10.639 --> 00:04:18.560
Um, and then you know, in the last few weeks, I've also been like clenching fists at night and thinking mindfully, why are my fists so tight?
00:04:18.800 --> 00:04:23.360
Relax so that they like I can fall asleep too.
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Because I I will just hold and be like, oh my gosh, my knuckles, like yeah.
00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:35.279
Um so I definitely have felt the amplification of the stress through through those ways for sure.
00:04:35.519 --> 00:04:38.879
Yeah, I think uh those are super common symptoms.
00:04:38.959 --> 00:04:52.319
This um clenching, um palpitations, we see a lot, irritability, and and uh we we talked about rage and resentment too, you know, they're really um the filters off.
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We we're I feel this when you know everything, the kids and the husband, they all ask one more thing, and there's another noise that's just you know uh the the fingernails on the chalk wall kind of thing.
00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:25.600
Um, and you just you flip, you flip a switch of some sort, there's no more buffer, and it's just um you know, you snap at them, and and the the feeling of resentment is this really deep-rooted feeling for me, I think that originates from this.
00:05:26.160 --> 00:05:28.720
I'm not taking care of my needs.
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The knowledge, you know, underneath all the um irritability and emotions comes this, I'm not getting what I need here at all.
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And this is a huge problem.
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Like we've spent um decades sometimes, you know, at least 10-15 years since we've had children, and and that's the whole time we have spent caring for everybody else.
00:05:53.839 --> 00:06:05.439
And maybe we're we're making some efforts to care for ourselves in between there, but now the hormones are taking the buffer away, and all of a sudden everything falls apart.
00:06:06.240 --> 00:06:16.160
Um, so over overstimulation, um, emotional flooding, anxiety, needing more time alone and rest time.
00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:19.040
I think those are pretty common symptoms.
00:06:19.839 --> 00:06:26.959
Um, and just on a side note, we um we'll talk a little bit about um adrenal dysfunction.
00:06:27.839 --> 00:06:45.120
I did have a really significant adrenal dysfunction in perimenopause so a few years ago, and um was unable to cope, you know, really, really terrible fatigue that I couldn't get out of bed a lot of days.
00:06:45.279 --> 00:07:01.680
And this is uh serious, and we can't just push on and drink another coffee and tell ourselves it's fine, we're gonna end up with serious health problems um that take a very long time and a lot of effort to reverse.
00:07:01.920 --> 00:07:06.399
So take this seriously now, and we'll talk some more about that.
00:07:07.040 --> 00:07:07.680
Absolutely.
00:07:07.920 --> 00:07:11.519
So it's really stress, nervous system dysregulation.
00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:15.040
That's our our focus we're honing in on today.
00:07:15.279 --> 00:07:21.759
Um let's talk a little bit about this peak window in the sandwich generation, right?
00:07:21.839 --> 00:07:23.600
You mentioned sandwich generation.
00:07:24.079 --> 00:07:26.079
Let's let's dive into what that looks like.
00:07:26.319 --> 00:07:27.360
What really is that?
00:07:27.600 --> 00:07:28.240
Yes.
00:07:28.720 --> 00:07:42.480
Yeah, so I think um generally over 50% of women in their 40s, they are in this so-called sandwich generation where we're having we're still raising our kids.
00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:50.399
They're not out of the house yet, but we're also caring for aging parents with you know often health problems.
00:07:50.560 --> 00:08:20.319
And that kind of emotional burden that comes from caring for aging parents is hugely underestimated, and and you know, we just kind of brush it aside and push on and we're fine, but really this is this is detrimental, and then on top of that come the hormonal shifts and wild fluctuations in perimenopause and then menopause, no more hormones, and we're supposed to deal with all of this, absolutely.
00:08:20.560 --> 00:08:24.240
And in addition to that, there's this like gender role shift, right?
00:08:24.319 --> 00:08:40.480
We've had this evolution of gender roles where what we saw possibly in parents isn't the same that we are desiring or is more most fulfilling to us as a wife, a mom, a caregiver, etc.
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Um, so we you know, we've seen this shift and like what is um what feels right, removing external influence or what social media says all women should be doing from the picture, you know, really, really focusing on, you know, and we're gonna talk a little bit about this later, really focusing on what our needs are and what our values are and what lights us up in managing stress and being able to navigate this load that we care, you know, that we carry.
00:09:14.159 --> 00:09:17.440
Um, and in addition, it's this home management piece, right?
00:09:17.600 --> 00:09:47.840
We we typically carry that weight of booking summer camps, navigating schedules, you know, making decisions, making meal plans and food lists and ensuring all the things are taken care of, even navigating, you know, updating your garden and your lawn care and anything along those lines, it oftentimes the woman does a lot of those decisions.
00:09:47.919 --> 00:09:52.000
Um, even data shows women spend the majority of the money in the home.
00:09:52.159 --> 00:09:54.879
And so because we make the decisions, right?
00:09:55.120 --> 00:10:12.559
Um, so yeah, it's the season of life where there's all this, and and it's easy for mom guilt to creep in because oh, I missed that deadline for that camp, or oh, you know, we're not gonna go on that trip, or oh, like whatever it is, or the house is a disaster, right?
00:10:12.799 --> 00:10:29.519
Like there's I'm not enough kind of that creeps in because we are overextended in the season, yeah, and the hormones are shape changing, and so it even exacerbates some of that thought process, um, you know, neurologically because of all these shifts.
00:10:29.679 --> 00:10:35.360
Yeah, and even you know, the mom guilt is so real, it it seeps into everything.
00:10:35.519 --> 00:10:52.480
We talked about this how even when we are trying to take care of ourselves, you know, you you sneak out to get your half hour at the gym and or you're doing your little meditation or a bath or whatever it is that you can squeeze into your day to care for yourself, your mom guilt takes over, right?
00:10:52.559 --> 00:11:05.519
You're you're sitting there in your bathtub with all your aromatherapy, and you're already feeling like, oh, I should be doing this, I haven't done that yet, and this is next on my to-do list, and you know, it's awful.
00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:10.399
Um, mom guilt is real, and I haven't met a single mom yet who doesn't have it.
00:11:10.559 --> 00:11:13.600
So um big big piece of this.
00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:14.240
Yeah.
00:11:14.480 --> 00:11:20.159
So it's not just bad timing of all of these things going on at once, it's the really the worst timing, right?
00:11:20.240 --> 00:11:27.679
Our nervous systems are already under pressure with external factors, and we're having hormone changes for sure.
00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:28.639
Exactly.
00:11:30.080 --> 00:11:32.879
So let's look a little bit at the data here.
00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:45.840
And um, we we looked at the statistics, and we know that about 80% of women are experiencing hot flashes and night sweats as they're going through the hormonal transition.
00:11:46.559 --> 00:12:00.399
Women in general are two to four times more likely to experience depression during perimenopause, and about one in four women in perimenopause reports significant psychological distress.
00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:04.000
Um, I think that statistic is a little skewed.
00:12:04.080 --> 00:12:24.639
I think we're not picking up on most of what I would say the majority of women go through quite a lot of psychological distress, and this has to do with um all the all the coping mechanisms not working anymore, but we're also really experiencing huge physical shifts.
00:12:24.720 --> 00:12:37.519
You know, we notice, oh, we're gaining weight in the midsection, and our former, you know, metabolic tweaks don't work anymore, and we can't exercise more and eat less and and lose the weight.
00:12:38.080 --> 00:12:41.519
Those things we're talking about in our next episode, by the way.
00:12:42.399 --> 00:12:51.279
Um I also think there's a dissociation a little bit about being in the motion and not really recognizing the stressors, right?
00:12:51.440 --> 00:13:00.399
These things we listed off were just living life and not realizing that, oh, my nervous system is dysregulated, also and my hormones are crazy.
00:13:00.720 --> 00:13:08.799
So it just becomes something normal to us, which it isn't normal.
00:13:09.039 --> 00:13:33.519
And I think that's something that we really want to hone in on is if you feel like you're, you know, barely holding it together and you've got all these things and you're overwhelmed and overloaded, and you're trying to be an overachiever with a perfect family, perfect life, perfect everything, like you know, there's societal pressures, there's personal pressures, there's friend pressures, like it's it's real.
00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:34.480
Absolutely.
00:13:34.559 --> 00:13:35.600
Yeah, it's it's real.
00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:54.879
I think it's it's the picture that we're being exposed to or or that we create in our own minds from societal expectations, social media, television shows, whatever we're we're accumulating and creating this image of we need to be busy 24-7.
00:13:55.200 --> 00:13:59.679
You know, we need to be rocking the household, the kids have to be awesome.
00:13:59.919 --> 00:14:12.080
Um, we're we're throwing parties on the weekends and entertaining our friends while we're still working full-time and then um you know, taking care of the aging parents too.
00:14:12.240 --> 00:14:15.120
And and that's like what four full-time jobs?
00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:21.759
And we're supposed to do all of that with immaculate beauty and the perfect bodies, right?
00:14:22.480 --> 00:14:27.039
Um, not feel um a thing and be calm and happy at all times.
00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:30.720
That's really what I'm gathering, but for sure.
00:14:31.679 --> 00:14:44.080
So we want to also hone in though that pausing and resting is not laziness, and I think that's important too as we really shift into what's going on in our body hormonally.
00:14:44.159 --> 00:14:49.120
So, Johanna, like tell us like what's with the hormone piece of this.
00:14:49.200 --> 00:14:57.919
We have all these external factors, but with the hormones, we've got estrogen and progesterone and testosterone that all play a part, as well as our adrenals and our cortisol levels.
00:14:58.080 --> 00:15:01.039
Like, yeah, what why?
00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:02.720
Why is this happening hormonally?
00:15:02.960 --> 00:15:10.080
Yeah, so so first of all, in perimenopause and then menopause, the your sex hormones start declining, right?
00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:17.600
The the initial one that goes away is progesterone, and progesterone I always describe as our Zen hormone.
00:15:17.759 --> 00:15:29.200
It really is the calming hormone that keeps us cool and managing our stress okay, and being able to cope and being able to sleep well as well.
00:15:29.519 --> 00:15:41.679
So as that declines, and then estrogen also fluctuates, we see things like anxiety increasing, irritability getting worse.
00:15:41.759 --> 00:15:45.600
Um, you don't cope with stress, you don't sleep as well.
00:15:45.919 --> 00:16:08.960
You wake up at three in the morning, can't go back to bed, can't go back to sleep, and then the next morning you're tired, you need more coffee, so you're pushing through the day, and this is kind of like a vicious cycle, and and the the cortisol in in the mix there is you know, we're we're pushing through with stimulants and and with just you know making it happen.
00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:17.360
Um, cortisol levels will stay up there, elevated for quite some time before they start declining.
00:16:17.519 --> 00:16:22.879
And cortisol is really um produced with progesterone.
00:16:22.960 --> 00:16:35.200
So we're stealing, this is called the the progesterone steel, stealing progesterone from our system to make cortisol when we're in this constant chronic fight or flight cycle.
00:16:35.360 --> 00:16:38.720
Um, and that of course is hugely detrimental.
00:16:38.799 --> 00:16:54.080
Then we have low progesterone and high cortisol levels, and that is the frazzled and completely losing it kind of state where we're barking at the husband and the children and crying, not keeping it together, basically.
00:16:54.240 --> 00:16:55.360
It's like the perfect storm.
00:16:55.600 --> 00:16:57.120
Perfect storm, exactly.
00:16:57.360 --> 00:17:14.720
So that's where the season doesn't really create stress, it removes because these hormone fluctuation, it removes that buffer, it removes our body's innate ability that previously was kind of buffering the stress response, it all all of a sudden feels big.
00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:16.240
Yes, huge.
00:17:16.559 --> 00:17:19.920
But it's also not just the hormones, right?
00:17:20.079 --> 00:17:23.039
The things that we do hugely contribute.
00:17:23.200 --> 00:17:29.759
Like we don't drink alcohol to calm down before we go to bed, coffee in the morning to get going.
00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:35.279
You know, we maybe skip meals because we're so busy doing all the things that we're supposed to be doing.
00:17:35.519 --> 00:17:40.000
Maybe we're grabbing fast food because we couldn't make it to food prep.
00:17:40.079 --> 00:17:45.920
Um, we skipped our gym day because uh the kids had something important going on, you know.
00:17:46.160 --> 00:17:53.200
Our lifestyle choices greatly influenced this um this mess of hormones, of course.
00:17:53.599 --> 00:17:53.920
Yes.
00:17:54.079 --> 00:18:04.640
And I I feel like that's so important to remember too, because we are not compartmentalized and we can't just say, oh, HRT is my solution.
00:18:04.880 --> 00:18:23.599
It has to go in conjunction with lifestyle modifications and enhancements to ensure that you can find this right balance, that you feel good and you don't constantly feel this anxiety and overwhelm and mental health and stress and you know, snappiness, et cetera, with your loved ones.
00:18:23.759 --> 00:18:24.799
So yeah.
00:18:25.039 --> 00:18:31.759
So when we have these symptoms that I just listed, what are these, like what do we test for?
00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:45.680
What markers do you need to request really to find answers and dig into root cause rather than just be given a SSSR, SSRI because you're you know anxious or depressed, right?
00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:46.480
Absolutely.
00:18:46.720 --> 00:18:57.759
Yeah, so the when we um go to the primary care and request some labs, um, and and most people will come and say, you know, something is wrong with my hormones.
00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:04.640
And what I say to that is most of the time it's not just the hormones, right?
00:19:04.720 --> 00:19:09.759
The hormones might be doing something, but are we looking at your thyroid?
00:19:09.920 --> 00:19:12.559
Are we looking at what the adrenals are doing?
00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:17.759
What's your nutrient levels, what's your metabolism doing, what's your blood sugars doing?
00:19:17.839 --> 00:19:22.720
You know, those can also hugely influence those those symptoms.
00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:47.119
Um, but in general, you can go to your primary care and say, hey, I want a morning cortisol, a full thyroid panel with everything, meaning TSH, free T4, free T3, reverse T3, really important because that is your stress response and how much of the active thyroid hormone are you storing away because you're stressed and it's not available for use.
00:19:47.440 --> 00:19:49.119
And that one's typically not ordered.
00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:50.880
Not ordered, exactly.
00:19:51.039 --> 00:19:55.839
And then, of course, you want your luteal, if you're still cycling, you want luteal hormones.
00:19:55.920 --> 00:20:12.400
So around day 19 to 24 of your cycle, you want to look at FSH, LH, estradiol, progesterone, you want to look at total and free testosterone, DHEA, sulfate, those are kind of the basics for that.
00:20:12.640 --> 00:20:15.920
Um, that could totally be ordered by a primary care.
00:20:16.079 --> 00:20:32.079
If we wanted to look a little bit deeper and you you notice you know the adrenos are definitely involved, and and your morning cortisol didn't look good, then we would do some functional testing, and that's a bit uh deeper.
00:20:32.160 --> 00:20:41.279
That's a urinary cortisol test where we test your cortisol in your urine on four or five times during your day.
00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:48.000
You start in the morning, then at midday, in the afternoon, evening, and at night if you wake up in the middle of the night.
00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:57.519
And this lets us sort of plot a curve of how much cortisol are you producing throughout the day, and we can identify where's the dysfunction.
00:20:57.680 --> 00:21:06.000
You know, do you just make a ton of cortisol in the morning and then you have nothing left for the rest of the day and you're crashing in the afternoon?
00:21:06.319 --> 00:21:14.559
Or are you a somewhere a stage two, maybe where you're all of a sudden making a ton of cortisol at night and it's really dysfunctional?
00:21:14.799 --> 00:21:18.079
Or you're stage three and it's a complete flat line.
00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:32.720
So this is really important to identify this stage of the dysfunction because then we can address it with a very personalized targeted adrenal protocol, not just throwing, you know, a little ashwagandha at you.
00:21:32.799 --> 00:21:34.319
That's not gonna do anything.
00:21:34.559 --> 00:21:35.200
Absolutely.
00:21:35.359 --> 00:21:48.000
And I think marketing in our social media world, right, there's all these adapt gens and all these herbs that, oh, this can support your adrenal fatigue and do this and give you more energy and this and that.
00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:59.599
And oftentimes many are just throwing it in their bodies and they do not have a customized um you know, amount that they should.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:10.640
Should be taking that will actually make an impact because if you're not taking enough of some of those, you won't notice a thing, and so you're just essentially kind of wasting.
00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:11.039
Right.
00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:28.799
Um, and also you have to be careful with all the other things that are added into these products because sometimes it's not all beneficial, and it actually can be counteractive to your blood sugars or other things based on those ingredients or or what else if there's stimulants and things like that in there as well.
00:22:28.880 --> 00:22:33.200
It might be a false sense of energy versus mitochondrial energy.
00:22:33.440 --> 00:22:51.039
Yeah, and and it it can be detrimental, you know, if you take ashwagandha and you have a stage three um adrenal dysfunction with no cortisol, and you also um maybe have have thyroid disorder, then you're you're causing um harm rather than making it better.
00:22:51.200 --> 00:22:57.920
Um, so this really needs to be assessed um with with functional testing and a personalized protocol.
00:22:58.160 --> 00:22:59.759
Yeah, absolutely.
00:23:00.240 --> 00:23:13.039
So before we move on on like what what helps, what can we do lifestyle and nutritionally, etc., like there are factors, there's these external factors when you feel these things.
00:23:13.200 --> 00:23:34.319
We've previously talked about dismissal, but there's also relationships, there's support or lack of support from spouses or partners, there's situations of, you know, we mentioned at the beginning of this episode, like failing marriages or going through divorce, or have been navigating life as a single mom and holding it all together.
00:23:34.640 --> 00:23:46.559
Um, even right now, it's graduation season, and so many are losing a piece of them as they move out of the house or go on to, you know, additional education, things like that.
00:23:46.720 --> 00:23:58.799
There's there's major transitions that play a factor too in this, like, how can I really make these lifestyle healthy habits in this season?
00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:05.039
It just feels overwhelming and impossible because you're still navigating everything, right?
00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:06.240
Yeah.
00:24:06.799 --> 00:24:12.640
Lots lots of things come together in this major transition of our lives for sure.
00:24:12.720 --> 00:24:17.039
And and grief um definitely is a is a big one.
00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:33.920
I think the this transition for us is really to finding a new new self and and defining what that looks like after we've raised our kids, you know, how does caring for ourselves look like?
00:24:34.079 --> 00:24:35.519
What are our values?
00:24:35.680 --> 00:24:38.480
What you know, what are our goals?
00:24:38.720 --> 00:24:41.839
This is um, yeah, it's a lot, definitely.
00:24:42.240 --> 00:24:42.880
Yeah.
00:24:43.119 --> 00:24:44.240
So what really helps?
00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:45.200
What can we do about it?
00:24:45.359 --> 00:24:50.960
And we're gonna dive in a little deeper than bath bubble baths or even just common breath work.
00:24:51.039 --> 00:24:56.559
I mean, I'm a big advocate of breath work, but oftentimes people don't do it optimally.
00:24:56.799 --> 00:25:05.200
Um, yes, taking a deep breath and but pausing is great, but um, and bubble baths can be great if you're disconnected, right?
00:25:05.359 --> 00:25:10.880
Um not a bubble bath with a phone, scrolling or watching a show or something like that.
00:25:10.960 --> 00:25:13.759
You're not feeling the same restorative impact.
00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:16.079
A non-toxic bubble increasing.
00:25:17.279 --> 00:25:18.240
Exactly, exactly.
00:25:18.319 --> 00:25:18.960
It all matters, right?
00:25:19.359 --> 00:25:20.000
Hormone disrupt.
00:25:20.480 --> 00:25:34.880
Yeah, but let's talk about some of these lifestyle shifts because you know, bubble baths can be a great tool for nervous system regulation, breathing, and um, all of those can be good if they're done consistently.
00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:54.880
And I think the biggest piece to that is doing them not when you're only in overwhelm, but when you're in a happy-go-licky jovial state as a routine, because that's training and rewiring your brain to say, this is how my body responds with this calming state and my my vagus nervous reset and things along those lines.
00:25:55.200 --> 00:26:02.240
When I do have periods of high stress, I have a safe place to restore my body and to go back to.
00:26:02.559 --> 00:26:17.200
Um, oftentimes people only want to go to breath work and bubble baths when they're in those high state of states of stress, but it should be happening when your stress is feels lower and things are are you know calm.
00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:45.599
Um sleep is huge, and a sleep hygiene and positive schedule is huge during this season of life because that is something, even if you're laying in bed and it's the time to go to bed, but your body feels wired, still holding true to that routine and not getting up and cleaning the kitchen or getting up and doing something that just keeps you going, really think about what I can do to dump all this.
00:26:45.759 --> 00:27:02.799
Maybe it's nighttime journaling, maybe there is some aromatherapy, maybe there is some meditation or specific like binaural beats that you can disrupt the pattern in the mind to really foster better sleep routine.
00:27:03.279 --> 00:27:11.920
The opposite piece is getting outside first thing in the morning and seeing the morning sun because those go hand in hand with your body being ready at night.
00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:16.000
And so really holding true to that sleep routine is important.
00:27:16.720 --> 00:27:19.839
Movement, resistance training in midlife.
00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:23.680
I don't like that word, but midlife resistance training is vital.
00:27:23.759 --> 00:27:41.519
Like our bones need it, our muscles need it, and that's your future 60, 70-year-old that depends on your 40, 50 year old to be active and able to do the things that you want to be doing so that we aren't, you know, so brittle as we get older.
00:27:41.680 --> 00:27:43.599
Um, that being said, it's not too late.
00:27:43.680 --> 00:27:52.240
If you are in your 60s, you still can incorporate the resistance training and um building muscle strength as well.
00:27:52.480 --> 00:27:59.039
Um blood sugar and alcohol for decompression, like all of that matters too.
00:27:59.119 --> 00:28:09.599
Um, those are correlated as well when you're thinking of and protein-rich meals, all of that is important for this season of life as well.
00:28:10.160 --> 00:28:19.200
Um getting plenty of fiber too to pull out excess hormones, things along those lines, like that is that is all important as well.
00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:22.559
And those are we've talked about some of these things in other episodes too.
00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:24.720
So just touching lightly on that.
00:28:24.880 --> 00:28:40.000
Um, but finally, I think if I were to pick the most important in the season is really prioritizing values and creating boundaries around your values and what's most important for you in the season.
00:28:40.319 --> 00:28:45.359
So, you know, does that look like saying no to a kid after school activity?
00:28:45.519 --> 00:28:55.759
Does that look like saying no to potential social life that isn't filling your cup or that is draining, or you just feel exhausted afterwards?
00:28:56.000 --> 00:29:16.480
Um that that's such an important thing during the season of what what do you really need and taking that step back and maybe removing one thing for a season and jotting down how you feel consistently to see did that really make an impact?
00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:29.599
Um yeah, I I think the the um uh key words here are listening to yourself, your body, and then nourishing on the other side, right?
00:29:29.839 --> 00:29:41.599
So um really making sure that we put the things into our ourselves, uh body, mind, soul, spirit, that we need, right?
00:29:41.839 --> 00:30:03.359
And that that's food, that's movement, that's whatever it is that lights up your soul and makes you happy, that brings you joy, all of those things are things that we have to do not just once a year or once a month, but you know, on a regular ongoing basis, ideally something every day.
00:30:04.319 --> 00:30:19.599
And for this um, you know, the specific type of hormone imbalance or the specific type of adrenal dysfunction, we would uh tailor a plan for you that's really based on healing that.
00:30:19.839 --> 00:30:40.400
So if you, for example, have low progesterone, then we need to look into how can we help your body make more progesterone and really working on cyclical nutrition and cyclical cycle-supporting exercise and you know, mindfulness around where you are in your cycle.
00:30:40.640 --> 00:30:43.599
We are gonna do another episode on this whole cyclical thing.
00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:44.319
Absolutely.
00:30:44.720 --> 00:31:00.880
Um the other part is for adrenal dysfunction, for example, if somebody is in in stage two or three, they shouldn't be doing, you know, orange theory or or hit uh interval training.
00:31:00.960 --> 00:31:08.480
You know, they they need to be doing a lot of yoga and and very slow and careful strength and resistance training.
00:31:08.559 --> 00:31:15.519
So we really need to tailor this to um what your body needs, um, and that's what we do, right?
00:31:15.839 --> 00:31:16.799
Yeah, absolutely.
00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:18.720
That's what functional medicine is.
00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:26.640
100% okay.
00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:35.440
So that was our take on the whole stress um in in hormonal transition time.
00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:46.799
And what we think we need to take away from this is really that you're not failing, that everybody is experiencing this.
00:31:46.960 --> 00:31:49.519
This is not you are not alone in this.
00:31:49.920 --> 00:31:55.680
Um, and you really can't regulate a nervous system that's chronically overloaded.
00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:00.640
So at some point we have to unload, right?
00:32:00.880 --> 00:32:11.759
And the boundary setting and the nourishing really becomes not just a you know possibility, but is it's mandatory, really.
00:32:12.160 --> 00:32:13.279
Absolutely.
00:32:13.599 --> 00:32:19.680
Your body's working how it was designed, also, and I think that's a good reminder, it's it's not broken.
00:32:19.920 --> 00:32:32.799
This is our a natural occurrence of woman's body, and so there's pieces you can control and focus on that with the lifestyle and all the things that we discussed today.
00:32:33.119 --> 00:32:48.160
So if this resonated with you, be sure to check out our um future episodes and other episodes and look at all of our notes as we move on to our next topic.
00:32:48.319 --> 00:32:56.240
We're gonna be diving into hormonal, not hormonal, possibly hormonal, metabolic shift.
00:32:56.480 --> 00:32:58.480
Metabolic, that's the word I'm looking for.
00:32:58.799 --> 00:33:01.119
Definitely hormonal related, but yes.
00:33:01.359 --> 00:33:14.960
Yes, but the the flip side kind of of the metal metabolism and how right now we're in this GLP one, you know, advocating taking all these um injections for various things.
00:33:15.200 --> 00:33:17.680
And what is that doing to our metabolism?
00:33:17.759 --> 00:33:18.640
What do we know about it?
00:33:18.720 --> 00:33:21.200
So we're gonna dive into that on our next episode.
00:33:21.440 --> 00:33:24.000
Um, but yeah, we'll see you next time.
00:33:24.319 --> 00:33:25.440
Stay tuned.
00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:36.400
All right, friends, that's a wrap for today's episode of Shift Happens, Hormones Unfiltered.
00:33:36.559 --> 00:33:43.039
If your hormones are shifting and you want actual support instead of late-night googling, we've got you.
00:33:43.279 --> 00:33:52.240
Together, we offer a blend of clinical care and coaching that helps you understand your body, regulate your nervous system, and actually feel like yourself again.
00:33:52.400 --> 00:34:07.279
If you're looking for personalized hormone testing, functional medicine guidance, or support navigating pheromone costs and mental costs, and you want accountability, have the health and mindset tools to go with it, or check out your joint work program.
00:34:07.680 --> 00:34:12.400
We work with women who are ready for root cause interest and sustainable lifestyle test.
00:34:13.039 --> 00:34:16.960
You can learn how to work with us by clicking in the link in the show notes.
00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:19.119
Thanks for hanging out with us today.
00:34:19.280 --> 00:34:22.159
Your body isn't broken, it's shifting.
00:34:22.320 --> 00:34:25.039
And we're here to help you shift with it.
00:34:25.519 --> 00:34:26.639
See you next time.
