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Far 2 Fabulous
Join Catherine & Julie, your feisty hosts at Far 2 Fabulous, as they lead you on a wellness revolution to embrace your fabulousness.
Julie, a Registered Nutritional Therapist with over 20 years of expertise, and Catherine, a former nurse turned Pilates Instructor and Vitality Coach, blend wisdom and laughter seamlessly.
Off the air, catch them harmonising in their local choir and dancing to 80's hits in superhero attire. Catherine braves the sea for year-round swims, while Julie flips and tumbles in ongoing gymnastics escapades.
With a shared passion for women's health and well-being, they bring you an engaging exploration of health, life, and laughter. Join us on this adventure toward a more fabulous and empowered you!
Far 2 Fabulous
The Mind-Body Connection in Menopausal Wellness
Episode 57
Ever wondered how hormonal shifts during menopause can dramatically affect your skin health and overall wellness? Our latest episode offers an eye-opening exploration into the transformative stages of menopause and perimenopause. From unexpected acne to mysterious skin hives, we discuss the profound impact these hormonal changes have on women's skin, shedding light on the crucial role of the liver in detoxification. Our conversation reveals fascinating insights into the connection between estrogen, histamine production, and skin conditions like rosacea, providing you with practical knowledge to navigate these changes effectively.
Join us as we tackle the often frustrating challenges of weight gain and body changes that accompany aging. Traditional dieting methods can seem futile against hormonal imbalances, but understanding the roles of stress and cortisol is key. We break down how these factors can lead to increased weight retention, anxiety, and sleep disturbances, exacerbating symptoms such as vaginal dryness and UTIs. By equipping you with a deeper understanding of these complex interactions, our aim is to help you manage these changes with grace and confidence as you embrace this new chapter of life.
Finally, we delve into the powerful connection between physical health and emotional well-being, offering insights inspired by Chinese medicine. Discover how emotions like anger can be stored in organs such as the liver and how this physical manifestation can affect overall health. Our discussion highlights the importance of releasing tension and staying active to prevent stiffness, while offering a fresh perspective on menopause as a reflective period to balance dreams with a stable mindset. Be part of our thriving community by sharing your stories and connecting with us online, as together we navigate the journey of hormonal wellness.
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Welcome to Far Too Fabulous hosted by Julie and Catherine.
Speaker 2:Join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candy chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered well-being.
Speaker 1:Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast You're laughing at me now because the last time we recorded we were saying about me being very, I thought you were going to sing.
Speaker 1:I feel like I should now, but that's so funny. Anyway, welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. Oh, how funny. Anyway, after our little intermission, so we should we say where we were just celebrating our birthday we are back to our hormones. So we have covered a normal cycle. We've covered the individual sex hormones oestrogen, progesterone, testosterone. Go back and listen to those if you haven't already. So today we're going to talk about, I guess, an overview of the symptoms that people experience are common. Maybe some aren't necessarily known that they're linked to the menopause or perimenopause yeah, absolutely, and I think that we've said this a few times.
Speaker 2:The benefit of having these conversations is that people go oh, I'm experiencing that. Oh, maybe I'm in perimenopause, because people don't often realize that you can be in perimenopause for like 15 years before your periods actually finally stop. Yeah and yeah that it could be just all a lead up to it so well.
Speaker 1:Should we just go through some of the symptoms that we might be, that we're aware of or our clients tell us about or we've experienced, and let's go there, having gone through those hormones? So should we start with the skin? Should we start with the skin? Yeah, the biggest organ as the body's concerned is the least important in the hierarchy of organs, because your heart you can't be without your heart. True, when you're looking at your, you know resources in your body. Yeah, the skin is the least important. So if you've only got so much zinc, which skin needs, but you need it somewhere else, it's going to rob it doesn't get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting, and it's what I'm hoping that you're going to get from if you've listened or if you haven't listened, go back to go back to the first one is that you're going to start to realize why the things that we're talking about now have manifested in your body from what we've talked about over the last sort of four episodes or so yeah, so yeah, the skin's the largest organ.
Speaker 1:It's a major part of our detoxification. So when we're looking at hormones, hormones have to be recycled and detoxified. The main place that happens is in the liver, but if the liver is busy because it's dealing with loads of other things, then the skin is a really nice place for the body to detoxify, to just chuck things out chuck things out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really interesting. And I mean, the first thing you're going to think about when you're thinking about liver is alcohol. Often, and if you've had a maybe, maybe it's christmas and you've had more than, uh, you would do normally.
Speaker 2:You're talking about yourself there I'm not necessarily I'm actually you know what I'm more thinking of a younger version of me, actually, when, um, I didn't have to wait till christmas to have a skinful fairly regularly, and you know when you don't have to wait till Christmas to have a skinful fairly regularly, and you know when you don't look after yourself, it absolutely shows up on your face. Yeah, yeah it does.
Speaker 1:It really does, shows up on your face. The skin is also a reflection of the gut. So, again, because we've spoken about the link with the gut and the hormones and things as well, so there's a definite link there. But specifically in perimenopause or menopause, one of the things that we tend to think about most, with the skin and those hormones declining, would be the impact on elasticity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and that we we're going to come on to things like dryness in specific areas, but dryness throughout the body, that you have to work a little bit harder on your hydration, and that, again, always shows up on your, on your skin. But it's a big thing, isn't it, for women that have had clear skin maybe for the whole of their lives. Maybe they didn't have any kind of acne or anything whilst they were, yeah, going through adolescence and that sort of stuff, and then suddenly they've absolutely broken out in spots and I'm wondering what on earth is going on yeah, and it really does knock your confidence when that happens, especially when it's all over your face.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, definitely, and I mean you know, or I'm saying you know, but often I know when a period is heading my way because I will get. I will get spots.
Speaker 1:I don't often get spots, but that's definitely one of the things to to show me yeah, so I think we know that hormones are involved in our skin with things like acne, but then another area of the skin that sometimes isn't connected with this changing hormones is hives. So estrogen is linked with histamine production in the body, so suddenly you can start to get hives or rosacea or something that looks like an allergic reaction, and it's just because your body's not.
Speaker 2:I guess managing histamine levels effectively Okay. So it tends to ramp up your histamine response, your allergic reaction to things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we all have a histamine response. It's normal. But you have a mechanism in your body that clears and takes down that histamine level in your body, that clears and takes down that histamine level. And it's that other pathway, that clearance pathway that has estrogen involved, that prevents it from being cleared. So levels remain high. And if you're a histamine person anyway, yeah, and you tend to know if you are if you are, you know you are someone that does react to things. I am a histamine person myself because I'm allergic to animals.
Speaker 2:Is that a?
Speaker 1:technical term that's my term histamine person. Yeah, but if you know that you're allergic to animals, you're sensitive to chemicals, if someone's smoking it affects you, anything like that, then you've probably got your body's probably more reactive in the histamine production anyway. So you want to make sure that your body can clear it. But when the hormones change that is compromised and again is that cleared through the liver?
Speaker 2:yes, yeah, busy old liver.
Speaker 1:Yeah, busy, busy, busy. So yeah, skin, and then collagen, of course yes, yeah, yeah, that, yeah, that decreases.
Speaker 2:And even things like, uh, if we we think I'm thinking about aesthetics now I'm thinking about my, my aesthetics clients, when they've, they've suddenly noticed that the uh, yeah, the collagen has decreased, the elasticity in their, their face is slowly deteriorating, and also things like, um, like bone loss around your, around your jaws, and again that's when people come come running to me for my botox and my phyllis yeah, whereas I would just make sure that you know you've got vitamin c and the things that your body needs to manage histamine and produce collagen and yeah, but it is natural, it's a natural decline again in those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in those. What's the word? Systems, I guess? Yeah, we use the word systems. That's fine, that'll do, yeah. So, yeah, there's quite a lot involved in the skin, but one of the simplest ways that you can actually support your skin is to drink sufficient water. Yeah, because your hydration level is going to become really important yeah, and so that has.
Speaker 2:That has a massive impact actually, on almost everything that we are thinking about talking about today, like for headaches, for brain fog, for dryness, for stress and anxiety. It has a massive impact on all of those things and, again, like we, we pointed you back to the uh four legs of a chair last week, and that's one that leg is is a non-negotiable, isn't it really?
Speaker 1:it really is, and I think what you've got to appreciate is that if you're dehydrated, that is a stress for your body. So internally, when your body's trying to keep everything within balance and it hasn't got sufficient fluid, that is a stress.
Speaker 1:And I think sometimes we forget that being deficient in nutrients or devoid of good food or not drinking enough, not sleeping enough, is a stress to the body. It's not just about being stuck in a traffic jam, being in a relationship you don't like. You know. Those types of stress we tend to think as being that's all the stress. Yeah, but to your body, being dehydrated is a massive, massive stress yeah, and it's just a really simple way to oil those cogs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just please drink enough water, absolutely so. Another big thing that I think that our listeners are going to be nodding their heads to is is weight either weight gain or just stubbornness. That it's not like you can't do the same sorts of things as you used to do as a younger woman and get yourself fit and back in shape again like you used to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the thing about the weight gain is that a lot of my clients will come to me and I'm sure you'll have the same thing, catherine where they are people that are actively, you know, in that area of looking after themselves or at least aiming to, yeah, and then suddenly the weight starting to creep up, or you get a change in that body shape, yeah, and then, and you're looking going, but I haven't done anything.
Speaker 2:I've done nothing differently. Yep, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know we've said this numerous times, but just again to say that you know what we used to do, which was to do more exercise and eat less food, might have worked in our 20s. It's not going to work now. It's a stress. It's another stress to your body.
Speaker 1:It's huge stress. And what does the body do when it's stressed? It battens down the hatches. It and what does the body do when it's stressed? It battens down the hatches. It conserves everything, including your weight. It can't let go of weight. Why would it? Makes sense, right? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I think we've banged on about this that cortisol production, how that interferes with all of the other systems. And not only interferes, it kind of dominates all of the systems. So if your body's busy dealing with the stress, it's not going to be helping you out in any other way.
Speaker 1:No, and it does have an impact on things like anxiety and insomnia and other things that you might be experiencing, because when you're in a stress response this is how I explain it to my clients I say, if you're, if you're, if you're in stress, what your body thinks is happening is that you're in a room with a tiger. You can't move because you don't want to bring attention to yourself. In the room with the tiger, you can't eat, you can't sleep and you're hyper vigilant. And that's what happens when you've got things like anxiety and then you can't switch off or you've got racing heart or you know any of those things. That is a stress response. Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1:Belly fat is another one. That, with this weight gain and talking about the distribution, we've spoken about estrogen and how that gives us our womanly shape. Of course, that's great when we're 11 years old and we, you know, turning into a woman, but when we're in our 40s or 50s, we don't want that extra layering on, although I am appreciating my slightly bigger boobs because I've never had boobs oh, are you?
Speaker 2:no, yes, I don't mind that mine were. I didn't like them when I was pregnant. I don't like them now. I mean, they're not.
Speaker 1:They're not huge but I have got more of a shape to myself now than I had before. But, yeah, I don't want that carrying on and I certainly don't want that fat around the middle building up. But that often happens because when these hormones start to change other than the fact that we become oestrogen dominant initially we've spoken about oestrogen estrogen going crazy and it puts you in that growth phase, yeah, so when you've got that imbalance of estrogen and progesterone and estrogen is being dominant, it also has a direct impact on how your body manages blood sugars. So then you become more hungry, yeah, but your body's not taking those sugars into the cell effectively because insulin is compromised, yeah, and so your body has to convert that to fat because you cannot have sugar circulating in your blood for too long. Because guess what that is? It's a stress, yeah, yeah. So belly fat or that. That area around that middle is a great storage place, yeah, for that excess fat?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and unfortunately that is the worst place for us that we want it to be stored.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the worst thing we can do is to eat less and exercise more, because we're pushing that stress response even further, which is going to enhance fat storage. But because of the way that things are changing in the body, we've got to look at that metabolic side of things. So it's a little bit more complex than just reducing calories and moving more. We've got to be smart about it and understand the mechanisms and what's going on. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And we'll do a little bit of a watch this space because we are going to be talking to you more specifically about that in future episodes yes, exactly okay.
Speaker 1:So what else have we got?
Speaker 2:so dryness is a a big one for a way of noticing that stuff is happening for women, um, vaginal dryness specifically and I've also heard other people talking about when they have alcohol thrown into the mix that all of these other symptoms, including dryness, is even worse yeah, dry eyes is another one often happens.
Speaker 1:Just dry skin, yeah, and being itchy goes with this as well. Yeah, yeah, so when you've not got the hydration in those membranes, and the mucus membranes in particular, like in the eyes and in the vagina, when you get a, a lowering of estrogen, it impacts that even the ph level there and what bacteria can thrive, so even things like utis suddenly become an issue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and not everybody connects those two with um, you know, a change in hormones, but it has a direct impact there yeah, absolutely, and this is not something, things like utis, it's not something that is just isolated in this time of our lives. If it is not balanced, if it's not addressed, this thing continues on into old age. I remember nursing it was a really common thing for older ladies to continue to be suffering from this because it just wasn't, it's just not looked at, it's not addressed like the reason for these continual urine infections yeah.
Speaker 1:So one of the best ways to help because it's about that lack of hydration, guess what it is again drinking water. Drinking water, yeah, it can make a huge difference, because what you want to be doing is flushing through those areas so that the bacteria can't take hold and then cause an infection.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Now we were talking about hydration, and one of the barriers to drinking water is another one of the symptoms. Incontinence, yeah and that's not necessarily the fact that you have had children vaginally. It's not just that.
Speaker 1:So don't think, because you are a woman that maybe hasn't had children or you haven't had them vaginally, that you are going to be scot-free of this, because I've met many, many women that either haven't had children or haven't done any vaginal births and are still incontinent because of the effects of the hormones on their lower regions yeah, it's a big deal and I don't think it's necessarily spoken about a lot, but when you have it, it's really, it really impacts, it's debilitating, it really is, because it's silly things like I'd said to you that I'd had a cough following a a nasty cold and I was having to wear tenor ladies, because every time I coughed I had no control. Yeah, but it impacted. Things like what I could wear. Yeah, because I've got pads on and normally I am a skinny jean person thong knickers, you know you can't do that when you've got pads on and the irritation that they cause.
Speaker 2:If you're a sensitive person, which I am, to things, so that you know all of that, it was, it was having a major impact, it was horrible yeah, no, I mean I've spoken about it from marathon running before, um, and actually I saw a post today from fern cotton who had just started running again and she was having she was comparing the differences between running in her 40s and running in her 20s.
Speaker 1:And yeah, incontinence was one of them yeah, it's interesting because you know I do gymnastics. Did you know I do?
Speaker 2:gymnastics. Did you know I do gymnastics. I don't know if you've mentioned that, maybe once or twice.
Speaker 1:What I find interesting is that I don't have any issues doing gymnastics. I can jump on the trampoline. There is no issue at all.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's when I've got a cold. At every point in the month the same. Yeah, it's not a problem for me. No, I never, ever, actually, I've had I've had any issues doing gymnastics and and, as you know, I'm doing like I'm running up to a vault and jumping and I'm on the floor doing tumbling and things. I've never had an issue with it. The the only time I this is just me personally I've ever had an issue with it is when I've got a cold and I've got a cough and it is horrendous. I have literally no control at all.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting isn't it that you can do all that. Yeah, trampolining for me is only something I do in the rain Outside can do, or that, yeah, trampolining for me is, uh, it's only something I do in the rain outside. It's. Yeah, that's, that's not, that's not fun. And and I've spoken about this before that it's really interesting that I can see through my cycle where I am as to like as to how controlled I am with my continence when I'm running, and, yeah, so it's, it's really interesting and it's it's. It happened really really quickly. And, and again, it's not talked about, it's not a fun thing to talk about, because, I mean you, you associate it with being old, I would say, and I don't know about you, but I'm never going to admit to that.
Speaker 1:No, never going to admit to that. I think, because this area is such a key one, we're going to do something separate about this, aren't we? This is absolutely true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we should stop talking about this. There will be so many spoiler alerts. Another huge one has got to be brain fog, right, yeah?
Speaker 1:brain fog. Anything to do with the brain really being clumsy? Yeah, forgetting things. Anxiety Anything to do with the brain really being clumsy? Um, yeah, forgetting things. Anxiety. Anything to do with the brain.
Speaker 2:we already spoke about the fact that progesterone and estrogen are directly involved in the neurotransmitter production yeah yeah and it's again we're saying because the conversation is more now people are realizing that that that brain fog and any other problems in their cognition are most likely down to I'm going to say most likely down to menopause.
Speaker 2:However, we were talking, before we recorded this, about the timing of all of this, of the timing of menopause. So if we are, if we have waited a little while to have had our children, or vice versa, perhaps we've had our children younger and we're revving a, a career up because we're women and we can do everything I mean we can do everything doesn't necessarily mean we should be all that we want to be, but it might coincide with, um. I mean I've got I've got one going to university, one child going to university. I've got one child doing their gcses. I've got one child choosing their gcses. It's mayhem, mayhem, mayhem, it's mayhem. Um, it might coincide with sick parents. It might coincide with with sort of bigger illnesses through your, through your close family, through your extended family. So it isn't a surprise, or it shouldn't be a surprise, that our brains can't deal with everything that we want them to deal with yeah, I think big life events as well are quite common at this stage.
Speaker 1:It could be, whether that's, you know, a death in the family, a breakup of a relationship. I mean, there are a lot of relationship breakups around this time. I'm noticing, yeah, friends with on Facebook who are a similar age. Because of that, I'm sure there's lots of reasons for it. But, yeah, big life events and when we're under stress, again it impacts our ability to, you know, fire off things really quickly, to make logical decisions, so we could just say words just say words yeah, so it can't.
Speaker 1:It's not necessarily all down to the hormones, but they are playing a role there. Yeah, but then we've got to bring in the other things again and think what does the brain need?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It needs nutrition, it needs certain other elements. So it's not all about the hormones, but of course they're involved there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely but of course they're involved there. Yeah, absolutely, and I've been to a menopause talk before where she has talked about women getting to this point in their lives and totally blowing up their lives, so like leaving spouses, leaving um jobs going and I don't know, living in the jungle or what have you. And she asked that perhaps you don't do that, perhaps you give yourself. I mean, obviously, if you're in a terrible relationship, do it anyway. Don't.
Speaker 1:Don't do it because the menopause is like kicking you into some sort of action, but take a breath and support yourself and allow yourself to be on some sort of level playing field before you go and make enormous life decisions high on the roller coaster of our sex hormones I think that's a really interesting take on things as well, because, like, I'm nearly 10 years older than you and something definitely happens in your 50s which you will experience when you get there, because you start to realize that you're, for the most part most people are pretty able, pretty healthy. We start to look at things and go right, what is it that I really want? What do I want to do? And so you can kind of get those feelings of, yeah, I just want to, I just want to like move to spain, or you know, just random things, feelings daily.
Speaker 2:In fact, I had this conversation this morning to mark what about italy countryside, could we go and live there? And he kind of rolls his eyes and looks at me and and hopes I'm gonna forget this conversation again and we'll carry on, yeah, but I do think that you start to.
Speaker 1:I think, look at your life. You're quite reflective and you're thinking about the future now and you're like it's now or never. Yeah so yeah, there is that that ties in as well, but we, we don't want that decision to be ruled by our hormones. No, never, yeah. So yeah, there is that that ties in as well, but we don't want that decision to be ruled by our hormones. No, absolutely yes. So we're yeah.
Speaker 2:So we're not saying don't go and grab these things, but yeah, don't, don't blow it all up. Uh, just on a, on the I don't know high of estrogen, and then when everything plummets again and you go, oh shit, yes, yeah, what else have we got? So again we talk about cognition, headaches, migraines a massive thing and I guess it's knowing no coincidence that people will commonly have migraines with menopause symptoms, as they do, as they're going into adolescence yeah, because it's the balance between those two, progesterone and estrogen, again, that are going to affect the rate of dilation of the vessels.
Speaker 1:They have an impact there. So I would say that headaches was the very first symptom that I started to get with my cycle, thinking, oh, things are starting to change a bit. So just before my period I was getting quite serious headaches, like quite severe, not to the point of a migraine. I know some people do get migraines but just a couple of days, then I'll get my period and then it will just go. Yeah, and I would know and nothing would touch it. You know those headaches where you can take your painkillers no, it's not going to do it, and you, you will go to bed with a headache and normally you wake up in the morning. It'll be gone, yeah, but no, you'd wake up and it's still there be that residue of it there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so headaches are a really, really common thing and, depending on the level of them and how long they go on for again, it's another one that can really affect your life yeah, I associate headaches with pregnancy.
Speaker 2:I never really suffered with headaches, particularly apart from when I was pregnant, and so every now and again, if I do get a headache, I'm like oh my god, just like check everything.
Speaker 1:No, it's all all right was it in the early stages of pregnancy that you would get the headaches?
Speaker 2:I get them all the way through, but probably I mean in the early stages. Oh my god the fatigue the fatigue in the early stages. I just totally empathize with all my all my um patients that were on chemotherapy and and all their lovely cancer drugs because I just yeah, it was my the only way I could feel. That was just like absolutely dead, that kind of. And then you go to sleep and you'd wake up and you'd felt like as exhausted as when you'd gone to bed?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's annoying because in those early stages of pregnancy you can't tell anyone why you're not functioning properly, can you? No, well, you can, but you generally don't. Because you want to get through to that, yeah, second trimester, and feel confident that everything's progressing well.
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm sure my colleagues also was on drugs. It's just such a mess. But I mean again, that's something that's associated with menopause as well. Is it's that that fatigue, and we talked about the whole kind of seesaw of um, it's more like a roller coaster, isn't it? Of of hormones and and what that does to to your fatigue and your mood and things like that yeah, and and testosterone for the energy as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, was a key player there, so it does, it does make sense?
Speaker 2:yeah, without a doubt. And and I guess as part of that is the opposite is the insomnia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Insomnia again is an issue, isn't it? Because if you don't sleep properly, it has a knock-on effect of everything. If you're tired, it impacts your nutrition, because then you crave certain things Hugely. And your mood it impacts your mood and oh yeah everything. And your mood, it impacts your mood, and oh yeah everything. I feel really sorry for anyone who has problems with this, because what I will touch with now I do not have an issue with sleeping.
Speaker 2:No, I don't. And the magnesium has really helped because I did notice I was becoming quite light sleeping and that's honestly World war three could erupt outside my window and I would have had no clue that it happened until the morning and that started to to go and I was not very happy about that, and so the taking some magnesium just before I go to sleep has really solved that, which is wonderful yeah, it does make a huge difference, but it doesn't work for everyone.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it's a good one to try if you've. If you're struggling with sleep because you need calcium and magnesium are involved here. Hormones are involved as well, so you need melatonin to kick in and there's a link with cortisol. So if you're stressed, melatonin can't kick in because they're on a seesaw, so then you can't go to sleep, but magnesium is the the mineral that enables you to stay asleep. Yeah, calcium actually is a sedative mineral and it allows you to go to sleep, but then you need magnesium to stay asleep that's interesting.
Speaker 2:So that's where the origins of like warm milk and stuff would have come from. Do you think?
Speaker 1:that is mostly to do with tryptophan, and tryptophan is an amino acid that you get from those types of foods.
Speaker 2:That is the amino acid that is the starting pathway to make melatonin yeah, well, there you go, and I think we have done an episode on sleep, and so I'm not I'm not saying that, if you're an insomniac, that this is going to to going to magically cure you of this, but there might be some things in there that you could add into your nightly routine that might help yeah, and of course we've got to bring up here the changes in body temperature, which disturbs your sleep.
Speaker 1:If you're waking up really hot and you've soaked through your pajamas, the bed sheets, everything, yeah, then that has an impact on your sleep and that is. There's two reasons for the body going into these episodes of hotness is oestrogen and the stress hormone. So when we're looking, when we start talking about how you can help yourself, you can do, you can put certain things in place and there are natural things that will cool the body. But we've got to go back to the root cause and look at stress yeah and and again.
Speaker 2:The only time I've ever experienced anything like that in bed is if I've had a drink, and I've heard lots of people talk about the fact that alcohol will really rev up symptoms, particularly hot flushes yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1:When during my um, during my studies, I well, as part of being a nutritionist, I have to do cpd continual professional development every year and last year I did a lot on hormones and I just remember um one of the speakers really um well-known expert in the field of hormones basically said if you've got a client that has got hot flushes as a symptom, that is a major red flag for overall metabolic imbalance. So you could have, you could be in perimenopause or many poor menopause and have symptoms such as headaches or weight gain or you know whatever else. There are dryness etc. But never have hot flushes. So far I've not had a hot flush. Yeah, we said it. Was it hot flush or hot flash Hot?
Speaker 2:flash, hot flash, american. It was the same with American.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hot flash. We call it hot flushes, but I found that really interesting because when you start to look at the mechanism involved there, it means that the body really is imbalanced. So don't freak out, if you're listening going oh my God, I have hot flushes and yeah, listening going. Oh my god, I have hot flushes and yeah it's a major red flag.
Speaker 2:It just means that there's a bit more work to do. It's interesting, isn't it, that that is, it's like the uh, it's like the poster symptom for menopause, and I mean, I guess, because it's. It's really obvious, isn't it, when it, when it happens to, to the person it's happening to and possibly if there's other people around. I've watched that redness like rise up somebody's body. But I wonder, I wonder why it is so common. I wonder if it's more common now with our modern lives yeah, I would definitely say that that is the case yeah, which is, I mean, it's annoying and exciting all at the same time, isn't it?
Speaker 2:because it's a it's, it's a symptom of our modern lives. However, that means that we have got some control over preventing it.
Speaker 1:There's so much that you can do for all of these symptoms, and a bit like referring back to the four legs of a chair. If we look at the hormones and we say, okay, oestrogen is down, then we can do something else to support whilst we're dealing with the fact that, okay, oestrogen has declined, it's not coming back. Yeah, we can't just magic oestrogen, but we've got mechanisms in our body that maintain a certain level. Or we look at the pathways for things and we say, well, we're missing oestrogen there, but if we put vitamin B6 in, that can actually help. So there's so many things that you can do. Yeah, it's exciting.
Speaker 2:Lots of my ladies that I work with suffer from injuries Shoulders, shoulders, injuries, shoulders, shoulders, shoulders, shoulders yeah, always a um a thing that seemed to go ankles, knees, hips uh, a lot of this is to do with the impact that it has on, like, the elasticity, the tendons and ligaments. Yeah, on um, like your hydration, all of those sorts of things, your, your nutrition as well, and I loved you did an email once, um, and it was talking about the like, the fight or flight in your body then being stored in your hips. So you imagine you are sat at a desk and I don't know, maybe you're having a ranty day email or somebody's annoyed you, or I don't know, maybe you're looking at politics on tiktok or instagram or something, and you're sat still and you're getting irritated or annoyed and your body doesn't distinguish between you getting irritated at an email or the getting ready to run from a saber-toothed tiger.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no difference.
Speaker 2:And so it piles all this stuff into you and it was so interesting you saying about it, sending all this kind of this power and this energy to your hips, because that's what's going to power you away from said saber-toothed tiger, and then you don't go anywhere. Yeah, you don't go anywhere. You don't go anywhere. You stay there and maybe you'll calm down a bit, you'll stay there a bit longer and a bit longer and a bit longer, but you never get rid of that, that stuff that's there in your hips and your and your thighs, those big muscles, those big strong joints, that whole area that was going to power you away, and in my mind it just it rots there if you don't then move yeah, I'm really glad that you read my email for a start.
Speaker 1:Thanks, because I know that you you have. No, I'm no not good at emails not good at emails, but yeah, it's interesting that the hips have a lot of storage capacity for emotions, in fact, parts of the body. This might seem a little bit out there for some people, but I love the Chinese medicine side of things, where they look at like the liver is the seat of anger and you can see this like often when people are doing a reset they get emotional Stuff starts to come out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the shoulders, if you think about it, shoulder in the burden, if you've got a shoulder injury, yeah, you've got to look at what's going on in your life. I love louise hayes work on this, looking at what symptoms in the body mean to emotions and what's going on in your life. It is so accurate. Yeah, you know really scaringly. So I've done this a lot with my clients and looked it up. You know when they've said I've got a problem with this and you look it up and they go, geez, that is is spot on yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And then you yeah, and then you get to release it, which is so important, because often these things just appear overnight, like the aches and pains and all these sorts of things, and you've not unless you've literally pulled or torn something. Sometimes these aches and pains just arrive overnight and it is absolutely you storing that anxiety, that tension in your body and and until you release it, it's just going to continue to kind of, like you know, tap you on the shoulder, going hi, I'm here, are you going to deal with me? Yeah, you're like that. No, la la la la, it's so true.
Speaker 1:And also what we got to remember is that these things get stored over a period of time and suddenly something will release it or bring it to the surface or, like you just said, want to whack you around the head and say you've um, I've been down here now for like 10 years and you have not, so you've still not dealt with it. So I am bringing it to the surface.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'm gonna keep whacking you over the head until you deal with it yeah, yeah and it gets new shoulders. You know they're like up by your ears. How many times? How many times do I tell people to just release their shoulders either? Yeah, just just either to relax them down, or to sort of squeeze your shoulder blades in towards your spine and just really open up your chest again. That's another thing, isn't it? You just, I think people just try and hide.
Speaker 1:They're just the overwhelm and they just their chins down, their gazes down, their shoulders are wrapped around and they're just like hugging their heart, yeah, and then we've also got to consider the, the use of devices, yeah, and the head position and what that does to the shoulder, and then if your head position isn't right, it has an impact all the way down the body, yeah, till we get to our poor feet, yeah. So everything is connected again, isn't it? Your hip bones connected to?
Speaker 2:your thigh bone.
Speaker 1:I don't know the song yeah, but I think, just to recap, on the injury side of things, there are physical things going on there as well. A lack of elasticity is going to make those joints more susceptible and we're just going to go back to the same thing again. Drinking sufficient water is going to be, or it's going to give you some protection against that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely and often um, for some. Well, I say for some reason. But often I go the opposite direction to what everybody else wants to go in anyway. But often people will stop moving. And if you go to the GP and I don't know whether this is lack of knowledge or litigation or just complete lack of time to be able to think outside the box but they often will say don't move it. And that's completely the wrong thing to do, because if you don't move something, you're then guarding it. It's then seizing up even more. I am not saying, if your shoulder hurts, that you're going to go and pick up a 10-ton weight and go and do or do some push-ups or what have you, but please don't just nurse it until it freezes on you completely because then you get a problem somewhere else, don't you?
Speaker 1:so you're you're trying to protect your shoulder and then you're like, oh, my lower back hurts now. Yeah, it's so. Yeah, it's, it's again. It's all connected, isn't it yeah?
Speaker 2:absolutely, yeah, another, another thing that, uh, that happens through the, the lovely perimenopause years and you're like where's my period? Oh, has it stopped? Oh, no, all your life. And then suddenly it's a 25 day cycle and it's a 35 and it does well.
Speaker 1:What normally happens from most of the people I've seen is that it gets shorter or it gets longer, but it's still quite regular. Regular at the shorter or the longer. But then it starts to become random and you'll get, yeah, 35 day, 21 day, 28 days, 24 days, and it starts to go all over the place where am?
Speaker 1:I, and then, coupled with that, you can then get heavier periods, or they might be longer, or they can go the other way and be really light and be really short. So again, governed completely by these hormones. Progesterone particularly is quite a good regulator for the periods. So when progesterone is starting to go down, then it is very, very common to see a shortened cycle.
Speaker 2:I think we are in a society that likes to control these things, and I think there would be a real pull to be able to then suddenly think that there's something wrong here, when actually there's something totally right and normal it's annoying, but it's right and normal yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:But it's really interesting because I've mentioned before in the podcast about the fact that this is what happened to me from september last year yeah, that my cycle started to become really erratic and would swing from that 35 day to 21 day, and then I actively started to do some work on that and now I've got it back into a fairly regular um. It's averaging out now at 28 days.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's interesting yeah so when you know and you can just tweak things slightly, you can recognize oh, I see what's going on here. Then you can put some things in in place and then you can see the impact of it, which is quite exciting really, because if you're then able to facilitate that, it means that you're having an impact on your hormone balance. Yeah, so it's a good thing yeah, really really good thing that's.
Speaker 2:I mean, that is exciting, so we will be again. I hope you don't think that we are like doom and glooming, just going through all of the all of the potential symptoms.
Speaker 2:Um, what we plan to do is then talk about the things that you can do, and we're going to be doing that over the next few episodes. But it's not as simple as just going right hot flushes this is what you do for it. Injuries this is what you do for it, because you could do one thing and it's going to affect many other things, like we've been talking about hydration today, so that will be a very exciting episode yeah, we've got to look at that whole orchestra of hormones again, haven't we?
Speaker 1:because we can't just expect to put, you know, one in like estrogen in and then think that the orchestra is going to play all fine again. It doesn't work like that. Everything is interconnected. It's a really complex system.
Speaker 2:The endocrine system, yeah which is why and we are not dissing anybody's way of dealing- with this no absolutely not dealing with this?
Speaker 2:no, absolutely not. But when you add just, or you you kind of, you go to medical professionals for some help and you're expecting a pill, potentially for one symptom or another, like all of these interventions, it's then going to have an effect on the whole system. So being able to empower you to support things, even if you do take hormone replacement therapy, to be able to empower you to support all of these systems is our main aim.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can do things to make your hormone therapy work better, be more effective. So there's lots. There's so much that you can do with this.
Speaker 2:I was just trying to think if there are there any benefits other than potentially less or no periods and some bigger boobs. Are there any? Are there any benefits to menopause and menopause symptoms?
Speaker 1:I'm sure they must be I can't think of any well, I am looking forward to not having any periods, I can tell you that, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure that's that's got to be the best benefit. Yeah, definitely. So, as always, come and join us in the Far Too Fabulous Facebook group. Let us know if we haven't covered a symptom that you commonly have, because I guarantee, if you are thinking it and feeling it, then there are other people out there that are thinking and feeling it too. So come in, speak it out loud. We would love to know about it, and I'm sure that somebody out there that are thinking and feeling it too. So come in, speak it out loud. Uh, we would love to know about it, and I'm sure that somebody out there's going oh my god, me too yeah, yeah, let's continue the conversation.
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