Find Your Balance Through Menopause Hormones

Menopause as a Natural Transition 0:00

Menopause is mandatory and natural. Suffering is optional. So remember that one. Write that one down. It's a good mantra. The second thing is that, you know, just like puberty is a natural life stage, menopause is too. And no more should we be suppressing menopause as we should be puberty. So that means no birth controls in that puberty time because we are suppressing natural transition, rewiring, reprogramming. I mean, we're not honoring the neuroendocrine connection. This is Dr. Talks. So here's, here's where I want to go with you because, you know, for people who have been listening, you and I have had so many great conversations on your podcast, my podcast.

I mean, you and I, we could talk hormones all day, but here's my new insight. And what I'd love to like bring to the world is I feel like as we go through menopause, there's like that neurochemical armor that protects us goes away. And when it goes away. The estrogen, progesterone, those two hormones activating serotonin, dopamine, GABA, acetylcholine. We're talking more than just hormones. We're talking neurotransmitters. When all of that goes away, you are left with... traumas, you're left with figuring out how to manage stress, you're left with having to recreate your life in a new way because of the loss of hormones and neurotransmitters.

So my first question to you is, can you expand on that? What do you think of that theory and how do we help women through that journey? Oh my gosh, Mindy, I'm so glad you're talking about this because what I say is that, you know, you get to menopause and you've been like, you've been living in a pressure cooker, right? Your lid's been on solid, right? You're holding it together. Then all of a sudden progesterone drops and I call that the lid to our pressure cooker. So you can imagine that lid to the pressure cooker now blows off, right?

Yeah. And so what happens? I mean, it's a hot mess. Yeah. It really is a hot mess. But what's happening neurologically? Now, this is what's so fascinating because as a gynecologist, patients during perimenopause and menopause come up and say, okay, in this time period, they are having worsening PMS. This starts 10 to 15 years before. Right. right? They're having PMS symptoms, so that's mood swings. Just one or two weeks before their period starts and they feel better for one or two weeks and then the mess starts again.

Their periods are, as a gynecologist, they have irregular periods, worsening PMS, heavier than normal periods, breakthrough bleeding, and what often happens that leads them down the road to birth control pills that doesn't work, endometrial ablation maybe in a DNC and then maybe that works doesn't work, or a hysterectomy. And so we fixed the victim to the, you know, bath of hormone imbalances by removing the uterus. I consider the uterus the victim to the hormonal imbalances. But at the same time these irregular cycles are happening, it's the difficulty sleeping, it's the mood swings, it's the memory loss,

Hormones, Neurotransmitters, and Brain Fuel 3:08

it's the loss of sex drive. It's the chronic fatigue, crashing fatigue, and maybe there's heart palpitations in there. Maybe there's some restless leg syndrome in there, the insomnia, difficulty staying asleep more so than getting to sleep. All of those are the neurologic symptoms, right? And so here's this mess of symptoms that are coming in relation to this hormonal change. So I, as a gynecologist, and you know this, I really wanted to understand why. Why the mess? Why did I experience that? It's why I write in my book, The Hormone Fix, it takes more than hormones.

I love The Hormone Fix, by the way. I think it's one of the best books ever written on hormones. In fact, I don't know if you know this, when people ask me, what other books should you read on hormones? I'm like, everybody needs to read The Hormone Fix. So anyways, just had to tell you that. Thank you. Thank you for that child. I mean, I feel the same way. It's my magnus opus. If I hadn't lived how I lived, I wouldn't have known the stories that I write about or the results, how to get out of this crazy pressure cooker of our lives.

Right. And so what's fascinating is during this time that we know these symptoms increase and that's because these symptoms are hormone dependent, right? So there's this hormonal function. So our brain's ability to use glucose for fuel is hormone dependent. So what's really important to understand is that these hormonal changes have that neurologic component mainly because our brain is starving for fuel. Why are these gynecologic symptoms related to these neurologic symptoms? And as I looked at this and I looked at some of the recent research that showed that gluconeogenesis in the brain is hormone dependent, estrogen dependent, most likely progesterone dependent.

When we start getting that drop in progesterone, we start seeing a spike in these neurologic symptoms, the anxiety, the mood swings, the depression. Okay, some may call it bipolar symptoms. I call them hormonal symptoms. Because our brain is starving for fuel. That's why we have to shift into keto, I call it a keto green lifestyle, shift into intermittent fasting so that we can bump our body periodically into ketosis because we're not using glucose real well when our hormones are low, even if we're supplementing with exogenous hormones.

Can you expand upon that? Because I do believe one of the interesting discussions that's now emerging in the menopausal world is around HRT and bioidenticals. And I think we swing the pendulum from don't use any of that to now we all should use it, but where's lifestyle in that conversation? So talk about, even if you're on those, why it's important to have access to ketones. Yeah, no, absolutely. And it's almost like you think of biology and psychology. Like you can't separate the head from the body.

The same is true with hormonal therapy. I mean, you can't separate the lifestyle from the hormonal therapy. The prescription is less than 1% to 10% of the answer. I still like to give myself credit as a prescriber, right? That's going to make a bigger difference, but it's the one to 10%. It's not the 90%. 90% is the lifestyle because it's not just these reproductive hormones, although estrogen, progesterone, with or without a uterus, well into the postmenopause topically is one of my preferred, that's like a lifetime plan for me with what I know and the research I know.

how I help patients, that is for sure progesterone, bioidentical, topical, with or without a uterus. I'm sold on it, and I've been following the research now for over 20 years. And so I think that's important to understand, but beyond that, we've got to do the lifestyle. You have to create, you know how, the hormone hierarchy. We have all our hormones, but insulin and cortisol are our managing hormones, and oxytocin is the most powerful hormone in our body. Now, when we're under inflammation, when we're under stress, I don't care how much, you know, what your dosage of hormones are, you've got to address these other major hormones, and we do that predominantly through lifestyle.

We can look at some peptides, we can look at some stem cells, we can look at some of these, additional, you know, things to our arsenal, but you've got to do it with lifestyle. Yeah, great. Yeah. And so where do you think traumas fit into that? Because I can only share, you know, what I'm experiencing in my menopausal journey is that I feel like at 53, the traumas are coming up even more and more saying,

Lifestyle, Keto, and HRT Support 7:52

heal me, heal me, heal me. And I almost feel, I don't know if it's wisdom. I don't know if it's because my hormones are now really shifting into this more post-menopausal state. But I'm looking at them as gifts. Like you and I jumped on this and talked about rest and how we're learning to rest a little bit more. But a lot of traumas I had from a long time ago, like I, I don't know if you know that I had a near death experience in my thirties and I swam into a pile of Portuguese man-o-war and 10 of them actually, they wrapped all around me and I ended up losing my life.

I had the life review. I had the tunnel. I saw the white light, like the whole thing. I came back, obviously, and it was a trauma I never dealt with, and I'm finally dealing with it this year. I feel like it's menopause that is allowing me to see it more clearly. To me, it's tied into the loss of estrogen and progesterone and the changes that are neurochemically happening. And if we look at this as a gift, there's so much healing that can happen for us in the menopausal journey. And I know your story with your son and just that really touched me when I read it in the hormone fix.

There's opportunities for us here if we don't push them down. A thousand percent. Menopause gives you the opportunity to heal with what we've buried. And I think that's really important to honor the experience we've had because there's been a reason for them. You know, we have to use that experience. I would say there's a reason for everything we've been through. No, but we can make reason from everything we've been through and learn from it. That's really powerful. That's a powerful mantra for me.

Like, okay, how can I transform this into a meaningful next step? And you know, menopause is this opportunity, this blessing to walk into a new phase of your life, be empowered. And I see that way too, Mindy. And I think in working with so many women going through this transition, I always tell them, number one, menopause is mandatory and natural. Suffering is optional. So remember that one, write that one down. It's a good mantra. The second thing is that, just like puberty is a natural life stage, menopause is too, and no more should we be suppressing menopause as we should be puberty.

So that means no birth controls in that puberty time because we are suppressing natural transition, rewiring, reprogramming change. So we shouldn't be doing that in menopause through birth control pills through, I mean, we're not honoring the neuroendocrine connection. And like I said, that progesterone dips and that pressure cooker lid comes off. Women who have had, and this is well documented in the research, especially looking at women veterans and those who have had adverse childhood experiences or ACEs for short.

we see a more difficult time in menopause and that is again we have like a scar formed over the wound and now we have a time to really open up that wound clean it out and walk into the second spring of our lives both embodied understanding the scars experiences With that wisdom, with that learning, and with that grace and compassion for other women, men, children, I think that's by design who we're physiologically able to evolve into should we accept the challenge. See, that's the rebrand of menopause that I want the world to hear because we have, we either don't talk about it or we're like, we try to botox the shit out of ourselves and slow the aging down.

And we try to look like, I know I'm always like, Hey, this is all natural right here. We try to make it so that we can stop the journey. But what I'm learning as I'm in the thick of it, you know, again, I'm really close to that one-year mark of being in that post-menopausal place, is that I'm learning a new part of myself. And I even have this thought, and I'm so curious what you think of this, that estrogen really makes us maternal and when we lose estrogen we lose a little bit of that maternal but that's the way it's supposed to be because could we we're supposed to mother ourselves now we're supposed to turn within instead of mothering the whole world and this is a new theory i like in the last couple days i was like i feel more connected to myself As I handle some of the

Trauma, Healing, and Menopause as a Gift 12:19

traumas from my, from the, from these are my, as I handle those, I go within, I practice more self love. I'm finding that I'm, I have more space, some more emotional capacity to love myself than ever before. I don't know if that's because of estrogen's loss. I don't know, but I really love who I'm becoming. Ooh, I think this is becoming, that word becoming, like write it down, highlight it, circle it, becoming. I mean, we are becoming, you're becoming our next best self. And there is this hormone transformation, just like that child transitioned with puberty into young adulthood, right?

And we transition in pregnancy, we have children, we transition in menopause into the next best version of ourselves. What is the next best version of ourselves without all those reproductive hormones that make us almost unable to deal with a lot of those traumas? So explain that because that's what I feel, but I'm trying to neurochemically explain it. I wish I could. I wish I could. It's very intuitive at this point. But if we think about it, it is this transition, right? We lose DHEA, we lose progesterone, and we lose estrogen in that sequence.

So progesterone even more so than estrogen. I think that's, and because we know it's such an anti-inflammatory, you know, neurologic key hormone, even more so in my work than estrogen is. But in this transition, you go from these very, like you said, maternal hormonal levels, these reproductive hormonal levels, into this next phase, which should take us to, we take away that clouding, that level of those hormones, and we should have this ability to, and through history and other cultures, higher connection with Spirit and God.

So many women through this time period will have a higher connection. This is where many second careers into sisterhood or to be a nun happen after childbearing years. What has happened after childbearing years throughout history in women who have gone on to do amazing amazing things. And the other piece too, I think, Mindy, and I'm trying to understand it as well to understand all the hormonal connection because there's so many more and how, you know, how these all tie together and we don't talk enough about oxytocin.

that hormone bonding and really being able to increase the amount of oxytocin we make. And there is a mission for people to fast, you know, like that fast stream oxytocin or fast track oxytocin through journeys with plant medicine, with psychedelic medicine, with things like this to, to have that ability to kind of remove the cloud breakthrough, the muck and the Yuck. And so, and then there may be a place for that, but I think what it comes down to is where we're naturally going through this menopausal journey is not to suppress it, is not to suffocate it, is not to pretend it is not happening, but is to own it and then to, you know, again, take, do what your body needs to do physiologically to gain that higher energetic vibration and connection with all our reproductive hormones.

Yeah, I think that's so well said and it's interesting you bring up the plant medicine and psychedelic because I've been speaking of this when you look at the research, it's pretty impressive even if you just look at psilocybin and you look at its ability to activate serotonin receptor sites that are the same ones that estrogen was activating or is the little bit you still have left is activating. But more importantly, what was really interesting in the mental health world that I'm witnessing is that there's an emergence of us using plant medicine and psychedelics to understand ourselves better.

And if you just take that concept and you go, okay, well, menopause is also an opportunity for us to understand ourselves better. Can it be a tool to heal traumas? Just like I'm very curious about EMDR. I've been experimenting with that in my own life and like using ways to really not push these traumas down, but invite them up so that they can be healed and we can step into what you said and how you said it is like becoming the next best version of yourself. You know, how, and I think we need a toolbox.

of like emotional healing tools we can use. And if you were to create that toolbox, what would you put in it? Well, definitely with my book, The Hormone Fix, I talk about some of those in my trauma section. EMDR is one of my favorite. That's a fast track through trauma. EMDR is very beneficial. And I'll tell you, because we were talking about retreats and having to get away, and I told you I went to Mexico. So I went on a journey to Mexico because I was burning out fast. I was very stressful year.

My book, Menu Pause, came out. It did great. A lot of changes, challenges, some amazingly good and some really you know, bad ones. So I was having a rough year. So I went to Mexico technically for a week and I just had, in the jungle, I just had this time to myself, number one. Number two, did an experiment with ayahuasca. I did ayahuasca eight years ago and then I did it again. And it was a very gentle journey, which is very typical for ayahuasca. And the experience through that, what I learned is that, number one, when you've had trauma and past trauma, it may take you a lot more of these plant medicines to trigger a response.

You may be a low DMT secretor. So that's number one. I learned that and it's kind of interesting. I really haven't seen so much research about it, but in general, that may be something that's going on. And number two is that it doesn't have to be no pain, no gain. You don't have to have pain to get tremendous results. You can feel loved. It can be slow. It can be comfortable. It can be fun. You don't have, like I, for myself, that was a big message that came through plant medicine or having time to myself and my mental space to rest and rebalance.

Becoming, Oxytocin, and Self-Love 18:38

was recognizing that it doesn't have to be painful. I don't have to push the wheelbarrow up a hill to get to where I want to go. And sometimes I do, but I don't have to do that every single day. And I think it's sometimes taking this perspective here in our midlife transition as we're becoming the best next version of ourselves to look at, number one, what are all the things that I love about myself? What makes me this? What do I look at and honor for myself? And I'm doing this in my Girlfriend Doctor Club community.

I have them, when they see a mirror, they're gonna go to that mirror and they're gonna focus on everything they like positive about themselves, or even start with one thing. When you look at that mirror, is your first thought negative or positive? Are you first critical or complimentary? And if you are the latter, awesome. If you are critical, We've got to reprogram your brain. That's part of like EMDR. You can do that. It's part of that recreating really good habits. So you're living in your best self too.

And in life, we have this opportunity to do that. And then we're modeling it for the next generation so that they're focusing on the good in the world and the good in the past. You know, you and I have talked about this before. I am such a believer that as women go through the menopausal journey, they learn about their hormones, they understand their feminine self perhaps for the first time, that we have a bit of a societal responsibility to go back down to the younger generation and start teaching them because they are living in a worse, toxic, physical, emotional, chemical mess than we grew up in.

I also, you brought up, it's so interesting that you're bringing up the journey you did. Cause I just did a journey that was very similar and I did it with, you know, MDMA and psilocybin are going to be legalized in America in a therapy assisted way. Yeah, in the next couple of years. So I actually did an MDMA and psilocybin journey with a therapist and a psychedelic specialist. And what was really interesting was the container of having two beautiful women that were so knowledgeable to sit there with me and lead me and hug me and nurture me through an experience where I could go back and process old traumas.

made me not only feel so incredibly loved, but made me realize that as women, I actually think as we go through menopause, it's a beautiful opportunity for women to gather together and nurture each other. That we have to stop trying to do the menopausal journey alone. We are meant, if you just look at oxytocin, we are meant and built for connection. So how do we, when I look at society, how do we start to create more connection amongst women and not competition, collaboration and comfort each other as we trans, we go through this hormonal, dramatic hormonal change?

What would a world like that look like? Oh my gosh, and I think the first thing that comes to mind is already you're doing it. Keep doing what you're doing, Vindi. And have fun and enjoy it and pace yourself, right? And then the second thing is love who you are. Start with loving who you are. Something I've learned through my own trauma and trying to fix everyone else was that until I focused on myself, on to focus on healing myself and prioritizing myself, my kids weren't healthy until I started doing that.

And then they were like healthy, healthier overnight. They were more at peace, more calm, less, you know, anxious overnight. And it was just because I did. As a woman, right? We're energy. We're energy. We have energy bodies. Are we sucking? You know, the energy into the negative frantic cycle downward, are we vibrating at a high level that's magnetic? Magnetism. I love that word. Magnetism. And magnificent. Are you a magnificent human? You are a magnificent human. You vibrate at a high level. People are drawn to you.

So you got to have your boundaries. You got to have your tank full. And if you don't, you'll be empty. Wow. All the best intentions. That will happen. And so you have to continuously refuel, refill, prioritize, do the little things that matter on a daily basis that are part of the self-love. And I give out in my packages sometimes this postcard that says, self-love is your highest frequency. And I have found that to be so true. I found that to be so true. When we're hormonally a mess and we're exhausted and we're depressed, it's hard to feel that.

So you just have to do one next right step at a time. I feel like if I look at my journey after 40, as I started to lose hormones, I actually did the opposite of what I'm doing now. I turned outside and looked at everybody and I was like, they're annoying me, they're irritable, this situation is bad. It was a very outside-in approach to my own mental health, hoping that everybody in my life would change so I could be happy. No, right? It sounds silly. But then as I came into my season where I sit today is I don't want to lose sight of something you said because it was so brilliant, which is as I've taken ownership over these traumas, as I've taken ownership over my mental health, as I've done the work and gone in and changed my own vibration, I'm looking at everybody around me and I'm like, wow, they're all changing now.

And yet we don't do that just in a society. We don't do that. We are like, you are, you're making my life miserable. But what if there was a reframe of like my something within me is making you reflect back to me what I need to work on. Exactly, or I'm seeing in you what I need to deal with, right? Yes. When you're irritated, when someone rubs you the wrong way, when there is that friction, that electrical friction or physiologic friction, think, okay, well, what is, you know, what is that telling me about me?

Where is there that rub?

Oxyplay, Safety, and Emotional Reframing 24:58

Where's that rough edge that I still? Yes. I mean, I think that's why we can live to be, I'm going to live to be a very old age because there's a lot of rough edges. Oh, me too. Me too, me too. It's a long time. I know, really? That's how I feel. I'm like, shoot, one of my goals is to live over 100. I'm like, if I got to live over 100, I got some work to do on myself to make sure that I can make it there. If you were to create a roadmap for a woman at 40, because I feel like 40 is that pivotal moment where you have an opportunity to start to shift your lifestyle.

And you and I have had so many conversations around the keto green approach, fasting, maca, all those things. I still feel like those are like an exogenous sort of tool. There's a mental health tool that I would love the 40 year olds to know, or even some wisdom that I'd love the 40 year olds to know as they move into that perimenopausal time. And I haven't quite been able to put words to it, which is why I want to have a conversation with you about it. What can we do to help women going into the perimenopausal years from an emotional and mental standpoint to process this stuff that will show up?

Well first it's like the word that comes to me it's oxyplay right that's one of my hashtags right oxyplay oxyplay it's so good you increase oxytocin so everything you can do like think on a daily basis how am i increasing you know how did i increase oxytocin today and that's the first thing because that's the most powerful powerful hormone in our body the most alkalinizing the most anti-aging the hormone that will you know get us to 100 and so So, and when we are stressed, and I'm going to back it up because 35 to 38, I think that's really a transition.

It's the preclinical hormonal changes that are starting during that time that are leading them to dissociate from the work they love, the person they love, their marriage, different things during that time. And if women can look back to that time period from now to what was going on between age 35 to 40, they'll say, I didn't realize it, but my hormones were changing then. I didn't realize I got my hysterectomy or, you know, I had a tuple ligation or I had this change or, you know, I was dealing with as my thyroid started acting up or whatever it may be.

And it's typically that time period. Now that is not defined in Spiroff's endocrinology. I've not seen any new addition of that, addition of that to address that. But it's what, you know, we start asking women, I would ask everyone who's listening, if you're over 40, if you're over 50, what was happening age 35 to 40? happening in the lives around you of that time period. That's when that hormonal imbalance is coming and it's usually higher cortisol, lower oxytocin. to heal from trauma, you need safe space and companionship and like beautiful women that were around you during that time.

You had to feel safe. To have a good orgasm, you have to feel safe, right? And that's pretty oxytocin, oxytocin with an orgasm. So those are things that I think has to be part of that creating safe space, creating safe community, being authentically you, loving your small lines, laugh lines, whatever. Everything naturally on the interior, and exterior inside out and outside in to continue that but to age gracefully and well but to love how you when you look at yourself in the mirror to love the you know battle scars that I show up with really focus on those things so for me it's oxyplank funny movies funny books funny people funny friendships good safe community giving philanthropically all the thing, playing with pets, playing with kids, going to a playground, doing things, stop and stop, stop, stop, stop doing the things you love.

Like keep doing the things you love. Often we take those things out of our schedule because we're too busy. Yeah. And you know, the other thing that happens to us during that transition is we've got kids turning into teenagers. 57 with a 15 year old, can you tell? You're God bless you. Two decades of raising children. Yeah. Yeah. So you've got kids turning into teenagers. You've got aging parents and you've got responsibilities that are mounting. And, you know, again, when I go back and I look at that time period for myself, I just am overwhelmed.

I almost have so much compassion for myself because I didn't oxy play. I got, I got more serious. And the more serious I got, the more hormonal imbalances that I got. So, you know, how in that rushing woman lifestyle with all of these responsibilities, what does oxyplay look like? Do we have to schedule oxyplay? Like, I feel like we need to highlight that. How do we help women free up the seriousness? What it does, it starts with shifting the energy of the day. I think back to when I went from really, really sick, suicidal and inflamed and infertile to being able to smile and laugh again and have my family love me back.

I love them, but I didn't feel like they loved me back. but to feel that authentically. And so I started my day with these three questions I asked myself, and maybe they'll help our listeners too, Mindy, but I always say, where did I see love? And where did I see love today? Or where did I see love yesterday? Where was I loving? Where did I laugh or could I have laughed at myself more? And what am I grateful for? So those three questions on a daily basis, and all those are intended to increase oxytocin.

That creates a shift in your physiology, which we can measure to a more alkaline physiologic state. It reduces the acidity within our mindset, within our physiology. And we can measure that with urine pH. And I think that's a really valuable thing. We can start just looking at what are things that are stressing us out and where do we shift our physiology? you know, through our mindset, let alone our diet and lifestyle, to be more alkaline. And I think if we can start measuring then, that was eye-opening for me because when I figured it out and I started checking my urine pH,

Aging, Beauty, and Natural Feedback 31:27

I was literally peeing acid, like battery acid levels acid, right? It was so stressed. Can be eating the most perfect diet. And if you are in high stress state, if you are in a physiologic distress state, you're going to be acidic. And it's true. When we compile a highly acidic diet to that, that's going to be extra problematic. So you may do well for a little while, but then you'll hit a roadblock. And so I think it's that starting the day and just like what gets measured gets managed. So between using a continuous glucose monitor to see where you're being stressed physiologically, to check in urine pH.

And I think those are, and starting a really important gratitude practice, prayer practice, having a support group. For me, I was part of a group called single, you know, beloved single moms group. And it was humbling for me as the doctor, the well-known, you know, doctor of our small island. But it was critical for me to have that good, safe community that knew what I was going to. Yeah, creating those communities and I think safety is a word that keeps coming up in my menopausal journey is like the body the female body cannot do what you want it to do and this is goes down even into the childbearing ages when you don't feel safe and I think again what I'm pulling from what you're saying and what I'm sort of seeing in my world is that When women come together and we nurture each other and we support each other, that's where safety starts.

And when we're out trying to compete against each other or we're trying to compete against men or play in the same sandbox as a man, like often we don't feel safe. And I think the word that I'm feeling needs to emerge for women right now is where and how can we feel safe? Because when you feel safe, all your hormones will balance. Well, and this is such a key area, right? Because here, how do you address your aging? You're in your 50s, you're seeing these lines come up, and there's fear. So when you're in a state of fear, that's a state of acidity.

When you're in a state of love, soft love, acceptance, you're in a state of alkalinity. So you're either making decisions based on fear or based on love. So if we look at where are we, you know, we're, we're, you know, I just think poor Madonna, like, what was she thinking, right? She had all those fillers and votes. I mean, she doesn't look like her beautiful self. Like I would love to see her natural aging. I know. I know. I'm like, oh my God. And so, you know, was that, that was based on fear.

So actions based on fear will not serve us. Actions based on fear will never serve us. So we first create that safe space for ourselves. Create it with reflecting on the one, maybe it's just one thing that we really love about ourselves. And we build it from there. And then you start training your mind to focus on what you love versus what you don't like. You have to consciously We have to continuously work at it. But what do you think Mindy here, you know, facing 50s, 60s wrinkles? How do you move?

How do you create safety when you're fearing the aging process? Because number one, we have brainwashed to fear it. That's right. Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you for my own self, I just had this the other day where I actually am using my wrinkles and my gray hair as like just an acknowledgement of a wisdom. And then also even just lifestyle. Like the other, like I, you know, we talked when we first started, I've just been out promoting Fast Like a Girl. I'm ready to slow things down. And the other day I looked in the mirror and I was like, Whoa, you got some grays girl.

Like they're showing up. But the way I looked at it was maybe it's time to slow the pace down a little bit. And the gray hairs are just telling you like, Hey, maybe it's moving a little faster than the aging process needs to do. So I, and then I thought, well, I could color them. But I was like, no, I don't want to color them because they're, they're like wisdom strands. They're like there to teach me and show me where my lifestyle fits into the whole aging process. So it's, but I've, I've thought a lot about it, especially in conjunction with the fact that people, you know, celebrities and even how other health influencers are really, you know, botoxing the heck out of themselves.

And sometimes. It's easy to stand up there and say, my lifestyle, look how amazing it is. Look how amazing my skin is. And we don't realize that that person has manipulated it in some synthetic way. I feel like the natural aging process is feedback for me. If I allow. Yeah, I'm so glad you said that because it is absolutely and I feel the same way like using my wrinkles using whether I'm hydrated or dehydrated as I am still covering my gray hairs. There's just so there's a few there but I'm still like I'm not I'm not there.

Yeah and some people have a lot of gray like I have friends that say if I didn't color it I'd be completely gray and I understand. It can be incredibly beautiful so. It could be. Yeah I'm just hearing that. to cut my hair. But eventually, I do play with that idea. But as far as my fine lines and wrinkles and laugh lines and smile lines and joy lines, I think that is also that feedback. I don't want to eliminate that feedback mechanism. And what we know from neuroscience is that when someone has Botox, their facial expressions away, they're not as well connected to their partner.

or they're not a, you don't feel that connection, that connection piece is there because you're not that other person, even if they're botox the heck out of themselves or whatever, isn't getting that feedback. Those visual clues that we have been, for what, 10,000 years, designed to read. And so, you know, and I don't want a barrier of connection to my granddaughter. I want to see when I'm smiling. And you have such a beautiful smile. Yes. I want her to feel love from me in every way.

Elders, Wisdom, and Cultural Respect 37:38

And I want my kids to own, I have four daughters, you know, from age 15 to 34. I want them to own their beauty. I want them to own their beauty. And I think that's what I want everyone listening to. Each one of us has tremendous gifts, tremendous beauty, tremendous purposes, and not you know, discount battle wounds and scars that we've had. Oh yeah, I've got my creams and potions, my hair formulas, my lip formulas. Yeah, you're right. That's awesome. Wrinkles down there though, I'm telling you, no wrinkles down there.

You know, use this in a second and up here, you know, but I'm going to do everything I can, you know, without. But it's all natural. Yeah, it's all natural. I have no problem with the natural and I, I'm all into that for sure. But I love what you said about your connection with your granddaughter because you know, one day I was telling my husband, I'm like, I'd love for my furrowed brow to just, I'd just like to Botox that and just make it go away. And he said, are you kidding me? When I look at you with that furrowed brow, it reminds me what a deep thinker you are.

And that's what I fell in love with. And I was like, oh my God, like, and he's right. I am a very intense thinker. My daughter has the same sort of furrowed brow. And I was like, oh my gosh, why would we want to hide that, that just because we are trying to stay looking like a certain age. And, you know, it leads me to my next deep thought. which is the post-menopausal women, the 60 and the 70 and the 80-year-old women, in doing some current research on how other cultures have really looked at menopause.

Indonesia, for example, when a woman goes a full year without her period, she's now an elder in the community. They actually turn to her as for wisdom, and they turn to her for advice, everybody in the village. But we don't do that. We have tossed our 60, 70, 80 year olds aside and we don't realize the wisdom that is sitting there. An amazing example of this is Jane Fonda. If you look at what Jane Fonda is up to, one of the most interesting conversations I heard this year was a conversation between Jane Fonda and Alex Cooper.

If you're not familiar with Alex Cooper, she has the number one Spotify podcast. She's 28 years old and she is like leading the charge of the younger women and, and helping women stand up for themselves. And she with Jane and Jane Fonda, who's in her eighties are having this beautiful conversation of what it looks like to be a female activist. And you can see Alex just look at Jane with so much admiration, like, teach me, you've gone ahead of me, teach me how I can stand up for myself as a woman.

How can we lean into our post-menopausal women? How can we bring back their wisdom because our society has just pushed them aside? Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you're saying this. And I think this is, this is the challenge of this society, you know, first generation American. So I look back to my mom's culture and I look back to my mom Middle Eastern, from Palestine, Christian Palestinian Arab, my dad Portuguese. And I think of, I think of their cultures and I think of how like family stuck together.

Like it's multi-generational households. You know, they care for within your home, within your neighborhood, within your village or whatever it may be within your city. you're close together and you're honoring all ages, but the elders are revealed, the matriarchs of the family honored. Women elders in the family are honored and respected and treated with respect by all ages. There's not one person that's going to back talk my Aunt Helen. No one's going to do it, right? I mean, they're not going to do it and they take care of them.

And I think that's, you know, and listen to them. And I think that is That is critical to a culture's survival. When you see cultures that are tossing away their elders, aren't listening to the advice and the experiences that they have, then we are losing that society that is not going to be. a first world culture for much longer, my opinion. So what would span the test of time? It's the generational knowledge and loving on those generations, bringing the families back home and close together. Yeah.

Do you think our patriarchal society will accept the aging woman as an elder and as a wise source of information? Well, I think this is interesting. I think, you know, like thinking about men will, you know, I'm a dating woman in my mid fifties, I'm 57 now. So I have talked to many men in their, you know, in their fifties and sixties and around this age time. And so what I found is that, you know, it's like the biggest thing they want is, you know, people want is connection, to be heard, to be seen.

So how are we showing up as, you know, as older women? Are we showing up receptive, kind, compassionate, interested? Are we castrating our men still? So how are we showing up? So I think to me, when I think of the word patriarch, I think of power. When I think of the word matriarch, I think of nurture. And to me, they both have both valid and there's a way for them to come together. And I feel like in the pandemic, it disrupted so much and everybody's questioning so many things. And I feel like there's a blending of the patriarch and the matriarch that now it needs to show up.

And I feel like it's conversations like this. It's talking hormones to our male counterparts and helping them understand us and our hormonal journey. It's letting men be soft. I think there's a softness in general that both men and women need to have. We have been push, push, push, perform, produce. It doesn't have to be no pain, no gain, right? You don't have pain to have gain. It can be soft. And be nice. Like down even to, I don't know if you know that New Zealand has just implemented a four-day work week.

Community, Menopower, and Closing Thoughts 43:58

And there, and you know, I think you and I have talked about Spain has implemented a three-day menstrual leave. Like we're starting to understand that we need as just humans, both men and women, we need to slow down. That constant production is destroying us. And then I take it back to the menopausal woman and how can we honor her as she goes through menopause and steps into that throne position of her wisdom that she has beyond any other year in her life? How do we support her as she takes ownership over that?

Well, first, I mean, yeah, I think it's important to see as a culture how we can do it. And it starts always with the microcosm and then we go to the macrocosm. So it starts with each and every one of us owning that space. Right? Modeling it, modeling it for others. And the other generations will catch on. What are we doing well? What aren't we doing well? And I think it always, I always come back to the individual, the individual woman going through this time, the pressure cooker, maybe during that pressure cooker years, forties to fifties, that, you know, we've got to shift our priorities in our life.

shift our physiology, shift our mindset, right? Focus it, you know, to get into that highest frequency of self-love, that high vibration energy and check in with ourselves to know when we're not, when we're out of sync. When we're in that high stress, high cortisol, low heart rate variability state, right? Where we ship this, we have to like look at these at the individual level to start with us. How as a company, how as a boss, can I support others through this transition? I mean, I think it's part of that autonomy, flexibility, accessibility, like come talk to me.

What's going on? What do you need? What lights you up? What doesn't light you up? Are you not lit up because you've got stress on at home? Or you've been given a medication that's making you feel a little crazy? What are the underlying triggers to why you're not feeling lovely and energetic and passionate about what you're doing? What's going on with you? And I think that's the challenge both ways. It's a challenge as a boss in my little world. It's a challenge as an individual, as a woman at 57. And it's a challenge as a society.

But I think having these conversations and talking with girlfriends, creating community, having like menopause cafe breaks or whatever it may be. Oh yeah, I love it. I was talking with a woman who's a PhD, as a professor, and she said, should be menopowerful. I love that. And I thought we should come out, because I love playing the birds, we should combine the practice of positivity with positivity, with pauses in our lives. Oh, that was so well said. That was so well said. Well, again, you know, I just, this is sort of some new theories that I've got going on in my head as I'm going through my own menopausal journey.

You know, things like watching, I know Oprah is out there talking about menopause for the first time, but what has broken my heart is how much she's talking about Chartie as like the only answer. And I appreciate she's cracked open a conversation, which is amazing. But I think those of us that are out there publicly talking about menopause, it's our job to now create a softness around it, to create a container in which women feel heard, to teach women lifestyle, to have conversations like this. Because we have had this cultural hush around menopause that we don't talk about it.

And now it's being talked about, but nobody really knows how to direct the conversation in a positive way, freaking love that positive P-A-U-S-E way. And so I just, I appreciate you. I can talk to you forever. I could talk to you forever, too. And I'm glad you're having this conversation because while I'm a hormone prescriber, I'm a hormone expert, and it takes more than hormones to fix our hormones. So let's not lose sight of that. And let's do it. If we're going to do it, we have to do it the right way, not with synthetic hormones.

And physicians should be empowered to compound and customize using the art of medicine in their practice for their hormones. All of these things are being taken away. from us because it's unfamiliar. Most physicians were not taught in residencies or med schools about customizing hormonal therapy for women. And that is key in my experience in working with women and working with my own physiology and really optimizing the results. A little bit goes a long way, and like I said, these high doses of hormones and practices of using birth control pills to control symptoms and menopause is creating a barrier to that transition to emerge from what I like to call the cocoon of reproductive years as the butterfly.

Yeah, amazing. Well, I adore you. Where can people find you just so everybody knows where connect with me at dranna.com. So dranna.com a lot of good information on my website. You can come check out my podcast anywhere you listening to podcast at the girlfriend doctor, the girlfriend doctor show. And at the Girlfriend Doctor on social media. You got to listen to a couple of Mindy and my podcast too. They're pretty damn amazing. Super fun. Come join us. And yeah, I'd love to continue to help and support everyone.

When I started doing Mindy because community is so important, new subscribers to my website, to my email, to my products. meet them in a welcome call where it's like this, a small group of us. And I'm doing this once a week and I have, you know, half a dozen, a dozen people on at a time out of the thousands that get the invitation. Like there's, I would say these are the one in a thousand that show up to have a small group conversation with me. But I think that's part of it, like community. And that's my little thing that I can do to help bring people closer together and see other faces and they know they're not alone.

Yeah, amazing. Well, I adore you. Thank you so much for this conversation and go, everybody go find Dr. Anna because she's, as you hopefully observed today, a wealth of information. So just appreciate you. Thank you for everything you're doing. Thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health. Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your well-being. For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website, www.doctortalks.com.

Stay connected, stay healthy, and join us next time on Doctor Talks, real talks from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most.