Latest / The Cyclical Doula Podcast: Fertility Awareness, Charting Cycles, and Reproductive Health Education / From Symptoms to Signals: Women’s Hormone Health with Athena Newell
Transcript
- Emmamma: Hey all, I absolutely loved my conversation with Athena. Unfortunately, the last minutes of it didn't upload ⁓ and so we lost that part of the recording. ⁓ generally sum up, Athena was sharing a little bit more about her specific practice at Stat Wellness and how to find her. ⁓ could find her, I'll put all of the links in the show notes, ⁓ you can find her on Instagram at athenanewellfnp ⁓ emmamma: back. Today, I am really looking forward to sharing this conversation with you. I'm joined with Athena, who is a family nurse practitioner, a functional medicine provider and the president and co-founder of Stat Wellness Charleston. Athena's work sits at the intersection of conventional medicine, functional diagnostics and lifestyle based care with a deep respect for hormones, metabolism, gut health and the nervous system. Emmamma: Thanks so much for being here today on the cyclical doula podcast. If this episode resonated with you, the most powerful thing that you can do is to share it, send it to a friend, text it to your sister, forward it to that group chat. This is how conversations about our bodies start changing, quietly, organically, woman to woman. you are listening and thinking, ⁓ ⁓ want help applying this to my and her website is athenanewell.com ⁓ But I so appreciated her sharing all of those things. And you can also find her ⁓ on Stat Wellness's website, which I will also link. And if you're in places other than the Charleston area, can ⁓ find Stat Wellness. ⁓ emmamma: I am so excited to have this conversation with her. I appreciate that her approach doesn't just treat symptoms as but as something that we're looking at the signals for. Emmamma: I offer free cycle clarity calls. It's a relaxed conversation over Zoom we talk through your goals, your charting practices, and kind of support that would actually make sense for you. can book one at emmamma.com / free. And if you already, make sure you're following or subscribe to the Cyclical Doula - podcast so that you don't miss future episodes. other locations through their website as well and scheduling a 15 minute call with Athena can be a great way to get ⁓ information about if their practice would be right for you and the support that you need. So thanks so much for being here. Thank you for listening to this episode and I hope you found some great insight in it and I really appreciate Athena being on it. emmamma: Thanks so much for being here and I'm so excited to have this conversation. Athena Newell: Thank you so much for having me. I love this. emmamma: Awesome. So before we get into like what you do and all the deep stuff, tell us a little bit more about just who you are as a human being. Athena Newell: Yeah. ⁓ so yeah, I mean, obviously I'm professionally a nurse practitioner with a background in emergency medicine and family practice and functional medicine. But outside of my day job, I am a wife to a wonderful, supportive, incredible husband. And I have three kids who are, you know, between, you know, early middle school, preteen age and ⁓ elementary school. So I have a girl and two boys. Emmamma: And if you feel called to leave a rating or review, it genuinely helps more women find this work. So thank you. You deserve to understand body. You deserve to feel confident in your reproductive choices. And you ⁓ have to figure it out alone. I'll see you next week. Thanks for being here. Athena Newell: keep me very very busy but they are delightful and I love exercising I have always loved exercising and that is just something that has not I mean I know not everyone is like this but for me that is just something of like it just feels so much of who I am that my whole life I have been active regardless of what season and stage of life it changes it's evolved but that is just something that's just so part of like stitched into who I am so I really really love activity and so act outside emmamma: Mm-hmm. Athena Newell: of my very demanding life, exercise has got to, it's just mental health for me, know. ⁓ Nutrition, I love nutrition, so like outside of, ⁓ you know, that I love exercising and I love reading, so that's a little bit about me. emmamma: Yeah. Awesome. Thanks so much for sharing. Do you have a particular you mentioned exercise so I feel like this could be possibly but do you have a particular particular rhythm or ritual that you like continually go back to? Athena Newell: That's a really good question because like I could I could spend an hour talking about emmamma: Yeah! Athena Newell: exercise has kind of like evolved over time for me and you know even beliefs that I may be believed at one point about a style of exercise that was right or wrong and how I feel about them now it's like constantly evolving. So but I would say like my routine is pretty consistent as far as like how much time I dedicate to it and like my like philosophy around it is like it's it's something that is like a non-negotiable but also flexible like it has to kind of fit into my life so like emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Athena Newell: I did a year ago when before I opened my business and what I do now is not the same. Like I don't have time to do as much as I did at that point. So now it's just got to change. So strength training has always, I would say since I was in like early, you know, in college, I've always been in strength training, but it used to be more of like a crossfit based, you know, or like the party tricks and the fun and da da da. Like I used to do, I did strength training in that way. ⁓ I actually didn't even rewind when I was in high school. emmamma: Yeah. Athena Newell: and I played sports in high school at like a very like average school, but the athletes had a class. So instead of doing PE, we did more of like a sport specific PE. And so I started lifting weights in high school. So I was learning about like doing a clean and doing squats and bench press and all of those things. So then whenever I like went into like transitioned into CrossFit years later, it felt like a natural transition that I wasn't afraid of a barbell. And so I kind of went from emmamma: Yeah. Mmm. Yeah. Emmamma: Welcome to the Cyclical Doula podcast. I'm Emma, a certified fertility awareness educator, miscarriage doula and the founder of Emmamma Athena Newell: and CrossFit for 10 years, like a long time, and then COVID happened and we were out of the gym. And then I transitioned to just like weight training at home. So I've kind of always done weight training, I guess. It was just kind of looked different in different stages. So I do really, really like lifting heavy weights. I'm not afraid of it. Yeah. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. That's so cool. It's something that like I'm hoping to get better at as I go through learning because I think it's one of those things that like, didn't have like that's not that's not been something part of my experience. So like getting into that mindset is really tricky of just like getting into the rhythm of it specifically for me. Athena Newell: Yeah, yeah, and I do think that some of us are just like, it's intimidating. It can be really intimidating and what do I do if I'm at a gym? Like what machines do I use? What's right? What's wrong? Like if you haven't done it and you don't know how it feels, like how do we know that this is like right or wrong or what? It's just a lot. It's a lot to digest. emmamma: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what drew you into working with women's health and functional medicine specifically? Because I know that's what you do primarily. Athena Newell: Yeah, great question. mean, as kind of having this like... exercise based background. also have ⁓ a bachelor's degree in exercise science. I thought I wanted to go into physical therapy and I did not. So I kind of have like this like really ⁓ like organic way of like I've kind of lived my life in a very like functional movement sort of way that ⁓ as I went into like the conventional medicine field and believing that lifestyle was so necessary for just like basic quality health care. Emmamma: This space is for women who want to understand their bodies deeply, not just memorize information, but actually feel confident in interpreting their cycles. Here we talk about ovulation, hormones, cervical mucus, basal body temperature, and all that's messy in between emotional layers that come with being woman. We talk about trying to conceive, avoiding pregnancy ⁓ hormones. emmamma: Yeah. Athena Newell: And I learned about functional medicine at some point, kind of transitioning into my nursing ⁓ degree. I found out that functional medicine was more of a root cause approach to medicine and it just was like a duh thing. of course, instead of treating medical conditions with pills as our number one resource, like why are we not using lifestyle as our number one resource? It's so obvious. So it just felt like a very natural thing for me to kind of like grab emmamma: Mm-hmm. Emmamma: postpartum transitions, pregnancy loss, perimenopause, and everything in between. Because body literacy isn't just about charting. It's about the autonomy. It's about informed consent. It's about not outsourcing your reproductive decisions to guesswork or fear. Each week, you'll hear conversations with women's health professionals, ⁓ workers, ⁓ emmamma: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Athena Newell: And at that point in time, like there wasn't many functional medicine providers, let alone training for that sort of thing. So I didn't really even know where to start, but I just knew that it was out there. And so, you know, I went through my nursing program. went into went into emergency medicine, which feels very contrary, but emergency medicine is so necessary. we have great high quality emergency and acute medical care. But then there's just this such a contrast because in the emergency Emmamma: and researchers along with solo episodes where I teach practical skills you can apply to your own cycle right away. if you have ever felt like you should have learned this information sooner, if you have ever felt disconnected from your cycle, emmamma: right. Mm-hmm. Yes. ⁓ Emmamma: If you want to raise the next generation without shame around their bodies, you are in the right place. So grab your tea, open up your notes app, and let's build a cycle confidence together. Athena Newell: a lot of the patients that you see are coming in for preventable issues, whether it's ⁓ congestive heart failure, COPD, diabetes, these are things that lifestyle can make a significant difference in improving those. And obviously there's some level that we can't control, but there's a lot we can. And then there's such a disconnect, I think, between patient education and the time that we allow for patient education. ⁓ emmamma: Mmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. ⁓ Athena Newell: and how we connect the dots to them understanding that this is something you can control. So it's just kind of like, do think like our medical system is a little broken in that way. So, I was always drawn to that like preventable disease looking at things. And then as I went into my nurse practitioner program, which was family practice, we're kind of like the gateway into medical care. we're very much like the quarterback, I guess you could say of like, this is the direction that you emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Athena Newell: need to go. So that was my foundation of like family practices, very broad. And then after working in family practice, I was fortunate enough to find a medicine and movement functional medicine practice in Atlanta in 2019. And that was just like the unicorn of a place. There isn't anything like stat wellness. And even at the time I knew that there is nothing like this practice in the world and the country, you know, where we're preparing emmamma: Right. Athena Newell: movement and medicine together in a very holistic way. So it was kind of like this very like cool organic thing of like one path just led to another path. It just led to another path that I never, it wasn't ever forced. So really cool. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah, it's so awesome. And I think like you can talk about stat as much as you want, but I think like stat wellness has like such a cool like philosophy, like you said, like it's so niche of like being able to put that wellness aspect and that medical aspect as well as movement and like adding in nutrition and adding all of these things that just like. well-rounded human being in one place and one support system is, I know there's multiple providers and professionals within that, but that it's all just like right there is so great. Athena Newell: Yeah, and I think that like even within the holistic world and the conventional medicine world, like our medicine is so siloed where it's like you go to the GI or you go to your endocrinologist that refers you to a dietitian, but they don't ever talk or you go to a personal trainer that doesn't understand what your doctor is recommending. Like it's just, there's no communication. Even if those supports are maybe recommended or referred to you, it's like, there's just little communication and collaboration. Finding collaboration between providers outside of their own system. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Athena Newell: is like, it's like impossible almost. ⁓ But that's why we wanted to create like a wellness home where we really do collaborate. Like I really do text my patient's dietician and say like, hey, this is where I'm at. What are you seeing? And how can we support this patient? And there's been times I get messages from them saying like, hey, I'm concerned about this. What do you think? You know, and it's like a very, I mean, like really we are collaborating and it's just a very, very cool thing. And I think it's just such a great resource. emmamma: Yeah. Mmm. Yeah. Athena Newell: to our patients. emmamma: Absolutely. So amazing. So we could talk about so many different things, feel like, but let's talk about women's health specifically today, at least. So when you see women coming in, I feel like so many women, for a variety of reasons, are either confused by symptoms they're having or feel like they're not listened to in traditional medical fields. So what is the first thing that you usually notice with women? Athena Newell: So, let's get out. Right. we have to kind of look at that by age and stage. I mean, you know, the types of symptoms that a 20 something might experience versus a mid to late 30 something versus a 50 something like there's going to be some like hallmark things I think that are most common. So, yeah, I mean, and and that's even, you know, just to put myself in the story a little bit of like the 20 somethings that I was like, you know, started having. that's another reason why I kind of like got into functional medicine as I started having hormonal symptoms after emmamma: Okay, yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Athena Newell: being like the most basic Sally when it comes to hormones for a long time. Stress was very, very high at this stage in my life. had two kids fresh out of grad school firing on all cylinders and I started having like menstrual abnormalities spotting between cycles, heart palpitations late in my cycle, anxiety I'd never experienced even having high stress. And I knew being a family nurse practitioner that if I went to my NOB, a PCP, their answers would likely be birth control. And I knew that that was an emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yes. Athena Newell: an answer for me and that's when I went another route. I'm unique and most people I think at that point in time, just from an education standpoint, don't know like, okay, well, if that's what my doctor tells me to do, maybe that's the best I've got. You don't have any other frame of reference to know. I mean, we have chat GBT now that maybe would have changed things for like the general population. So I would say for somebody in their 20s, common symptoms are like acne, which it's kind of like, is that my emmamma: For sure, yeah. Mm-hmm. Athena Newell: in my routine, like it could be, there's lots of reason why you can have acne that certainly can be hormonal, know, spotting between cycles, heavy, painful cycles, short cycles, long cycles. That's probably like the most common things that I'll see in my, in the, in the twenties mood. ⁓ my gosh, can we not ignore mood and how our hormones are just so integrated with that. And I really do find even in my patients in their twenties, emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Athena Newell: that their progesterone is low affecting their mental health and there is no regard for it in your 20s. ⁓ Trying to conceive, obviously have some sort of issues with trying to conceive, whether it's like, you you're having symptoms and having trouble conceiving or you're not having symptoms and you're having trouble conceiving. I do also think progesterone is overlooked. Once we kind of head into our 30s, I think women start having some symptoms, even though their periods haven't started to change. emmamma: Yeah. Athena Newell: is certainly one of body composition change despite doing it all right or no change in habits. Having painful cycles after having babies is really common and then obviously later into the 40s is when we start having brain fog, joint pain, period abnormalities. it's you know it kind of you know it depends on what stage that they're in ⁓ but gosh I feel like something that carries through for all age and stage is emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Athena Newell: And we really can support hormones as a way of supporting mental health that I think is just conventionally so overlooked. emmamma: Yeah. Absolutely. So tell me what that looks like practically. Obviously, like make up a situation or a scenario and not medical advice, but just a general knowledge base. Athena Newell: sure. Sure. I would say, you know, obviously there's shades of gray here, but I think a really common thing that we'll see regardless of age is that patients are having like an increase in anxiety and maybe they, you know, it kind of comes and goes ⁓ and they're not really sure why. ⁓ And maybe they notice it, maybe they don't, but it's linked to the later part of their cycle. So it could be the last two weeks of the cycle. It really could be the last week of their cycle. And then they have their period and they feel like the fog is lifted and they're like, emmamma: Yes. Athena Newell: I feel so much better actually after I start my period. So that's really something you can see at like any age. ⁓ Like I said, because if it's connected to your progesterone levels, poor sleep and insomnia can be worse around that time, which it can also result in like trouble conceiving or maintaining a pregnancy. You might see, you know, unfortunately like miscarriages because checking progesterone is not something that we do in conventional medicine. Was never taught about it. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Nope, not at all. Nope. Yeah. Athena Newell: in my control training. Maybe we'll start checking it ⁓ after you've had a few miscarriages, unfortunately, but at start it's something that we check on if it makes sense and somebody's not on birth control, if they're wide open. We'll check in on every patient. Yeah. emmamma: Cycling on their own. Yeah. And do you check it multiple times throughout what somebody thinks their cycle is? Athena Newell: Really good question. I try to find the sweet spot between convenience and data, right? Like, of course, in a perfect world, we would get labs drawn during your like, kind of follicular like day, you know, you three, four or five, like we would do that and luteal, I do mid luteal, but for the sake of convenience for my patients, I really do mostly do mid luteal. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's super cool. think one of the things that I, because the work that I do is so focused on cycle tracking, I always remind patients that are clients that I work with, like when you go as a patient to see somebody and they say midlutial, make sure you know when ovulation has taken place so that it's actually your midlutial and not just some random time in your cycle, which. Athena Newell: Exactly. Yeah. Right, and that, you know, and it's trying to find, like, there's some patients that are so detailed that they know all of those things, and then there's other people who don't. So we're kind of guessing a little bit. You know, based on their symptoms, I will sometimes say, hey, based on what I'm seeing here, I think we should actually do day 16 or day 20. You know, so we'll kind of like, our range is 18 to 22 for like a 20 to 30 day cycle, but 100%. And we'll have to, mean, with that, based on, you know, on some patients, emmamma: Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Yeah. for sure. Athena Newell: that end up on maybe a progesterone replacement or some sort of thing like that. Like we don't want to start progesterone too soon before ovulation. So sometimes we really do need to know like, hey, you need to wait until you ovulate to take progesterone. That's a really great point. emmamma: Yes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so that's so cool. And you mentioned, I like I am wondering this as a knowledge base, if you know, so when people are experiencing anxiety, you said like sometimes people are experiencing it for like those two weeks of the luteal phase and sometimes it's just one-ish. Do you feel like it's because of like the, there's for some people like they have... weak progesterone for like or lower progesterone for that whole luteo phase or some people have it for like their progesterone's fine and then it like drops significantly like is that something that you see or do you know? Athena Newell: Right. And because the way we generally function, we're not necessarily checking like, I love them, I love them, but that's probably not something I'm necessarily going to ask my patients to do. But it depends. It depends on the patient because sometimes they're interested in it. And I'm like, great, let's do that. If you want to do urine tests every single day and you're checking your estrogen, your progesterone, your luteal hormones, all of those things, what are they like? Mira, like there's a few products. emmamma: Yeah, that's true. You're not turning like daily. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, mirror is probably the one that's the most accurate right now. Yeah. Athena Newell: I do think that there is, it's both hands, right? Like I do think that patients feel like it's kind of weak the whole time, or it's that last two days of the cycle that we just take a nose dive in our hormones. ⁓ emmamma: Yeah, yeah. Athena Newell: would say like for perimenopause symptoms, like you might check their labs and they kind of look picture perfect. And I'll tell them, let's hold this open-handed ⁓ because they will notice a nose dive ⁓ and their symptoms maybe suggest low estrogen like night sweats, but only during ⁓ when they start period when the estrogen gets really low. ⁓ So, ⁓ emmamma: Yeah. ⁓ interesting. Athena Newell: I do think that it's both and. do think, I think symptoms are more concentrated to the last week, but if we really want to support progesterone in like maintaining some stability, start doing that like two weeks I think can be helpful, but they're flexible. ⁓ emmamma: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And so obviously, like, there's progesterone supplements out there that are helping people so much, but do you do more research into, why somebody's not producing progesterone really well? Athena Newell: Yeah, that's a good question. mean, obviously being a root cause approach ⁓ to medicine, we kind of take a both and approach. I like to try and do both where I'm doing like short term, long term. Where I'm like, I want you to do better ASAP. Right. emmamma: Right, for sure. Like, let's function for right now and also, yeah. Athena Newell: Right, and it kind of depends on their capacity of like, were they ready for this to be like fixed like ⁓ yesterday or do they have a little bit of bandwidth of like, yeah, this isn't great, but like we have some time to like really work on root cause. And so it kind of depends on like, are we doing short term long term at the same time? So I do really think that adrenal slash stress make, have a big impact on our brain's perception of threat. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yes. ⁓ Athena Newell: And because we know that our HPA axis, our hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal axis effects, or gonads, our sex hormones, that pathway matters, whether we like it or not. And so I do think like the stress that we experience, but it doesn't necessarily have to be emotional stress. It could be physical stress, meaning what about an autoimmune disease that is threatening the safety of our body? What about the gut infection that we've been experiencing? emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yes. Right. Yeah. Athena Newell: What about, you know, like there, can kind of come up with a lot of physical issues that also cause our brain to perceive stress. So I do think autoimmune patients are a great example of like how they can have trouble conceiving because there is this like brain body connection happening. So I do think like adrenals matter. Sometimes it's like activities to support ⁓ that perception. Sometimes we use, you know, supplements like ashwagandha and rhodiola and all of those emmamma: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Athena Newell: So anyway, there's stress adrenal peace. I do think autoimmune matters as a root cause. I do think gut support matters, inflammation, blood sugar. So yeah, it really does come to like that person and the why. how are all of the symptoms lining up or their medical history lining up to say like what's going on under that? emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Mm Right, right, right. Yeah, because I'm sure you can see more than just that like one thing that's there as you talk to somebody and get to know them and yeah. Athena Newell: Great job. Yeah, there's probably something else going on. And that's why we take an hour for our new patient visits to get their medical dialogue. We say our timeline where like a timeline really, really matters. So if you go back to like birth, you know, or puberty or what happened in your early 20s, 30s, 40s, you know, like you can really understand a lot about how a person's body functions if you really go back in time, which obviously we don't, we don't have time for at in our emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Athena Newell: appointment, you know? ⁓ So yeah, I think that that's all kind of part of like painting the picture. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah, I can't imagine that so helpful because as somebody goes through all of those like life circumstances, they might be like, ⁓ like that one thing that happened when I was a teenager might be also influencing all of these other things that could be a factor of all of the other experiences that you're having with these symptoms and stuff like that. Athena Newell: Yes. I think that's something that can be overlooked that we can pull out during, know, pull out during a new patient visit is like trauma. I do think that there's a lot that we don't know about how our bodies respond ⁓ after traumatic experiences. And I do think that at STAT we do see patients that are just having trouble with breakthrough that it's like, okay, well, we've done everything. We've done all the stool testing. We've done everything you can possibly imagine. And until we can kind of pull some like trauma processing out, it's like the body keeps the score, you know? So that's another root cause thing that you're not gonna see in kind emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Athena Newell: conventional practice. Yeah. emmamma: Right. Yeah. Amazing. So you also mentioned that progesterone not being ⁓ produced well or being low can cause problems with trying to conceive and miscarriages and all of those things. So that's that's obviously like one aspect to that. But what else do you like to work with and look into when somebody is trying to conceive and just like wants to like be the best version of themselves going into it? Athena Newell: Yeah, the other side of the progesterone coin is estrogen, like having not too much and not too little estrogen. And so we're definitely looking at that. And there's kind of symptoms associated with both. Like sometimes you can kind of tell without even looking at labs, like, I bet that they have a high estrogen or I bet that they have low estrogen and progesterone and estrogen, like they work so synergistically together. So that's why I think progesterone is like an ignored hormone, generally speaking, but we want to make sure that we don't have too much emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Athena Newell: or too little estrogen. So we're definitely looking at that and ways to support that. Adrenal support obviously is baseline. I like to look at AMHs depending on the patient. I think that's a very proactive thing to do because there are things that we can do to help support ovarian AMH is connected to ovarian health. Same thing, not too much or too little. High AMH is typically associated with things like PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome, which has implications for consent. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Athena Newell: and fertility. ⁓ And then too low is also a problem. We're thinking like diminished ovarian reserve where it's like, maybe you're not, don't have, do you have enough eggs to make babies? Which even that marker is imperfect. I've seen patients go and have egg retrievals for their own, know, egg freezing and things like that. And they had a low AMH and they're worried about their conception. And then they have a great, you know, great production if you were, it's an imperfect marker, but I do use it as like a piece emmamma: Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Athena Newell: of information. look at FSH and LH depending on the patient. ⁓ That can kind of tell me how well the brain is communicating with the ovaries. ⁓ Thyroid function is super important. We really hold a tight window for thyroid function when we're talking about conception and hormones kind of in general, ⁓ especially for fertility. I would say for other reasons it's important but kind of indirectly related. emmamma: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Athena Newell: ⁓ Inflammation. We look at CRPs. That's kind of related to everything. Blood sugar. We've kind of, I've talked about a few. So connected. We're like one body and all of our systems communicate. So they really do influence one another. emmamma: Mm. Yeah, it's all connected. ⁓ Yeah, and I think it's important to acknowledge the fact that like, if you're trying to be like the most healthy version of yourself, like that it doesn't matter what your reproductive intentions are in that season, the same the same things apply for sure. Athena Newell: Exactly. I always talk to my patients about like, it's helpful for me to know whether you are aren't going, you know, trying to conceive or planning to conceive. However, increasing your reproductive health is increasing your fertility. Like they're just in the same, but sometimes we might adjust like how aggressive we are based on your goals, you know, like sometimes we'll do lifestyle based things first instead of doing pharmaceutical for instance. So. emmamma: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, so I feel like so often in the like trying to conceive world, there's all of these supplements out there that like they're like, you should take this and you should take this and you should do this. What like really should somebody do other than like going through their like specific needs of what they need for their body specifically? Athena Newell: Thank Yeah, like if you haven't had your labs drawn and you don't have a frame of reference of like what's going on under the hood. mean lifestyle first always, right? Like if we're just generally, every single one of us taking care of, I really say it's five, maybe six. We can say the six is like somewhat like, you know, optional, but five basics are how are we sleeping? We need to sleep. We need to rest and digest, right? Like we need to be like recovering every night. So generally speaking. emmamma: Yeah. ⁓ huh. Okay. Yep. And what does that look like? Like how long? Yeah. Athena Newell: What do mean? Like, ⁓ I mean, I really do think like seven to eight hours, I mean, eight in a perfect world of restful sleep, right? Like not just sleeping, but restful sleep. And there's so much you could talk about and like optimizing your rhythm and deep and light and all of those things. know, sleep, sleep and sleep quality, ⁓ stress management. We can only do so much of that, but there are some things we can't control ⁓ relationships. We really need to feel safe and supported by the people around us. So they're like those emmamma: Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes. ⁓ Nope. Mmm. Yeah. Athena Newell: or those are really important. then the obvious things like how we eat, know, everybody's a little different, but I really like to say whole foods. Like there's, there's a lot, there's not a lot of question about the benefit of eating whole foods, meaning like chicken is chicken, broccoli is broccoli. And then we don't have to worry about like, is it a chemical? Is it not a chemical? Like as whole food based as possible. And then we, it makes it very clear. And then, you know, not too much or too little. We don't want people under eating. We don't emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yes. Athena Newell: and overeating, like both of those things matter. ⁓ ⁓ And then preferably movement that you like is the preference. So like we don't want you to like ⁓ dread and hate the type of that you're doing because somebody told you that it's what you should be doing. ⁓ We want you do it because it brings you joy and helps like ease, ⁓ know, stress and of those things. So we want you to move. So those are the basics. And then the sixth one is we have to kind of talk about our environment is toxins, ⁓ whether we like or not. emmamma: Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hmm. Yes. Athena Newell: the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the food that we put in our body, it is becoming more and more toxic. So I do think that like the microplastics and the hyper-processed and the chemicals, like they are taking a toll to some degree. So that's kind of like number six that like, you know, everybody's going to be a little bit different on how extreme they want to take it because we can't die on every hill. So that's why I say that five things are the most important. And the six are like, if you want to take it a step farther, that one's going to be pretty emmamma: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Athena Newell: beneficial for all of us. Like, can't hurt to care about toxins, you know? So I do think that those are the basics for everyone because I think if we're feeling like whole and safe and we're doing kind of the best we can in all of those departments and hopefully our body is really functioning optimally, right? And ⁓ so that's like probably the basics. And then like as far as like supplements go, it really should be like supplementing, right? Like if you're eating a food-based colorful diet, you really shouldn't need a ton of vitamins and nutrients emmamma: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, for sure. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Athena Newell: although a lot of us don't get enough vitamin D. I check vitamin D on every single patient and generally speaking, all of us are deficient. So I do think we need more because we stay inside more. We're animals that have become indoor cats. We just don't get enough vitamin D by being outside. So I do think a lot of us need more vitamin D. I do think based on our diet, we don't get enough like healthy plant-based ⁓ fats or omega-3s, whether it's plant-based or not. So I do think a lot of people do. emmamma: Mmm. Yes. Yeah. Athena Newell: end up needing a bit more omegas in their diet. ⁓ I do see that a lot of patients need B vitamins. So I do get that supplementing based on labs. You can't go wrong with vitamin D and a multivitamin and a fish oil. That's a pretty basic thing that most of us can benefit from without having labs checked. emmamma: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's great. think like those six things that you mentioned, like that's really important for those for us to work on all of those all the time. And it's so, so good. I ironically you were you were talking about eating whole foods and talking about chemicals in your foods and my daughter on her way back home today from our appointment. She we've been talking about like the difference between meat products and stuff. And she was eating a protein bar and she goes, does it say if the animals in it? I was like, no, like Athena Newell: It's. emmamma: that one's plants and she was like, ⁓ interesting. And I was like, well, foods can come from like plants or like other materials or animals. And then I was like, and there's some foods that are made from chemicals. And she goes, ⁓ we're not supposed to eat chemicals. And I was like, I know, but it's one of those things, right? That it's just like eating whole foods is better in general. And I am not a hundred percent on that all the time, but it just is a funny thought process. Yeah. Athena Newell: Exactly, right. Yeah, and there are such black and white thinkers that they're like, wait, how do you? emmamma: Yeah. Yeah, she's four. So she's like, she has no idea. But I was like, I need to figure out how to explain this to you better. But yes, you are mostly right. Yeah. So when ⁓ you're working with people, I what is the thing that you like, feel comes up for the most as people start working with you in regards to feeling supported? Athena Newell: Great. That's so fun. Hmm. What they need the most support on, you mean? emmamma: Yeah, or like how they feel. I guess my question was more of like how they feel better after working with you. Like what are they, what is their outcome feeling good about? Athena Newell: Yeah, I think that... more often than not, and you probably experience this a lot with your patients, is they maybe didn't know, right? There's just so much things that they didn't know that once they kind of bring awareness to like, ⁓ wow, I just didn't realize that it should kind of look like this or look like that, ⁓ that they feel more in tune with their body, they feel more comfortable in advocating for themselves and coming up with more creative ideas on how they kind of feel about taking care of themselves. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Athena Newell: you know, and I think they feel more empowered. So that's probably the main two things is they understand themselves more and they feel more empowered to make like really strong decisions for themselves. And I mean, that's probably the thing that I'm the most passionate about. And it kind of comes up in women's health a lot because I think historically we've just been neglected so much in the conventional world that like that ends up being such a place of like feeling empowered that like, I don't I don't really have to do, you know what I'm told, but I can use this professional as one of my emmamma: Yeah. Athena Newell: sources of information and I get to decide, you know, and I really encourage my patients across the board, like, hey, listen, I am one person with one perspective. You know, like I do encourage you to go to your OB and ask these same questions. And here I will arm you with the information that I'm giving you in a way that you can tell them, well, hey, this is what my other provider said. Like, what do you think about that? You know, like, ⁓ I think like even progesterone is a great example because like, I love it so much. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Athena Newell: purposes of prescription but like just supporting it across the board. emmamma: Understanding it. Yeah. Athena Newell: You know, it's like, well, hey, if we talk to your provider about like, this is why I want to support my progesterone and what do you think? You know, like I just, just like to arm my patients with as much information as they can so they can feel empowered to like make their own choices in any regard, in any regard, whether it's our health, gut health, hormones, mental health, whatever it is. Like, I just want them to be able to lay out all the choices and decide what's best for them. ⁓ and I just, I think like hormones are just like a great example. emmamma: right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Athena Newell: of that. emmamma: Yeah, yeah, amazing.