Latest / Inside the Apothecary / #Ep08 - How Naturopaths Think: What We Look For That Changes Everything
Transcript
- MG Herbs: Thank you so much for being here with us today. If something in this episode resonated, just know there's always a way to explore it further and support your body the way it needs. You can find out more by going to the website nourishingapothecary.com or reach out if you're ready for more personalized care. Until next time, take care of yourself and keep listening to your body. Hey beautiful, I am so glad that you're here. Welcome to Inside the Apothecary, a space for real conversations about hormones, fertility and the body. This is where we learn to understand the body, not fight it. Hello everyone, welcome to episode eight, our final episode in season one. What we're going to do in this episode is start to break down the reason that things might not be working when you are taking supplements. It's something that most people think, you know, the next step in fertility is supplementing, but there might be stuff missing underneath. And this is really what we want to leave you with, the practical support. that in clinic we would give to our patients time and time again. Couples often are doing everything and it is often very right. Long supplement lists, they're, you know, trying to do all the right things. There's nothing wrong, but it's still not getting the outcome that they're hoping for. And I think it's because supplements essentially are supplemental, right? They're there to support our body. ⁓ because your body isn't broken, ⁓ it's communicating. take a breath, get comfortable and let's tune back into you. not necessarily replace what's missing day to day. So in this final episode, we're going to bring it back to what we can actually give you that you can do at home before you even consider coming to see a naturopath. We want to give you the foundations that determine egg quality, sperm quality, and whether your body's even in a position to conceive, because that's where we would start with you in clinic every single time. This is probably one of the biggest patterns we see, right, Jamie? People join a lot, but missing the pieces that actually might make it all work together. Jaime: Yeah, absolutely. MG Herbs: What are you noticing most when people first kind of come in? Jaime: I feel like everybody is trying to make things really complicated. And they're talking about their, you know, their testing that they're doing at home, right? And they're talking about their ovulation kits, and they're talking about how many days, you know, the DPO, they're talking about all this really specific stuff, right? And stuff that's really complicated. But what often happens is what I know I like to do in clinic is I like to strip it right back to the basics. MG Herbs: you Jaime: and go over the basics. And I see that there's massive fundamental stuff that hasn't been worked on or addressed. That when we do that and we go back to the basics, that's when we can see big changes. So I feel like everybody wants to jump to super complicated, super complex, but there's skipping steps. And this is where I see our role as a fertility naturopath becomes really crucial in helping to kind of move the needle and actually get you guys good results. MG Herbs: Yeah, because these supplements that we're always kind of surrounded by in the stacking, they are supplemental to the foundations that we want to talk about today, right? They're not a replacement for them. Our supplements are only going to work if we've got this stuff, you know, locked in to begin with. Jaime: Yeah, for sure. But also, it's not just about the couples that are wanting to conceive now. Like this is fundamental stuff that any person couple that's thinking about fertility should be thinking about. Like this is what you guys should be starting to work on first. So that's why like I think this episode is going to be really relevant for lots of different people. you know, not just the people that have been trying to conceive for a long time, but the people that are maybe even just thinking that they want to have a child at some point, but they don't know when. This is what you can start thinking about now. MG Herbs: Yep. And look, this can be extrapolated to people who don't want to conceive as well. Like we're going to focus on fertility foundations, but this stuff is really foundational for good health moving forward. It's foundational for you to be your wellest, most vital, know, happiest, healthiest self. ⁓ you will find that throughout, you know, if you just ignore every time we say conception or sperm or fertility or egg, apply that. That'd be good. Jaime: Totally. also it's, it's a really good thing. think what I often get women coming and saying, and even just friends that I've spoken to over the years, you know, as women kind of get 30 and above everybody, know women, I know the biological clock, it's real and it's scary and it gets louder and louder and louder. But for some women in their early thirties or mid thirties or whatever, they're single, right? So maybe they don't even have a partner. MG Herbs: Mm-hmm. Jaime: This is where I say to so many women, as soon as you kind of hit 30 and beyond, if you know, okay, at some point, I want to have a child, but you know, I might still be single, but I know I know I want to have a child at some point. This is what I would start working on to get you at your most fertile, your most healthy state now, so that when you do meet that person or whatever that direction and path might be, you're ready and your body is ready. and also you'll be feeling better as well. MG Herbs: Absolutely. And that feeds into longevity for that person full stop. So this is for people who might be ready, might be trying to conceive, might be actively trying to conceive right now. They might be going through things like, ⁓ you know, fertility support, IVF, ART. They may also be completely future planning. Jaime: Mm. Yeah. MG Herbs: So not quite ready, but wanting to do everything they can for their sexual reproductive health and their general health as well. Shall we start with sleep? Jaime: Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ Sleep. Absolutely. That is the foundation for everything. Right. It's such a big question that we always ask when you see a naturopath is how are you sleeping? Right. And your version of good compared to what actually is good often can be quite different. So we, you know, we want to know a lot about it, right? We want to know about the time that you spend sleeping, like how long you sleep for. MG Herbs: Hmm? Jaime: Are you getting deep restorative sleep? You know, so if you're tracking your sleep, this is where we can sort of get some data about that. But how long does it take for you to go to sleep? Do you stay asleep or do you wake up a lot during the night? But then also, how do you wake up? How do you feel when you wake up? I think so a lot of these factors are really important when we're assessing how your sleep is. Right. And also the time that you go to bed and wake up. Right. Is also really important. MG Herbs: Definitely. mean, cause sleep isn't just the sheer amount of hours. So like if we just focus on, most people need eight hours of sleep. What if for half of that, you are kind of tossing and turning it becomes, you know, more about quality to me. And some people are just used to having light sleep. They're to tossing and turning. But if we can't get into those deeper stages of sleep, our metabolic health is not going to be able to function in the same way. Our brain, you know, our reproductive stuff, our hormones. We need that consistency with the routine. Like you said, we need to kind of be going about it at the same time, waking up at the same time where possible and getting that quality. It's, it's a non-negotiable. Jaime: Absolutely. And this is if you're not sleeping well, or you are someone that says, I've always been a terrible sleeper. We're like, stop right here. This is where we're starting. This is absolutely the most important thing we need to start with. I actually, if I could just say a random story, because I think it's really interesting. I had one of my lovely clients came to see me for something totally random and we were talking and I asked her about her sleep. And she said, you're probably going to MG Herbs: for sure. Jaime: What did she say? You're probably gonna like judge me or you're probably gonna think bad for what I have to say when it comes to my sleep. And I was like, ⁓ this is a very listen, but don't judge, you know, place it's totally fine. And she thinks she was 27, this woman. And she said, ⁓ until very recently, I didn't realize that people sleep through the night. I was like, what do mean? And she was like, what do you mean? And she said, MG Herbs: Mm. Jaime: I wake up every hour, sometimes every half an hour. The most doggie is an hour and a half every single night, all night. I was like, what do you mean? I'm like, wake up, wake up. And she said, yep, wake up, wake up. I was like, how? I was like, hang on. I'm like, like we need to stop everything. Like this is really important to address. You cannot be waking up every half an hour to an hour, every single hour. Like that's so bad. Anyway, so. MG Herbs: ⁓ man. Jaime: Yeah, she just somehow, it just got skipped and she just didn't know. She just didn't realize. think her dad was the same anyway. So we, made it a priority and I got her sleeping. And so she messaged me like about a week later and was like, Oh my God, I slept through the night. And I was like, Oh my God, amazing. And then she was like, Oh my God. I had no idea how tired I was. And was like, Oh, and then for the next three weeks, at least she had really messed up nightmares. And it was so bad. I said to her, said, you know, I honestly think your poor brain is just trying to reshuffle because it's never done this. Never done this. Yeah. And so I said, I honestly, I know this sucks, but you, I reckon you just got to get through this and your brain will sort itself out. And it did. And now she's amazing, but that's where like, when we see these things and we hear them from you guys, sometimes it's like, whore, you know, it's ⁓ MG Herbs: processing. Jaime: massive red flag because of how crucial it is. And we have information now, like there's studies coming out that it's the people that are, that have massive like sleep issues for a long period of time that later on are getting a lot of neurological issues. They're getting a lot of health decline because of that long-term sleep problems. So just kind of thinking, I'm just someone that's terrible sleep. No, you don't have to put up with that. And there are ways that we can help you. MG Herbs: Definitely. had a guy today, a fertility couple, and he said, if I get five hours of sleep a night, like that's great for me. I'm happy. And I was like, you might feel like that's okay and that you're happy, but your sperm won't be. Dude, we need some, we need some more sleep, you know? So that is a, you know, I very quickly, cause I always write my treatment protocols in order of importance. So sleep went straight to the top. And that is what we're going to do first because Jaime: Yeah. Yeah MG Herbs: If he's not sleeping, he won't be able to produce those hormones, you know, effectively, appropriately in enough kind of amounts. And then that's going to feed into poor output for his little swimmers. So, fix the sleep. Jaime: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. also if you're so sometimes when women come and see us, you would have had this the same as Mel is when, so say when women are a bit older and we've got them pregnant once and then they want to get pregnant again straight away because they're freaking out biological clock. I, and like, get it, but often in that still postpartum haze, they're not sleeping properly yet. MG Herbs: ⁓ yeah. Jaime: You know, like there's so many fundamental things that are going on in their body and with sleep not being good, you know, these are things it's that kind of delicate balance where we do need to try and address some of it because otherwise it will be harder for you because your poor body is just not in that state. MG Herbs: Well, that is essentially what we do when we sleep is we recover. And postnatally, one of the major things that we need is recovery time. That's why we have 12 months off work. Yes, we're looking after baby, but we need to recover. We need to replenish. If your sleep is not there, everything else feels harder. It feeds into more inflammation. It might feed into some really hectic hormonal kind of swings for you. And it does affect people's mental health, which we, you know, again, have studies to show our brain does decline without sleep because it doesn't have its clean out. doesn't have its dishwasher cycle, which it needs to do every single night. Or when you open up that dishwasher and it hasn't gone through its cycle overnight, the dishes are still dirty. So we need to make sure that's happening for our poor old brain because it does so much for us. Jaime: Yeah, absolutely. So should we talk about some like practical things and advice that we would give people to try and help them to get better night's sleep? Yeah. Cause I'm someone that's always struggled with my sleep. So for me to really kind of understand this and put these protocols into place is really important or I won't sleep properly. So I prioritize this because I know it's important. Right? I think the number one thing I think for me with, with all my clients is usually their phone. MG Herbs: Definitely. Yeah. Jaime: Right. And the blue light exposure before bed, the doom scrolling. Right. So I made a conscious decision probably a couple of years ago now where I don't bring my phone into my bed. And it was really hard, really hard because I'm addicted. We're all addicted. Right. And you know, my everything is for me is on my phone. I'm constantly on it. MG Herbs: Mm-hmm, the scrolling. Mm-hmm. Jaime: So I made a decision that I can be on my phone in the lounge room, but the second I go to get into bed, the phone stays out. And in the beginning I had to have a, ⁓ I had to have like a transition item, which was my iPad, but on my iPad was no social media. Yeah, it was bad, honestly. So I had my iPad, but I had no social media. So the worst I could do was Windows, like Windows shop, but it didn't have the same like triggering effect on like my nervous system. And so now I just have a Kindle. MG Herbs: Mm. Yeah, great. Mmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And. Jaime: But like that alone made a huge impact on my nervous system before I go to sleep, as well as not having the blue light. MG Herbs: Yeah, see, this is one for me, like having the kids is a really effective nighttime no phone strategy because, you know, I work my butt off down here and when I go up into the house, I'm there for them. I'm there for my husband. I'm there for my kids. And I just sometimes I'll reach for my phone and then I'm like, I don't really need this right now. Things can wait till tomorrow. And you said to me what, two weeks ago? Jaime: Hmm. MG Herbs: It's so admirable, Mel, how you never have your phone on you at nighttime, but man, it's annoying when I need to call you, like talk to you, because you had exciting news and I was like, admirable. Why, thank you. I was so proud of that. I was like, yeah, I don't have my phone at night. And yeah, it can be really difficult. Jaime: Yeah. Hang on a second, wait. I'm so sorry. I lost it. Can you hear me? I knocked my thing off. MG Herbs: Yeah, I can hear you. It can be really difficult to like leave it behind. But yeah, it's not good for us. Let's figure out some other strategies like getting an alarm clock because that's one of the biggest barriers I come up against, but it's my alarm. Jaime: Okay. Yeah. MG Herbs: But we didn't always have phones. You can still buy alarm clocks. We have the the sun alarm clocks where the light wakes you up. I love those ones. Again, my very effective alarm clock is also having children. So we can help you get those and they will wake you up. Jaime: Mm-hmm. ⁓ I think, but I think so, so alarm clock for sure. But then just cause like I, I'm like so deep in sleep hygiene. Cause like I said, I'm such a bad sleeper, but for me, the other big thing that's important for me is I wear red light lenses, tinted lenses, like red lenses on my glasses. The blue light blocking ones. I wear those. So I put them on at about eight or nine o'clock at night and I wear them for the rest of the night. MG Herbs: Mmm. you Jaime: So skincare, everything is done and then I put the glasses on. And so that really blocks all the blue light. And I also have a red globe that blocks blue light. And I have that on a lamp in my bedroom as well. So over nighttime, when I go into bed, there's no blue light. And whilst it is a bit strange and it does take some time to get used to, your nervous system feels calmer. MG Herbs: Yeah, that's nice. Jaime: Right. And so this is what we need to be doing. Right. If you're one of those people that when you go to bed, everything just ticks over a million miles an hour. This is where we need to take back control in calming down our nervous system to really unwind for the day and have that disconnect from go, go, go all day to then getting ready for bed. And I think that disconnect is really important. It's like, I've also got one of those, I've told you about my shower lamp. love my shower lamp. I have a little rechargeable shower lamp that I bought from Amazon and it has all pretty soft lights. love it. It's got a little remote control, like projects things to the ceiling. So I won't use the big light in the bathroom. So I have like all soft lights everywhere, even in the kitchen and the bathroom. They were the big ones that I realized I still had the bright light. MG Herbs: You Mm. Jaime: So now everything is like nice and soft and calming, you know, so there's things you can do, right? To try and calm your nervous system. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. MG Herbs: Yeah. We have the salt lamps. You know, and we just leave them on all the time because you know, salt lamps just fall apart if you turn them off anyway. So we just leave them on. There's one in the kitchen. There's one in the bathroom. They're kind of like a little nightlight. If the kids need to to the loo or need to go to the loo at night, you don't have to switch a big light on. But there is something there. If we can backtrack a sec, you mentioned sleep hygiene. And I think, you know, still even now for a lot of my patients, I will mention that. And they'll be like, I shower in the morning. And I'm like, that's fine. We're not talking about how clean you are for bed. This is all about making your sleep space and your sleep time and your sleep ritual really nourishing. So the body responds to cycles, right? It's it responds to rhythm and consistency. And the fact that sleep is a cycle and that our period is a cycle. Jaime: Yes. MG Herbs: Our body loves this kind of stuff. So if you can do a very similar sleep routine or have similar sleep hygiene before bed each night, that is going to let your body know, Hey, this is the time to produce melatonin. This is when we're going to settle down. We're going to calm everything. We're going to sleep really well. You know, will be the outcome of doing all of that. Some of the other things for sleep hygiene, know, cup of tea. can help ⁓ making sure that your bedroom is really like a space that you want to be in. So nice clean sheets, like spend a bit of extra cash if you've got some spare funds, we use them every single night and get some really nice sheets. ⁓ Like with your lighting for sure, having things that you love in there surrounding you. And really importantly, so many people. And you know, I say this with so much love, get the TV out of there. Jaime: Mmm. MG Herbs: Your bedroom should be for sleep and sex. Maybe sometimes reading. That's it. You know, we don't need to be doing anything else in there. We want to keep that space really ⁓ targeted. Jaime: Yeah, One thing we had to do, I think it was last year or the year before, is where we live, are in a, like, it's loud, right? The street's loud. And so we, and it used to disrupt us over nighttime. Plus they come and collect the bins twice a week, which is loud. It was just a lot of noise, right? And we realized it was really disrupting our sleep. So we actually got double glaze put on the windows. So now. it blocked out that sound so much because again, like for some people, it's the light, right? If you don't have good blinds and there's light filtering through, same thing with sound. If you get little bits of sounds that kind of wake you up because it's loud, this is where you might want to look into something like that. So if you can't, you know, with the light, if you can't put dark blinds or dark curtains, you might want to invest in an eye mask. Same thing with sound, right? MG Herbs: Mm. Jaime: having that really chill, really calm environment, both, you know, emotionally within yourself, but then around you is really important for sleep. So these are things just to to kind of, I just, actually honestly don't think some people don't actually kind of just sit in their bedroom and just take in their surroundings, right? Like, you know, just really think about it. What is your environment telling you right now? Is it telling you that this is a calm, know, relaxing, beautiful space? Or does it feel like uncomfortable? Does it feel loud? Does it feel, you know, like if this doesn't feel like that calm environment, then this is something to really think about working on. Because this is probably why you're not sleeping. MG Herbs: and the piles of washing out of there. know, don't be looking at things that you've got to do and haven't done yet. And there's also like, ⁓ you know, you can put that little journal beside your bed and as those things pop in, if you've got a really busy, hectic life and you've got these lists in your head, you can write them down. You know, they're popping to your head, you write them down, you go back, get rid of it. You can listen to white noise, you can listen to, you know, sleepy. Jaime: Hmm. Mm, yep. MG Herbs: stories and all that kind of stuff is nice. I like to read, you like to read. There's things that tell our body we are going to go to sleep now. Jaime: Yeah, for sure. And like, I love the reading. Even if I just get a few pages, I don't care. It's fiction. It's wonderful. It needs to just take me away. MG Herbs: Yeah. Yep. And I think that this could eat really nicely feed into our next kind of foundation and that's blood sugar levels. Cause if you are hungry and you go to bed, you're not going to sleep very well either. So everything we do, we try and break it up, you know, when we're talking and educating and that kind of thing, but this stuff really does feed into each other. Food and blood sugar levels. ⁓ Jaime: Mm. Mm. No pun intended. MG Herbs: are really important for ⁓ base health, you know? So many different things, metabolically, hormonally, inflammation. We will prime ourselves for insulin resistance if we don't keep this stuff really nice and level. So we wanna be eating regularly, you know? ⁓ One thing you mentioned just last week was having coffee on an empty tummy when you're trying to conceive. the little things that can make a difference. Having breakfast, having protein when you wake up in the morning. We want the anchors that are gonna keep us really steady in the stormy weather. Jaime: Yep. But I think as well, like you were saying, our body loves a routine. Same with food. Right? So I, so often from, from my lovely couples that I speak to and, and women mostly, like it'll be, ⁓ I often don't have breakfast. ⁓ I often skip lunch. ⁓ I often whatever. And your food eating is super erratic. Our bodies and hormones love regular eating. MG Herbs: Mmm. Jaime: the same, our body loves a routine in every way, shape and form. So actually, like Mel's saying, actually start having something for breakfast. And it doesn't have to be eggs, you know, you can, there are so many ways to make this easier for yourself. And I think the more time poor you are, it's all about working smarter, not harder. Right? Like it's MG Herbs: Mm-hmm. Jaime: The meal prepping is the name of the game. think when it comes to a lot of this planning and planning and prepping, because often when you're not in a position where you're not planning or prepping and you're eating on the fly, like it is so hard to eat healthy and consistent when you're eating on the fly. Like, you know, MG Herbs: You can stay... You go. Jaime: No, no, keep going. MG Herbs: I was going to say you can be prepped and on the fly if I might just interject as you know, hecticly insane running around person. I was telling one of my patients who was very similar this morning, I have a protein bar in my pocket. So when I do school drop off, I get back in the car and I'm like, what's in my pocket? And I'm like, Ooh. Jaime: Mm. MG Herbs: And I have my protein bar. And then before I get back to start my day with patients, I've had something. And like, I realized that it's not whole food. I realized that it's not beautiful, you know, eggs. Sometimes I do put a boiled egg in my pocket, but that weeds my kid out. ⁓ if Callie's like, mom, you can't do that. It's gross. Anyway. So the protein bar is working well for me at the moment. You can make it work, you still have to be prepped. still have to make sure the shopping's done. I still have to make sure that I take it with me. I've always got my water bottle now. Just a little stuff that you can, you know, you don't have to make it hard and big. You, sorry, keep going. Jaime: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, I know. I completely agree. Because there's different levels, right? Like, yes, there's going to be the people that are prepped and they have these beautifully nutritious whatever, for sure. But you don't necessarily have to be at that point, right? But sometimes for, you know, for you guys, it might be like I got to a point where I was like, if I look at another overnight oats again, I'm gonna like, well, I have the ick so bad with overnight oats right now. I can't even think about it. MG Herbs: Mm. Jaime: I'm so done. I'm so done. I can't even do oats with protein powder anymore. I can't even look at it. I started doing some oats, but that was only because I had nothing left after coming back from overseas. And that's okay. But yeah, so you got to do what you got to do, right? So what I find for some women, so right now I love a smoothie because it takes me two seconds. Everything's frozen in the freezer ready to go. Right? Easy. MG Herbs: Mm. Jaime: But for some people, might be like, I love to suggest if you could do like baked oats, for example. So I do like a tray of baked oats. I can do it on a Sunday and that's five days of lunch is done in one go. So it doesn't have to be you cooking every day. And can I just say that goes the same for dinner. I really, it really grinds my gears when I have beautiful exhausted women in front of me and you guys are cooking and look, it's admirable, but you're cooking these ridiculously amazing, crazy complicated meals every single night. MG Herbs: See, I live for that. Jaime: and you're tired. And you're, yeah, but like these poor women are tired and exhausted. Yeah, but you live for that. These women don't necessarily live for that. MG Herbs: It depends. Yeah, I do. It builds me up. It turns my brain off if I can just get into my zone and cook something like lovely for dinner. And that's probably my main meal each day. Um, and so like, that's my thing. But if you don't enjoy cooking or it's a stressor or you don't have the time cause you're finishing work late, that's where the prep is really important. Jaime: Mm. Mm-mm. Mmm. Yeah. MG Herbs: And don't get me wrong, we still do leftovers. We still do prep. ⁓ I can't look at a chia seed pudding right now. So I would prep them, have five in the fridge morning, you know, great for on the go. I'm a bit over boiled eggs. I'm going back to my protein bar, but that's, you know, having options and like that flexibility is important as well. We don't want to the same thing every day forever. Jaime: Yeah. Yeah. And, and also just making sure that when you are planning and prepping it, that you are prioritizing protein. I think it's just really important, but just going back to the not cooking every night, just the thing that I just, can't, I just, can't stand. And this is coming because it's a place of love when women say, but my husband won't eat the same meal every day. MG Herbs: Mmm. Jaime: I just, I say we'll make him cook then. I can't, I can't, I can't. When you guys are, like when women are just so exhausted and you're working long hours and then you're cooking a fresh meal every night because your husband won't eat the same meal two nights in a row. MG Herbs: You just get the leftovers and you rotate them. You put them in the freezer, you label them up and then you'd be like, this is our fresh meal for tonight. Jaime: No, no, they won't. They won't. They refuse to eat leftovers. Yeah. I can't even tell you how many times I've heard that from men. You guys just need to like, this is just the world we live in now, right? Like prioritizing and working out where can you get some time back in your schedule? And often it's cooking a bigger meal and having it last two or three days. MG Herbs: What? Who refuses to eat leftovers? ⁓ no. No. Yeah. Jaime: Like we normally batch do our sides and then we cook the meat fresh each night, for example. So at least that way we've got it sorted, but also, you know, we're prioritizing these things. MG Herbs: Hmm. Yep. Definitely. You... And like, we're not, we definitely don't want to come across as preachy because we're not perfect in any way. You and I, you know, we often are getting quick lunches. We are on the run. We are doing the best that we can, but we make sure we have our protein too. Like if we haven't had enough protein throughout the day, I'm getting the protein water out. I'm going to do a protein shake. Like it's something that is going to prop me up. Jaime: Yeah. Anyway, just that just gets me on my high horse and just makes me really upset. ⁓ my god, definitely not. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. MG Herbs: Because for you, let me ask, how does blood sugar instability show up for you? What happens to you? So if your blood sugar levels drop, yeah, how does it come up for you? Jaime: Me personally? ⁓ I feel really weak. can't focus. I can't think straight. Yeah, I hate it. Hate it. MG Herbs: Hmm. Mine's like nausea. I get sick. like, for our patients, this can show up as like mood instability. So people get quite. Jaime: ⁓ no. ⁓ yeah, no, I'm really like woozy. MG Herbs: anxious or they get hangry, you know that like a Mars bar or something anyway Mars bars aren't what we're recommending. ⁓ They can have cravings because your blood sugar levels is like like that your system is like, hey, we need something right now or you know, we're going to pass out. So you get sugar cravings. And you you said it really well. If your diet is chaotic, your, your health might be, you know, your hormones will definitely be, we need to make sure we have that regularity, especially with that Jaime: Mm. Mm. Yeah. MG Herbs: and you know some good fats as well. Jaime: Yep. Yeah. And so, you know, if your diet wasn't great and you were eating like this, like we're talking about, this is where you want to start. You want to strip it back to more whole foods, more regular eating, more making sure you're making that protein, that focus. These are really simple, actionable stuff that you guys can work on. You know, so even just have a look, like write down what you ate in a week. Look at what you're eating. MG Herbs: Hmm. Jaime: you know, really just kind of sit down and really have a good think about it and just say, think, you know, am I eating regular meals? Am I, or am I often skipping meals? And if you are, this is a really good place to start for you. MG Herbs: I also love putting my patients meals or foods into like the three macros. So I do like a little column each protein, carbs, fat. And then if you're not sure, just Google it. You know, we have so many resources at our fingertips now, but people will often say to me, I eat all of my vegetables and that's their protein. And that, you know, vegetables are very healthy. People, know, they're great, but they are essentially carbohydrates. So I think a lot of the time, their diet will fall into that carb column, 90 % of the diet. And that's not a bad thing, but we do need to team our macros. We need to team with protein. We need to team with fat so we get that blood sugar stabilization. So have a little homework. Write it all down. Let's see what comes out. Jaime: ⁓ Yeah, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. MG Herbs: Shall we move on? Jaime: Yes, absolutely. So the next one we have here is light and movement we wanted to talk to you all about. So this is kind of coming from two different places, right? So the light as literally being, we want you guys to get outside and see some sunlight. Now this is also bringing it back to how important it is to reset that circadian rhythm. So of a morning, technically, we want your eyeballs to see that beautiful blue light outside. MG Herbs: Definitely. Jaime: with no sunglasses to help your body to stop producing melatonin to go, okay, it's daytime. So then over nighttime, we want to block that blue light by wearing some blue light blocking glasses, dimming the lights. So that way your brain will start producing melatonin over nighttime to get you ready for sleep. So getting you outdoors, getting you seeing that beautiful blue light, getting your feet on the grass if we can. MG Herbs: Mm-hmm. Jaime: is really beautiful for your nervous system. It's important for your sleep and your circadian rhythm. But then it's also about movement and exercise, right? MG Herbs: Yeah. I always say to my patients, exercise is just something that you enjoy doing whilst you're moving around. I don't need everyone to go to CrossFit or, you know, like do the, even go to the gym. Like, you know, I spent a lot of my time training prior to being a mom and I don't want to go to the gym anymore. I'm done. I'll do yoga. I'll do Pilates, but mainly, you know, my thing's gardening. I go for walks with the kids. I ride bikes. We go to the park. I do. Jaime: Mmm. MG Herbs: You know, I'm the head coach of Oski's soccer team. Yes. So like, I like doing fun movement. I don't want to be stuck on a machine. That's me. ⁓ if you love dancing, you know, there's so many different ways that we can move. It doesn't have to be gym. If at certain points in your life, you do need to do specific kind of action. So let's just take perimenopause for example, we would love you to be Jaime: Yes you are. MG Herbs: doing some kind of weight resistance training. That's, you know, that's fine, but it could still be gardening. You just get really heavy bags of soil and just get the wheelbarrow. ⁓ Yeah, like I just think movement is, it should be supportive. It should be, make you happy, you know? It shouldn't be like a punish every day. Jaime: Yeah, I love to be in the gym and I love it. love the heavy weights. I love like me with like my heavy metal music, just one-on-one, me and myself and I, I love it. I'm in my own little happy space. It's like my little adult playground. Yeah. Yeah. MG Herbs: Mm. And I'm happy for you. I'm really, and like that's, I love that we're so different. That's, you need to find what makes you, the listeners, happy. That's, that's exercise. That's movement. Jaime: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And so yeah, find something that you enjoy, right? Don't just go to the gym because you thought it was good or don't just do something because you thought, ⁓ everyone's doing pilates. I should do pilates now. Like it's, you know, I'm not that person. So I'm not going to do it. Look, you all, everyone looks lovely. And I love the whole outfit and the girls with the cute things, but like, it's just, it's not me. Like, I'm just not that person. It's just. MG Herbs: Mmm. Jaime: not my style. So find what you enjoy. MG Herbs: The The other thing that you and I will often see working with so many women is over training. So there's a fine line. We've talked about it before, I think on the podcast as well. Jaime: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we hate to have to have that conversation with women, right? But unfortunately, it's just the way it is, especially when it comes to fertility. Right? Is that often the unfortunate negative side of it is that it will impact your fertility. So we do need to be mindful of that. It's really important. Well, I think. No. MG Herbs: We don't want to stress the body out anymore. Jaime: Absolutely not. No, and I think that leads on really well to the next one we want to talk about, which is the impact on your nervous system and how your nervous system is. MG Herbs: Yes. Well, all of these things, if you don't sleep right, if you don't eat right, if you're constantly under artificial light and you don't see the sun or you're sleeping with heaps of streetlights on and you have no darkness, all of it will feed into chronic stress for you and your body and probably your mental health as well. Jaime: Absolutely. So if you are someone that feels like they're anxious all the time, if you feel like you have this undercurrent stress that's constantly there in your life, this is where we need to really have a look into what we can do to try and calm and help you to regulate your nervous system as well. Right. And I think that's really important because this isn't just self care. MG Herbs: Hmm. Jaime: It's really going much deeper into what we can do to help you regulate that better. And I do think we do have a lot that we can control this. Right? Some people... MG Herbs: Hmm. Jaime: I think some people think like, I have anxiety. So therefore that's it. Like there's nothing I can do to try and help that. ⁓ it's just because of my anxiety, but I do think there's a lot we can do to try and help calm our body. Wouldn't you say? MG Herbs: Yeah, I agree. think as somebody, you know, I don't talk about it all the time, but I have pretty high anxiety, I would say that is really well managed now, but I have been through periods in my life where that anxiety was all consuming. And sometimes you can do all of these things and it still doesn't change. I do think there is a few buckets here. there's your lifestyle factors, which we're talking about, and they are definitely the base. Don't get me wrong. But there's also how you are wired genetically that can work against you. And then there's like actual life stressors that may be out of your control. So if you have a really stressful mother who is very needy and you know, like for example, my mom's okay, I love your mom. ⁓ But I'm just using that as an example. Sometimes we can't control Jaime: Mm. MG Herbs: all of the stressors in our life. Or if you have a sick kid, like, ⁓ my gosh, I would not wish that upon anybody with the amount of stress that your body would be going through. ⁓ The genetic factors sometimes we can work on, we can tweak things, we can give you support. There are supplements, but at the end of the day, these things are still your foundation. And I always talk to my patients about like, we want to build on the pyramid. and we need a really steady base or as we build with supplements being probably the top, you know, little triangle, the pinnacle, that everything will just fall down if that base isn't really solid. Jaime: Yeah. I, ⁓ I started wearing an aura ring in the beginning of the year and I had been going through a period where my sleep wasn't that good again, right? Cause I've always struggled with my sleep, right? Which is why I can talk about all the sleep hygiene stuff, right? Because there's something I've always had to work on and it just wasn't good. Right? Anyway, so I got the ring and the ring measures your stress, right? And MG Herbs: Hmm. Jaime: What was really interesting is that before bed, my like stress is right up in the fully stress zone. So I realized, and I didn't even like, I didn't really feel like I was that stressed, really, but my body was sensing stress. And so when your body is sensing stress, and so therefore your cortisol is high, naturally when you're in that state, you won't sleep. MG Herbs: Mmm. Jaime: because that's your body protecting you that, ⁓ in case we've got to fight a battle, literally, because that's all your body can't distinguish between the two, it's saying, I'm about, I'm prepping for battle, so I'm not going to sleep right now. So no wonder I couldn't sleep because my body was in that state before bed every single night. You know, so what I've had, what were you gonna say? MG Herbs: Yeah. Mmm. Did you? I was just gonna say why, do you know why? They just kinda like how you wired. Hmm, okay. Jaime: No, no idea. I don't know. just, it just had been like that. And so it made sense why I wasn't sleeping lately in that period of time. So I really, that dialed everything back up in terms of calming my nervous system down. You know, I had my phone away from me for longer. You know, I was doing the real, you know, the nice hot showers of a nighttime with my little nightlight in the shower. MG Herbs: Yeah, definitely. Mmm. Jaime: You know, I was really doing a lot, spending more time in bed reading, you know, to really calm myself down. You know, I was doing the, re- I've got a red light panel. So I do a red light panel. was doing the legs up the wall, all these things in just this procession, just to really spend some time calming my nervous system down before bed. Right. And I just stripped it right back. MG Herbs: He he he. Hmm. Jaime: and just really, really just focused on just calming my body before bed, rather than go, go, go and only having a very short period of time before kind of getting ready and then going straight to trying to go straight to sleep. You know, and it took me a while to get myself out of that. But I think so often, so many women, they're in that state, right? And so their nervous system, is just on high alert all the time. And for those women, these strategies and doing this stuff really beneficial. MG Herbs: Definitely. And you just, again, it's like the exercise. You've got to find what works for you. Like I'm not really much of a meditator. I did yoga for six years and I still can't really meditate. But if I go out into the garden and go and look at the leaves and like find, you know, I grew an apple yesterday, my first ever apple. So it was about this big. Yeah. And, it was like all pitted and had been eaten by things. ⁓ but I was so proud of it. Jaime: Hmm. my god, adorable. MG Herbs: And so I just sat with the apple tree and I was like, show the kids the apple and I cut it open and we cut all the bits off and we all tried it. It was really gross, but that's what fills my cup. I don't know why, but it calms me. It takes away my anxiety to be out in my garden. And I'm not always having to buy things like go to, you know, the big stores like Bunnings and stuff and buy new plants. I will often just find the joy in the plants that are growing. Jaime: Mm. Totally. Mm. MG Herbs: So that's also something I had to learn, like not to keep going and getting that, ⁓ you know, that, what do call it? That dope mind hit from buying the things for the garden. I just want to enjoy what I've got now. I'm really trying to calm the nervous system. And that's, that's my thing. So it's about finding your thing and it will depend on your pain point, right? Mine's anxiety, yours is sleep. So everyone will have a different pain point with this stuff and something that might be upsetting their nervous system. Jaime: Yeah. MG Herbs: causing the chronic stress and you know, the key thing with your nervous system is it just wants to feel safe. It's like a little baby, it just wants to be swaddled, it just wants to be looked after, it wants to know that everything's gonna be okay in a completely not logical way because you can tell it that as many times as you want but sometimes it doesn't listen. ⁓ So you gotta find something that will calm it for you. If we bring it back to fertility, Jaime: Yeah, and there's so many different tools. Yes. MG Herbs: ⁓ yeah, sorry. I was just gonna say, if we bring it back to fertility, ⁓ we know that those sex and stress hormones are intricately linked. So the nervous system being stressed out will impact on conception. Jaime: Yeah. And we know just the fact that you guys want to be trying to conceive can be stressful, right? Like that alone can be a stress. So, you know, often I'm saying to couples like go and have a date night, go and plan something fun to do on the weekend. Go on a little mini staycation, if you will, and just spend some time being a couple again. MG Herbs: ⁓ yeah. He he he he he he. Jaime: rather than it just becoming this real transactional thing about trying to conceive. So this is very much feels like a job. And we get that, we hear that all the time. So this is where these are just little simple things you can be doing to try and help you and help calm your nervous system down. MG Herbs: Yeah, becomes an extra job, doesn't it? So if we tie it all back up together for everyone listening in today, we've given them a lot of information and a lot of our opinions. We need to bring it back to action. whoever you are, wherever you are, you want to pick maybe two things to do from this podcast. And then you can come back and listen again if you miss our voice. If you want to listen again, that's fine. And maybe then pick another two things. Jaime: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. MG Herbs: But really you don't want to have six things going on. That's going to defeat the purpose. It's going to defeat, you know, everything we've kind of been talking about. What's your pain point right now? What's your number one? I'll often say to my patients, yes, like I've heard your story. There's so much going on and there is for most of our patients, right? But what do you want to change right now? What's bothering you most? What's your number one goal? If I could fix it, what is it? So we want you to pick that and then work on that. Is it sleep timing? Is it the regular meals? Is it morning light? You know, your one thing that you do for the next month could just to be look at the sunshine when you wake up in the morning. And what a beautiful thing to do. Jaime: Absolutely. MG Herbs: any others? Totally. We don't want complicated. That's what we're trying to avoid, isn't it? Jaime: so doesn't have to be complicated. I really like people to have a good think about the lighting situation in their home. I do. just want you to sit over night time and look at what the lighting situation is like. If you have all really big bright lights and you go from that to trying to sleep, it's maybe something that you want to have a bit of a think about. Because I thought I was fine and in December I realized I still have this sterile light in my bathroom and my kitchen. MG Herbs: Mm. Jaime: So I changed it and it made a huge change in how I feel over nighttime. Just something as simple as that. Do know what I mean? MG Herbs: Mm. And like. If they rent say, or lighting, you know, replacing all the downlights or something can be really expensive. What Sam and I did about two years ago is just go and buy, we went and bought some really nice like ⁓ lamps and we put warm light globes in them and we just put a couple of lamps on at night. We have this whole process, you know, like opening your blinds in the morning, closing your blinds, making your bed. Our nighttime thing is that we will turn our little lamps on where we need them. The kids have one in Jaime: Mm. MG Herbs: their room each, we have one in our room, we have one at the dining room table, so we don't have to put the downlights on when we eat either. ⁓ We used to do candles. My husband's a big fan of candles, but once you get like, you know, a toddler, candles don't really work out that well. So we swap to lamps. But yeah, like there's things, you know, sometimes I think people think, but I don't have the money. And so those, yeah. And your little Amazon things. Jaime: Mm. Mm. Big fan of lamps. I'm the same. Big fan of lamps. It doesn't have to be. Yeah. MG Herbs: They're just like, yeah, they're awesome. They're little battery things. Jaime: Love it, rechargeable. Love it. MG Herbs: Yeah, just got to find the right charging thing. ⁓ my gosh. Jaime: Yeah, I know. So simple things, everybody. It doesn't have to be complicated. MG Herbs: Yeah, we want to do the simple stuff. Yep. And that's where the shift starts to happen. This is where we build the base of the pyramid. This is where we see the little things start to shift and it all adds up to better health outcomes for our patients. And that's what we're here for. Jaime: Yes. Yep, absolutely. So rather than going, what's the next type of testing? What's the next type of, you know, something you've got to be doing? We just want you to strip it back and just kind of go, what am I eating each week? How am I moving my body? How am I sleeping? How's my stress? And see if there's any of those areas that you could be working on first. Let's start there. MG Herbs: And we don't want people to keep adding the supplements either. This is the whole point of this episode. want, the supplements can be amazing and really helpful. ⁓ especially if we tailor them to what's going on for you, but we don't want to keep adding. We don't want to keep stacking. If we don't have that base, that foundational kind of stuff in place, it's not going to work. That's where our patients get stuck. Jaime: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. MG Herbs: So we'll get those basics in place and see everything start to move forward from there, ideally. That is our last episode for season one. Jaime: Woohoo! Amazing. Yay. MG Herbs: How exciting. I hope that you'll really love it and we will get into season two very soon. We've got lots of exciting things coming and we've actually just started a website ⁓ inside the apothecary.com. So if you want to go there and you can subscribe for updates, you can also very excitingly drop us a line and say what you might like us to chat about on the podcast as well. Jaime: Absolutely. We have so many ideas, but we're always keen to hear more. MG Herbs: Well, thank you again, happy Season 1, and I'll look forward to Season 2 with you.