Latest / Wellness by Designs - Practitioner Podcast / More than Hormones - Rethinking Perimenopause through the Neuro-Adrenal Lens with Brenda Rogers

Transcript

More than Hormones - Rethinking Perimenopause through the Neuro-Adrenal Lens with Brenda Rogers · Wellness by Designs - Practitioner Podcast

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is Wellness by Designs and I'm your host Amy Skilton and I'm delighted to introduce you to Brenda Rogers naturopath and coach who is a seasoned practitioner and a feminine wisdom teacher with over 35 years experience in holistic women's health.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: She is part owner of the H Dispensary in Canberra, which is a holistic health clinic that has been around for almost 40 years now, which is just absolutely incredible.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we're speaking specifically today on perimenopause and looking at it through a neuroadrenal lens.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So rather than focusing primarily on just hormones and managing those, actually zooming out and looking upstream at the kinds of things that influence hormones.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, a truly holistic approach couldn't be taken without also looking at menopause and perimenopause as a rite of passage for women and really the energetics and the spiritual elements of this.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we will talk further about Brenda's book as we go along, as it speaks to this very specifically.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I would like to say a very warm welcome to the podcast, Brenda.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for being with us.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Amy, and thank you to your listeners for uh joining us as well.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so exciting to be having this chat with you.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I think before we dive into speaking about perimenopause specifically and you know the nuts and bolts of supporting women with that, I would like to hear more about your book because I think it really underpins your entire philosophy about this rite of passage for women in a stage of life that I think previous generations have felt ashamed about, ashamed about, or it was one of those things that women didn't talk about and just suffered through.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was something that wasn't celebrated, it certainly wasn't something that really had any positive attributes applied to it either.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And yet your the title of your book, Dragon Time, Metopause as Mystery, Medicine and Power, suggests the complete opposite in terms of how that era or chapter is approached.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to hear first your philosophy, your viewpoint, your passion around this, if you'd like to share.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, like a lot of women, I entered into my mid-40s completely unprepared for what was about to hit.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of knew of menopause, but I thought because I was a naturopath and I was healthy, that I would just skip through it.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea of the depth of transformation that occurs.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea of the physical changes and the reason for those physical changes, primarily and biologically and and and fundamentally.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I had a really difficult time.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I uh my main experience really at the end of my 40s being a fairly ambitious woman and type A perhaps was that everything felt everything that I'd achieved in my life felt empty, and uh I felt like a failure, really.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like all those choices that I'd made, why did I choose all of that?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I've ended up here, I'm supposed to be um successful in my life at 50, I don't feel successful at all, what went wrong, and the the the mood of low mood I call it, don't use use the D word terribly much, uh low the low mood that occurred impacted my hormones, my nervous system uh particularly.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so when through all of that emotional challenge, I ended up leaving my corporate job that I had in a corporate health company and was left kind of kicked out on my butt thinking, now what do I do?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the only thing really left for me to do was to go back to practice.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'd had uh a break from it, and I wasn't really prepared for that either.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew I had to niche.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone tells you you've got a niche, and I thought of a few different things that not none of which stick stuck, and then in the end I thought menopause.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: I really it was it was um 2018, and even back then there wasn't as much conversation around it as there are as there is now.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot more.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's fantastic how much is being spoken about, much of it guided by vested interests, I would say.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it's been interesting to be the observer of that, from someone who um, you know, sort of sits on the fence of you know nature and minimalist intervention and all the rest of it.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so out of that time, out of that specialization, I decided to write my story.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I just went down some beautiful rabbit holes that led me into the rites of passage of women, the seasons of women, that this is the this is the autumn season for a woman.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: And what does that mean?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I met Jane Hardwick Colling, some of you will know her.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: I found the wise woman's gathering, I found um feminine presence techniques, I found yin yoga, I just I just it was just an awakening.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: It really was the start of my life again, and I was so passionate about it that I started to specialise in in that um in creating programs for women on along the lines of the personal growth opportunities and and the reframing of perspective because that's got to happen.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I found my purpose and I'm loving what I'm doing, and yeah, it's been a really tough, tough ride.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like it.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Although, as you were speaking, it's so interesting as someone outside, like hearing you go, I was trying to find my niche.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, it was right there in front of you.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: You were in it, you were in it, and you know, it's so often is the case for us as clinicians that when we reach somewhere that we feel unprepared for, under resourced, like there isn't, you know, what should what we expect to be available isn't actually there, that we end up having to write the guidebook for ourselves.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds very much like your book is a a lived experience of what you went through in many ways and a roadmap for other women who have woken up and found themselves questioning their entire life.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: 100% what's next, 100%.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was when I started it, I was in the thick of it, and five, it's probably five or six years now since I started writing it, and you know, I was able to put in the the postscript, you know, this is where I'm at now, and it's a happy story, it's a really happy story.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic, and I'm sure a beacon of light for all women who are also finding themselves floundering in this stage of life.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I think for all naturopaths, too, who are going to benefit from your particular lens and toolkit, that's gonna be really beautiful too.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And for anyone who's curious about getting their hands on Brenda's book, it is going to be out I think later this year.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: So May.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: May okay.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's not later, that's actually sooner than we thought.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's really exciting, and we'll certainly leave a link in the show notes for anyone who wants to connect with Brenda and hear about the book as soon as it's available to get their hands on.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that really provides the basis for which the conversation we're about to have around perimenopause is not just an academic one.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's not even just this is an area of your clinical expertise.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that you have effectively, you know, bushbashed your way through to.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Great word.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, on a physical level, it sounds like on a spiritual level and an emotional level.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And look, I'm sure we could probably talk for hours on everything that you learned and the systems you ended up developing to support yourself and women who are going through the same thing.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I think where I'd like to start with our chat today is I think when it comes to women's hormonal shifts, full stop, even if it's puberty, even if it's fertility issues, if it's things like PMFs, and certainly in the case of perimenopause and menopause, the conversation really sort of stops at the hormonal element, the symphony orchestra of the hormones, where things are shifting, where things are maybe not working that well.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that is obviously part of the conversation, but hormones are primarily a downstream response to upstream things.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And although we also acknowledge that perimenopause and menopause is a natural rite of passage for women, biologically speaking, if we were to reduce this stage of life to simply a hormonal problem or a hormonal shift, we actually miss, I think, a large part of the picture that feeds into how we feel as we navigate those seasons of life.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love to hear how you view it and when you're really helping to take stock for someone who's maybe struggling with symptoms, what other elements of their life are you looking at beyond just the hormonal dance?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think us naturopaths just to um confirm what you're saying, Amy, I think we understand that hormones are like the canary in the coal mine.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: They are a system or a function of the body that requires us to be in good general health.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so not that we ignore the hormones, but they aren't always the key to the picture, and as you've alluded to, and there's a lot more to consider, and I look at it at a in a in a few different ways.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, I try to understand what's normal.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: That was the first thing for me to really get.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: What is normal for this rite of passage, for this puberty in reverse?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because we don't go, oh, you know, a teenager's got acne or mood or wants to sleep all the time, or um, we don't kind of pathologize that quite as much as what we do with the other end of the spectrum with perimenopause.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think we don't even understand what's normal during this time.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so, how can you work out what's abnormal if you don't even know what's normal?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: So if you think about we're moving away from being a right of uh sorry, a reproductive woman.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that started at teens at Menarch, all the hormones of reproduction flooded in and they changed us a lot.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you think about how you are at eight and then how you are at 18, that's that's extremely different.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And similarly, with say who you are at 45 and then who you are at 55, you're meant to be a very different person.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And none of that really is anything we can do.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing we can do about that because that's all it's primal, it's biologically driven, it's the it's the survival of the species.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Women are meant to stop reproducing at some point in their lives.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, there's various research theories around why that is the grandmother theory and so on, about raising human babies takes more than a mother, and a father it needs the grandparents.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: So there are reasons for that.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's only us and whales that actually stop menstruating throughout our lives.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so so what I started to understand was why why is this happen happening?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: What is what is it, if it was an optimal situation, what is it that we would be stepping into at this stage of life?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I had very little information about what that next stage actually represented.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: If it's not childhood innocence and it's not reproduction, then what is it?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And what I discovered pretty quickly was that it's really about taking responsibility for another level of the another circle of responsibility.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: So what I mean by that is when we're parents, we're responsible for our family.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: So one generation.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you step into your 50s, you're really the grandparent, you're responsible for another level, another generation, if you like.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: When you step into your 70s, 80s, your great-grandmother, then your it's three, and it started to tie in for me to this understanding that tribal cultures have, particularly the Native Americans, that we are us grown-ups, for want of a better word, us adults, especially the mature, responsible, grown-up ones, are taking care of the next seven generations.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, what does that entail?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, lots of things.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it and most of those, or if not all of those, requirements are hormonally driven.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, and not just reproductive hormones.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it's not estrogen and progesterone anymore.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: It can be FSH, LH, it can be neurotransmitters, GABA, dopamine, various other things in the brain that change at this time.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started to see this real leadership role, this real um, you know, if we were operating as an optimal culture, what would postmenopausal women be doing in the culture?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I suppose I do I am impressed by Native American cultures.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: In some ways, that's the ones that I know the most about.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I could see, but not just Native American, Indian cultures and Japanese cultures, there was this role for this post-menopausal woman, this grandmother.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't just looking after grandchildren either.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: There were community roles, and then I started to see all of these symptoms that we are experiencing as normal in the context of this new status that we have.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: So things like sensitivity.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Women complain all the time of hypersensitivity, whether it's allergies or pain or emotional sensitivity or or you know, up and down, those kinds of things.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I started to realize that oestrogen, we know, is a is a is a kind of masking hormone, a protective hormone, but also it's it puts a veil on us, really.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: This this you need to take care of children type of veil.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And when that gets lifted, some you know, the we kind of awaken in some ways and start to see things a little bit differently.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: So this sensitivity, certainly for me, it brought out more psychic ability, more um intuitive ability, and I started to turn inward.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: So all those things that were driving me from an external perspective, like um like attraction, doing stuff for male approval.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: It started to change, or doing it for anyone's approval.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if you look at the seasons and you see what happens in nature in autumn, where the energy of the tree, for example, starts to come back down, starts to withdraw down towards the roots.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: You can see us that happening in us as well.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, for a while it's this beautiful, glorious colour as that energy retreats back towards the root, the roots for rejuvenation and the next cycle.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: So sensitivity was a big one that I noticed.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I was I would in clinic, I would I would try to discern what's normal and what's abnormal.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Other things are um it's normal to feel anxious.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, especially menopause in the context of our Western culture, where we idolize youth and unconsciously or consciously, we know that we are stepping into aging.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: We're stepping into, in many cases, feeling invisible, redundant, worth, we're worthless culturally because we're no longer reproductive.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so stepping into that and not maybe wanting to go there, you know, being still productive in our work lives or whatever, there's this I I don't want to, I don't want to go there.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's too much for me to go there.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm just I just want to stay young, I want to stay reproductive.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, give me the hormones to take, let me have the plastic surgery, not to diminish any woman that you chooses to do that, but it's very culturally driven in a way because there isn't a lot of um narrative around the great stuff that you're stepping into.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's starting to change, which I think is amazing.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that anxiety and overwhelm and very much the depression is also a symptom, a normal reaction to an a woman in a in potentially an unhealthy culture.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we are misogynist, we are patriarchal, and you know, if you're young and beautiful and reproductive, you have a very clear role in that society.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're aging and getting wrinkly and grey, and then that is very difficult territory for for a lot of women.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so what was very powerful for me was to really discern what's normal and what's abnormal, and then of course, not to treat the normal, maybe to educate about that, and to work with the abnormal.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: So too much sensitivity.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now we know that as protective hormones, estrogen you can get away with a lot in your 40s.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: You can drink too much coffee and drink too much alcohol and eat too much sugar and work too hard, and you can kind of just keep going.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: You just keep going to the gym, and you know, you diet every now and then, or you take some take some herbs or something, and you can push through it.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: But that's that changes at 50.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: That changes.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: That ability to push through diminishes, and so it is a call for us to take much better care of ourselves to really kick, you know, to really work on bringing the coffee back to maybe one a day or one twice a week.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that's a really important thing in clinic is to is to find out how many coffees are you having.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my experience, so many um hot flush, hot flushes are dehydration.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: So bringing back those fundamentals to a normal level or allowing helping a woman come off some of her crutches is an important part of that clinical approach, along with lots of other things, of course.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, yes.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is such a multifactorial approach, and of course, it's I'm sure it's unique to each woman that you see, but I think every woman can relate to holding too much, doing too much, pushing herself too hard, and then finding perhaps those things that she got away with in the past, drinking coffee and going to bed late, really starts to catch up with her.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I really like how you broke that down in the sense that what is normal and what's abnormal, and in some cases, there are quite, you know, obvious distinctions between what is potentially we'll call it pathological in the sense that it is a symptom that's causing distress and affecting quality of life.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, through an evolutionary biology lens, menopause isn't pathological at all.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what I also took away from what you Said, is it's very much a spectrum.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: So a degree of increase in sensitivity, you know, that life force rather than being externalized to you know attract reproduction and to pour that life force into a new being that's external to you, it becomes redirected internally.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so many things are happening.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Synaptic pruning, all sorts of shifts are occurring.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: But with those changes, again, the degree to which they're impacting a woman negatively is where you might say this heightened sensitivity is helpful, or you've become so sensitive because maybe a nervous system that's overloaded, we need to actually kind of recent to you in some way.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: And just from hearing you speak, it sounds to me like clinically you would mostly focus on the feedback that you're getting from women as far as symptoms go, the stage that they're at, and how you would support them.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: I guess where I'm going with this is I have a question for you around what pathology markers, if any, you would bother using.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I have heard from by my patients from many a GP, there's no point in testing hormones because they change so much.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they're not wrong.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And also there can sometimes be clinical value in assessing certain things.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you can tell a lot from very basic blood tests that even have nothing to do with hormones, just about someone's adrenal status or nervous system and all of those things.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you can go from anywhere from the most basic bloods all the way through to fancy functional testing.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we have other things in our toolkit as naturopaths, like iridology or bioresonance or muscle testing, so many different ways we can support patients and really tune into what's going on for them.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear what you use out of that, what you focus on, how often you'd apply it, or how often you would simply go, I don't need to look at those things.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can already see what you need.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we can speak for hours on this as well.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's evolved over the 35 years that I've been a naturopath.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's evolved.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes you select a certain test because you know the patient needs it.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: They need to see, they need to be shocked a little bit, they need a little bit of a wake-up call.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: I will do my live blood morphology, dried blood morphology in clinic, and that's an absolute game changer for some people.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: When they see their blood up on that screen, and you tell them, you know, this is because your your gut is not working properly, you know, it is super motivating.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes I'll choose to do testing for that reason.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: I, as we learned, you know, the case history is the best thing, and I didn't really get that, I don't think.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: It took me years to get that, that gradually you pick up things.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but back to your question, I love to see what blood sugars are doing because I think lots and lots of symptoms from um this menopausal stage of life occur because of our culture, culture's propensity to eat too many carbohydrates.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and especially for women, because we're just not inclined always to eat protein, and we're certainly disinclined to eat fats.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the amount of fat that I now eat in my diet 10 years into menopause is you would be shocked.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: But the brain, I don't know what synaptic pruning is, it sounds like a great, a great thing, but certainly working and you know, energy from ketones and from fats is where I think it you know is the way to go, I think.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think a keto-ish kind of diet works a lot for not only gut health but gut inflammate inflammation, systemic inflammation.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I might be looking for inflammatory markers, certainly the thyroid in perimenopause, because it is so influenced by stress, and it's a very stressful time.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: One of my mentors, Nancy, she says that that menopause is an endocrine screw up.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it and it kind of is even normal, even normal, you know, relatively healthy menopausal transition.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's such a reworking of the endocrine system, and and they're all cousins, so that you know the thyroid and the adrenals and the pituitary and the and the ovaries and the and the you know the blood sugar hormones and all that kind of thing are really all working together.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I very rarely do hormone testing, like estrogen or I mean, and I rarely give hormonal herbs.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting, it's funny, but you know, in in the marketplace, you're you're there's your estrogenic herbs.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: I might give sage for sweating, um, and I might, depending on what a client presents with, of course, the vegetarians might not be having enough cholesterol, and of course, all our hormones are made from cholesterol, and only a certain amount of cholesterol is made from the body.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: The rest we have to get from food, so I might encourage them back to the butter and the you know and the cream and the and the eggs and so on.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: I feel that those nourishing foods are essential for a nervous system that's that's balanced.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly your herbs are a part of it.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like the dietary stuff is foundational because anxiety and nervous system imbalance comes from not feeling safe fundamentally, not being able to sleep, not being able to surrender, not being able to let go, not being able to trust, not being able to have faith in this difficult transitional time leads to this un this lack of safety that really upsets the nervous system.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: But then so does sugar or imbalanced sugars.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Unbalanced sugars, so does caffeine, so does chocolate, so does nutritional deficiency.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: So a herb is a great support.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we all love Withania, Ashwagandha, of course, and uh various others.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: I like to really narrow it down so that I can pick one or two herbs for a person.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then I might bring in another herb with a T.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: I might bring in another herb through culinary uses like a pesto or a or a um just eating it in the diet regularly.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Garlic, we can do that.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: I love garlic, so I've made a garlic mayonnaise and I'm eating lots of garlic just because it because it it's blood action, actually.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just tuning in to other as to whether I've answered your question and maybe the questions of the audience.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, you know, how do we know what's going on for the person so that we can help them the best?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I I love the the pathology tests.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of women will come having seen multiple practitioners, and I think it's honouring of them to request a copy of those blood tests and to look at them and to get your book out of naturopathic, um naturopathic viewpoints on blood tests and speak and speak to them about their gallbladder or their liver or their or their and and or their pancreas and and try and work out what's going on, get them involved in the process.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I'm getting excited here.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very Italian with my hands.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I do a lot of live blood.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: I often find nowadays that it's telling me stuff I already know as well, and iridology.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I am shocked at how much information I get from looking at the genetics.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if you look at the genetics and even just the colour and the the fiber structure.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: I had a lady recently, she had been a nurse her whole life, and that's a very physical job.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: To get through a whole life of nursing, you have to be strong.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then she now lives out on a property, and she's a she's a she's a resilient constitution or a silk constitution.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you learned that in um, I learned it twice.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, it was silk, the second time around, it was the resilient constitution.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you know that she's going to have issues with silica and calcium and structural nutrients, and that she's going to be stubborn and strong, and that she's she won't want to rest, and that she will want to, her treatment will want to involve physical activity, and it's the physical activity often that gives her the most, or lack of it, not being able to do that, that's giving her the most distress.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's amazing just seeing that in the iris, asking a few questions to be able to tailor not just the diet, not just the herb, not just the tissue salt or the bark fluorescence or the bush flow escence or even the homeopathic, which I like to do as well.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know, something about reassuring the woman, reassuring she's she's not only in the right place and that you're you're able to help her and giving her hope, but that her life means something, that her personality is important, that I'm not gonna tell her to do something.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: I always ask people, do you drink herbal teas?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And if they say no, I don't give them a herbal tea to drink.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because it I wouldn't drink it.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm also looking these days for specific treatments.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking for a specific homeopathic.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: This lady had suppressed anger, so I gave her some Staphysagria.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: She had um I think I gave her with ania.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think I gave her with ania.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um just with ania by itself.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, I'm I'm trying to match the herb more and more often the whole herb with the whole the whole being.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: And my gosh, it makes clinic super fun.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: I bet it does, and so interesting each day because every person is unique, aren't they?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess it leads me to my next question, actually, and knowing that it depends on the woman who walks in the door as to how you might support her, but I would love to talk herbs and nutrients specifically for stress, sleep mood, and of course the HPA axis because the adrenals become such an important part of the endocrine picture, really, as the ovaries go into retirement.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, in terms of let's start with say stress, sleep, and mood, because they're all interrelated, like nutrient-wise, what do you most often find yourself reaching for there?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there are the obvious ones, magnesium and perhaps some potassium for the nerves, magnesium for the muscles, um, and herbs that supply those nutrients are also very good.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I'll look up um one of my resources, which is you know, which herbs contain the minerals that I'm after.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I do find that a lot of women this age group, this age range, are already on those things.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: And either I either they're buying maybe junk supplements, which is a thing, and I like to take them off and put some put them on something that I feel is a better quality, a blended thing, which gives me a little bit of reassurance.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: So these days I'm not so much into giving B vitamins, um, but sometimes they're needed.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, your B5 and your B6 for adrenal health and so on.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um sometimes they need something to take the edge off, so the nervine is pretty much universal.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: So and sometimes a nervine isn't uh you know, we think of nervines as as maybe chamomile and valerian and and um passion flour is a big one, certainly those, but sometimes a nervine is um you know celery to help remove the acidic waste that's irritating the nervous system.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we do have to think a little bit laterally.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: I find the uh the iridology helps me with that.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's some great research on some of these herbs.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know more about the the I think kava and um some of these other beautiful herbs.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm not really one to prescribe, you know, um single amino acids anymore.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't typically do that.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I'll get a person to eat pate because it's got the vitamin A and the vitamin D, or I might give cod liver oil because the A and the D are such important cofactors in so many of these uh processes in the body.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm also I'm also looking behind the neuroendocrine level.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I like to find out as we are taught the never well since question.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: When did the when did the symptoms start?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, there may be an assault right now on the nervous system, on the endocrine system.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: But when did it start?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: What was going on?
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that'll lead you into more insight into what's going on for a woman in her world.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we know that midlife women are dealing a lot with elderly parents, they might be dealing with rat-bag teenagers or even good teenagers, they might be separating, divorcing, re you know, re-committing to someone.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot going on at that time.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if a parent dies, I find I see a lot of people who are their parents are like close to the end of their life or have just died for some reason.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's all of the all of us naturopaths out there seeing menopausal women, whether there's whether it's a trigger for for cus for clients to come in at that time, but I find that a you know that grief often the thing behind the neuroendocrine dysfunction.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'll I might speak to that.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or I might um I might give something like Ignacia or a bark flower or something like that.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not even tell them that I'm doing that.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: I might pop it in their herbal mix or something.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the other thing I find uh is a lot of women who come in who are in their mid-60s or even their 70s and they think they're in menopause.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'd be interested to hear from the listeners whether you you see people like that as well.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: And they they're quite shocked when I tell them we can't blame the hormones anymore, we can't blame estrogen or or um progesterone anymore.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of that ship has sailed.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and there's something else going on, and something um something in the context of maybe retiring or feeling like they don't don't enjoy their job anymore.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: This this happens frequently.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: Women who are needing to keep working for the money but don't really enjoy what they're doing anymore, and yet they have this this internal um normal change at midlife where we want something more meaningful, we we want to do something more meaningful with our lives, we want to make a difference, we want to finally have the courage to go and and do that thing that we've been putting putting off since we have had kids or whatever.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I I if I had a remedy for courage, gosh, I'd probably inject it into most of my clients.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's a tricky one.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think calming down the nervous system is really great for that, but I think we also have to teach them how to do that for themselves because you know, one of the things about menopause is that you're kind of now the grown-up.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the Native Americans are famous, at least in my world, for saying that you're not a grown-up until 51.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: And by that, you by that it's that means that you have to take responsibility for everything now.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: The things you did do, the things you didn't do, the choices you made, the choices you're still making.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think being grown up and taking responsibility for your choices is kind of hand in hand.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we have to have those conversations with people.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, you you can't blame that person anymore.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so it's it's working through with our remedies some of the things that are taking away their serenity, that are taking away their peace, and training them with breath work, with yoga, with you know, sometimes I have to train or have to tell women that it's time to give up trying to be the size they were when they were 25.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have to have a conversation about being a queen and not a princess.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so those conversations are really important too.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I try to give somebody a remedy that supports that growing up transition, that taking responsibility, that takes some of the fear away.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: And nervines are great for that.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, there's obviously so many things.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's like psychosocial elements, there's physical elements, and there's this intersection where everything really crashes into each other.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just thinking of a client of mine who, you know, is in that stage too.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: And what she's dealing with is the kids have finally grown up and don't need to be bothered at this stage.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: And for her, clearly, mothering was one of her greatest joys and vocations, and being confronted with that chapter being over all of a sudden, the kids being independent out in the world, family Christmases look different.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then what's next is really tricky.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what I'm hearing you say is if you can support those physical elements and ensure sleepers optimized, mood is stabilized, energy is also supported, nutrition, you know, blood sugar sensitivity, all of those types of things, you remove some of the more distressing physical elements of that transition, which frees up mental real estate to figure out what's next and really look at that.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it is really, I think, a tricky generation, too, because you've got yeah, kids leaving, they might be having their own kids, and you're stepping into a grandmother stage.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: You've also probably got elderly parents or parents that are certainly becoming more vulnerable, and there's just an awful lot going on.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think too, as you mentioned, you know, you're kind of over halfway through your working life, and you probably made choices based on, you know, things that were right for your kids, or maybe that felt right, you know, to your princess brain, as opposed to, you know, a fully autonomous adult brain.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when you realize the runway in front of you is shorter than the runway behind you, the stakes feel so much higher.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: They do.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, there are certain things that I think um make that more challenging.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Often, not always, but often women don't have as much energy.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they there might be things counting against them, but at the same time, they have this wealth of.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Experience and a lifetime of learnings which allow them to make better decisions much more quickly.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: And in a way, although I fully agree, supporting menopause, distressing menopause symptoms and alleviating them as much as possible is an important element of caring for someone in menopause or perimenopause, equally so that psychosocial, cultural, societal element can't be neglected.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe not every naturopath has, you know, the skills or the training to do that.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: This might be something you have a psychologist on the team or a coach, like a midlife coach, or whatever it is.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we can't really neglect that and underestimate the impact of thoughts, worries, future-proofing behavior can have on the physical being in and of itself.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's a really powerful concept to consider.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: And look, like you've said, we've got incredible herbs, sometimes really gentle nervines, whether it's herbs that are providing the minerals are enough, or maybe something a little stronger.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: I personally am a massive fan of kava, although it is a heavy hitter as far as anxiolytics go.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for me, I don't necessarily use it as much in perimenopause, but I just want to share where I do see it indicated is in women who hold a lot of muscular tension and maybe have posture issues because of stress, because it is such an amazing neuromuscular relaxant and it enhances focus and concentration.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the only herb that has a calming effect that doesn't actually also take the edge off cognitively.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, especially if you're a woman, in that stage of life, maybe you are in a job because that's the career you've sat in whilst you were doing your thing and you might want to study to get out of it, or you might need to be able to cognitively keep up to keep advancing in your career or take a lateral step, whatever that might be.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a really powerful thing.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I also just want to mention saffron.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm having a love affair with saffron at the moment, by the way, um, which is also a beautiful one to use culinarily.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um recently was full of saffron, it was quite fantastic.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: I really like your approach, actually.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, not necessarily giving a herbal tincture with a bunch of things or a bunch of supplements, but maybe focusing on, you know, a herbal medicine plus a herbal tea if they're into that and a culinary herb.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: But regardless, saffron is the way it reduces brain inflammation globally, which allows our natural neurochemistry to function as it's meant to, is such a lovely, I don't want to call it a panacea in any way, but it is such a lovely umbrella effect that allows the brain to just do what it's meant to do.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we know brain inflammation interferes with sleep.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: We know brain inflammation interferes with neurochemistry, um, whether it's manufacturing receptor sensitivity, clearance, responsiveness.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: And given the impact of hormonal shifts on sleep or anxiety around these midlife changes have on sleep, we know sleep deprivation or interruption will lead to increased brain inflammation the next day, which affects cognitive function and mood and all of those things.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I personally do really love saffron and carva where it's indicated.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing is when we're looking at minerals, magnesium has become such a hero in this space.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think people forget that it actually partners with calcium in sleep.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one helping people fall asleep quicker, one helping people stay asleep and a deeper, more refreshing sleep.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think for some women who are mindful of their bones, or maybe have had a DEXA scan that's not good, or there's a family history of osteopenia, they might already have accounted for that.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or they might have been to a GP who, you know, has just given them the standard calcium spiel, um, which of course doesn't necessarily include other bone minerals, um, but certain or vitamins or any of those other bits and pieces.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: But certainly I think we're so lucky to have so many tools like this that are, you know, nutrient-based.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: We have bushflowers, homeopathics, herbs.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what I'm taking away from our conversation more is the lifestyle elements, the mindfulness elements, and really getting to the root of that transition and making it empowering and actually having a new vision for your life.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: And essentially what you're saying is culturally we don't have that, nor do we have um cultural rights around, you know, moving into adolescence, which I also think is incredibly problematic for our youth.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but as you say, you know, we live in the culture that you and I are in at least is ageist and misogynistic, and um adolescence in some ways gives women an external source of power at quite a young age, and at an age that I think you know our brains don't really fully understand.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's only when we get older that we start to realize that, and of course, you know, youth is wasted on the young, as they say.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, and we have to reconcile that and and certainly start to develop in other areas if we haven't already.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I think this has been such a profound chat, and honestly, we could keep talking for hours about this, but my biggest takeaway here is really shifting how we view and honor and respect that stage and really crafting a vision for ourselves and where we want to redirect our vital force, our life-creating energy as it returns inwards and becomes our own again and not sort of being belonging to other people necessarily.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I personally am really looking forward to your book coming out because I think it's going to be a huge permission slip and a guidebook for women who are in this stage of what now, who am I, where is my value, what is my purpose, where should I be focusing my life force?
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, Brenda, just want to thank you so much for yeah, all of your beautiful pearls of wisdom here today.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if there is anything else you want to share with women as we wrap up here, I'd love to hear it.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I will say one more thing.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned the reduction in energy, and that is both normal at that stage of life and pathological.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: So the one beautiful thing about that is if it's normal, you can teach the woman that it's normal, and then you can help treat the pathology, of course, as well.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: But the beautiful thing is that the body is giving to us what we need in order to become this wiser, wilder woman.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that includes less energy, less energy for BS, less energy for giving away freely to anyone who wants it, less energy for doing things that we don't, our heart and soul aren't in.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so it excites me to understand that we can use the body as guidance towards empowerment, empowering ourselves as older women, and the difference in that case, the difference that older women could potentially make to our entire community.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, let's keep the narrative going.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let's keep this the uh the podcast going, Amy.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that was just a fantastic note to end on.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think truly it is about discernment, it's about starting to redirect your life force to what matters most that will offer the most fulfillment and nourishment and not frivolously wasting it on everywhere that demands it and calls for it.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm here for that, absolutely.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a shame that I guess when we're in our cycling years, so much of that just gets fritted away.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, biologically, that is appropriate, isn't it, at that stage of life.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: But certainly the book that you're about to publish and share with the world sounds like an incredible guidebook for all of us that are in this chapter of life where there's a redirection of Qi and focus and you know, purpose and life purpose too.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, Brenda, thank you so much for your time today and taking us through your incredible insights and to our beautiful audience.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining us today.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can find all of our show notes and other podcasts on the Australian Designs for Health website.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Amy Skilton, and this is Wellness by Designs.