Latest / No Shrinking Violets Podcast for Women / Contraception, Hormones and Women's Cycles: Understanding Whole Body Impacts

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Contraception, Hormones and Women's Cycles: Understanding Whole Body Impacts · No Shrinking Violets Podcast for Women

• 0:00
  Tierra: There's actually three types of estrogen and it changes throughout your life.
• 0:02
  Tierra: And that's why we have this transition.
• 0:04
  Tierra: And I just feel like women, we're not taught any of these things during these pivotal parts of our life from puberty to menopause.
• 0:13
  Tierra: So when we experience symptoms or side effects, we're like, what the heck is going on?
• 0:19
  Tierra: We don't know what's normal or not normal.
• 0:22
  Tierra: And then we're seeking answers from sometimes not the best places.
• 0:29
  Mary: For centuries, the phrase shrinking violet was used to diminish women, to suggest we were meant to be small and meek.
• 0:36
  Mary: But in nature, violets are anything but weak.
• 0:39
  Mary: They're resilient, beautiful, and essential to the ecosystem.
• 0:42
  Mary: Hi, I'm Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist, and each week I sit down with women who remind us that being compared to a violet isn't an insult.
• 0:51
  Mary: It's a testament to strength, endurance, and the power of taking up space and living by your true nature.
• 0:57
  Mary: If you're ready to stop shrinking and start thriving, you're in the right place.
• 1:01
  Mary: Hey violets, welcome to the show.
• 1:05
  Mary: One of my endeavors after I retired was to become certified in functional nutrition.
• 1:10
  Mary: I was using a 360-degree approach to wellness in my therapy practice and understanding gut health and all the body systems, like the endocrine system, are obviously crucial to true health.
• 1:22
  Mary: First, I was continually amazed at how little I understood or even knew about the very body in which I was living.
• 1:29
  Mary: The way all our systems work together and how they impact each other is extraordinary.
• 1:34
  Mary: And when I dug into the orchestra of hormones, my mind was blown at how complex they are.
• 1:39
  Mary: I started simply wanting to understand the shifts in sex hormones and perimenopause, but it was like pulling the thread of one sweater.
• 1:47
  Mary: To understand the complexities, you'll pull that thread until you're naked.
• 1:51
  Mary: Our sex hormones, estrogen and progesterone, to name two, don't function in a closed system.
• 1:56
  Mary: They, along with sleep hormones and hormones that affect hunger, are all interdependent.
• 2:01
  Mary: So when progesterone drops as we approach menopause, there is literally a cascade effect that can explain so much.
• 2:08
  Mary: Recognizing these interactions can reframe women's struggles because it tends to lessen the self-blame that comes from a belief that we just aren't trying hard enough and gives us knowledge so we can strategically make adjustments based on science, not just assumptions or misinformation from the internet.
• 2:25
  Mary: My guest today helps women arm themselves with this type of knowledge so that they can move forward toward wellness with personal empowerment.
• 2:32
  Mary: Tara Duncan is a women's health educator, author, and longtime coach who helps women understand their hormones and reconnect with their bodies through education and lifestyle support.
• 2:42
  Mary: Her work centers on hormone literacy, cycle awareness, and daily habits that support well-being, empowering women to ask better questions and make informed choices about their health.
• 2:53
  Mary: Welcome to No Shrinking Violet's Tierra.
• 2:55
  Tierra: Thank you.
• 2:56
  Tierra: A lovely introduction.
• 2:58
  Mary: Thank you.
• 2:59
  Mary: And so much of this is misunderstood, and we have this huge wave now of women moving toward or into or through menopause.
• 3:09
  Mary: And just because of the society and the age of people, you know, I'm Gen X, so we're there's more of us.
• 3:18
  Mary: And so I think there's this need for knowledge.
• 3:21
  Mary: But I want to really dig into this hormone issue and try to explain some of it because I know even for me, the more I learned, the more I was like, oh my gosh, there is no one fix for this.
• 3:33
  Mary: So let's start with your life and flashbulb moments.
• 3:39
  Mary: So when I say flashbulb moments, it's kind of like when you look back over your life, there are moments where it's like they stand out, like, oh wow, that was pivotal in helping me want to do this work or helping me get to where I am.
• 3:51
  Mary: So, what were some things that you experienced that you would say maybe got you where you are right now?
• 3:58
  Tierra: Yeah, I've had a very um unconventional path to being an author and an educator in the women's health space.
• 4:06
  Tierra: So my career was I was in the service, I was in the military for almost a decade, in defense contracting, in tech.
• 4:13
  Tierra: But along with that, concurrent to that, uh, I got into coaching and fitness and wellness.
• 4:21
  Tierra: Um and I started off as group coaching, you know, like CrossFit classes.
• 4:27
  Tierra: And then I was so fascinated and interested in like how people move, how do I better your movement?
• 4:33
  Tierra: How do we get you more mobility and strength?
• 4:36
  Tierra: That turned into me getting more certificates and nutrition and uh programming, all kinds of stuff.
• 4:42
  Tierra: So I started working one-on-one.
• 4:44
  Tierra: And as I was working one-on-one with clients, that's when I really started to see uh my perspective change.
• 4:51
  Tierra: I, you know, in my 20s, kind of assumed it was about discipline.
• 4:55
  Tierra: You just need to put the donut down, you just need to work harder.
• 4:59
  Tierra: And I soon realized and was very humbled by the fact that my clients and myself were quote unquote doing everything right, but running into I'm always exhausted.
• 5:10
  Tierra: I always have painful, heavy periods.
• 5:13
  Tierra: I'm eating this and I'm not seeing any changes in my body composition.
• 5:18
  Tierra: And I realized I was pretty ignorant.
• 5:21
  Tierra: So once I started investigating hormones and how the bodies actually interconnected, it blew my mind.
• 5:29
  Tierra: And so I started writing the things down that I was learning so I could share them with my clients.
• 5:34
  Tierra: Um, and then eventually it turned into a book because there was just so much.
• 5:39
  Tierra: And I remember being like, why didn't anybody teach me in high school that my menstrual cycle has four phases?
• 5:47
  Tierra: I always thought it was just about the bleed.
• 5:50
  Tierra: Um, and that that bleeding doesn't even mean that you ovulated.
• 5:54
  Tierra: And you know, when we talk about women going into fertility and pregnancy and postpartum, and then also perimenopause, that estrogen, there's actually three types of estrogen, and it changes throughout your life.
• 6:06
  Tierra: And that's why we have this transition.
• 6:08
  Tierra: And I just feel like women, we're not taught any of these things during these pivotal parts of our life from puberty to menopause.
• 6:17
  Tierra: So when we experience symptoms or side effects, we're like, what the heck is going on?
• 6:23
  Tierra: We don't know what's normal or not normal.
• 6:26
  Tierra: And then we're seeking answers from sometimes not the best places as far as like it's not going to be the best outcome for us.
• 6:34
  Mary: Yeah.
• 6:34
  Mary: Yeah.
• 6:35
  Mary: Because it's definitely not one size fits all.
• 6:38
  Tierra: And no, yeah.
• 6:40
  Mary: There's not historically been research on women unless it was pregnancy.
• 6:45
  Mary: You know, if we look back on research, it was it's something like half a percent of the research was done on women, and then 2% on women, and because we care about carrying to carrying babies to term.
• 6:56
  Mary: Like that's something where we don't want to see that have a poor outcome.
• 7:01
  Mary: But when it's just the poor outcome of painful periods or all the things that many of us can say, oh, I just experienced it and just got through it because I didn't think I thought that's what I was supposed to do.
• 7:15
  Tierra: Yeah, and a lot of our education is from the previous generations.
• 7:19
  Tierra: So if your grandmother had painful periods and your mother had painful periods, and now you have them, you're only learning what they what they went through without understanding, well, why?
• 7:29
  Tierra: Why is this happening?
• 7:30
  Tierra: What's the the, you know, is it inflammation?
• 7:33
  Tierra: Is there cyst?
• 7:34
  Tierra: Like what are what am I going through?
• 7:36
  Tierra: So yeah, I think um, man, education is so, so important.
• 7:40
  Tierra: And it doesn't have to be.
• 7:42
  Tierra: Um, I I was just talking to somebody about how do you even integrate hormonal education into like high school curriculum.
• 7:49
  Tierra: And you know what?
• 7:49
  Tierra: It doesn't have to be that complicated.
• 7:51
  Tierra: We already talk about uh the menstrual cycle or uh reproductive organs or sleep or for nutrition, you can easily integrate conversations about our hormones into existing topics.
• 8:07
  Mary: Yeah.
• 8:07
  Mary: And most of my work is with women in you know midlife.
• 8:12
  Mary: So almost all of them are at least in perimenopause, which is its own thing.
• 8:17
  Mary: But before we get to that, I want to talk about birth control, oral contraceptives, because one of the things that I heard you talk about really struck a chord with me.
• 8:27
  Mary: I'm a nature girl.
• 8:28
  Mary: So I tend to look at what does nature want our bodies to do?
• 8:34
  Mary: And sometimes nature malfunctions, but usually there's something in the system, and it could be downstream, it could be upstream, that if we make that change, then it's going to have an impact on this other thing.
• 8:48
  Mary: We are just, I think, a society that wants a pill, which is, you know, give me something that I can just take, give me an injection.
• 8:57
  Mary: So for whatever reason, I don't want to get pregnant or I have painful periods.
• 9:02
  Mary: So I remember at one point, um, uh my gynecologist suggested if I take the pill in a certain way, I won't get a period.
• 9:11
  Mary: And I remember being like, well, that can't be good.
• 9:15
  Mary: But then I started working with a lot of young women through my career, and it was very common.
• 9:21
  Mary: So, what are your thoughts on that the birth control issue and manipulating those parts of our cycle?
• 9:32
  Tierra: Right.
• 9:32
  Tierra: Yeah.
• 9:32
  Tierra: So this is why I wrote an entire book about birth control.
• 9:36
  Tierra: Yeah, so I want to start off saying that I am not anti-birth control, uh, excuse me, hormonal birth control.
• 9:42
  Tierra: So I'm not talking about barrier methods, I'm not talking about fertility awareness-based methods, definitely talking about synthetic hormones.
• 9:50
  Tierra: I think that a lot of us don't understand how the synthetic hormones interact with our body, what that means for our natural or endogenous hormone production.
• 10:00
  Tierra: And for some women that experience side effects on hormonal birth control, they may not connect the dots.
• 10:07
  Tierra: So, first of all, like if you are educated on what it's doing to your what good or bad, what it's doing to your body, and you don't have side effects, it's working for you.
• 10:17
  Tierra: Amazing.
• 10:18
  Tierra: You go, girl, right?
• 10:19
  Tierra: Um, I've been on a form of hormonal, I had been for almost 14 years because I just I didn't know.
• 10:25
  Tierra: I have endometriosis.
• 10:27
  Tierra: I was put on it at 17 for pain, and I never thought twice about it.
• 10:31
  Tierra: If I knew then what I know now, would I make would I have changed my mind, maybe, but also, you know, endometriosis is not a fun disease to live with.
• 10:43
  Tierra: Um, what I think women should understand is different methods of hormonal birth control.
• 10:52
  Tierra: So from oral contraceptive the pill to vaginal, the vaginal ring to the implant to the IUD, all have different levels of the synthetic hormones.
• 11:01
  Tierra: They may have one or two, so meaning um both synthetic estrogen and synthetic progesterone called progestin or only progestin, and the absorption method, the level, all of that interacts with their body differently.
• 11:15
  Tierra: So you may be someone that does really poorly on the pill.
• 11:19
  Tierra: And if you really want to take hormonal birth control, maybe for you a copper IUD, which is a non-hormonal method, or uh or the IUD, the hormonal IUD isn't a better option.
• 11:29
  Tierra: Or you do terrible on the hormonal IUD, and for you, you feel better on the pill.
• 11:34
  Tierra: It's not about right or wrong, it's understanding what are the mechanisms happening when you take these different forms and what to look out for if you are experiencing those downstream effects.
• 11:45
  Mary: Yeah, and we just really don't, we don't understand a lot of it.
• 11:49
  Mary: And I think when things happen, we're not really necessarily connecting it back to, oh, is it this?
• 11:56
  Tierra: Yeah.
• 11:56
  Mary: Because we we don't understand.
• 11:59
  Mary: So can you quickly go over when you say there's four phases of our cycle, can you just review them?
• 12:07
  Mary: Because I'm guessing there's a lot of people listening that don't really understand that.
• 12:12
  Tierra: Yeah, totally.
• 12:12
  Tierra: So a lot of us are familiar with bleeding.
• 12:15
  Tierra: Um, so at day one of bleeding starts the follicular phase.
• 12:23
  Tierra: So that's when the follicles start maturing, uh, right, to for the eggs to grow.
• 12:29
  Tierra: Uh during that process, that's when estrogen arises.
• 12:34
  Tierra: So that action of those follicles growing, um, estrogen does its thing, it peaks, and there's a lot of benefits to our natural endogenous estrogen, bone health, um, cognition, uh, you know, digestive benefits.
• 12:48
  Tierra: It's a great, amazing hormone.
• 12:49
  Tierra: We love estrogen.
• 12:51
  Tierra: Um then once the most mature follicle has developed, the body signals uh something called luteinizing hormone, releases that ache, and that's ovulation.
• 13:04
  Tierra: Ovulation is that 12 to 24 hour period that you are fertile.
• 13:08
  Tierra: So what so a lot of women don't realize that we're not fertile, like we're just not walking around able to get pregnant all the time.
• 13:14
  Tierra: We're only fertile in the ovulation window.
• 13:16
  Tierra: I will caveat that with saying that sperm can live up to five days.
• 13:21
  Tierra: So knowing that maybe within five days of that window, but you are actually only ready for implantation during that ovulation window.
• 13:29
  Tierra: Um, what's left over when the egg releases is called the corpus luteum, and that's where progesterone develops.
• 13:36
  Tierra: And progesterone is uh it's kind of like I won't get too technical, but it helps us with like calming and you know, reducing feelings of anxiety, and it has um effects on like smoothing uh muscle, and it's it's just it's again another amazing hormone, and we need both estrogen and progesterone are uh counterparts to each other.
• 13:59
  Tierra: So once we've kind of peaked in our progesterone, the uterine lining is is thick and stable.
• 14:05
  Tierra: Um the hormones drop, progesterone and estrogen drop, and then we we shed that uterine lining and we bleed.
• 14:11
  Tierra: Uh, and and that's it.
• 14:12
  Tierra: Oh, I'm sorry, that's called a luteal phase.
• 14:14
  Tierra: So it goes um follicular, ovulation, luteal, and then we we bleed.
• 14:19
  Tierra: And our bodies should naturally rise and fall with um with the hormones, with estrogen and progesterone.
• 14:27
  Tierra: When you take a synthetic version um of uh those hormones and birth control, what it tends to do is it tends to flatline our natural endogenous hormones.
• 14:38
  Tierra: Uh, and then those synthetic hormones don't interact the same way with our body.
• 14:43
  Tierra: So, for example, progesterone having those really amazing calming benefits, progestin doesn't interact the same way.
• 14:50
  Tierra: So, for some women, because that hormonal landscape has been flattened and we no longer have those peaks and rises, that's when they may feel side effects of so it's not necessarily the birth control itself, it's the result of flatlining kind of those um natural endogenous hormones.
• 15:10
  Mary: Okay.
• 15:10
  Mary: And what would some of those side effects be?
• 15:14
  Mary: If someone's experienced something, experiencing something, this could be um one thing to consider.
• 15:20
  Mary: So what what would that look like?
• 15:22
  Tierra: Yeah, so it's really gonna, again, depend on the method.
• 15:24
  Tierra: So for example, oral contraceptives um for some women, nutrient deficiencies can occur.
• 15:32
  Tierra: Um, with synthetic estrogen, there's uh pulmonary embolisms, blood clots that can be of a very serious concern, although rare.
• 15:40
  Tierra: Uh if but if you're a woman who's over 35, you're a smoker, you have a family history of it, you may you may consider a birth control option that does not have synthetic estrogen.
• 15:50
  Tierra: Um, for some women, their thyroid and free testosterone levels may be affected because, again, of the processing of the birth control.
• 15:59
  Tierra: Um with something like Depo Provera, which that's the shot, uh, bone density is a real concern because it again, it's that relationship that progesterone and estrogen have with keeping our bones healthy and that turnover, um, it impacts it.
• 16:15
  Tierra: So that actually has a black label for that.
• 16:16
  Tierra: So for vaginal microbiome can be some, you know, can be potentially impacted.
• 16:24
  Tierra: Um, so there's a lot.
• 16:25
  Tierra: And then for the non-hormonal method, like the copper IUD, for some women, it causes very heavy bleeding.
• 16:31
  Tierra: Uh, because basically what it's doing is it's causing it an inf a local inflammation in your uterus.
• 16:38
  Tierra: Yeah.
• 16:39
  Tierra: Um, and so for some women that results in more painful periods, heavier periods.
• 16:43
  Tierra: Um it could be temporary, it could not be.
• 16:46
  Tierra: But yeah, there's all kinds, again, based on the method, there are certain side effects you'd want to look out for.
• 16:51
  Tierra: Yeah.
• 16:52
  Tierra: And that's the thing.
• 16:52
  Tierra: Oh, and disorders.
• 16:54
  Tierra: That's a big one.
• 16:54
  Tierra: Sorry.
• 16:55
  Tierra: I know for some women, um, they're very real, especially young women.
• 17:01
  Tierra: Um, again, missing out on kind of that calming progesterone.
• 17:06
  Tierra: Estrogen is really tied with serotonin and dopamine, like our feel-good hormones.
• 17:10
  Tierra: So for some women, that alteration uh can impact their mood.
• 17:15
  Mary: Yeah, and again, I'll go back to nature.
• 17:18
  Mary: The one of the reasons I think those hormones do sort of the the extra work, like you mentioned, the estrogen and what that does, it's preparing us to potentially get pregnant.
• 17:29
  Mary: And so, you know, looking better and all of that, if you look at nature, that's kind of what nature does.
• 17:37
  Mary: It's like, let's make you the best version of yourself because we want procreation, but we don't always want procreation.
• 17:45
  Mary: And then it falls on the woman to figure out what am I going to do?
• 17:49
  Mary: And you make up, you bring up also something important that sometimes these things are prescribed for other things.
• 17:55
  Mary: It's not necessarily the first thing you want is to prevent pregnancy.
• 17:59
  Mary: It's, well, I have this other stuff going on.
• 18:02
  Mary: Is this going to help relieve that?
• 18:06
  Tierra: The the average age, I think the last time I looked up the statistics, so forgive me if this is a bit out of date.
• 18:11
  Tierra: The average age a woman goes, effectively a girl goes on birth control was 16.
• 18:16
  Tierra: So in a lot of these cases, it's for acne, it's for heavy periods, it's for painful periods, not for everyone.
• 18:23
  Tierra: They're uh they're valid, right?
• 18:26
  Tierra: Because they do work for symptom management.
• 18:29
  Tierra: But I would also argue that let's look at what's happening.
• 18:33
  Tierra: Usually, if you're having, again, in my case, the endometriosis, there's underlying factors that maybe we could address, or maybe not.
• 18:42
  Tierra: Um try reducing that inflammation or reducing those issues.
• 18:47
  Tierra: But if you never attempt that, right, and we're just kind of doing that symptom management and we're flatlining those hormones, you're potentially not getting those other benefits.
• 18:55
  Tierra: And that's really relevant for women that are, as we're going into our 20s, that's when we're like developing our peak bone density and muscle and and cognition, we're doing our brain development.
• 19:07
  Tierra: It's just um it's unaccounted for like what those effects could be.
• 19:14
  Mary: And so the word inflammation, I think, is misunderstood.
• 19:17
  Mary: When we talk about inflammation, it's not necessarily, you know, when you get a cut and it's healing and it's red and puffy.
• 19:23
  Mary: That's a type of inflammation.
• 19:24
  Mary: But in our gut, in our body, there are things that are off balance.
• 19:29
  Mary: And when we do kind of what we're talking about, and it's like, oh, just take this thing.
• 19:34
  Mary: We love that.
• 19:35
  Mary: We love that, oh, I just have to do this and it's going to solve the problem.
• 19:39
  Mary: But a lot of these things, including acne, is inflammation.
• 19:42
  Mary: There's an inflammation in the system, migraines, inflammation.
• 19:46
  Mary: I got wicked migraines when I was on oral contraceptives, wicked migraines, like five day long.
• 19:52
  Mary: And it never occurred to me that, oh, maybe that's an interaction from the actual thing I'm taking.
• 19:58
  Mary: Um, so I think that's another thing that there's, and we don't have time obviously to go into that, but I think there's there are those, you know, like I said, downstream, upstream things.
• 20:08
  Mary: And so when we talk about the orchestra of hormones, you mentioned thyroid.
• 20:13
  Mary: Well, I had thyroid cancer, so I don't have a thyroid.
• 20:16
  Mary: So menopause was unique for me.
• 20:19
  Mary: Um, and then we talk about we feel like if we don't sleep well, and this happens really with women in perimenopause, I'm just gonna take melatonin.
• 20:28
  Mary: Well, wait a minute.
• 20:29
  Mary: We produce melatonin.
• 20:30
  Mary: So all of that works in concert.
• 20:34
  Mary: And I think that's the hard thing to understand.
• 20:37
  Mary: So when we hit perimenopause, the first thing to drop is progesterone, correct?
• 20:43
  Tierra: Um, so it's I was just reading an article about that the effects of perimenopause, like when married perimenopause starts, we're starting to understand that it starts way before we believe, right?
• 20:56
  Tierra: For a lot of us, I'm 40.
• 20:58
  Tierra: So for a lot of us, around 40, 45, we're like, oh, I feel off.
• 21:01
  Tierra: But even before you start to feel off, there's more data coming out that like those levels to include estrogen and progesterone are impacted.
• 21:10
  Tierra: And so I just kind of holding off on that because there's still emerging research about when technically disparate menopause begins.
• 21:20
  Mary: Yeah.
• 21:21
  Tierra: It may begin before you even start to feel any of those symptoms, the hot flashes, the itchy ear, the um, yeah, the inability to sleep, all of that.
• 21:29
  Mary: And I think one of the first things that women notice, at least the women I've worked with, is sort of an instability in emotional regulation.
• 21:38
  Tierra: Well, that's where the progesterone exactly.
• 21:41
  Mary: Exactly.
• 21:42
  Mary: And so we're talking about a cycle.
• 21:44
  Mary: So when we start to move through this, and you make a great point, it's not like there's a go signal.
• 21:51
  Mary: Oh, I'm in perimenopause now.
• 21:52
  Mary: I think what we first notice is maybe this up and down emotional kind of thing, and really that.
• 21:59
  Mary: Progesterone, like you're talking about, it's calming.
• 22:02
  Mary: So when that drops off, or it's higher one month than the next month, lower the next month, and then estrogen is impacted.
• 22:10
  Mary: So then it can feel like, why am I all over the place emotionally?
• 22:15
  Mary: And oh, I just need to get myself under control.
• 22:17
  Mary: It's like, well, no, there's kind of like hormonal stuff happening.
• 22:21
  Tierra: Yeah.
• 22:21
  Tierra: So the big thing, right?
• 22:23
  Tierra: What's happening during perimenopause and why your progesterone and estrogen are impacted, it's because your cycles are becoming more infrequent and irregular.
• 22:33
  Tierra: Like I mentioned earlier, if you don't ovulate, you don't have that corpus luteum, you don't produce progesterone.
• 22:39
  Tierra: So when it comes to levels of progesterone, it's not necessarily high or low, is it in balance with estrogen?
• 22:46
  Tierra: So let's say you go through the follicular phase, you develop that mature egg, but you don't ovulate, now you're not creating those meaningful levels of progesterone.
• 22:56
  Tierra: And that's why you feel off because you produced the levels of estrogen you normally do, but then your progesterone fell off.
• 23:02
  Tierra: And then it is irregular.
• 23:04
  Tierra: Because then maybe the next month you do ovulate and you feel like yourself again.
• 23:07
  Tierra: But maybe now your cycle's 19 days versus where it was normally 27 days.
• 23:12
  Tierra: Uh yeah.
• 23:13
  Tierra: And the answer is not you need to do more.
• 23:16
  Tierra: Um, the answer is we have to understand this transition.
• 23:21
  Tierra: And so, how can I support the progesterone I am producing or the ovulation I am able to achieve?
• 23:30
  Tierra: And then do I need other additional supplementation or HRT?
• 23:34
  Tierra: You know, I'm I'm open to whatever works for people, but I do think that lifestyle has to be there first.
• 23:40
  Tierra: Um, when it comes to that type of stuff, you can't out-supplement, you can't out-medicate poor, poor intentional sleep, poor nutrition, and poor stress management.
• 23:52
  Mary: Yes.
• 23:52
  Mary: And I'm glad you brought up brought up lifestyle because sometimes we can misunderstand what that means.
• 23:58
  Mary: And we think, again, I'm just gonna take this thing, I'm just gonna take melatonin.
• 24:02
  Mary: Um, and I think there's misunderstanding with hormone replacement therapy too.
• 24:06
  Mary: But I think we have 100%.
• 24:07
  Mary: Yeah.
• 24:08
  Mary: So we've sort of taken that research that at one point was was misunderstood that made women say, I'm never doing this, it's too dangerous.
• 24:17
  Mary: Now we know better.
• 24:19
  Mary: But when someone is considering that, do you have any advice?
• 24:24
  Mary: If someone is yeah, what what would you say about hormone replacement therapy?
• 24:30
  Tierra: Sure.
• 24:30
  Tierra: Um, so I think uh there's a difference between synthetic and bioidentical, right?
• 24:34
  Tierra: I've just mentioned with birth control, realize that synthetic hormones do not interact the same way as our bioidentical hormones.
• 24:42
  Tierra: Um, but the reason that synthetic hormones are out there is because they are longer lasting than our bioidentical, at least in a lot of cases, especially orally ingested.
• 24:52
  Tierra: If you are looking towards that, I would say find a provider that is going to encourage you to have your lifestyle practices in place first that's going to ask you smart questions about how are you sleeping, right?
• 25:06
  Tierra: And how are you, what does your nutrition look like?
• 25:08
  Tierra: What does your movement look like?
• 25:09
  Tierra: Are you, you know, strength training or you know, what are you doing?
• 25:14
  Tierra: Um, and that wants to work in concert with any additional support.
• 25:19
  Tierra: And also, I would even say before HRT, potentially look at vitamin deficiencies or supplementation.
• 25:26
  Tierra: You know, um, I've had really good postpartum.
• 25:29
  Tierra: Um, I experienced postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety.
• 25:33
  Tierra: And when I went and saw a functional medicine doctor, I realized that like my body wasn't metabolizing some B vitamins, and B vitamins are supporter neurotransmitters and things like serotonin and dopamine.
• 25:45
  Tierra: And so for me, instead of going on a pill or an SSRI, and that's totally valid if you do choose that.
• 25:50
  Tierra: But for me, that supplementation and fixing my gut made a huge difference in my mood.
• 25:57
  Tierra: And and um, so so anyway, sorry, to go back to the HRT conversation, let's get you tested, let's evaluate the whole thing, let's look at you as a whole person.
• 26:08
  Tierra: And then if it makes sense, amazing.
• 26:10
  Tierra: And if it doesn't, also amazing.
• 26:12
  Tierra: There's no judgment behind it.
• 26:14
  Mary: Well, it's really, really complex.
• 26:16
  Mary: And so I think from one of the things that I like is that before you even have to wade through where do I start?
• 26:25
  Mary: Who do I go to?
• 26:26
  Mary: Do they choose someone like you?
• 26:28
  Mary: Do they go to a doctor that doesn't often really understand those nuances?
• 26:32
  Mary: Or is it more like, okay, let's so start simply, let's try to go to bed at a certain time every night and get up at a certain time.
• 26:43
  Mary: And that sounds so crazy simple, but it that is then those are hormones we can start to regulate, right?
• 26:51
  Mary: The the um cortisol for the morning, the melatonin at night.
• 26:58
  Mary: But I think a lot of women too, they at this time, and I'll go back to perimenopause, it's that time of like fluctuation and unsureness and a lot of change.
• 27:09
  Mary: So our sleep might be affected anyway, but then our cortisol is surging at times where it shouldn't.
• 27:16
  Mary: So that seems to be one way to simply reset sleep.
• 27:21
  Mary: What are some other ways that could be simple lifestyle starts?
• 27:26
  Tierra: Yeah, so just going to sleep specifically, creating a sleep environment that is conducive to sleep.
• 27:31
  Tierra: A cool dark room is so important.
• 27:34
  Tierra: If you need white noise, right, as quiet as you can be.
• 27:36
  Tierra: And I know everyone has different circumstances.
• 27:38
  Tierra: I have a toddler, right?
• 27:40
  Tierra: So I don't always get a full night's sleep.
• 27:43
  Tierra: Um, you know, eating breakfast, starting your day with protein and carbs and giving yourself something that'll steady your blood sugar, right?
• 27:54
  Tierra: Um, having a stress management technique, whether that's meditation, a 10-minute walk in the sun, unplugged from your phone, yoga, journaling, uh, just simple practices.
• 28:07
  Tierra: You know, I'm gonna eat three types of fruit today and one veggie.
• 28:12
  Tierra: It and you're you're so right.
• 28:14
  Tierra: The simple things are the things that make the biggest difference.
• 28:18
  Tierra: And the hormone to lifestyle relationship is bi-directional.
• 28:22
  Tierra: What you do in your lifestyle impacts your hormones, and vice versa.
• 28:25
  Tierra: So focusing on what you can control is not only like gonna help you physically, but mentally and emotionally, um, I think is really powerful.
• 28:36
  Mary: Yes.
• 28:37
  Mary: Because we also don't often think about depression and anxiety related to these things, but they're totally, as you pointed out, totally connected.
• 28:47
  Tierra: Yeah, vitamin D deficiency.
• 28:49
  Tierra: Um and that's connected to the sun, right?
• 28:52
  Tierra: Because the best absorption for vitamin D is through our skin, but like seasonal affective disorder uh is a part of that.
• 28:59
  Tierra: Uh not having good nutrition, like I talked about those B vitamins, you know, good nutrition doesn't just make you look sexy and fit, right?
• 29:09
  Tierra: It's not just for how you look, it's the foundational pieces you need for good hormonal production.
• 29:17
  Tierra: You need fat for sex hormones, right?
• 29:20
  Tierra: We need carbohydrates.
• 29:21
  Tierra: Our brain loves glucose to think clearly, you know, we need protein for for muscle and recovery.
• 29:28
  Tierra: Um, yeah, it's just again, simple things, but it's so important.
• 29:33
  Mary: Yeah.
• 29:34
  Mary: And managing stress and doing that can be again, movement.
• 29:38
  Mary: I don't really like the word exercise because I think it sounds people that don't love it, it's like, yeah, just move every day.
• 29:45
  Mary: Move every day.
• 29:46
  Tierra: Yeah.
• 29:46
  Tierra: Although I will add to that, especially for women in perimenopause and menopause, strength training is just so important, resistance training.
• 29:54
  Tierra: And it doesn't have to be like, I'm gonna go squat 500 pounds, right?
• 29:58
  Tierra: Like we don't need to do that.
• 29:59
  Tierra: Body weight is acceptable, resistance bands, dumbbells, kettlebells.
• 30:04
  Tierra: You know, I want to tell women don't be afraid of intensity and don't be afraid to go heavy.
• 30:10
  Tierra: Um, but you don't necessarily have to.
• 30:12
  Tierra: We got to find something that you like to do.
• 30:15
  Tierra: Um, but strength training is really important.
• 30:18
  Tierra: Uh, and that's been proven time and time again.
• 30:20
  Tierra: Muscle is metabolically active.
• 30:22
  Tierra: Um, something going into parametopause, menopause for some women, our fat distribution changes.
• 30:29
  Tierra: Oh, yeah.
• 30:29
  Tierra: So instead of like the breast and the hips, uh, we start noticing a lot more abdominal fat.
• 30:34
  Tierra: And that's those changes in estrogen.
• 30:37
  Tierra: Something that helps counteract that is not just nutrition, but is strength training.
• 30:43
  Mary: So, yeah, there's just I put a plug in for that.
• 30:46
  Mary: Yes, for sure.
• 30:47
  Mary: Okay, I'm gonna give you two different scenarios, and I want to see what what you think of.
• 30:51
  Mary: So, first scenario, uh, someone gives you the chance to walk into a high school classroom of girls, young women, and you have 10 minutes to tell them what you think is important.
• 31:05
  Mary: What would what do you want young women to understand or know?
• 31:09
  Tierra: That their menstrual cycle is not a nuisance, that there's power and understanding the phases and how you feel, that tracking your cycle is so important.
• 31:20
  Tierra: Um, help you make decisions around that.
• 31:24
  Tierra: Uh, and that's what I would focus on.
• 31:26
  Tierra: Yeah, that that you're not and if you're experiencing symptoms, letting them know like what's normal and quote unquote normal, right?
• 31:34
  Tierra: That's I hate I hate that word, but what might be mild and what needs further investigation.
• 31:42
  Mary: Yeah.
• 31:42
  Mary: Okay.
• 31:43
  Mary: I love that.
• 31:45
  Mary: And the other thing, I did just talk to somebody who um practices cycle thinking.
• 31:50
  Mary: And we do have times, like we were talking about, when times of your cycle where maybe you have different energy and planning around those things and using that as a source of power instead of, oh, this is this is my week to have my period or whatever.
• 32:05
  Mary: So I like that thinking.
• 32:07
  Tierra: Yeah, so I I will say I'm not a fan of cycle syncing.
• 32:11
  Tierra: I think cycle tracking is and I'll make the distinction here.
• 32:15
  Tierra: And it depends on the person you talk to, right?
• 32:18
  Tierra: But cycle syncing as a as a as a broader theme is like you're you're always energetic in your follicle phase, you're gonna be more inward in your luteal phase, and don't do anything in your menstrual phase.
• 32:30
  Tierra: I don't like having hard guidelines for nutrition or energy, because for some women, they may feel amazing in their menstrual phase.
• 32:37
  Tierra: They may feel productive, they may feel like they want to do things.
• 32:40
  Tierra: So I would tell women, be aware, right?
• 32:43
  Tierra: We talked about what are the phases, what's actually happening in your body, and then respond accordingly.
• 32:49
  Tierra: If you feel good and lutile, then then don't limit yourself, I guess is what I'm saying.
• 32:54
  Tierra: Don't feel like you have to be constrained to I'm in this phase, it must mean this.
• 33:00
  Tierra: For you, it may mean something else.
• 33:02
  Tierra: So I think like be having awareness and then tracking your specific side effects and knowing that your cycle changes throughout your life too.
• 33:12
  Tierra: Um, that way you don't feel boxed in.
• 33:14
  Mary: Yeah.
• 33:15
  Mary: Yeah.
• 33:15
  Mary: And it goes back to what's important is that one thing doesn't work for everyone.
• 33:20
  Mary: So 100%.
• 33:21
  Mary: Understanding that, oh, so this person really wants to maximize their the phase of estrogen, but that doesn't really work for me.
• 33:31
  Mary: That doesn't mean you're weird or wrong.
• 33:32
  Mary: It just 100%.
• 33:34
  Tierra: Yeah, and I and I do worry, right?
• 33:36
  Tierra: Because again, it's all nuance.
• 33:38
  Tierra: And I think sometimes on social media or you hear a phrase, um, the nuance is lost in that.
• 33:45
  Tierra: But to your point, like what you said in the beginning, there's no one size fits all.
• 33:49
  Tierra: And that includes your period.
• 33:50
  Tierra: Again, understand what's happening.
• 33:54
  Tierra: Um, and then you can rock and roll from there, and then you can make decisions as needed.
• 33:58
  Mary: Yeah.
• 33:59
  Mary: Okay, second scenario.
• 34:01
  Mary: There's a group of women that gathers once a month, they're perimenopause, they're so frustrated by this beginning of hot flashes and all the this upheaval we've been kind of talking about.
• 34:13
  Mary: You have 10 minutes.
• 34:14
  Mary: What do you think is important for them to understand?
• 34:18
  Tierra: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:19
  Tierra: So I I would for them, I would really focus in on lifestyle, stress management, and expectations first, right?
• 34:25
  Tierra: Because I'm not a doctor.
• 34:26
  Tierra: I'm not going to prescribe you anything.
• 34:28
  Tierra: You need an official diagnosis, right, for through your healthcare provider.
• 34:32
  Tierra: But it may be, I'm just not the way that I was when I was 25.
• 34:36
  Tierra: Well, let's talk about it.
• 34:38
  Tierra: Now you're a mom of two kids and you're a caretaker of your elderly parents, and now you are the CEO of this position, right?
• 34:47
  Tierra: Of course, what you did when you were 25 isn't doesn't work anymore because your life has changed.
• 34:52
  Tierra: And now your body's changing.
• 34:54
  Tierra: So I think it's really important to acknowledge that.
• 34:58
  Tierra: Like, look what you've done.
• 34:59
  Tierra: You're freaking amazing.
• 35:00
  Tierra: You're a badass.
• 35:02
  Tierra: Um, but that's also why your body is not going to respond to things that the way they did before.
• 35:06
  Tierra: Um, so I think that's what I would talk through them with.
• 35:10
  Mary: Well, you brought up something that I say so often, and I'm so glad you did.
• 35:14
  Mary: We forget that we are an accumulation of our experiences.
• 35:17
  Mary: And all of that, like you're saying, you you're somewhere potentially in the parenting continuum or not.
• 35:25
  Mary: You are somewhere or not in the career continuum.
• 35:28
  Mary: Maybe you're not even in the relationship that created children if you have them.
• 35:32
  Mary: There's so many accumulations of tiny, we overuse the word trauma, but tiny traumas, tiny impactful experiences that we don't have time.
• 35:42
  Mary: We're like, I can't deal with that now.
• 35:44
  Mary: I just got to get through it.
• 35:45
  Mary: Well, I feel like as we emerge from some of that, then it's like, oh, what did I go through?
• 35:52
  Mary: What and we didn't go through.
• 35:53
  Mary: Then we need to work through that and uh and it's happening at the same time that our body's changing.
• 36:01
  Mary: Exactly.
• 36:01
  Mary: Everything's destabilizing.
• 36:03
  Mary: So I think that's why we forget that psychological part of it.
• 36:07
  Mary: And I think it's so important.
• 36:10
  Tierra: Oh, yeah, 100%.
• 36:11
  Tierra: And then just I just think about who I am today versus who I was even 10 years ago, right?
• 36:16
  Tierra: 30 to 40.
• 36:18
  Tierra: Um, man, yeah, you have to give yourself some grace.
• 36:23
  Mary: Yes.
• 36:23
  Mary: Okay.
• 36:24
  Mary: Now you've put a book together, and I want you to talk a little about why you did that.
• 36:29
  Mary: Like how did that occur and what people can find in that that you think is going to be helpful?
• 36:35
  Tierra: Yeah.
• 36:35
  Tierra: Uh so like I had mentioned, um, I just wanted to start writing down all these things I was learning about our sex hormones and how they interact with our body, what the menstrual cycle is, what birth control is.
• 36:49
  Tierra: So the the book is called The Birth Control Illusion.
• 36:52
  Tierra: Um, and for me, the illusion is that we are, we think we know everything about our bodies.
• 37:00
  Tierra: And then we soon find out that we don't when it comes to the sex hormones and how birth control interacts with it.
• 37:07
  Tierra: And then the back third of the book is about lifestyle, not just get sleep, but what is sleep?
• 37:12
  Tierra: That there are stages of sleep.
• 37:14
  Tierra: And that's why, and what's each stage is responsible for and why getting four hours of sleep doesn't encapsulate everything you need in those four stages.
• 37:24
  Tierra: Um, what is a carbohydrate?
• 37:26
  Tierra: Like we hear about it.
• 37:27
  Tierra: I don't know what that is.
• 37:28
  Tierra: What does that mean hormonally?
• 37:30
  Tierra: So the back third of the book is all about just like how these lifestyle factors actually interact with our hormones in that bidirectional relationship.
• 37:37
  Tierra: And I just wrote this for like the woman that's confused about what's going on, wants more information.
• 37:44
  Tierra: Uh, and and that's really it.
• 37:47
  Tierra: Our sex hormones aren't just about fertility and reproduction, they impact everything in our body.
• 37:52
  Tierra: Our menstrual cycle is powerful.
• 37:55
  Tierra: Birth control is a valid option, but you should know what you're getting into, good or bad.
• 38:01
  Tierra: And here are some things you should learn on the lifestyle side that can help you make better decisions for yourself.
• 38:07
  Tierra: Ultimately, I want someone to walk away feeling like, okay, now I know this information, now I can make better decisions for myself.
• 38:15
  Mary: Well, it's so important because even with all the things we're talking about, I mean, I have, you know, a decent amount of knowledge, certainly not the amount you have, but I can feel overwhelmed sometimes.
• 38:27
  Mary: Like, well, there's this thing happening and this, it's like whack-a-mole.
• 38:30
  Mary: Like, how do what do I do first?
• 38:32
  Mary: And so, yeah, to say, okay, the simple thing is let's look at your lifestyle.
• 38:36
  Mary: But then beyond that, some people have, you know, really impactful issues happening.
• 38:42
  Mary: And so that can feel like, you know, squirting a water gun at a bonfire, but it is a starting point.
• 38:49
  Mary: And I think a book like yours can put all of those things in one place.
• 38:54
  Mary: And that information then can be much more digestible and you can take it to then empower the next step.
• 39:00
  Tierra: Yeah.
• 39:01
  Tierra: And I think there's a lot of people in the space that tell people what to do that are very prescriptive.
• 39:07
  Tierra: And that's not, that's not bad or good.
• 39:10
  Tierra: But for me, I think it's more helpful if you have just those foundational pieces because you you might have PCOS, right?
• 39:18
  Tierra: You might have ovarian cyst, you might have Hashimoto's.
• 39:22
  Tierra: There's so many things that we deal with as women that this is not going to be the solution for.
• 39:29
  Tierra: That's not going to be the solution for.
• 39:31
  Tierra: But if I understand how my body is connected and not in some like memorizing technical terms, just basic foundational physiology.
• 39:39
  Tierra: I just think you can then go to your doctor with questions.
• 39:41
  Tierra: And I actually, after each chapter, I have questions you can ask your doctor.
• 39:45
  Tierra: Um, because I just think it's important.
• 39:48
  Tierra: You should have the same language that your provider does.
• 39:50
  Tierra: So you guys can communicate and kind of grow together on what the best solution is for you in your life.
• 39:57
  Mary: And you know your body.
• 39:58
  Mary: And that's where sometimes I think as women, that advocacy for ourselves, we can hear something or something suggested by a medical professional.
• 40:07
  Mary: And it can be like, wait, okay, I'll keep an open mind, but that doesn't sound like something that would work for me, or it's not really addressing what I'm telling you.
• 40:15
  Mary: I think we also need to believe in ourselves.
• 40:18
  Tierra: Yes, yes.
• 40:19
  Tierra: And I think we're seeing that again, this kind of uh age of social media we're in, which I a lot of it I love because I'm seeing so many conversations about menopause, so many conversations about pregnancy loss, so many conversations about um about PCOS, which is now called PMOS.
• 40:37
  Tierra: There's been so long we haven't believed women.
• 40:40
  Tierra: And now women are like, no, this is a real thing.
• 40:45
  Tierra: There's more research happening.
• 40:46
  Tierra: There's like I was talking about that um perimenopause pen excuse me, perimenopause study I saw.
• 40:51
  Tierra: There's a lot of really cool, exciting things happening, but it can be overwhelming.
• 40:55
  Tierra: Oh, yeah.
• 40:56
  Tierra: So uh yeah, I think we're in a really interesting time for women and women's health.
• 41:00
  Tierra: And as someone that wants to do basic education, I'm like so pumped.
• 41:04
  Tierra: I'm so excited for my daughter's generation.
• 41:09
  Tierra: Um, and or also just women my age or older that have teenage daughters, or or shoot, if you're a grandmother, right?
• 41:17
  Tierra: What kind of knowledge you can now impart upon those young women?
• 41:22
  Tierra: I just think it's very exciting.
• 41:24
  Mary: Yeah, definitely.
• 41:25
  Mary: And thank you very much.
• 41:26
  Mary: Yeah, I can tell.
• 41:28
  Mary: And I think we need that, and I appreciate that you did that you created that book.
• 41:32
  Mary: So share with us where people can find you, and I will link it in my show notes.
• 41:38
  Tierra: Yeah.
• 41:38
  Tierra: Um, so my website is tiara duncan.com.
• 41:41
  Tierra: I do a monthly blog on there, and they can find my book on there.
• 41:45
  Tierra: Um, social media, I'm on Instagram uh and YouTube.
• 41:49
  Tierra: I put out like a short, just three to five minute like copper IED versus hormonal IED kind of stuff.
• 41:56
  Tierra: Uh, so that's Tierra Duncan author.
• 41:58
  Tierra: Try to keep it really simple.
• 42:00
  Tierra: Um, and then I actually have my second book coming out on GLP ones in October.
• 42:06
  Tierra: I haven't like announced the official um title and and I haven't done the cover reveal, but it'll be it'll be in a couple weeks.
• 42:13
  Tierra: But I'm very excited.
• 42:14
  Tierra: And again, it's the same thing, not bad or good, but what should we know about weight loss and what should we know about GLP ones?
• 42:21
  Mary: Oh, totally great timing.
• 42:23
  Mary: Yeah.
• 42:23
  Mary: Well, thank you, Tara, for being here.
• 42:27
  Mary: I appreciate it.
• 42:28
  Tierra: Yeah, thank you so much.
• 42:29
  Tierra: This is really fun.
• 42:30
  Mary: And I want to thank everyone for listening.
• 42:32
  Mary: If you have thoughts on this episode, I would truly love to hear from you.
• 42:35
  Mary: Please use the link in the show notes to send me a voice or typed text.
• 42:39
  Mary: And until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are.