Why is it so hard to get real answers about your health?

If you've been told that everything looks fine, but you know that something is off, we're not imagining it.

That's why I created Vitality three sixty to help you better understand what's going on inside your body so that you can take the targeted action needed.

With a functional health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork to uncover the root causes of your symptoms.

I've teamed up with Doctyesmina, an incredible integrative GP, and together we will help you decode your body's signals and answer questions like why am I always exhausted?

What's really causing my stubborn weight?

Am I inflamed?

Insulin resistant?

Or maybe missing key nutrients?

Because when you understand your body better, you can transform your health.

Visit v three sixty dot health or check out the show notes for more.

I am what you would describe as very curious.

You know, I'm at this age now, I'm forty six.

I'm starting to get some of those pery symptoms, but I have to say, on the whole, I.

Do feel pretty good.

The symptoms that.

Are kind of starting to show their ugly heads are things like the occasional night sweats in that week before my period.

Some months I really am noticing the mummy rage where the smallest thing will just set me off.

Occasional headaches, usually again just before I get my period, although interestingly I haven't had those for a couple of months, so they definitely you know, roller coaster.

Some months are good, some months not so good.

But then there are a couple of positive symptoms I've noticed, like, for example, around ovulation.

Oh my goodness, girlfriend, am I so frisky?

There's this Instagram page Diane Kolev.

Here's this Bulgarian.

Jump rope athlete, and he has these gorgeous videos of him with his shirt off, skipping and dripping in sweat.

And let's just say Diane and I have a date usually each month around that day for route.

But look, even with these.

Symptoms that come and go, and some months they're better and some months they're a bit worse, I just don't quite feel ready to jump on the HRT bandwagon, not yet, but I certainly would love to feel armed with some strategies to help smooth out these hormonal bumps.

As you know, they no doubt are going to rise and get a little bit more dramatic as I get closer to menopause.

But until such time as I'm ready for the patch and some HRT, I just want to learn how to manage those symptoms and understand them a little bit better.

This is healthy her with Amelia Phillips Perry.

Menopause can begin as early as ten years before reaching menopause, which on average wh is around fifty one years old here in Australia, and during that ten years, symptoms and severity of these symptoms can really vary greatly.

Now, whilst it's wonderful to see HRT getting the airtime it deserves, thank goodness, but not all of us are quite ready yet or maybe not able to jump straight onto the HRT bandwagon.

And actually I've got a whole episode on HRT coming up soon.

So look out for that.

Today.

I'd love to really explore all the ways we can better manage our fluctuating hormones and you know, those increasing pery symptoms that we're seeing happen.

But how we can do this outside of HRT first, and then maybe we can consider HRT a little further down the track, so to help guide us through these best strategies that actually work.

Is the amazing Doctor Carry Jones aka the Queen of Hormones.

Doctor Carry is a leading hormone specialist and educator with over twenty years clinical experience.

That means, guys, she's seen it all, helping women navigate peri menopause and menopause and beyond.

Now.

She is what I love, which is a naturopathic physician with a master's degree and is a Menopause Society Certified practitioner, which can I say is really hard to get.

And from her years as a medical director at the Dutch Test, which is a comprehensive hormone test, I'm sure we'll chat about that, to hosting her amazing podcasts and looking after her over two hundred thousand Instagram followers.

Gosh, we are so lucky to have her with us today.

Beaming in from Portland, Oregon.

Thank you, doctor Carrie so much for coming on today.

I am so excited to have this conversation.

Thank you well.

PERI menopause few, Oh my goodness, it can last a long time for some of us, you know, ten years, that's a long time to have these out of body hormonal experiences.

Can you talk us through the various stages of perry right up until postmenopause.

It's interesting if you think of it, like, if you remember we're call back puberty.

Puberty took ten ish ten plus years as well, and now we're just backing out of puberty, so it's going to take about the same time to make this transition.

So according to research, we have two stages of perimenopause.

They didn't put me in charge.

I would have said more, but here we are so early perimenopause.

They classify by your period changing by about seven days.

So if you used to be a twenty eight day girl, now it's twenty one, or maybe it's thirty five.

Then a late stage.

Perimenopause is once you start skipping periods, and you've skipped two in a row, So once you've gone sixty days no period, they're like, congratulations, you've moved into late perimenopause.

The problem is most women don't jump right into cycle changes.

They may change by a couple of days.

That's usually it's.

The symptoms, right, Usually they're like, I'm starting to notice I can't sleep, I'm starting to notice my mood, I'm starting to notice this brain fog or I'm starting to notice my hair scanner.

Whatever it is, and it's interesting.

Cycles aren't affected.

It's interesting.

I mean, for me, my cycle is bang on, but it's shifted from twenty eight days to twenty six days, and it's so regular at twenty six days, and I know I'm getting hormonal symptoms because like clockwork, the night sweats, so you know, they're all cyclical.

They're happening at the same stage in my cycle, just before I get my period.

So it's frustrating to me to think that, well, no one's going to recognize this unless I'm having these big fluctuations, which to me feel like they're much closer to the menopause transition.

So we putting me in the perimenopause bucket, even though I'm not even ticking the early stage, you know category, because it's still not varying by seven days.

My answer is yes, And they use that description more for research when they're categorizing how can we tell where they are in perimenopause to determine research outcomes.

But of course a lot of people are.

Still trying to figure out, like, well, what stage am I in, how long do I have?

What's the first symptom, I should look out for what's coming up ahead, kind of like maps on your phone when you're trying to get somewhere.

You know, everyone's like, I need a map, I need a perimenopause map, And so I take the symptoms into account age and I take the whole thing into account.

Well, I figure, So, I've heard you talk a lot about hormonal patterns, So could you maybe walk us through a couple of the most common ones that you see in your testing and in your clinic and what they might mean for us.

Usually the first hormone to drop is progesterone.

So even though you're getting a period every month, you don't ovulate like you used to, which is release the egg.

And in order to make progesterone, you have to release an egg, and so that's typically the first hormone that goes down.

Progesterone is our calming, soothing, relaxing, everything's going to be okay.

Hormone.

It helps make nice periods, it helps reduce like PMS, and so women usually notice that one goes down first.

Then over time, through years, they'll notice their estrogen, their estradiol goes crazy, which is why you said in the beginning, I have good months and then I have bad months.

What the heck?

Yeah, it's because progesterone can fall, but estrogen's like a completely off the rails roller coaster.

Yeah.

So some months she's somebody's bad.

Yeah, and some months she's you know, go and sail and high and drop and low.

Like for example, this month, my boobs have been so sore from the day I ovulate all the way through my periods due in about four days, so much so when my kids hug me, I'm wincing in pain, whereas the last two months not an ounce of soreness at all.

What's an example from a symptom perspective, what would you predict is happening underneath the surface hormonally in those two examples.

So with that one again, it's that estrogen progesterone sort of ratio.

And so when progesterone drops and you have either good levels of estrogens or two high levels of estrogens relative to progesterone, then MAHON can impact all the breast tissue absolutely.

You may even notice, like the PMS symptoms get worse.

You may notice the irritation, anger and rage gets worse.

You may notice this period's heavier, whereas the last two periods maybe weren't that heavy just because of that imbalance an estrogen and progesterone leading up to your period, But next month might be totally different.

And so as we progress to that latest stage, Perry, you're saying, essentially along the journey, progesterone is probably just slowly declining.

Estrogen might fluctuate, and then is there a point that estrogen just starts to peter out?

It does once she starts skipping periods more consistently.

So once somebody's like, oh, yeah, I've skipped two periods, I've skipped three periods, I've skipped six periods, then I'm like, oh, you're estrogen.

You'r estrodyl is really getting low there, You're way less on the roller coaster.

Your roller coaster is getting flatter.

And that means both those hormones are now down, progesterone and estrogen, and women really feel it then yeah.

Okay, oh god, if I'm feeling it, now, what about testosterone?

What's that little poppy doing throughout it?

Oh?

My goodness?

Is now the interesting thing on testosterone is that women make a lot we've relative to estrogen believe it or not.

However, testosterone declines with a but not at the same rate for every woman.

So like, your testosterone might decline much faster than mine, which will cause our symptoms to be different.

So some women listening are probably like, oh, I have no testosterone, I have no libido, I have no motivation, I've no I can't put on muscle, no testosterone, And other women are like, no, I still feel pretty good, still have a pretty decent libido, Still feel pretty motivated, Still go to the gym, able to like maintain my muscle.

However, it does just naturally decline with age.

At some point testosterone will probably drop, drop, drop, until you notice those symptoms of low levels.

It just sort of depends on the woman.

That one doesn't follow the same like trajectory is progesterone and estrogen.

It's a little bit more of a wildcard.

Okay, and you just chatted through a few symptoms, can you just wrap those up.

If a listener is sitting here going, oh, how do I know if I've got low testosterone?

Can you just talk us through those symptoms?

Absolutely, symptoms to look out for first and foremost libido.

Now, a lot goes into libido.

No, oh my god.

Right, It's multifaceted, but dropping testosterone is a big one.

Testosterone also plays a role in mood.

It helps you feel strong, it helps you feel confident, it helps you with motivation.

Testosterone also plays a role in muscle mass, So if you find you've gotten squishier and you're losing your muscle mass even though you're maybe going to the gym, it's possible that the decline in testosterone is playing a role in that.

Now, on the flip side, some women might have an imbalance in testosterone and notice sort of puberty symptoms again, so they may get a temporary rise in testosterone and they're like, what the heck, Now I'm having some acne, I'm having way more chin hairs, I'm losing hair.

And that can last for.

A couple months to a couple of years with that imbalance, and then it switches if testosterone starts to drop.

So you can see, I wish it was it was more consistent.

And you know, woman to woman, we all go through perimenopause, but our journey can look different, which is why maybe your neighbor looks different than yours, your sister looks different than yours, your best friend looks different than yours.

It's all periomtopause, but it just depends on the person.

And I think what's really coming out as you're saying all this now, is well, can't we all just take a test for this?

And I know I'm actually going to get you back on a whole other episode if it's all right with you to talk about the testing, because I know that it's not as simple as that.

Otherwise, if we're filling low on iron, we go and get a blood test, we look at our Ferreton levels, our iron levels.

Alow, let's take a supplement.

You know, tick tick boom?

How easy is that?

Whereas, as you've alluded to, you can have these months where you know, some months it's high, some months it's low, depends on the day of the month.

You know, all these other factors that into play, which I'm going to dive into those in this other episode.

So for those of you listening that are just like.

Can I please take a test?

We will talk about that.

But today, I really what I'm loving about this episode today is we're really going to reconnect with our own bodies and really focus on our own feelings and intuition and learn to become more in tune with our body.

And that's what I'd love to help get some insights.

So I'm going to throw at you a few symptoms to just get a sense if you can relate these back to what might be going on hormonally.

I started with the sore boobs around ovulation and through that luteal phase, So we spoke about that.

What about headaches in the week leading up to your period and migraines?

What can be happening hormonally there.

They've linked at the most although this is still kind of elusive to researchers, but they've linked the most to changing estrogen estrodyl.

So what happens is in the ludeal phase we get a second bump in estrogen and a huge bump in progesterone.

But what can happen is that estradyle can fall faster than maybe the body anticipated.

That will play a role in a nerve called the trigeminal nerve, which impacts a neurotransmitter called serotonin.

And for those people who maybe you're on medication for migraines, a lot of them relate around serotonin, and so it just becomes this domino effect of estradial foles.

The nerve gets irritated because of serotonin blood flow changes.

We get this pulse and blood flow because of the change in estrogen.

Because of the change in serotonin, and boom.

Susceptible women get migraines or even just headaches.

And lutill phase.

Just for those of you listening, is that second half of your period, so from sort of day fourteen essentially through to when you get your period.

So if you could wave your magic wand for someone that experiences those headaches regularly, if you could tinker with their hormones, what would prevent that?

Is it less of a drop of estrogen, Like, if we're trying to support that estrogen production, that's going to be the thing that will help to mitigate those headaches.

I'll be honest.

So I am one of those people.

I suffer from menstrual migraines.

I started at about thirty years old.

Wow, all of a sudden, I'd had headaches, but started getting menstrual migraines about the day before the day of my period.

And I have been able to thankfully, really really really improve them over the years.

And I have to say the foundational health things probably made the biggest impact, meaning in my lutele phase, that second phase, like how do I take care of myself?

How is my stress?

How am I sleeping?

How tight are my muscles?

Have I worked out or not?

Have I been drinking?

Have I been traveling?

Going through all of those boxes, even down to nutrition, have I been eating terrible things like have I been eating very pro inflammatory?

I've been getting enough fiber and enough greens and a veggies, et cetera.

That ultimately has made the biggest impact for me.

I'm not on estrogen yet like you, I still get a clockwork cycle.

But the last several cycles I have not had a migraine, and I think it's attributed to either either my hormones have settled out or all the lifesele factors.

The more consistent I am with lifestyle factors, I should say, the more consistently it helps the migraines.

But I will say things like magnesium.

I take a lot of magnesium.

I am very aware of my serotonin, my mood neurotransmitters.

Again sleep, I'm very aware of my sleep.

I don't really drink hardly at all.

Alcohol recks everything, my mood my liver, my sleep, it's not worth it.

And so I by doing these things, I am in a direct in in a roundabout way, impacting both estrogen and serotonin.

And then of course I get body work.

I get massages because I know tight muscles coupled with hormones can be a big trigger for a lot of women, and that like the upper trap, tight neck from sitting at a desk.

All day, huge trigger for me for headaches.

That's a difference.

Yeah, I can so relate to absolutely everything you've just said, and so similar to you, doctor carry, I've been on a very similar journey in that the last few months have been so much better for me, and I have also been doing those foundational things, or really focusing on them, like I've really Monday, Chuesday, Wednesday, or actually Sunday, Monday, Chuesday, Wednesday, so four nights a week, I am fanatical about getting at least seven, if not eight hours.

I try to get eight hours in bed and that makes such a huge difference.

And the same thing.

I realized how terrible alcohol has been for it as well.

So it really is those.

Foundational things that can make a difference, which is frustrating because we all want a silver bullet, and we all kind of yawn and go, oh yeah, I wish, and look, I appreciate it with something I know, and we're going to talk through.

I want to really kind of dial in and get a bit more nuanced on the strategies.

But I just want to throw a couple more symptoms at you and get your expertise on maybe what's going on.

So we just spoke about the salt boots who spoke about the headaches, what about the night sweats?

What's going on if we're cycling through and realizing in that week leading up and maybe even the first few days of our period, we're starting to notice whether it's just a bit of datness or sometimes I've had to change my pj's in the middle of the night they're so wet.

And this could be a couple of reasons.

So one again, that drop an estrogen.

Estrogen plays a big role in what we call the thermoregular center in your body and your brain, which think about like a giant thermostat for your you know, air conditioning or your heat turning on for your body.

So is estradyle drops just like the trigger for migraines estrodyle drops, which can trigger the thermal regulatory center to go oh no, cooler down, and boom, you start to feel warm, hot or full on sweating.

Now, another reason that can trigger a change in body temperature and thus hot sweats or night sweats and hot flashes is melatonin.

If you don't get an increase in the hormone known as melatonin at night.

Melatonin is your hormone of darkness.

It's your hormone that helps you with sleep, and it's supposed to peak between two and four am, like peak peak, like a mountaintop peak, like really high in the body.

If it doesn't do that, then you don't get a drop in core body temperature because you need that peak in melatonin to drop your core body temperature.

And what happens a lot of women wake up between two and four am hot, oh, sweaty, not the good kind of hot exactly.

And so sometimes I'm like, if it's not your estrogen, it could be your melatonin is not getting up there.

It could be both.

They could be best friends conspiring behind your back.

Unfortunately, Now we have two other reasons that I've seen.

One or blood sugar issues.

If women again have been eating a lot of sugar before bed, alcohol before bed, their blood sugar is erratic.

They go from angry, hyperglycemic up then up to hyperglycemic because of their dietary choices.

That can also trigger warmth, hot flashes, all the things for us at this age.

And fourth thing I've seen is cortisol.

If you are stressed out, you go to bed stressed out, you wake up stressed out.

I have absolutely seen that make it worse as well.

And I've heard that cortisol and melatonin are a sea saw.

So if one is up, the other is usually down.

And so just circling back to your melatonin example earlier, if cortisol is elevated through that night, well you're not going to get that beautiful mountain of melatonin right in that four am or two to four am time frame.

Oh that's so interesting and gosh, you can just see how it is such a symphony, isn't it.

Yes, it is, And again I love how you said it earlier.

People just want that quick fix, that magic bullet.

And I swear, I swear if I had the magic bullet, I would just put it in the water supply, I would air drop it across the world.

But there isn't a magic bullet, per se.

It does require us to do some of the work, you know.

It does require us to try to get eight hours of sleep, to be mindful of what we're doing before bed, to work on our stress responses best we can to be, you know, cognizant of the food we eat and how hydrated we are, and if we're relying on so much caffeine and alcohol, do we even move in our day or are we just sitting at a desk all day?

Things like that add up, and unfortunately, in perimenopause, because there's so much change happening, it's not as forgiving.

Your body was a lot more forgiving thirty thirty five.

Of course in your twenties it was very forgiving.

Any meate your forties and your fifties, and the body's like, no, we're going through a major change right now.

I don't have time or bandwidth or patience for you to use and abuse me.

We have to get on the right track.

And you would you agree with saying that even HRT is not a silver bullet.

Don't think that you can just ignore all those important lifestyle leavers and just slap on a patch and you'll be fine.

It needs to be done in that holistic way.

Is that your view as well?

Yes, it is my view because I see the feedback in the comments all the time.

I see it on social media, on YouTube, on podcast comments where women thought HRT was going to be the silver bullet.

Yeah, and they realized maybe it helped for a week, maybe it helped for a couple months, and then they're like, it's not working.

I'm on the wrong dose, I're on the wrong type.

This isn't working.

And they didn't change anything else.

They didn't address all those foundational things.

So a lot of my colleagues talk regularly that it is it's a whole three sixty approach.

I am a fan of hormones.

I'm not saying don't do hormones, but you do have to look yourself in the mirror and be like really aware of those foundations because, as I said, perimenopause is a big whole body change.

All twelve bodily systems get involved.

Why is it so hard to get real answers about your health?

If you've been told that everything looks fine, but you know that something is off, we're not imagining it.

That's why I created Vitality three point sixty to help you better understand what's going on inside your body so that you can take the targeted action needed.

With a functional health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork to uncover the root causes of your symptoms.

I've teamed up with doctor Esmina, an incredible integrative GP and together we will help you decode your body's signals and answer questions like why am I always exhausted?

What's really causing my stubborn weight?

Am I inflamed?

Insulin resistant?

Or maybe missing key nutrients?

Because when you understand your body better, you can transform your health.

Visit v three to sixty dot health or check out the show notes for more.

What a important I guess wake up call for us because the other thing I think about is that I'm going to live to one hundred, right, I'm determined to live to one hundred, So menopause is the halfway mark, and so I'm actually preparing myself for the next fifty years.

And there's this transition period which I love to liken it to a storm season.

I love this analogy of if you're a sailor out on the car motion, maybe that's your thirties or your twenties.

And then you get wind that there's a storm coming.

Of course, you're going to start to prepare for the storm.

You're going to do whatever sailors do.

Batten down the hatches, you know, do whatever, lock all the cupboards so the plates and cups don't go flying.

And then when the storm hits you and you don't know whether it's going to be wind or rain you and that's your.

Hormones playing have it.

You adjust your sales and you adapt, and because you're armed and experienced and educated, you know how to change the course.

And then of course you come out the other side of the storm in this beautiful calm.

Sea of this lovely next stage of life.

And the more prepared we were and the better we were able to navigate the storm, then we're going to be less batter than bruised on the other side.

I think, don't you think that's something worth fighting for and something that's worth investing in?

Absolutely?

And I think when you said, like you, if you get word a storm is coming, I find the women who tend to do the best through perimenopause are the women who did the prep work ahead of time, the women who were like I came into my forties already doing pretty well, eating really clean, exercising.

I have a great community.

I focused on sleep, I found joy, I live my purpose.

And I am not saying this is you know, the ability of everybody, but I notice more and more and more, because us women are vocal, especially at this age.

Yeah, that the ones who already came in full prepared just do better, and they go.

It wasn't that bad.

I did Okay, I didn't have that many symptoms, and I'm like, fantastic, amazing.

And then I find the women who are like, oh my gosh, I have had every symptom.

This has been the worst thing ever, the most worst storm in my whole life.

When I track back, tell me about your twenties, tell me about your childhood, tell me about your thirties.

Right, all of a sudden, it's not it's been storms their whole life.

That's the trend I tend to see.

Not everyone, but it is the trend I see over and over as I'm coming through comments and getting this feedback.

Yeah, it's so interesting to hear your unique perspective because you know, you've got so many followers and you've been doing this incredible work, and you know you're dealing with large populations, but then you're also in a clinic in the privacy of just you and your patient who is bailing her eyes out because her body feels broken, and you know she's feeling suicidal or like she's having an out of body experience.

So I just love, love, love love getting your perspective.

And to hear you saying how important these lifestyle leavers are, it says to me, all right, well, let's really dull into those now.

And I want to kind of drill down into some of them in detail, but I just want.

To caveat before we go into this.

It can feel really overwhelming for one of my beautiful listeners who's sitting here going, well, you know what, I'm not pull I'm not pulling the levers, I'm not doing all the stuff.

I am stressed, i am.

Sleeping poorly, I'm too exhausted to exercise, I am going for the comfort foods.

The thought of overhauling all of that just feels really overwhelming.

So where would you suggest we start?

For someone that's probably in a bit of a tough spot right now, and they just they really they've got no testosterone, so they've got no motivation to make any change.

What do we do?

Absolutely, and they probably, you know, God bless them, they probably have little kids at home and career and real they're just juggling all the balls, right, all the balls and at the same time going through reverse puberty.

When we went through puberty the first time, you know more, we're like ten to seventeen, we had no responsibility other than to get up and go to school, right, yeah, and go through puberty now and even that puberty, and that was a challenge if we all think back and remember for the majority, I mean definitely for me, I was not pleasant according to my parents.

But now we have so much responsibility, we have so much on our shoulders, so much we're trying to keep better and keep going forward and keep moving.

And oh, by the way, at.

The same time, you're just you're going to puberty and reverse like congratulations.

You would think at the end of perimenopause, as we transition to postmenopause, we would get like a party or a crown or a certificate.

I had a really sweet woman write me today.

She goes, I've gone three hundred and sixty five days without a period.

Now what?

And I was like, I wish I could part to a party.

Yeah, where's the cake crowns, the big m cake exactly?

So where do you start?

I will tell you where I would start, and then I will caveat that.

So the number one thing I would suggest focusing on is sleep.

Oh yeah, okay, I just all right.

I heard a collective sigh and relief, because that sounds like a nice place to start.

It's and it's you get the most bang for your buck.

I love exercise.

I know a lot of people will fight me and say, no, no, no, it's exercise.

If you haven't been.

Sleeping, it's going to impact every aspect of your body negatively, including your ability to exercise.

So I need you to be in that like rest, digest heal repair.

We call it the parasympathetic side of you.

I need you to have good melotonin levels, not only for the hot flash part, but I need you to have good melotonin levels because it plays a role in your metabolic health, your glucose, your insulin, your weight.

It's the huge part of your circadian rhythm that you're you wake up in the morning, you go to bed at night.

That communicates to every other aspect of your body.

Everything works on a circadian rhythm.

In your body, we work on some sort of rhythm.

Even your mentional cycle works on a rhythm, just a longer rhythm.

It's a monthly rhythm.

Sleep is restorative.

Sleep helps repair your brain.

So if you're starting to feel brain fog and you can't remember, and you lost your keys, and you couldn't think of your neighbor's name, and you went to do something and you forgot what you were going to do, which is weird because you just thought of it two seconds ago, like those.

Guilty right, like the same.

Sleep helps lay down memory, repair all that detox the brain, and it's I feel it's a lever that's easier to pool.

Yeah, tell me.

Tell me how you managed to improve your sleep, because you mentioned earlier than in your strategy.

Sleep's been a big one.

What have you done because you've got children?

I don't have children now, okay, don't have a children.

I have a dog's oh yeah, the baby cats.

Tell me what you some of the strategies you did that really makes you sit here today and go, oh, my sleep is better than it was three or six months ago.

So I did a lot.

First and foremost, I'm a magnesium addict, so I realized my body needs a lot of magnesium.

I take magnesium glystinate at night before bed, like four to five hundred milligrams.

Yeah, started that right away.

I started is best that I can.

I'm guilty as the rest of the last next person, I stopped doom scrolling.

So going through my phone thinking I'm.

Just going to scroll on Instagram for five minutes, and all of a sudden, it's fifty five minutes later.

Yeah, and that's that extra hour of sleep you were hoping.

How did you stop doom scrolling?

Because that's something in a recent episode I was saying, it's a habit I'm really trying to break, and I'm finding it very hard.

It's super hard.

So what I've been doing now.

I happen to have some people listening might have like an Apple Watch or a Whoop band or an oar ring or some sort of track or that tells that gives them feedback about their sleep.

I happen to have a particular mattress cover.

It's called an eight sleep, like the number eight.

I am not sponsored by any of these I'm just telling you what I have, so the eight sleep will tell me my heart rate variability.

Heart rate variability is a marker stress.

Right is the best I found.

If I did magnesium and I noticed that my blood sugar started getting wonky, so I added in four grams of an acetol, which is good for stress, but for blood sugar, the powders and taste delicious, so I take two of those.

I take those before bed.

Then if I read read a book, I have the Kindle paper white, so I can turn the background more orange less white, like like a sleep mode.

Or if I read a real book in bed, and then i'd like listen to music, and then my phone is on airplane mode.

I don't like I have to consciously do this.

My HRV would go through the roof, which makes complete sense.

My body was like, oh, you look at you, princess, like you did all the right things.

You checked up all the right boxes.

You're not stressed.

If I scroll, if I watch something on TV, I don't watch that much TV if you would, but if I you.

Probably snacking at the same time.

Completely most people are.

And so if I don't do any of that, or I am mindful of what I'm watching, if I start to turn off lights, like I turn off the overhead lights and just have sort of the table lamps on.

Do you I mean I drink a tea every night.

I drink like a ninety ninety or sleepy time tea every night.

Like I just created a routine.

Yeah, and I just get immediate feedback.

These trackers tell me I'm doing the right thing and I know it now.

I will say I have added in progesterone as well, so when the lutill phase, I do take progesterone at night before bed and that has also been helpful.

Okay, there's such great tips.

And again I feel like you and I are just so vibing because I literally have done a similar thing and that it was the tracking.

I use Apple Watch and I use an app called auto Sleep.

It was auto Sleep that made me realize the number one alcohol is not my friend.

Because of that sleep at a shelvy and heart rate.

I just think when you see the data, it helps you really get reaffirmed what is working and what's not.

And the other thing I like is that you don't have to do it seven days a week if you're finding that even if you're just doing it half the week to just you know, get over that hamp.

It becomes a lot easier.

I find that those things are easy to add in.

You've probably seen the memes where it's like becoming perimounopausal is a full time job to get enough protein, get enough fiber, get enough steps, get enough exercise, get enough, get enough, get enough, get enough.

Like I don't have time on my day anymore for anything, And I totally get it.

And I find with sleep things, it's pretty cheap and easy for most of it.

Like it's pretty inexpensive to do some sort of herbally tea as you wind down.

It's pretty inexpensive to start turning off some overhead lights.

I do wear a sleep mask at night, So get yourself a cute sleep mask that doesn't squeeze your head, that's not too tight, keep the light out right.

Like, it's pretty easy to turn your phone off at night.

That's free, read a book or putter, you know, like put around the house, like take do dishes, or set up for tomorrow, make lunches whatever.

That's low key.

That signals to the body, we're winding down now, it's getting close to bed.

We're like toddlers.

Why did we ever stop with bath time and stories like why did.

Who strokes my forehead?

Where's the person that needs to stroke my forehead and my hair and give me a tummy tickle and sing me a beautiful alibi works like.

A dream for the kiddies.

We should have kept that and we didn't.

And I find that people go, oh, you know what, I can start to implement those I will say because I said I would give a caveat and where I would start in all of the lists we talked about with the foundations, If sleep seems overwhelming to you, it's the last thing I want.

I don't want you to feel overwhelmed.

So if you would rather focus on nutrition, if you would rather focus on exercise, if you would rather focus on stress management, whatever it is, because that's the easiest thing that resonates with you, then I will fully support that one hundred percent.

But if you're listening going, I don't know where to start it all sounds overwhelming, startles sleep.

Okay, Well, let's shift gears into nutrition and I know we've got the foundational stuff, which I think everyone on this podcasts understands, you know, whole food approach, minimizing process, foods, but particularly around hormone support.

Can you just drill down into the key elements things like phytoestrogens, good, bad, ugly.

And what else?

Are some things that we can be doing to help manage and metabolize our hormones effectively?

There are a lot more phytoestrogens in food than I think people realize.

So I'm going to say good because I don't want to vilify any of the whole food type of approach.

We see people, you know, like ground flax seeds in Tempe and fermented soy, like, if you love those things and they fit your diet, well go for it.

Certain legooms and beans like yeah, absolutely.

The only phytoestroan I would maybe harken against is alcohol here and if you be careful of that one.

And so what could dialing up our phytoestrogens, particularly in the loutele in that second.

Half of our cycle?

What could that do to support our hormones?

If you don't have a lot of estrogen, then phytoestrogens The idea behind them is that they will bind to the estrogen receptor and very very very minimally give them a push, like they'll like activate them a little bit.

So it's really nice.

Women will say, you know, I don't have much estrogen.

I'm feeling very dry.

I'm feeling very you know, hot, flashy, I'm feeling brain fog, like my joints hurt, my skin is dry.

Everything's just like low estrogen.

The phytoestrogen may give them a little bit of relief.

Plus they're generally pretty whole food, healthy food that you can incorporate into your diet.

Yeah, okay, that may have been helpful.

So a lot of women, there was a narrative a few years ago where they could potentially be harmful.

So it's so great to hear because to me, it just didn't make sense when people were saying, oh, no, I'm not touching soy products anymore.

So I'm glad you've cleared that one up for us.

I will I will say I am careful with soy because I feel some people maybe go overboard, and soy can be very processed.

You can get soy milk, soy protein powder, soy cheese, so yogurt, soy.

Suddenly your entire diet is processed ultra processed soy products.

Yeah, maybe not the best thing, but if you're like I love better mummy, I like to say, I do mean, so I'm like, yeah, frozen.

At a mum is so convenient to have.

You can have them in so many ways.

You can you know, dress them up and have lots of herbs and spices on them.

So I love hearing you say that.

I want to now talk about estrogen metabolism because another thing I've had a lot of success with is DIM containing foods.

And also I'm going to get onto supplements, but supplementing with dim as well.

What are your thoughts on really dialing up those cruciferous vegetables to help us metabolize estrogen, because I think this is kind of underrepresented.

Big fan, Are you kidding?

The chrysiferous veggities, your broccoli, your kale, your coliflower, your Brussels sprouts.

One, they're your veggies, two lots of fiber, three tons of phyto nutrients, not just support of estrogen, but detoxification at large through your whole liver.

So, big fan, I would hate for a woman ever, unless for some reason you don't like it or you're allergic to it, like to be turned off from those foods.

Incorporate them in please do?

Yeah?

Good, good, all right.

Well.

Touching on supplements, you mentioned magnesium.

We call it glycinate here and down under, and for those of you listening, there's a really great one here, the Metagenics.

It used to be called comics, that's now I think called meta relax.

That's a really great Yeah, that's a really good magnesium glacinate that I have a lot of success with.

With our members.

Any other supplements outside of hormone replacement therapy that you think could support us through Perry?

I tell women, if you've never really examined your diet before, if you've never actually consciously done some tracking for a couple of days really evaluated your phytonutrients, your protein amount, your fiber amount, so the macros essentially is what we call them.

It can be helpful, especially going into perimenopause.

Track for a couple of days in some sort of app and see what you eat.

Most people eat roughly the same things throughout the week.

Are you getting enough protein, are you getting enough fiber, Are you getting enough fats?

Et cetera, et cetera.

Some of these apps will give you the micro nutrients, so then you can break down and see gosh in a whole week I'm not getting any omegas.

I don't eat fish.

I don't eat you know, like, yeah, it's not in season right now.

I guess I should probably add in some more omegas Omega three, either as a supplement or as food or oh my goodness, calcium or B twelve or you know, there's a lot of these micro selenium you know iron.

So I am a.

Big fan of personalized like meet you where you're at.

And like I said, if you just wrote down or tracked in some of these apps for a week, because in your typical week and read the report, a lot of them are free, you could see them like.

Oh my gosh.

So I did it with an app.

My girlfriend had me do it for three days and I am not a seafood fan.

And she's like, Herry, you don't get any Omega threes.

And I was like, oh, so added in like walnuts, I added into Omega three fatty assumps.

I added no herring or sudin.

No, not a hering sardine fan.

No.

But I just I just forgot.

I was like, oh, you're right.

But if I hadn't done any tracking, I wouldn't have known.

So I find that can be immediate feedback of oh, here's.

Where I'm lacking.

Same with fiber.

So many women don't.

Everyone's on a protein kick, protein, protein, protein, and then they realize they're really constipated and having GI issues and maybe should diversify into some veggies get their fiber up.

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with you.

And I think for tracking, the Chrono app and also my fitness Parala two quite good apps.

If someone is feeling motivated after hearing you say that.

Yes, and again, you don't do it forever.

I'm not asking you to take a lot of time for the rest of your life to track.

You can if you want to, but just do it for a week.

Sometimes it's really eye opening to be like, whoa, I have no vitamin E in my diet.

Yeah, yeah, or whatever it is.

Yeah, and look, I see so many nutrient gaps in the members that we work with.

So again in this spirit of this is such an important storm season that we're heading through, and we really are setting up the second half our life to have these little mini projects where Okay, I am going to focus on my sleep and maybe track my sleep for a couple of months, or I am going to now once that's kind of in check.

Okay, now let's move on to die and let's pick a couple of parts of our diet.

I really really really like that approach, and look, I could talk to you all day, but I realize we're getting to the end and of my time with you, which is so sad.

So I just want to wrap all this amazing wisdom that you've given us up in a final question for you.

Look for a mum listening who is dreading this stage of life.

I'm hoping you might be able to offer us a little bit of hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel and that we can actually mitigate and manage these symptoms so that we do sail through the storm season relatively, you know, unharmed.

So for those who remember in The Wizard of Oz, Glinda the Goodwitch says basically, she says, you've had the power all along, my dear, and I feel that about perimenopause because there's so much education coming out now.

This podcast included that women were slamming into perimenopause before completely blind, fullest symptoms, and now that pendulum is shifting, women are coming in, armed, empowered, educated, ready to be their best version, and I love that.

There's also really wonderful aspects of perimenopause.

Women get more authentic, They stop trying to people please, They find their voice, They find their next, like what they're going to do next, if they want to make a shift.

They level up.

They don't take the bs anymore.

We joke about the rage, but like it's probably been simmering for decades.

So yeah, girl, let it out that right like this next season.

Just as you said, you'll probably live for decades, so make it a great.

One step into our power.

Exactly exactly, Doctor Carrie Jones, thank you so much for your wisdom today.

Thank you for having me on.

Why is it so hard to get real answers about your health?

If you've been told that everything looks fine, but you know that something is off, we're not imagining it.

That's why I created Vitality three point sixty to help you better understand what's going on inside your body so that you can take the targeted action needed.

With a functional health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork to uncover.

The root causes of your symptoms.

I've teamed up with doctor Asmina, an incredible integrative GP and together, we will help you d code your body's signals and answer questions like why am I always exhausted?

What's really causing my stubborn weight?

Am I inflamed?

Insulin resistant?

Or maybe missing key nutrients?

Because when you understand your body better, you can transform your health.

Visit V three sixty dot Health or check out the show notes for more