Episode 12: Diet, Movement, and Self-Care for Menopause
In this episode, we’re focusing on how to feel good during perimenopause and menopause without rigid rules or overwhelming advice.
Co-hosts Dr Peta Wright, Dr Thea Bowler and Sam Lindsay-German unpack holistic ways of supporting the body through menopause – that feel aligned, sustainable, and balanced.
With so much contradictory information out there, it’s easy to feel confused about what your body needs.
This conversation breaks it all down, offering guidance that honours body wisdom and embraces a truly holistic approach to health.
🎧 Here’s what you’ll discover:
🌿 Why prescriptive advice can be counterproductive and how a flexible, personalised approach to menopause often feels best.
🌿 Simple, nourishing dietary guidelines that support brain health, lower inflammation, and honour what works best for you.
🌿 The value of joyful movement – from gardening to dancing – and how to find forms of exercise that make you feel good.
🌿 Tips from Ayurveda to balance your energy and promote gut health, including the benefits of cooked, warming foods.
🌿 Honest insights into navigating alcohol and sleep challenges, with gentle suggestions for finding what works best for your body.
Listen in as Dr Peta, Dr Thea and Sam discuss everything from diet and movement, to the importance of tuning into your body’s unique needs.
Resources to complement this episode:
Listen to our previous episode Rediscovering yourself in perimenopause.
More about Sam Lindsay-German and her healing work with women.
Join Sam for Sadhana recorded live each weekday at 5am in The Calm Room.
We would love to hear from you.
If you have any questions about you’d like us to answer on a future episode of the podcast, please email them to hello@verawellness.com.au or contact us on Instagram @verawellness.com.au.
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Episode transcript:
Ep 12 – Diet, Movement, and Self-Care for Menopause
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[00:00:00] Sam: This week we're going to be talking about the holistic management of menopause. And, just before we came on, I was just saying for me, one of the most important things will be debunking all the stuff that's currently out there and is hugely confusing.
Because as someone who is not a doctor, I'm constantly bombarded in my social media by people and posts telling me how I should be looking after my body, perimenopause, menopause, and actually some of it contradicts itself.
And then also on top of that, I get completely overwhelmed because I really think if I was doing all of those things, I'd be super exhausted and it would stress me.
[00:01:41] Dr Thea: Exactly. I think ultimately. Really trying to steer clear of anything that's really prescriptive and telling you that you must do something in this very specific way should be avoided.
Because we're all different bodies, we all have different experiences of the world and different experiences of menopause. And exactly as you say, anything that, sets out these very strict rules about how you should be doing things always leads to more stress, which is counterproductive for everybody, particularly in menopause.
[00:02:12] Sam: Let's just start with Diet. From your point of view, what do you recommend as a doctor?
[00:02:19] Dr Thea: Yes. I mean, I think just to backtrack a little bit, when we talk about holistic management, we're talking about everything that can help that isn't medicines, thinking about diet, lifestyle, movement, maybe some supplements, which can sometimes help, but can also be confusing, stress and joy and pleasure. What makes it good to be alive? And I mean, all those things are good to think about in general for all aspects of life. but can be incredibly helpful in like navigating the perimenopause transition.
thinking about diet again, I like to. Think about it in really broad terms and non prescriptive terms. I think Michael Pollan said, eat real food, not too much and mostly plants. And I think that's a very good rule for life and menopause as well.
[00:03:09] Sam: That seems to be continually proven as well. Yes.
In most of the things I've read recently and that we've discussed, that seems to still be the number one thing, particularly for our brain health as we get older. Towards our older years as well. Absolutely.
[00:03:24] Dr Thea: And
just for general kind of levels of inflammation and reducing chronic disease and all that kind of thing.
[00:03:29] Sam: So one of the things that comes to me when I hear that as someone who's Like, you know, also in the gym world is, Oh my God, but what about protein? When I was a vegan, which I was for years and I literally stopped being a vegan because I kept walking into a supermarket and wanting to buy a chicken and rip it apart.
Your body was telling you something there. My husband was encouraging me to listen. but anyway when I was a vegan, I used to say to people who would say to me, what about your protein? I would say, well, the elephant seemed to be quite well, but it's a real thing because currently we're bombarded with being told that we need to prioritize protein.
I mean, most women will have in their feed, prioritize protein, limit carbs, have good fats.
[00:04:22] Dr Thea: Yes. And also, there's the whole prescriptive measure of how much protein you should have per meal. Totally. Well, that's just very, very stressful, especially if you're thinking about it per meal, you know, not even per day.
And there certainly are recommendations about like daily protein intake in menopause, which is around 30 to 40 grams a day. But you know, like a higher protein diet will suit some people and for other people it will. Make them feel not great. Yes. And I think there are lots of sources of protein.
So, you know, you can get protein from meat, fish, poultry, obviously. But then you can get it from lots of plant based. Yeah, that's right.And dairy as well.
Yeah.
[00:05:03] Dr Thea: So, I think really the style of eating that has been most studied to show benefits in menopause and in reducing chronic disease long term is the Mediterranean style of eating.
Yeah.
[00:05:16] Dr Thea: Which is lots of olive oil, a rainbow of fruits and veggies, lots and lots ofnuts and grains and seeds. And I guess erring slightly more to fish poultry rather than red meat.
quite simple when you think about it that way. And I think another really important thing is not under eating. So, so many women in menopause are concerned about weight and start to restrict and restrict
[00:05:41] Sam: What happens when we do that?
[00:05:43] Dr Thea: Like, I think, The intermittent fasting thing again, like I have some patients for whom it's wonderful and they feel full of energy and you know, like they lose weight, which is not necessarily the goal, but they feel good.
And then
[00:05:56] Dr Thea: other patients who find it places a real strain on them physically and mentally.
So
[00:06:00] Dr Thea: again, I think like there's no hard and fast rules and really listening to your body and what's right for you is incredibly important. But I think most of the studies show that not fasting for menopausal women is best and perhaps just like an overnight fast, like a 12 hour, you know, which is what they recommend to 6am.
[00:06:20] Sam: you basically don't eat after sun goes down or before the sun goes up.
And that ties into the time of year that you're into actually tends to work then as well with your body, which is all part of working with the seasons and cycles.
[00:06:34] Dr Thea: does make a lot of
[00:06:35] Sam: sense.
I love hearing from you about Ayurvedic approaches to menopause, because I think it's all, it always seems so logical. which I think. That's part of what is the problem at the moment, is that we've forgotten to do what feels right.right for us. So we've forgotten to do what is logical or actually practice any form of discernment.
And menopause is the ultimate time for coming into a space of sovereignty. So it's the time to actually go, hang on a minute. I've been eating like this. My body feels awful. That can't be right for me. And just because a hundred influences have told me that I should, it still doesn't mean that it's right for me.
Yes, one of the things that I feel is don't follow the fad, trust what feels right.
[00:07:27] Dr Thea: Tune into your own body.
[00:07:29] Sam: Ayurvedically during this time we balance vata and that will be different depending on your constitution. So we have different constitutions. doshas? Yeah. So we have you're either going to be A Pitta, Vata, or Kapha, what we call dosha.
And basically what that means is that you're gonna have a type of body type composition that will lend itself towards different type of behaviors. And that will be about how your metabolism works. And not just that, but how you lead your life. So, for example, generally speakingthis is a very, like, what I would call pop culture exclamation but vaatas are seen as that very sort of, airy, etheric, hardly able to sort of ground themselves down, so sort of skinny, spindly, do you know what I mean, that kind of thing where you feel like you need to pull them down because they're going to float off.
And that can be in the mind as well as in the body.And then Pitta is that fiery energy, so someone who's like quite athletic, got lots of energy and fire and gets hot in their skin, you can see that. And then we have Kapha, and the Kapha is quite a steady, solid type of body, and they tend to be very good at just consistently plodding along.
And what's interesting is we can have two different types, we can vary on the types,but the way I have worked with menopause and the doshas is that as we come into menopause, we're balancing out the pity years, the fire, Where we've been doing, doing, doing, you know, we're having children, we've got jobs, we're doing, doing, doing, and we get to this point of perimenopause, menopause, so, 49, would be that point, and we actually start to begin to shift, but whenever you're on the shift or a cusp of change, you get friction.
Much the same as teenagers do, so teenage is the movement from kapha, so when they're more earth based, so kapha is earth, to fire, to pitta. So you know when you get teenagers that like sleep and then they're up and they're out and they're doing stuff and their pitta starts to rage and there's a bit of kapha raging, well that just happens to us when we get to this sort of menopausal transition.
And so what happens is we can move from getting very hot and heated and angry to just being like, I just can't even remember what my name is. the two are trying to find their path. So from a point of view of looking after ourselves during that time, following a more Vata diet can be really nice.
And Vata foods would be warming and well cooked and they'll be easy to digest, Just making you feel good and actually helping you to feel safe and grounded, which is what we need.
[00:10:14] Dr Thea: And that would involve, I'm assuming, like, lots of beautiful Soups or stews and vegetables and
[00:10:20] Sam: and avoiding so much of the raw food during that time because that's quite hard on our digestive system and correct me if I'm wrong But when we go through menopause, there's quite a lot of shift in our gut health Yep, and so that can be a time where we think we're getting bloated a lot But it can just be that the gut flora is having a bit of a shift because of the hormonal imbalance Absolutely that we're experiencing.
And so yeah, if we're eating raw foods That will make you an arty and windy. because it's so much harder to digest. Yes, yes. So it's cooking your veggies. and, okay. Yeah.It's hot here. And it's like, oh, I don't want stews.
But actually you can still cook up. Some of your food and just let it be lukewarm rather than hot or cold.
[00:11:02] Dr Thea:
and that's
actually really good for gut health and for optimizing sort of estrogen metabolism in the gut is cooked and cooled starches. So pumpkin, potato, sweet potato, rice pasta. And so you can make those things.
You could make like beautiful roast vegetables and then turn them into a salad. You know? But I think you're right. Like, it's all a process of almost turning from taking so much information from the world around us about what we should be doing and actually tuning into that.
inner knowing that we all have. Absolutely.
[00:11:38] Sam: yeah, keeping a diary, not a diary of how many calories you're eating, but a diary of how you feel after the food you've eaten.
And that can go as well for those of you that, Being sort of so influenced about should I be drinking? Should I not be drinking? We can talk a bit about that because that's a massive topic. You yes, of course, everyone knows now that there's been lots of research saying that alcohol is not good for us, especially not if we're having large amounts, but More than anything, you can tell by the way it makes you feel.
So what do you think about alcohol?
[00:12:09] Dr Thea: Well, I think that it's really common for women in perimenopause to start to notice that they tolerate alcohol less so they might feel worse when they're drinking, they might have more hot flashes when they're drinking, but it might also have flow on effects to worse sleep,
worse sleep. feelings, hangover feelings the next day, particularly headaches and more impact on mood, you as a long term thing. And so, you know, there is a real balance between estrogen and histamine, and there's probably an interaction that alcohol plays there because alcohol does cause quite a significant histamine release.
And so, yeah, I think, you know, if, you know, Alcohol isn't affecting you negatively in any way and, and drinking is what you want to do. That's fine. Remembering that it has impacts on breast cancer risk and things like
that.
[00:12:58] Dr Thea: I've just totally stopped drinking for the last six weeks. It's been amazing.
[00:13:02] Sam: What do you notice?
[00:13:03] Dr Thea: I notice that I sleep so well, like I just used to sleep so badly
[00:13:08] Sam: I don't feel anxious anymore. I think that is something that is not spoken about enough, the anxiety that is brought on by drinking and the way that we can do certain things that bring us to experience shame.
Absolutely.
[00:13:25] Dr Thea: So yes, I think, if alcohol is something that's, feasible for you to experiment with reducing, it's definitely not going to be a bad thing.
[00:13:34] Sam: guess one last thing to talk about, is the changes in energy metabolism that occur after we go through menopause. Do you want to talk about that, Peter?
[00:13:42] Dr Peta: Yes, I've just arrived. It's a bit weird. I think one of the things that women experience when they are going through Perimenopause transition or arrive on the other side is that they say I'm doing all the things I used to do and I've put on weight or I'm finding my weight more difficult to control.
there are lots of reasons for that things like if when you ovulate each month, that actually takes quite a lot of energy to ovulate because we might be bringing a new life into the world. We may have a progesterone rise, our metabolism goes up.
So we actually need more food and we can eat more food during that little phase and when we're on the other side of menopause, we're not having that happen every month. So, um, we're like a more energy efficient model. We require less energy because we have less energy intense things going on in our body each month.
So if we were to carry on eating exactly the same way as when we needed all that energy, we probably would put on weight or struggle to maintain the weight we are. So it's not abouthaving this as another time to control, but just to realize we probably need a bit less than what we were.
Before,And then the other things are the muscle mass decrease and slightly less insulin sensitive with the lower estrogen.
[00:15:00] Sam: Yeah. And that's really interesting because from an Ayurvedic point of view. What we say is that once we hit this menopause period, they actually recommend sort of a liquid breakfast, which means you might have something like a mango smoothie or something like that nice, good for Vata.
And then you would eat a good lunch. Overall, that should be a lighter diet than you previously had. And then they talk about that quite like moving and taking and eating less food as being part of the best way to manage, which I think. Slightly makes sense, because it's going to obviously help to eliminate inflammation.
Which is one of the problems that we have in our society. Is that the food we're eating, plus the amount, plus maybe alcohol and sugar, is creating inflammation.
[00:15:47] Dr Thea: That's right. Like the processed food and the ultra processed food and the sugar that's in everything. It's not great for anyone. But like you say, with the, Slight increase in insulin sensitivity and the loss of muscle mass is why the Mediterranean diet is so good because that does help with insulin sensitivity and why, you know, we touched on protein being important because that does help with the muscle mass side of things.
[00:16:11] Dr Peta: Yeah. And it makes complete sense that as we become a little bit more insulin resistant, eating in that lighter way then naturally we'll balance that out. But it is not our terrible, awful, menopausal bodies that's the problem.It's the environment that we're in, which is almost like creates this addiction to these ultra processed, highly palatable foods.
And then that drives the higher insulin and the inflammation. So I think, yeah, as much as you, as we can. Coming back to what our bodies naturally need and, you know, going around the outside of the supermarket and eating more whole foods or going to the markets and connecting more with our foods. And it's not like this is a time of deprivation that we can't have things that we have had previously or we found enjoyable, but it's that naturally, if we can listen to our body away from the noise of the food noise of society we'll, we'll probably, you know, find it much easier to digest.
Consume less
[00:17:08] Dr Peta: and consume lighter, more whole foods that support our bodies.
[00:17:12] Sam: Do you know if there are any foods that actually help to, increase estrogen or increase. Do you know, is there specific foods that we could add? I know that soy can be helpful. Mm-Hmm. And that's something that a while ago I thought I shouldn't have.
So that's an interesting topic for some people.
[00:17:30] Dr Peta: Definitely like organic soy and whole soy without it being processed. So there's a thought that Japanese women often experience less. Menopause and potentially less hot flushes because they have diets that are really high in phytoestrogen, so soy and then fla seeds.
Yeah, fla seeds are really, really good. naturally occurring soy can be really good. And adding fla seeds and things too can probably potentially help with hot flushes and stuff. And support. They're a weaker estrogen.
[00:18:00] Sam: these are perfect things to be including in your diet.
When you're thinking about holistic management, so sort of moving towards trying and trying like we were just saying,include them in your diet for maybe a week and notice how you feel. And if it's not something, you know, if you find that you get windy, having flax seeds, then maybe, Don't have flax seeds, but try them and see if they work for you.
This is where we need to get to.
[00:18:23] Dr Thea: Okay. And what about movement?
[00:18:26] Dr Peta: I would just say move in a way that feels good every day.
[00:18:30] Dr Thea: Yes, movement for pleasure, not for punishment.
[00:18:32] Dr Peta: I was just speaking with a lovely lady earlier today who was saying, I just feel like exercise, we've already talked about how we think calling it exercise makes it worse, um,
but exercise makes her think, Oh, it's just this other thing that she has to do.
But when we think about
what, Truly supports us to feel safe as humans and joyful and in that playful space. It's movement. And so if we think of movementand so that might be walking in nature, it might be dancing while you're cooking. It might be gardening. It might be going for a
hike.
Yeah, going for a hike, swimming.
Doing joyful movement or even like we were talking about this the other day about work around the house or purposeful movement that gets things done that has meaning. You know, it doesn't have to be the whole, um, the lifting weights thing. You have to be lifting weights three times a week. It could bethat you're
carrying the heavy watering can and watering my big plants.that is the kind of exercise or movement that is done in the blue zones where people live long, healthy lives. They're not pumping iron in the gym. So again, it shouldn't be prescriptive. It should be, how can I move with joy and or purpose?
[00:19:48] Dr Thea: It's very interesting, isn't it? How we like take ourselves away from the life that we have evolved to live, but then we replace it with artificial stuff. Like instead of gardening. and moving plants or rocks or whatever, we go to the gym and we lift heavy things. I know, just think
[00:20:06] Sam: about it, if we were actually still heating our houses with a fire and chopping down wood and collecting twigs and branches from the garden each day, that's going to be the right type of exercise for us to be doing.
And if you were chopping wood, Lifting the wood, putting it into the house to boil water on your stove, it's going to make a massive amount of difference. And this is time and time again, what we find that the modern way of living doesn't seem to have supported us as much as it was sold to support us. We were also discussing yesterday about, you know, the whole thing of, you know, should we go and do cold water plunging or go and do float tanks and things and saying, Is it not far better to go down and find a nice creek and float in a creek or just be in a cold creek for a moment and just plunge in there?
Nature is always going to be better for us and I can appreciate not everyone lives in,
you
know, the beautiful areas that we do, but it is available to us. It's not that far um, for most people. And
[00:21:03] Dr Peta: it's free. Totally free.
[00:21:05] Sam: I think that's exactly the point.
It is free. And I feel like that. I mean, even as someone who owns a gym, teaches people to lift heavy weights, I still find it really challenging that people are prioritizing that over doing what actually feels right for them. And I do know from the work that I've done working with women who are up to 75, who come and do training that doing training when you have got challenges, especially to do with your bone density does help.
And I've seen that time and time again, that it does help, but.Most of my clients are coming because they actually want to consistently stay working in their gardens, maintaining their gardens and having the freedom of longevity
[00:21:47] Dr Peta: and connecting, probably the connection of community, which is so, so important.
[00:21:52] Dr Thea: I think like there is a huge trend to.
Lifting weights at the moment. And do you wanna talk about like, the science behind that? Like why that is a thing?
[00:22:02] Dr Peta: well, because as we age, we lose muscle mass and. That happens as we age and probably also because we're not doing as much exercise as we should be to maintain that muscle mass, particularly, I think, in our glutes and when we lose muscle mass, then that affects our metabolism as well.
So exercise, obviously, and resistance training and lifting weights helps to increase our muscle mass and increase our metabolism. Obviously helps with our cardiovascular health and obviously helps with our bone density, which we've talked about and is the best way to help with our bone density. And it also helps with our gut microbiome.
It helps with healthy digestion. The microbiome also makes neurotransmitters. So it helps us to feel better endorphins and all of those things. So there's just so much positive, beneficial things that can come from moving our bodies. And I think when we are in this time of life, because we are bogged down by responsibilities of career and work and children and doing everything for everybody else, that natural movement that we have when you see Children, that goes by the wayside because of all the things that we've added on that wefeel like we need to do.
And then this becomes another thing that we need to do. But I think maybe if we realize perhaps we need to let go of some of the other things so that we can, you know, live in the way our bodies are. Feel the best that's the thing to do rather than feel like just adding this on and it feeling like a choreLet go of something else that's prohibiting you from moving your body.
Yes, natural beautiful way.
I leave anything out?
[00:23:39] Sam: not to feel that you Have to stop doing an activity that you really enjoy so that you can do weights or focus only on weights, can you just speak as well about there's so much at the moment about women of my age being careful what they do because it's going to raise our cortisol, which will be terrible for us.
And therefore I've got. Friends who are saying I shouldn't run anymore. When they love running and so can, can we speak to that? Like, cause I under, I mean, I kind of think I understand it, but I would love to hear it from your point
[00:24:08] Dr Thea: of view. I think exercise is the perfect way of raising your cortisol because it gives you that healthy cortisol elevation that then helps you to come back to baseline.
[00:24:17] Sam: Why are we being told don't exercise so hard that's bad cortisol that you're inducing, which is actually making you get fatter and what's the good cortisol?
[00:24:26] Dr Peta: I think I would say it is the intensity. So if you are someone who is stressed in other areas of your life, you're doing exercise to look a certain way, to lose weight, to burn calories, and you're not doing any other form of balanced.
coming back into your safe place in your nervous system that can create potentially more problematic levels of stress in the nervous system or prolonged flat sort of stress, right? Which over time, if it's, you know, it can not be great for us, but good balanced exercise where we're moving from our safe nervous system to our sympathetic.
So it is that mobilizing fight, but if we're happy and enjoying it and we do have a recovery time that's adequate, then when we're coming back into our safe zone, that actually is. is it's like a blend state. So that play or it's like a goodhyper arousal sympathetic state. And if we do that with, you know, the intentions that we spoke about and that adequate recovery time, that will probably help to actually increase our window of regulation.
So increase the bandwidth of our nervous system to experience stress. And rather than, you know, narrowing it, which is what often happens when people, you know, don't exercise or don't push the bounds of their nervous system at all. So I think it is really about intentionality and adequate recovery time.
Does that make sense? And I think that's why there's a lot of research with say, for example, chronic pain and things like that, where exercise is shown to really help because it helps to widen our window of regulation, especially when we have adequate time to do that. Rest and to recover.
[00:26:15] Sam: Absolutely, and that's how we can actually boost some of our testosterone as well so that can actually give us the little boost that we might need To actually do some of the things that we don't have the energy to do such as have sex
[00:26:27] Dr Thea: Yes.
it lowers insulin, increases testosterone, and increases growth hormone. the benefits of testosterone for libido, but also for energy and muscle building and all those sorts of things are very important.
Hmm.
[00:26:38] Dr Thea: Okay. Should we talk about sleep?
Yeah. Why don't you tell us about like the Ayurvedic approach to sleep?
[00:26:45] Sam: I'm not sure entirely like how the Ayurvedic To sleep what it entirely is per se, but in my experience, one of the things that I've learned is that if you get up early in the morning because you do a practice early in the morning, you're more likely to want to go to sleep at night.
This is something that is connected to circadian rhythms, but is talked about constantly in yoga, which I think. was really always originally talking about circadian rhythms, but it wasn't called that by them. One of the things that we might do yogically is actually just think about that preparation for bed, which is what we also talk about the winding down, the actually making time to slow the body down, do some form of maybe gentle practice on the body to stretch, do some form of yoga.
do some spiritual reading, but any kind of reading. There are a few recipes where they recommend that you have milk. Milk is a hot milk has always been something that yoga or Ayurvedic food recommends for helping us to sleep. So we can have that in the evening, something warm and comforting that can actually help us to feel nourished.
And one of the things that I have found very beneficial and I give to quite a few women is The practice of washing your hands and feet with cold water, that's really good at helping you to fall asleep. If I wake up in the middle of the night and struggle to go back to sleep, I go and wash my hands and my feet with cold water.
You could have a cold shower, but I'm not really very partial to those. So I'd rather wash my hands and wash my feet. And that tends to help.
[00:28:11] Dr Thea: I think you often talk about going to sleep with the sun and waking with the sun as well, which seems so intuitive as well. And I think particularly in perimenopause and menopause, lots of women do wake up earlier than they once did and do find that quite distressing.
But actually getting up, enjoying the quiet of the morning, watching the dawn, perfect opportunity to move before work.
[00:28:39] Sam: Or just enjoy some rare time without anyone else there.
What we want more than anything at Menopause is to have space and to have silence and solitude. And sometimes that's available to you.
Could be why maybe we wake up early because our body naturally knows it's available to us. Then not even the birds can be awake at some points. And so if you can creep out and find a little space in your house that can be just yours, then you can have stillness rather than fighting it.
I think it's the fight that we have. it's so hard because we're told we must get so much sleep and if we don't that's going to be detrimental for our health, but the truth is that actually if we're calm, if we're actually having time during that where we might be in a sort of more theta brainwave where everything's a bit slow and steady, it can be just as healing as sleep.
[00:29:31] Dr Peta: And I would say as well, it's like cause many women will say, the nighttime when the kids are in bed, that's the only time I can get to have by myself. But when I think about the quality of that time at late at night, you're often probably like watching Netflix and like staying up and looking at screens, whereas if you can train yourself to go to bed that bit earlier and get up earlier.
The quality of that alone time in the morning is just actually so much better. Like that connection to yourself, to nature. It's just much better quality time, I think. And then the more you do it, the easier it is to go to sleep earlier because you just need to, I would also say Not eating really close to bedtime, so a few hours, like at least maybe like three if you can, but at least two hours before bed and again, not drinking alcohol if you can help it, because that's really going to affect sleep um, not having any screens in
[00:30:25] Sam: bed
People are drinking coffee all the time. So if you're drinking coffee, I always say to people, try not to have it after midday. And that's just a really good rule of thumb. It is a rule.
And yes, you could say I'm someone that, that, that doesn't affect me. I hear that all the time. Coffee doesn't affect me, but it does affect you. And if you were to go without coffee for a period of time, you would notice the shift. in how your body feels. The other thing is to be very careful about what else you're drinking because sometimes that has caffeine too.
I see that a lot where people might have an energy drink before the gym in the afternoon. That's got loads of caffeine in it and that's going to have an impact on how your body will be able to go into its natural sleep cycle.
And I just wondered if we could just touch on that because that's to do with our melatonin.So the light and the way in which our body starts to calm down as we go through the afternoon, that's the body preparing to go to sleep. So why should we become calm in the afternoon?
[00:31:24] Dr Peta: that's another thing. So what happens is my exercise right before bed isn't a great idea is. It does raise your cortisol temporarily.
And what we want is in the morning, we want to have high cortisol, which is like our natural caffeine that gets us out of bed and gets us moving. And then we want to have a low melatonin because the sunlight will decrease melatonin in our body. So we'll start to feel more awake. And then at nighttime, we want to see our cortisol come down and our melatonin go up and cortisol actually inhibits.
Melatonin. So, if we have high cortisol because we're stressed because we have been watching something that's stressful and the blight from the screen is all going to inhibit our melatonin. we end up with situations where we feel tired but wired and our cortisol is high and our melatonin is low and we can't sleep and it should be the other way around, if that makes sense.
So, that's the other thing and even like eating sweet food, like I noticed because I wear an Oura ring. If I have a glass of wine, even within like three hours of bed, my heart rate will go up and that can affect your quality of sleep. And the same is true if I have chocolate before bed, or not right before bed, but even at dinner time, like within that couple of hours, I'll still have that heart rate rise.
So if you're going to have a sweet thing, maybe have it In the early afternoon or like the late morning or something, because then you've got you know, that's far away from your sleeping window.
[00:32:50] Dr Thea: I think stress is a big melatonin interrupter and cortisol, but particularly that light exposure.
And so seeing or getting morning sun on your face and then seeing the sun go down or appreciating the evening. And then the other thing is the blue light fromThe screens, which really inhibits melatonin production, and I think everybody in the world lies in bed and looks at their phone before they go off to sleep.
And it potentially can have, really not great impacts on quality of sleep and ability to get to sleep.
[00:33:24] Dr Peta: Yeah. And then there's lots of things that get thrown around for sleep Magnesium can be helpful. Other sort of natural supplements like, Carver can be helpful.
Chamomile tea, lavender, all of those things. But I actually really think the crux of it is the light. and stress because sleep is the most vulnerable place we can be as humans. And if our body doesn't feel safe enough to fall asleep often, it's because of that. So I think that's where we need to look rather than taking all of the supplements.
And those are some ways to support you during that phase. It's kind of like perimenopause and menopause are the time to notice how ridiculous the world is. The environment is for our bodies and maybe because it makes our body kind of scream at us or makes it more apparent.
Perhaps it's the time rather than beat our bodies up for being like the number of times I hear women say, like this sucks as part of my life sucks. This is a horrible period of time and my body is just going to betray me for the next rest of my time until I die. Maybe it's time to look at it. It's just, Giving us those messages more clearly that all of these things are out of balance and that we kind of need to come back Into alignment with our like with the things that naturally support us Yes,
[00:34:38] Dr Thea: I was thinking the other day like how being in a female body Really makes you notice you're in a bodyDo you know what I mean? Like it's constantly drawing attention to itself. And which is why it's so wonderful that we have the menstrual cycle and we have menopause where our body talks to us. To make us rethink all of the things that are going on in our lives.
[00:35:02] Sam: there's a wonderful quote that says, to be a woman is the highest incarnation that there is. Hmm. Having that experience of being a woman this lifetime, which I don't think is true. We contemplate very much. You're right. We just see the bad side. And I feel like one of the things I want to say is that what we're talking about here with circadian rhythms, with listening to our bodies, with all of the food and the lifestyle suggestions, these are suitable at all stages of life.
And actually we shouldn't be waiting until things are going wrong. it's the fact that things are going wrong. Is a sign that things are not right and I really feel that we miss this. So the body is always trying to communicate to us. It's always trying to say, Hey, this isn't working for me. Are you listening?
And that's the way it's doing it. and eventually if we don't listen, it will have to shout a bit louder. So if we start, whatever age you are, when you're listening to this, if you start to make the shifts and start to practice discernment of what you're doing with your body and how you're living your life, you are potentially not going to have the same symptoms that is being lauded around that you're going to have during menopause.
That's certainly my experience. And when I sit with women who are younger and I talk to them about the same things about Have you tried, if you are struggling to sleep, have you tried getting up earlier? Have you tried going for a walk in the morning? Have you tried seeing natural sunlight without sunglasses on, just for a little bit in the morning?
And then let your body just naturally go through the day where you've had natural movement, you've done things you've enjoyed, you've eaten lightly before supper or before bed. And yeah, It works. The thing is, it's actually not magic or voodoo or wishy washy. It just makes perfect sense.
We are designed to work like that and we've forgotten. And we think that we are subject to being able to do things 24 hours a day because the supermarkets are open 24 hours a day and work can get hold of us 24 hours a day, but that is what's causing us the stress and is actually Making us feel trapped in our own bodies.
[00:37:09] Dr Peta: and it's no wonder when you say it like that, that of course, when you get to Between 40s and 55, 60, whatever our poor old bodies have been like the fuck's sake. We've been dealing with this You've been doing this to us for 40 years. Of course Yes, of course. I'm gonna scream at you now, and I'm not gonna cope anymore Do you know what I mean?
Like it's just it is like okay if you haven't got it yet and it's really a big time to make those changes, but not through the lens of, Oh, my body is the enemy. It is. My environment hasn't been conducive to health and to supporting me. And there are so many things that we can do to change that, that are natural and free and just require.
Like tuning in and listening to the messages and viewing them as messages, not terribly horrible inconveniences. Things that are there to serve us. They're there for a reason. Our body isn't mistaken. It's wise.
[00:38:04] Dr Thea: Yep.
[00:38:04] Dr Peta: Really, if we're doing all of these things and tuning into our bodies and living in a way that feels aligned with our soul, then often we don't need to take anything extra, whether it's supplements or medicines. But. There are some supplements that can be helpful in perimenopause.
[00:38:24] Dr Thea: You alluded to magnesium before, which can be helpful for sleep. It improves sleep latency. So meaning you get to sleep more quickly and taking 300 milligrams at night can be helpful. I think if you're experiencing cyclical mood changes in perimenopause, there is some evidence for taking calcium and vitamin B6 to help.
With mood and sometimes headaches as well. And chase treeas well. Chase tree is a herb that helps to support progesterone production in the luteal phase and that can help with cyclical mood changes as well. And breast tenderness. And breast pain. Yep.And then for hot flushes, there is a herb called black cohosh which in some studies has been shown to be as effective as a low dose estrogen patch in terms of helping to reduce those symptoms. And then a fish oil, yes, I would say if you're not eating enough fish, it'd be beneficial for inflammation
[00:39:19] Sam:
[00:39:19] Dr Peta: but getting it from whole foods is always the best. So like zinc from oysters, have some oysters every now and then
[00:39:25] Sam: the other thing I would say personally as someone who over the years has taken endless supplements because that's what we do, is I actually am currently going for the sort of thing of like, okay, I don't really want to take any supplements.
I just feel like we're bombarded with taking all this stuff. I feel if you're, if you think you might need a supplement, go and see someone, someone that you trust. Someone who is a naturopath or is a doctor that has a holistic side to them and they can help you to figure it out. Don't try and guess it yourself by grabbing stuff over the counter, because that's really not the best way to do it.
And I think we don't necessarily know what our body most needs. We're just looking for the end result of a product. that is, I think a little bit dangerous.
[00:40:11] Dr Thea: Absolutely. And I thinkthe prescriptive nature in which people take supplements sometimes can be just as disempowering as everything else, you know, feeling like you need tobe swallowing five pills in the morning and five at lunchtime and 10 at night is just the same as feeling like you have to be going to the gym every day, you know, Itrying to get all of those beneficial effects from food.
sleep and minimizing stress and then judiciously using supplements with the guidance of someone if you think it's necessary.
[00:40:42] Sam: Yeah, because if your gut can't cope with the food that you're eating, how is it going to cope with a supplement? And I think this is a big thing. We have to understand that supplements have to be absorbed and if the gut actually isn't working how you wish it to be working at this time.
Then taking a supplement can actually just be another thing that you're bombarding that gut with. Well, that's what I believe. Yeah.
[00:41:03] Dr Peta: And the number of pathology results that I've reviewed recently, that clearly have been people who've been overdoing it with supplements.
and their B6s are really high, or their B12 is really high and so I really think, and often if they're taking, people are taking multiple different supplements with similar things in all of them, they can really double up. So I think really being discerning about what it is you're actually trying to fix, getting it through food when you can I would say at this point in time, if you've got heavy periods through perimenopause, I think getting your iron checked and making sure that is, adequately replaced, ideally through diet or a supplement during your period or every second day, if it's not good, if it's really low, you know, sometimes women might need an iron infusion, but it's like, identifying that can help women to feel a lot better.
And then to be able to have a good life and exercise and all of those things, but um, yeah, directed at what it is you're trying to achieve, not just because, Someone says you have to do it like happy, like there's a supplement company that everyone's like, I have to take that just because I'm perimenopausal.
And I'm sure it's very good, but it's not like we all have to be on supplements, just like we don't all have to be on HRT.
[00:42:14] Sam: there is an industry that's literally screaming at us for attention right now. They want Arnie as women who are 50 and they're going to do it by telling you that their products can do all the things that you desperately want to happen.
Sadly, the truth of it is that normally to get into a state of optimum wellness, we do have to make changes and we do have to put some time and effort into it. The quick fixes never last. And those of you that are 50 like me know that because you've lived long enough to experience it before.
[00:42:48] Dr Peta: And the thing is, there's probably nothing better than actually letting go of the things that are no longer serving you. Number one, to bring in the things that are likely to serve you, which you know what they are, I think.
[00:43:00] Dr Thea: Yes.
[00:43:00] Dr Peta: Yeah. Nothing is better than that.
Thank you again for joining us today on Women of the Well.
Please follow us on Instagram at VeraWellness. com. au, email us at hello at VeraWellness. com. au with any questions and we hope to see you again next week. See you next time. Bye.
DISCLAIMER:
This podcast is for information and educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
