Part 2: Empowering Women Naturally through Menopause!

Shhhh… don’t mention it to her. I think she is going through mmmm The ‘M’ word. Her moods are all over the place. Often erratic and unpredictable… very angry at times over nothing! She always complains about her partner … why doesn’t she just leave him! Although who would want her she has put on weight and passed her use-by date! 

You have probably guessed it. I am talking about the taboo subject Menopause! Similar to the view on menstruation, society doesn’t like to talk about it. A subject Men don’t understand and one where women are forbidden to talk about it. In this new podcast series, we demystify this taboo subject with Naturopath and Menopause Expert Brenda Rogers. Brenda shares her personal experience as well as her extensive knowledge on the subject. She shares some frightening statistics and explains why menopause is a right of passage to being a vibrant, compassionate, wise, and powerful woman. This episode is Part 2 of a 2 part series on Empowering Women Naturally through Menopause! For Part 1 refer to Episode #52.

About Brenda Rogers

Brenda is a natural medicine expert specialising in menopause. She’s passionate about working with the new generation of women who are creating an empowering new paradigm for what mid-life looks like – women as powerful ambassadors for the wisdom of middle age. 

Brenda is a Clinical Naturopath, Certified Life Coach, Certified Clinical Aromatherapist, Yoga, Meditation & Spiritual Teacher. Brenda helps women who want to transition gracefully through menopause and into the best years of their life to become the steady, calm woman who doesn’t get riled by anything and celebrates all of who she is.

How to best connect with Brenda:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/qwomenshealth/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brenda-rogers-quintessence/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/qwomenshealth/

Website: www.qwomen.com.au

Email: brenda@qwomen.com.au 

About me&my Health Up & Host

me&my Health Up seeks to enhance and enlighten the wellbeing of others. Host Anthony Hartcher is the CEO of me&my wellness which provides holistic health solutions using food is medicine, combined with a holistic, balanced, lifestyle approach. Anthony holds three bachelor's degrees in Complementary Medicine; Nutrition and Dietetic Medicine; and Chemical Engineering.

Credits
Podcast editing: Ivan Saldana

Podcast Disclaimer
Any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, health care or other professional advice, and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this Podcast. [Connected Wellness Pty Ltd] operating under the brand of “me&my health up”..click here for more

Transcript

Anthony Hartcher 0:00 
Shhh, don't mention it to her, I think she's going through the M word. Her moods are all over the place, often erratic and unpredictable, very angry at times over nothing. She always complains about a partner. Why doesn't she just leave him? Although who would want her she has put on weight and past her use-by date. You've probably guessed it. I'm talking about the taboo subject of menopause. Similar to the view on menstruation. Such a society doesn't like to talk about it. Subjects men don't understand and a one where women feel unable to talk about.

This is part two of a two-part series on empowering women naturally through menopause. In this episode of me&my health up, we'll be exploring menopause and helping you or a loved one navigate through it in the best possible way. I'm your host Anthony Hartcher, a clinical nutritionist and lifestyle medicine specialist. The purpose of this podcast is to enhance and enlighten your well being and today we'll be chatting with a naturopath and natural menopause expert Brenda Rogers on this big M menopause subject.

Brenda Rogers is a natural medicine expert specialising in menopause. She's passionate about working with the new generation of women who are creating empowering new paradigm for what midlife looks like. Women have a powerful ambassador for the wisdom of middle age. Brenda is a clinical naturopath, certified life coach, Certified Clinical aromatherapist, yoga, meditation and spiritual teacher. Brenda helps women who want to transition gracefully, through menopause, and into the best years of their life to become a steady, calm woman who doesn't get riled by anything and celebrates all of who she is. So welcome, Brenda, how are you today?

Brenda Rogers 2:15 
I'm fantastic. Thank you, Anthony. Yeah. Thank you for that introduction.

Anthony Hartcher 2:21 
You're welcome and Part one was such a hit. So for those that haven't listened to part one, please listen to episode 52 and Brenda shares all her wisdom on perimenopause. So today we're talking about menopause and I got such great feedback on the previous episode women want to know more about this subject and Brenda is here to educate us or even us men, as well as the women that go through this, on how we can best help our partners or how women can best navigate through menopause naturally. So to start things off, Brenda, what's the difference between post menopause and perimenopause?

Brenda Rogers 3:07 
Well, I'm glad you asked. A lot, actually, a lot, a lot and, you know, we could probably speak for 50 hours on this topic, Anthony. But in essence, primarily what the difference is that in perimenopause a woman still has, she still has a period, though it might be erratic, it might be all over the place, it might be quite light, but she's still menstruating and 12 months after the last period, and you never really know when your last one's going to be. But 12 months since you had a period is considered to be menopause.

That's, that's when you hit menopause. And from then on, you're pretty much in post menopause, right up till the day you die, basically. So now your oestrogen is so low, that it's not supporting a release of an EEG or that whole cycling process and so the symptoms change. Plus you're probably by this time around early 50 and have gone through the big five-oh celebration, and you know, maybe you know, got a few wrinkles.

Few more wrinkles or, you know, I'm wearing you know, confronting ageing a lot at this point and so, there's quite a lot of difference between, you know, a low progesterone state, which is the early menopause. Sorry, early perimenopause, and then that sort of no progesterone anymore or, you know, minimal and very low oestrogen, there's still some it's coming from the, you know, adrenals. The adrenals are still producing some oestrogen but in that much lower state and what we know is that our hormones are now driving us. So there are two hormones, you're probably aware of Anthony that regulate a woman's cycle.

FSH follicle-stimulating hormone and LH luteinizing hormone are very high in the middle of a woman's cycle and that's the best time of the month for us. That's anovulation. It's like the full moon midday, summer you know, that's the energy of ovulation and that's when our FSH and LH peak and so you can feel really good like that all the time in post-menopause. But we usually don't, we're usually struggling with getting used to being a woman who's no longer cycling, who's been driven by these different hormones.

Because oestrogen and progesterone have their own personalities, they drive a certain personality, and even personality is not the right word and needs, it's more like behaviour and the way that we think, is oestrogen and progesterone are designed to encourage, facilitate, ensure the reproduction of the species and taking care of children and having children and taking care of children and hence lots of things associated that with that, like the lead libido is higher.

Where moister, we are more concerned about others, we really sort of more compliant in a way in order to facilitate the family unit being protected and growing. You're growing young children till they're able to fend for themselves. So that all shifts and changes, changes in your 50s that reproductive responsibilities no longer there. And that drive to take care of others is much, much less and so this sense comes through of it's my turn.

It's my turn but often it's like, well, now what do I do? I've been you know, even if you haven't had children, you've been in that state for so many years. What is it? Yeah, 35 years, maybe? And so there's this questioning who am I, you know, what's my life about now that I'm, I'm, you know, it's my time and so it can be quite unsettling and quite disconcerting these years and I think it's really great too, to have some really good role models and, you know, that often is missing for a lot of people, the education is certainly missing. So. So that's the beginning of the differences, Anthony, you know, let me start there.

Anthony Hartcher 8:31 
If you mentioned, role models, and I was just wondering if you could elaborate further on, you know, these role models that are important to help people through this stage that were, as you described as there's some identity, not, I don't like the word crisis, but there's some loss of identity, as you mentioned, is probably a better word and, you know, so how can they get this role model support to help them navigate through this identity change or transition?

Brenda Rogers 9:06 
Yeah, you're definitely spot on. It is an identity crisis for a lot of women, and some people smoothly sail through it and I think it depends a lot on how on track you are with your life. You know, if you kind of bought in an unhappy job and an unhappy relationship, don't like yourself very much, feeling overweight and sluggish. Then course correction needs to occur and that is kind of what is, is you know, being, you're being kind of pushed there really in a way but you know, in, in sort of ancient women's mysteries and feminist spirituality and those kinds of things.

We know menopause to be a rite of passage, and a rite of passage is a time of it Any change and so there's the slow process of on, or disassociate, from the reproductive woman going through this kind of this confused, what's called a liminal state, and then finding your new tribe. That's kind of what happens and associating now with being an older woman and so to answer your question about role models, there are role models out there, they're often celebrities, they're the ones that we hear about celebrities, or people have famous for one reason or another.

What is not great about that is that if you're looking at the Hollywood woman, the 15 year old and 60 year old, they're often struggling with the industry requirement to be as useful as possible and so they aren't always a realistic role model for us. Even in saying that, though, you know, those women can be very inspirational, you know, the, if they still haven't done too much to their face, and they kind of might look a bit sad that that's not a great role model for us.

But then to find other role models, people will often find those potentially within their own families and friendship circles and aunt, or a mother or grandmother who did it well, who you flourished in that wisdom, wild, wilder wisdom years and then I over and above that, is really going into the realm of that sort of feminist spirituality again, and I know this is a health talk, and we probably should be talking about nutrition underneath, but, or herbs or something. But let me just say that, you know, our current you know, our current culture, spiritual culture, you know.

I grew up in a Christian culture, which is the Western society, so did you and so, the archetypes or the role models in that philosophy, if you like, are ones that we absorb, and identify with or not, or don't identify with, and there's an absence of older woman archetypes in male-oriented spiritual philosophies. I hope that makes sense. You know, in Greek mythology, that kind of took over a lot of the previous cultural mythologies, where women were not idolised, but they were powerful women who were really recognised.

Whereas in the Greek mythology, or he kind of there are some of them a lot of them disappeared, the older woman ones disappeared, or they became hags, or, or nasty women and the ones that were new honoured and appreciated, were the ones that were like the consorts to the men and the, you know, the beautiful young ones that Aphrodite is and the powerful strong ones, the Athena's. So to really find role models, we're actually at a stage in our history where we're actually having to revisit mythologies, pre Roman Greek mythologies, and rediscover those and find those again, and, you know.

When you the importance of that, really is that it helps you find something that you can relate to, and it gives you permission to, to, to expand your repertoire, you're not just kind of depressed, 55 years old, or, you know, made up, you know, your plastic surgery, kind of nothing wrong with plastic surgery. I mean, if women choose to do that, I think that's their prerogative. But it's that getting comfortable with ageing that we really, really want and then stepping into this powerful time in our 50s, where we've got more fire in our belly, we've got years of experience, and this and I think we mentioned this last time, this.

This phase, this 50s and 60s phase is an opportunity for a woman to become a leader if that's what she wants to lead, to be, you know, to grow up to be a leader to however that looks for her and so, you know, I think the absence of really positive role models is a reason why the statistics for women at this age aren't that great. Women are at high risk of mood and mental disorders and they're often, especially if they separate from a partner, they're often at high risk of financial problems as well. So, that affects their health and well being.

So, you know, it's important to have a conversation where women are aware of that as well because there is a tendency to want to escape. You know, if you're at that transition phase, there is a strong desire to escape that is very normal for that many menopausal women. But sometimes you jump out of the fire and into the, what is it out of the frying pan into the fire? And so, you know, what, I kind of feel obliged to warn women that just escaping isn't always the answer, that working with the job that you're in, or the relationship that you're in, or we're working with your health and well being, to work through the steps to finding what it is that you really want, tends to be way more empowering, at the end way more helpful.

Anthony Hartcher 16:31 
I agree totally it's, you know, we need to reflect and look inwards, look inwards for the answers, as opposed to thinking, you know, they're external and, you know, the best solution is changing jobs, changing partners and often we can take the old self into a new job, a new partner, and the same problems arise, because there's no change in self, and we haven't done that inward work or that self-reflection and, and it leads me to the question that, you know, the point, you made a really good point, and it's, it's something that our society our Western society really struggles with.

Because we glorify young and beautiful and we don't see elderly or ageing with the same limelight, as we do with the young and the beautiful and whereas you look at some other cultures, such as the Japanese culture when you get older, you got more respect from the people around you, because of your wisdom, and what you can pass on in terms of knowledge, and, and so, you know, in these other cultures, the, you know, the elderly or the aged, I really looked up to, but in our culture, it's not the same, and I think it's probably part of them, you know, this, I guess, conundrum.

The women go through is that I'm going through this phase that I'm not going to be accepted for, you know, who I am as an aged woman, you know, like, because I'm not young and beautiful anymore and so if you've got any tips and helping, not People, what people can do on a, you know, whether it be on a daily basis, or where they could go for some resources, or you know, who they talk to, in terms of helping shift their mind around this self-acceptance of who they are, their ageing, getting akin to their new identity and as you said, it's, you know, this, this rite of passage, it's, you know, embracing it.

Brenda Rogers 18:44 
Yeah, well, they can come and see me, I think, though that, you know, this age comes with a lot of fire in it, you know, it's, it's, it's a fiery autumn stage of life, you know, think about all that vibrant colour. As the leaves are fading, they have this burst of vibrant colour, and that comes through in those years as well and it's allowing that to kind of guide you. I actually think sometimes the hot flashes, some of that, that fire coming through not being fully allowed to be expressed and that will, you know, that I think, owning that and being okay with that is really important.

It is a wild time of life that there's a rawness and a wildness to your 50s that is very different to 20s, 30s and 40s. Very different because oestrogen is the hormone of compliance and so that's no longer running the show. If a woman wants to specifically answer your question, though, Anthony, they're, they're this small pockets of this information and you know, my role, my mission is to bring women's awareness to this and so I, you know, hence doing this education with you and running programmes, and I'm doing a shameless plug here, I'm doing a retreat at the end of the year to bring the wellness and this personal journey process together so that women can find who they are. But it's not an easy thing. I don't think there's an easy answer to your question.

Anthony Hartcher 20:51 
Yeah, I didn't think there would be and certainly, it's very much for the individual, right. It's, it needs to be individualised. It's not a, you know, the generic approach is appeal if it will solve your identity crisis, it's more of understanding that's personal, that that person's values, beliefs, the direction they want to take their life and really coming up with a plan and I'm sure that's what your retreat does, in terms of helping women on their own path, because not everyone, not every woman wants to walk the same path.

Brenda Rogers 21:27 
No, and I do think that health can guide you. So, you know, for me, and you would know this as well, Anthony, you can see patterns by the symptoms that are occurring for that woman and if they're not sleeping at 3 am, waking up if they're having night sweats, if there's weight gain around the middle, you know, there's a whole stack of symptoms that will tell us are the adrenals are unhappy, or the livers not happy or the blood sugars are all over the place and so these symptoms can help lead you back.

They can be the catalyst for the course correction and the portal into the next steps into who you want to be. So you start working on your adrenal health because it's the adrenals that like I mentioned, it's the adrenals that take over, or not even take over. It's like now only the adrenals are responsible for oestrogen production. So if you've been stressed to the hilt for 10 years, your adrenals are not going to be happy. So you start working on adrenal health and that will mean you know, maybe taking a bit of time out some weekends for yourself.

Maybe doing a little bit more yoga, pulling back your exercise, so you're not over-exercising anymore, because that can be destructive, too, eating a nice adrenal happy diet, which is mineral-rich, especially sodium and fat, saturated fats really important for this time. Even though we've been indoctrinated against saturated fats for a long time. This is the time really to have good quality saturated fats with good quality cholesterol coming in and that's the whole conversation.

Anthony Hartcher 23:30 
What is that good quality? Sorry, Brenda, what are that quality good quality saturated fats?

Brenda Rogers 23:38 
My favourite is butter and ghee. Other ones would be you know, I'm a big fan of broths and so at the moment, I've just boiled up a ham hock for some pea soup and this little bit of fat that comes when you know you cook that bone and I always keep that marrow is amazing. So cooking marrow bones and using the marrow in recipes. Grass-fed animal fats are really really fabulous.

So you know cooking your meat in tallow or lard, ideally, pasture-raised grass-fed animal fats and I know that I know that's kind of old fashioned. We've been really indoctrinated against those for a long, long time. But if you go back to traditional diets wise, traditional diets, ancestral nutrition, then those are the fats that are really important for adrenal health and many, many other things and in small amounts balanced out with all the other cofactors, they aren't atherosclerotic producing our atherogenic.

Sorry, produce heart disease, then, you know, avoiding those fats can be detrimental. I think that you know, they're important for good skin, you know, there's dry skin is really common for women. So good fats, I mean, you can have your nut butter and your avocados and your olive oils and those kinds of things. I encourage those as well. But your good quality saturated fats really add something else and if people are leaning more towards vegetarian, then coconut oil is good for some of it. But I, I highly encourage the butter, and also things like the eggs, fish eggs, chicken eggs, and those kinds of things as well.

Anthony Hartcher 26:07 
And what do you suggest to those women that may have that concern around cholesterol because they've had a recent health checkup, cholesterol, maybe in the high end and, you know, they've been told to cut fat since but they're at this age. So do you have any advice there around what's the best course of action?

Brenda Rogers 26:30 
Well, you've got to understand the Cholesterol Myth, and how we've been misinformed for a long time about what elevates cholesterol and it in my experience, and all the research I've been doing, particularly recently, but for 20 years, fats are not the culprit for heart disease that we think they are and, in fact, refined carbohydrates, and refined or processed vegetable oils, and sugar are your culprits and so bringing yourself back to a traditional diet, what grandmother or your great grandmother ate off the land, local grass-fed organic, not with, you know, 500 ingredients on the label.

These are the foods that regulate normal cholesterol levels and also you know, the other thing is stress, we know that cholesterol is the raw material for stress hormones and so there's, you know, a theory that cholesterol can elevate when you're stressed because it needs more cortisol, it needs more of those steroidal hormones, thyroid hormones or reproductive hormones. You know, that, that, that blows people's minds. Unfortunately, our medical institutionalised nutrition message is still low fat, and that has been debunked now for at least 10 years and longer, may not have known that to be inaccurate.

It does.

Anthony Hartcher 28:25 
Do you recommend it?

Brenda Rogers 28:28 
Oh, sorry I cut you off, Anthony. Go ahead.

Anthony Hartcher 28:32 
Yeah, you're right. So yeah, what I took away there in order to, you know, get the liver functioning better. So you know, to manage their stress better. So that, you know, by managing your stress better, you're going to help liver function and the liver is going to better work with the fats as opposed to a poor functioning liver is obviously not going to support the right balance of our blood lipids and what we need and as you said, it's going to focus more and be more dominant around the stress hormones, as opposed to a nice balance of the hormones that we need, and a good balance of fats within our system.

The other question I had was just around weight gain. So, you know, some women are not some women, I think a lot of women have always had this body image consciousness, right, because of the way society is. You know, not that I agree that it should be that way but so you know, they've had this ever since they're a teenager, they're now in their 50s and for the first time, they might start seeing weight gain and I just remembered, you know, what, you just mentioned that one of the best things that can serve them during this time is not a strenuous activity, and back in their heyday back in their 20s and 30s, they would have seen strenuous activity as the answer to help get that weight gain off.

What's your, how do you approach weight gain and helping women to shed those unwanted kilos in this latter part of their life if they really need to be looking after themselves and doing less strenuous activities and eating more fat? And so I just wanted to get your view on this weight gain, because I know it'd be on the listener's mind as to I've got this way, what do I, you know, how can I get rid of it?

Brenda Rogers 30:44 
Yeah, and there's quite a lot of elements to the answer to your question, Anthony. It depends on whether the person was healthy, leading into their 40s and its healthy weight gain. So a couple of kilos, extra healthy weight is encouraged because our fat produces hormones and a little bit of extra oestrogen produced by the weight, the fat in your body is a beneficial thing. So there's that aspect, then there's if you're healthy, and you're leading into menopause, and you've, you've stopped cycling, so you're not the whole reproductive cycle isn't occurring anymore, then the metabolism drops slightly.

So there needs to be a healthy reduction in food intake, not a nutrient, you know, you, I'm assuming that person's already eating a nutritious diet with good healthy fats, good proteins, and their blood sugars are in balance, and then they've got to 50 and then they've started to put on a little bit of weight and you know, one, or two or three kilos over a period of one or two years is absolutely fine.

If it's beyond that, then a couple of things, that person may be eating the same as they were in their 40s and you can't do that you have to eat a little bit less to stay the same weight and what helps is for a woman to be in touch with her body, so that she's listening to her appetite, and not eating when she's not hungry, or eating just smaller portions. So just gentle, subtle ways to eat a little bit less that don't feel like a radical diet. That's the healthy approach.

Then there's the unhealthy woman, the unhealthy woman who has not managed to stress who is eating the wrong things, who has diseases or conditions and with those women, we've got to correct the condition first. So typical things are unregulated stress, unregulated blood sugars, and unregulated inflammation, all of which produce weight around the middle, or excess weight all over the body as well.

But focusing on the weight without focusing on the health is the wrong priority, it's in the wrong order and so those women need to find a way to start to treat themselves better, to start to eat better, to manage their stress, to find some time for themselves, to look at their life to see if they're actually happy, to bring in some time for some self-reflection as they go through this transition time and a lot of the stuff that hasn't been dealt well with in the past comes back to be handled that stressful.

So there are just so many sources of stress at this time. Then, on top of that, the woman may be caring for parents, caring for teenagers, caring for partners, caring for a boss and so if they're over caring if they're not taking any time for themselves, if they don't have great boundaries, or a process for spending some time on themselves, then you know, they've got to work with a coach.

They've got to work with somebody like you, Anthony or somebody like me, who is, you know, wellness trained, but also able to help that person work through the blocks to being well, and so, blood sugar is a huge contributor to overeating and the carbohydrate craving and addiction that occurs to overeating. So that has to be handled and then there's the inflammatory inflammation that usually occurs from stress combined with too much-processed food in the diet and that includes your processed oil.

So we know vegetable oils like soy oil, cottonseed oil, safflower sunflower, all those vegetable oils are highly inflammatory in the body and then you've got the body trying to handle that reducing cholesterol as a solution to the inflammation. So there's another story around high cholesterol, right? I mean, it comes from, let me just take a second to explain something.

Naturopaths and nutritionists and people who are listening to the body, understand that the body is always trying to heal itself. It's trying to protect itself, it's trying to do the right thing. Always, always, always and so you have to understand why it's elevating cholesterol, there's a reason, why can't you sleep at 3 am? You know, there's a reason. So it's getting curious about that and allowing that to be the guide to the healing and to and to what opens up when a person is healed. So inflammation, blood sugars and stress.

Anthony Hartcher 36:46 
And in terms of the exercise that best supports them at this age, in terms of happiness, you know, at best fitting in with where their bodies are at and what their body most needs. Is there any particular exercise that you recommend?

Brenda Rogers 37:05 
Yeah, well, the research around cardiovascular exercise or cardio exercise is that it's kind of okay for about 20 minutes, and then it seems to elevate cortisol levels and you don't want that. So if you are doing you know, cycling on the spin classes or running and you're not healthy from it, or and you're struggling or suffering because some women can do that, and they're okay, the more active women, then you need to shorten it back to a maximum of 20 minutes, and balance it out with some gentle yoga.

I know, I know, some women are so driven to lose weight that slowing down the exercise can be difficult, and I understand that. It just takes a little bit of time and you've got to retrain your mind that it's okay to do an hour exercise where you don't come out of it fully sweaty, you know, that that's actually going to help with weight loss, believe it or not. So to answer your question, it's really just keeping those the high-intensity stuff to short, shorter stages and bringing in some of the gentler exercise going for walks, yoga, bushwalking, dancing, more fun ones, the more fun it is, the more the elevate the stress hormones, reduce as well. So gardening and you know, active engagements that don't necessarily involve flogging yourself.

Anthony Hartcher 38:55 
And you mentioned earlier in terms of that sort of more wildness comes out because the oestrogen the hormone of compliance is not as dominant anymore. So are women more adventurous, you know, in their 50s and 60s, like do they want to you know, bungee jump and skydiving, you know, so did you recommend they actually go and explore more, you know, to help them in this period of this transition?

Brenda Rogers 39:27 
Gosh, yeah, that's good, you're very insightful Anthony. Um, there isn't there, they, there's definitely a craving for adventure and that desire to travel is often strong to discover themselves so it's an internal adventure. So if a woman feels like skydiving is going to help her find herself then she might want to do that. But you've also got this sort of tempering with maturity and more anxiety is often anxiety very prominent at that age until you've really found your way.

So, you know that it can be a little bit of yes, I want more adventure, but I'm kind of more unsettled and afraid at the moment. So I'm not sure but, it might not be skydiving or Cliff cliff, what's the one where they jump off cliffs, cliffhanging or whatever it is? Diving, I think it might not be that. But certainly exploring new things, being adventurous with new things, whether they're adrenaline rushes or not, I should probably think that that adrenaline rushes, so I'm not.

I mean, I used to go canyoning, and, and, you know, in that kind of thing, and it was a huge adrenaline rush, and I don't want to do that anymore. But I do want to, oh, gosh, if only we could travel right, I do want to explore, I want to go and meditate in India and want to go and, and, and maybe try Ayahuasca in South Africa, in South America, or you know, I want to go, a lot of women want to go and study, they want to go back to the study that they never did and discover what their vocation is and that can be very exciting. So yeah.

Anthony Hartcher 41:34 
And in terms of you mentioned, the anxiety, how, when I was talking about these wild things, and the name came to me just then it was the base jumping, jumping off cliffs with a parachute. So yeah, so certainly, women are more exploratory and it ties in well with what you said in the previous episode, which was, you know, the perimenopause is that second teenage era? Or that sort of like they get they their menstruation cycle?

Is that, you know, irregular like the, and I guess, yeah, and as a result of that irregular lessness, same as the moods are sort of up and down during the perimenopause, and you're going through that teenage sort of phase again. So with this change in hormones, and you know, low oestrogen or low, but not as high oestrogen. The anxieties, you know, can be up at times and, you know, you mentioned depression and rates of suicide, I think you said was the highest at this age group for women? What do you suggest around mental health? Like how can women best support their mental health?

Brenda Rogers 42:52 
Anxiety can be blood sugar mismanagement, anxiety can be high cortisol and anxiety can be adrenal fatigue. Anxiety can be a nervous system that's short, it can be too much coffee, it can be too much sugar, it can be just a lot going on and overwhelmed with too much responsibility. So it's getting curious about what's the cause because anxiety is not a natural state and so it's even if you've been anxious all your life, it's still something you can learn to come to peace with.

It might mean learning to meditate, it might learn it means taking some herbs that nourish the nervous system, all those things are really important for you to be curious about with that individual because I don't believe in putting band-aids over things. Don't believe in you know, like putting a band-aid over the oil light on your dashboard doesn't solve the problem, right? And so we've got to be intelligent about symptoms being there for our, there are learning wisdom, and to use that as the guide for what has to be done and in you, that's a different perspective on health than what we get in our medical world.

Anthony Hartcher 44:22 
And on that note, how can listeners best connect with you if they want, you know, further support around their journey through perimenopause, menopause?

Brenda Rogers 44:34 
Yeah, yeah, fantastic. Well, you can find me on Facebook. I think you're going to put some links in Anthony, Brendan Rodgers. I'm in there. I've got the menopause lounge that's also on Facebook and I have a beautiful little sort of health check that I offer complimentary for people. It's on my website or you quewomen.com.au/health Check I think it is. And people can get a nice summary of the typical things that occur at that age, and see where they're at with that or, you know, email me, email me and we can have a chat. I do offer complimentary 30-minute chats to discuss your particular circumstances and I'll go and see you and then you can reform with me.

Anthony Hartcher 45:33 
Absolutely. So I have all Brenda's details. So you can certainly be in touch with me and I can pass on Brenda's details. I'll also have them all posted in the show notes, everything that Brenda mentioned and thank you listeners and thank you, Brenda, for sharing such great insight into this really not well known and talked about the subject so I really appreciate you putting aside your time and your busy practice to educate the public around menopause and how they can best help themselves navigate through this you know, beautiful transition in life to some new wild type, so I'll leave it there.

So listeners if you've liked the episode, please share it with others that can also benefit with you know hearing Brenda's wisdom on menopause. Please like and share it and stay tuned for more insightful episodes of me&my health up.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai