The Dr Louise Newson Podcast - 30 - Challenging the invisibility of menopausal women with Liz Earle MBE

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Content advisory: this episode contains themes of suicide Too many women reach perimenopause and menopause only to feel unheard, unseen and underserved by the healthcare system. In this episode, Dr Louise Newson is joined by wellbeing pioneer Liz Earle MBE to confront that invisibility and explore how knowledge, improved access to hormonal treatments and open conversation can change the future of women’s health.Together, they discuss the barriers women still face when seeking care, the lack of research into female biology and the consequences of ignoring hormonal health as we age. Liz shares her personal experience of finding renewed strength and purpose later in life, while Dr Newson highlights what needs to shift in medicine to truly support women through menopause and beyond.In the UK, you can contact Samaritans 24/7 at 116 123 or visit samaritans.org. If you're outside the UK, please reach out to a local crisis support service or emergency medical help.LET'S CONNECT  Subscribe here 👉 https://www.youtube.com/@menopause_doctor Website 👉 https://www.drlouisenewson.co.uk/Instagram 👉   / @drlouisenewsonpodcast  Download balance app 👉 / https://www.balance-menopause.com/balance-app/ LinkedIn 👉     / https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlouisenewson/ TikTok 👉   / https://www.tiktok.com/@drlouisenewson Spotify 👉 https://open.spotify.com/show/7dCctfyI9bODGDaFnjfKhg LEARN MORE Take my online education course, Hormones Unlocked 👉 https://www.learningwithexperts.com/products/hormones-unlocked-dr-louise-newson Sign up for my Confidence in Menopause Course 👉 https://www.drlouisenewson.co.uk/education---confidence-in-menopause  Learn more about Liz Earle MBE and buy her book 👉https://lizearlewellbeing.com/ 

As many of you know, I'm passionate about helping women make positive changes for their long-term health and well-being. One of the things we often overlook is how important our feet are. They're our foundation. That's why I've been really impressed by Vivo Barefoot shoes. They're designed to let your feet move as nature intended, improving strength, balance and connection to the ground beneath you. Vivo Barefoot are so confident you'll feel the difference that they offer a lot of. a 100-day trial with a full money-back guarantee, so you can try them completely risk-free. And as a listener of this podcast, you get 20% off your first order with the code, Newsom 20.

Just head to vivo barefoot.com and give them a try. Your body will thank you. So Liz Earle is my guest today. We talk about hormones, we talk about keeping healthy and preventing. diseases. And we talk about how we can keep well for as long as possible, see the difference between health span and lifespan. It's a great episode and I hope it will really inspire you to look after yourself. So welcome back, Liz. It's nice to be here. It's really nice. So we're doing it in real life, in person. I know, not just online. In a great studio. So there's lots to talk about. I feel like I need to talk quickly because it's only half an hour. But you'll come back. So it's fine. Thank you. I can't remember how long I've known you for but it feels like quite a few

years now. Is it nearly 10 years? It feels about that. I think so because people say to me when did you start HRT and I just started obviously well I think I met you before I was on HRT so that and I'm now 62 so it must be more than 10 years because I think I started my HRT around sort of 51, 52. Yeah because you'd written or you'd sort of reactivated a an old book talking about HRT with all the wrong information and then very luckily one of my researchers found you who said no no no this is this is do you know what I was so scared speaking to you why because well you've got to know me now but I'm really honest and I needed to be really honest with you that it was giving the wrong information and what I really respected about you is

that you really listened and but you didn't just believe me you went off and did your own research And that's really important because there are a lot of people who, well, especially over the last 10 years, who are on this so-called menopause bandwagon who just learn things, pick things up, they got their own agenda. But you didn't say, oh, yes, Louise, let's just change it because you've said it. You've said, no, show me the papers. Introduce me to some other people. Let me hear it from other people as well, which has been brilliant. Well, it was a real eye-opener.

It was a real journey. And I think, you know, for me, all my life, actually, I've really tried to campaign and rail against injustice. You know, whether it's I stashed a charity, I sit on the board of the centre for social justice, which kind of as the name suggests, you know, is all about social justice. And when you see things that are so obviously wrong,

particularly things that affect real people, especially real women, real midlife women, you know, that you really relate to as a midlife older woman. and then staggeringly things don't seem to change. I mean, that is the real frustration of it, isn't it, sitting here? All those years later, you would have expected it to people to wake up and go, oh, well, yes, of course we need to change this. Of course we need to have more education and more awareness and more availability for women

and better health care, particularly for older women. Because I remember sitting in the kitchen of your studios, we were filming a Facebook live, weren't we? Yeah. Many years ago. And then I came again and recorded a podcast. with you. And I felt like I had this explosion of words. I don't know if you remember. I was like, Liz, I've been seeing people in the clinic and they're being turned away. They've been given

antidepressants. I'm hearing all these stories because my clinic had only really just started and I was on my own. And I was like, Liz, this is awful. This is awful. And I remember it was before you'd sort of started this big community that you have now. I remember because you're always so lovely and calm and I always feel a bit like chaotic. And you were like, yes, that's interesting. But I don't think you realize, and I didn't even realize the enormity of the problem of women not being believed and listened to. Yeah.

And not being able to access hormones. And, you know, a lot of my work has been educating people about the difference as we did with you between the natural hormones and the synthetic. It's not even just, you know, getting over the whole scary issue of hormones itself. It's then saying well, they are very different. Yeah,

too, to them. Synthetic and body identical. And so we've worked together separately in of different ways, but a lot of it is about empowering women and enabling them to make choices about their health, their lifestyle, everything. And there are some women who are really fortunate who can go to their NHSGP, they can get all three hormones and vaginal hormones if they need them. And then their next sort of phase is looking at their exercise, their nutrition. Everything then slots in in an amazing way. Yeah.

But that's true. I mean, I, you know, I work a lot with well-being and lifestyle. And, you know, I always say it's not just your hormones. You've got to look at what you're eating and you've got to, you know, lift more weights and prioritize your sleep and, you know, have purpose in your life and all of that. But unless you get the underpinning of the hormones, how then do you have the wump, the unth and the mojo to actually go and do that? And, you know, for me, you know, I'm far more active now than I ever was. I lift heavy weights. I run, which I never did before.

I never would run anywhere, not even for a bus, you know, my 40s or 50s. Yeah. And I just wouldn't feel capable of doing it. And I mean, it drives my boyfriend mad. You know, we've just come back from a long drive. And, you know, we go through these small towns. And I see older women who are stooped and hunched and clearly in pain, you know, walking with a mobility aid.

And I just look at them. My heart breaks for them because I think I know how much you're hurting physically and emotionally and mentally. and you've probably got raging UTIs and your joints ache and you're anxious and you're, you know, scared to be outdoors because we know that, you know, so much of our brain capacity disappears with our declining hormones. And I rage with injustice for these women to think how they've been let down and are continuing to be let down.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's a global problem. It's not a UK problem. We're living so much longer, which is great. But actually that whole health span, lifespan, lifespan is completely different. And we know that the last 10 years of a woman's age is often in poor health. And that's often because of the inflammatory diseases. So osteoporosis, like you say, with this curvature, heart disease, diabetes, non-acoholic fat liver disease, cancers, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis.

They're all inflammatory condition, autoimmune diseases. Yes. But no one's joining the dots really properly in thinking about. the role of hormones and all of that. But we want to keep well. And that's what you do so well, you personally, but also to educate people. I feel really strongly about it. You know, my last book,

A Better Second Half, was because at hitting the age of 60, I felt happier and stronger and fitter and more capable than ever in my life, more than in my 30s, 40s, 50s. And, you know, I fully intend to live 120. So I am physically, hopefully halfway through, barring the proverbial bus outside that might catch me.

But, you know, in terms of health span, it's about living well for longer. So those last 10 years that you mention are not spent in pain and incapacitated, immobile, loss of cognitive function, etc. So we are living longer, like it or not. You know, modern medicine is keeping us alive. But how do we do that then and not be in pain and how to be mobile and independent and purposeful? Yeah. A lot of my thinking time and someone,

of my work is thinking about the harms of denying women evidence-based hormonal treatment. And I'm really careful when I say hormones, because I think we need to be really specific about the hormones, progesterone, estradiol and testosterone. And I use those words really carefully because progesterone is the natural progesterone, as you know, not synthetic progestergens. Estradial is the good form of estrogen. And testosterone, it has to be the proper testosterone, not a synthetic form. But those three hormones are really hard for most menopausal women to access.

Like the majority of menopausal women in the UK and in every country are not able to access it, which is just scandalous really. I think what's really shocked me over the years is the fact that so little research was done for women, you know, even on mainstream drugs. You know, they're on white middle-aged men of a certain age. And actually anybody who falls outside that parameter is excluded.

And, you know, we know that women are not just small men. Chromosonly, every cell in our body is different. Our hormones are different. Our pain pathways are different. Our fat distribute. I mean, you can just go on an eye don't you to tell you. You're the medic, not me. But, you know, the fact that so little attention was paid to female health care.

And then you factor in the ageism. So it's not just the gender inequality, but then it get agist as well with it. And it's just as if older women, we just don't really. matter. No, no. You know, we've served our function, we've procreated maybe or not, we've been a caregiver of, you know, whoever is around us at work or at home. And actually it's time to just go and just be quiet. And it's just so wrong. I rage all the time. Sorry, I've used that word rage. So many times, haven't I, today already. But it is, because it is this whole invisible woman, but actually we are, like, or not really important for society. But it's also a personal thing,

even if I had no dependence, I didn't have a job, I was living in my own in wherever, I still want to keep healthy and it's a choice thing. I choose whether I get up earlier to do yoga or not. You choose whether you do weight or not. You choose whether to run in the park or use a machine. We choose what we eat. We choose whether we smoke or not. But somehow the choice about having hormones is not even a conversation.

And if a younger woman can, she can choose whether or not she wants to. wants to be on the pill, which is a synthetic hormone with far more health risks. And that's so just do you go to your GP or, you know, possibly even your pharmacist, certainly in some countries. And it's just given out without a thought, or not much of a thought. Well, it's true, though. I mean, you've got daughters. I've got daughters.

They can get any type of contraceptive care. Why can't I have my natural hormones in a lower dose in a safer form? But how much is the narrative changing? Because from what I see on my social media, Instagram particularly is my main kind of point contact with people, I get messages the whole time and comments the whole time from women, even now going to GPs primarily and just not accessing, not even a trial, because I'll often comment and say, well, I'm not a medic, but this is the data, this is the evidence, why don't you ask for a three or six month trial and see if your symptoms improve? I'm always recommending the balance

app because it's free and it has a great checklist and it fast-tracks your appointment, doesn't it, to your GP because you can say I've got this, this, this and this. Because that's the problem, isn't it? With a GP, if you say, oh, I've got achy knees, immediately you'll start talking to a rheumatologist. Or if you have anxiety immediately, it's a psychiatric condition and it's antidepressants. Whereas if you can go in with achy joints and dry eyes and UTIs and hot flushes and whatever, then it might be, oh, let's talk about hormones straight away. And it's interesting.

I am complete marmite in the medical community. So there's lots of doctors that really, really thank me for the work, especially balance that. Because they say it really helps our consultation because people come in with their health report, they've monitored their symptoms, any periods. And they literally sit down and say, look, I think I'm perimenopausal.

Look at these symptoms, can I help? Whereas other people have said to me, Louise, your work has got to stop because what you're doing is educating people and then now they all think they've got a hormonal issue. We see women in their 20s and 30s think that, hormones are going to help their sleep, they're going to help their headaches, their joint pains, it's ridiculous. And I'm there, obviously really annoying, saying, why is it ridiculous? I don't understand because it could be related.

It could be. And actually, you know, as you know, I see a lot of younger women who have hormonal changes, and they often need hormones for those days where their hormones are changing and reducing, especially before their periods. And so I think every woman who comes in to a consultation, the question should be, could any of this be related to your hormones? You know, frozen shoulder, could it be related to your hormones? Dry eyes, burning mouth syndrome. Well, for me, it was my, I had a hearing issue and I had tinnitus. Which is really common.

Yeah, in my early 50s and late 40s, early 50s, and I had this constant kind of faint ringing. And I was researching it and it was just like, oh, there's not much you can do about it. I thought, oh my gosh, I'm just going to have to live with this. And then I've been on HOT maybe for about 18 months. and I suddenly realized my tinnitus has gone. Yeah. And then I looked into it and I think we spoke.

And it was like, yes, we've got estrogen receptors on our ears. And yet none of the audiologists I'd seen had ever said anything. And the same with dry mouth syndrome. I was talking to a dentist the other day saying, well, you know, I bet you see lots of, you know, you can pick up lots of hormonal changes, can't you? Because you've got lots of middle-aged women sitting in your chair. And he said, oh, well, they don't teach us anything about that in dentistry. It doesn't it just doesn't make sense.

But I had palpitations when I was, before I had Lucy, so it's probably about 35. And they were quite bad actually, especially at night time. Obviously, hormone levels are lower at night, but I didn't join the dots. And it would sometimes actually wake me from my sleep because I sometimes get chest pain, sometimes shortness of breath, which are red flags. You know, they're concerning symptoms if you've got palpitations. But it was more that I was missing a beat. There was a long pause and then suddenly.

my heart would beat and it felt like my whole chest was, you know, just in pain. And I'd sometimes weight pulled up and say, look, I think I'm going to have to go to casualty. I feel really ill. I mean, I was like, no, this is stupid. It will pass. It will pass. Maybe I'm a bit anxious. Maybe I'm a bit depressed.

And anyway, then I went to see a cardiologist, obviously wired up, had all these tests. Everything was normal. But no one really said to me. And they all melted away when I was pregnant with Lucy, of course, because my hormone levels were high. And then even when they came back, I then started to get other symptoms and it was easy to join the dots. But just someone saying, do you think it could be hormonal? Let's put it back to the women a bit and ask them because women are quite intuitive, aren't they? Definitely.

And I think it's actually connecting all those different symptoms. You know, I think, you know, I grew up thinking it was just about a hot flush and a night sweat and then it would pass. Yeah. You know, that's also the big, oh, the big. reveal that no it may not pass and I think it was the achy joints and the dry eyes and the you know the anxiety and the headaches I mean again I haven't got any painkillers in my bag and and I look back to when I was in my mid 40s I would never be without a whole stash of ibuprofen in my bag because I would really get a lot of headaches and it was difficult time

of life I was selling the beauty company you know rocky marriage all of that and there were lots of other factors and I think that gets blurred doesn't it course it does so we we can't you know you have to kind of, you know, take that out. But, you know, I wonder how you cope with it, you know, because you say that you're quite Marmite for the medical community. You know, you get a huge amount of praise. And I always read the comments on your Instagram. And there are so many literally hundreds, thousands of women who say, you have saved my life,

which is just a phenomenal, you know, that I'm sure that keeps you going. But then there are, there are a lot of rock throwers. And that's hard. It is really hard, Liz. I, someone actually, a couple of people in my research team last week said, have you always been quite naughty and disruptive? I said, sorry. I said, I've never been naughty.

Like I've always conformed. Like I used to get form prize. I was a real girly swat. I'd always just be under everyone's radar and do my best. And then I went into medicine to help people. I know that sounds a bit cheesy, but I'm not from a medical background. No one in my family's ever been a medical doctor before. and I wanted to become a doctor

ever since I could, you know, walk and talk really. But I did it because I wanted to help people feel better. And, you know, even after my father died, it seemed so wrong that someone so young could die even with good medical care. So it just really drove me. And I feel sometimes, and I think maybe I'm a bit older and braver,

but when these doctors push back, I feel like either, don't know whether to laugh or cry, because I think, do you not care about the people that you see? And then when we get letters of complaint, which we often do to say, how dare you give progesterone to someone who's had a hysterectomy and their ovaries removed.

And I used to get very worried about these letters and very sad, and now I think it's laughable. But they don't understand. It's just a natural hormone, and someone's had their ovaries removed, and we've all known and agree that ovaries produce eustodial, testosterone, yet somehow we only give eustodial back.

we forget about the other two hormones. And all the receptors for it all over the body and the implication with mood and emotion and sleep and all of those important things. And I think, you know, one of the things that I've learned and I guess through my podcast and through working with a lot of academics and researchers is there's a great difference in the medical community

between real hands-on clinicians. People like yourself and the doctors that you work with so closely who see women day in, day out and listen to them and have that real empathy. and women who sit, well particularly unfortunately women, but it often is women researchers, or particularly in your field, who sit back in their academic libraries or their institutions,

who don't see, they're not in clinic. And one of the big questions that I have for women, you know, particularly who are in this world and who are doing the research is, how many patients did you treat last week? How many women did you actually sit and look at and take their case notes and look them in the eye and actually talk about their symptoms

and how you can relieve them? And that's really important. Because knowledge is one thing, but putting it into practice is crucially important. And even our education program, we filmed actors and pretended to have consultations because people learn how to talk to people, how to address, sometimes quite sensitive conversations. But it is. I mean, I was talking to a lady on Monday who's really at the end of Heather, she's quite young. She's tried to take her life four times now. And she went to a private clinic, not mine.

a few months ago and they said it's not your hormones, just stop everything. Of course it is a hormones but no one's really dressing it in the right way. The gynaecologist had removed her ovaries last year because they said it is a hormone problem. Let's just remove your hormones and things will improve. No, of course they didn't. But how I've managed her now is very different to how I would have managed her five or ten years ago because I think she's a lot more progesterone deficient and testosterone deficient and everyone's just been giving her different doses of estrogen. And, you know, just talking to her and getting her to be part of the conversation, her partner was there as well, she just said, no one's ever spoken to me like this before. No one's really listened. And I just thought, gosh, these poor women, it's just like they're on a conveyor about.

She's been under psychiatrists. She's been under crisis teams. She's been under, obviously, other doctors thinking about their hormones. But you hear this a lot, and you must hear it on your instillard. grammar community because I do. Oh so much and I look in the news as well and whenever I see a news report of a woman you know often in her early 50s who's taken her own life and I know I have two people who I knew personally who are quite high profile who died by suicide at the age of well one was 51 and one was 52 and I look back and I think if only I'd known then what I know now and just I mean it's just so tragic. And then also you look at historical figures. I mean, I was up in York, not that long ago, with Kit's graduation. And I think it was at Virginia Woolf, who threw herself off the bridge there,

you know, aged whatever she was. If you read her suicide notes and her diaries, she was so tormented, but she had so much insight, which is what I see a lot with women who have mental health issues related to their hormones. And she was just felt a burden, you know, how she was writing was about I can't do this anymore. I'm such a failure almost. And she wasn't. She was an incredible person. Yes.

But all throughout history that there are women in that same position. Of course it was. I was in Oslo at the beginning of the summer holidays and Edward Monk's daughter, the sister was in and out of psychiatric institutions. And of course I'm sure it would have been related to her hormones. And you see it, but that was then. Yes.

But now. That was back then. But you really would. couldn't expect. And also, particularly with, you know, dare I say, you know, high profile women who've got access, hopefully, to, you know, any kind of healthcare that they would choose. And they still fall through the net because there's this lack of information. And it's not just menopause as in the paper today, actually. I don't know if you've seen there's a lady who drowned with postnatal depression. And postnatal depression is associated with an increased

incidence and risk of suicide. Yet these people, if you look at all the guidelines, they mention hormones. Really? It's all about antidepressants. But we know that levels of hormones are really high in pregnancy. Yes. And they fall off a cliff. And we've, I'm sure, with your various pregnancies, you've experienced some sort of baby blues.

Most of us have. Yes. And I'm very, very lucky in that they didn't affect me hugely, but they definitely did affect me. And actually, I was talking to Lily, because she's got a one-year-old. And she was talking about the need for better awareness of vaginal estrogen. you know, after pregnancy and when you're breastfeeding. And, you know, that never crossed my mind. And she spoke to her GP about it who said, oh, no, no, I'm not able to prescribe that for you.

But it's madness, isn't it? It's so safe. And it's so, when you think of what the estrogen levels would have been a few months previously during pregnancy, why could it possibly be so damaging? And during pregnancy, we're protected, aren't we? Our immune system comes in to make sure that we're okay and our new baby's okay. And that's why it's giving us so much estrogen. So why would it suddenly turn against us?

It is madness. And I remember being scared after having Jessica, when they kept saying day five, it's always day five, isn't it, that you might feel a bit tearful, you might feel a bit sad. And then night sweats is because so-called your milk comes in. Well, no, it's because you've got no hormones in your body. And why I didn't think about just having a little bit of hormones then just to smooth that would have made a huge difference. So postnatally, you know, for literally for mothers in delivery wards to be given a pump of eustra gel and just. said, look, just to help regulate the transition from lots of hormones to no hormones.

Absolutely. And progesterone is transformational. So you probably've heard of Katrina Dalton, who was a doctor. And she was fundamental about progesterone, especially for postnatal depression and postnatal psychosis. And I've spoken to some of her patients, actually, who say they, she absolutely saved their life. And she gave quite a high doses of progesterone. But she was hauled in front of the General Medical Council, the British Men of Portals. medical association tried to, you know, discredit her. She had a very difficult time, but everyone says she was very formidable. You didn't argue with her.

She actually went to my old school, and I remember her giving a talk in her when I was about 12. Yeah, amazing woman. But she carried on because the women knew what was going on, and she was very clear when you read her books, but it had to be progesterone, not synthetic progestogen. It had to be progesterone. She knew then. And she knew then, and she's written some great papers.

about PMDD, about postnatal depression, because she realised for herself, her migraines improved when she was pregnant. Yeah. And she didn't know what it was. And then she realised progesterone levels are very high. Yes. When we're pregnant.

Well, even Lily having terrible migraines, and I know you've got that in your family as well. And they will often say, oh, well, wait until you get pregnant and it'll be easier. Well, why should she wait until she's pregnant? I know that it's going to get easier or it could be. And you're not trying a bit of extra estrogen right now or progesterine. Yeah.

It seems like it's there. It's hiding in plain sight, isn't it? It is, isn't it? And it's just joining the dots. But I sometimes think, like, the frustration that I have about the difference in natural and synthetic hormones is what you've quietly and vocally had about olive oil. Right. Do you know, do you hear where I'm coming from, don't you? Yeah.

Years ago, you were advocating healthy fats. Healthy fats. Yeah. It's the difference between, you know, they're all fats, but some are damaged and healthy. and unhealthy and some are not. But we've done a full U-turn really with that, haven't we, because no one's disagreeing with that now, but there was a long time where low-fat spreads were everything.

Oh my gosh, you know, you go into any supermarket and you know you had to put the healthy option into your basket. And, yeah, no, I was nearly sued by a well-known margarine manufacturer for daring to suggest that something low-fat and full of trans fats and hydrogenated damage fats could be. you know, in any way deleterious to our health. And then, of course, they removed all the trans fats from almost a day. It's interesting, isn't it?

Because people realise, but I think what's really changed is that people understood so the people that were eating these fats. And we choose when we go to the supermarket. And even Lucy, my 14-year-old, was saying at one of her old schools, one of the cookery teachers, was they were talking about healthy options. And she was talking about having low-fat yogurt. And Lucy's putting up her hand and saying, Actually, Lucy said, but I stood my ground because I know what's what.

And it is this misinformation. But again, it's about choice. If people know, then they can choose. But I want that message to change about hormones because getting back to the natural hormones and the synthetic chemical hormones that are in contraception, they're so different. But lots of people didn't realise. I did a podcast with Kate Muir with her brilliant book on that, with the pill.

And just realising the difference. Yeah. And the great unfairness of it, that they could make the contraceptive pill with natural body identical hormones, but they don't. No, because it's cheap. That's the big problem, isn't it?

And we're just women. So what does that matter? It doesn't really matter, does it? But I think people are realising. But the other thing, like we were saying, is once our hormones are balanced, we can exercise more, we can eat more, and we'll eat more, we'll eat differently.

Yes. But I do think the exercise thing, is so important about individualising exercise, but also knowing that you can change the type of exercise you do. Because you've really changed, like you say, you're running, you're doing weights. And actually, I'm writing my next book for next year, which is all about longevity.

It's called How to Age. And it has a big section on exercise because what I've discovered over the years is that we can create new stem cells and we can get more muscle mass and we can help our metabolism stay active and fired up simply by changing the exercise that we do. and I do far less exercise now than I did before.

So it's very time efficient. I'll just do a few push-ups. I'll do a bit of skipping because I'm jumping up and down. And so I'm helping with my bone density. I'm lifting heavy weights, which makes me feel resilient and strong because I am physically strong. And that's it. You know, I don't go and do an hour-long step class,

which is what I used to do, jump around in a unit hard, you know, looking like Jane Fonda with leggings and everything. Which, looking back, I mean, it was quite a nice social thing to do. I used to follow it probably a glass of chardoner and a muff. often, you know, undo all the good work. But actually, we can do far better than that. And it is, it's about understanding, I think, the dynamics of how our body works. Yeah.

And I think that's so important. It's a really important tool to know that our body changes, but we can do more and help more. And certainly looking at exercise changing, I think, is so important. I love some of the accounts on Instagram. There's one, I think it's a hashtag it's old lady gains. And there's all these literally oxygen. And they're flying around on parallel bars and doing chin-ups, which that's my goal, even just to do one chin-up. I know.

He's watching you in the park on Instagram. I'm working towards it. It's so hard. It's really hard. It's really hard. We hang. I'm trying to hang at the minute. And then my husband's got this stupid thing where he ties weights around his waist and then does chin-ups.

And it's so annoying. But anyway. Our fat distribution is different. But I will get there. I'm determined for my next birthday to be on Instagram doing a full chin-up. Very good. So there's so much more we could talk about, but it's come to the end, but it's not at the end until I've asked for three take-home tips.

Okay. So three things that we should be doing in the second half of our life. So it's going to help our future health. Okay. So, well, you've got to prioritise sleep. Yeah. You know, sleep is a superpower. And we do so much.

The body does so much subconsciously and unconsciously while we sleep. So anything that we can do, obviously getting our hormones balance is going to help with sleep. but having a good sleep routine. I wear blue blocking glasses at night to shut off the blue light. I don't feel a fool now just wandering around in orange glasses. And everything's this lovely reddish haze in the evening in my house. So, you know, prioritise sleep, whether you've got to take magnesium or lavender on your pillow or whatever it is. But please just make sure that sleep happens.

And, you know, weights. You don't have to buy weights. Do some push-ups. It sounds really daunting, but start standing on a kitchen countertop. go down get on your knees and do push-ups just gradually build up you know try one literally one and then the day after tomorrow try two you know that's how we start um and we've got to have more fun great like that more fun it's like you know once you get everything once you get your hormones right and you feel physically stronger and more empowered then let's go and find our purpose

and our passion and lighten up with life because I think you realize that life is short and it's frail and it's a gift and you don't want to get to the end of it and look back and think what a waste? What was all that about? Let's just have a bit more fun. What a great way to end. Thanks Liz. Thank you for having me.