The Menstruality Podcast - 200. How to Recover Your Health in Menopause with Herbal Medicine (Melinda McDougall)

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

If you’re curious to explore natural approaches to support menopause health symptoms today’s episode is for you. Our guest, Melinda McDougall, is a registered Medical Herbalist specialising in women's health and menopause. She combines the latest scientific research into botanical medicines with the traditional knowledge women have used for centuries to manage their health.Melinda shares a treasure trove of herbal information about how to improve sleep and brain function, reduce stress, and help your body to feel better, as well as how herbal medicine supported her own healing process with erratic and incredibly heavy cycles in the years running up to menopause. One of my favourite parts was when Melinda described how our brains get totally re-shaped and remolded during menopause, as we wake up from the fog of estrogen people-pleasing hormone, drop into a different way of seeing the world, and become less inclined to put everyone else first. We explore:A powerful ayurvedic herb that helps your body adapt to stress and is very supportive for insomnia and sleep disturbances, as well as herbal medicine for night sweats and hot flushes. A variety of useful herbs for mental focus and brain function, if you’re experiencing brain fog, or feel like your brain isn’t working like it used to, as well as herbs to support you through the intense rage that we can experience during menopause,How to use herbal medicine as a viable alternative to HRT or as a way to support your body alongside HRT, like adaptogenic herbs, and herbs that support gut and liver health and can help to reduce side effects like headaches, weight gain and breakthrough bleeding. ---Order our menopause book - Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyMelinda McDougall: @melinda_mcdougall_herbalist - https://www.instagram.com/melinda_mcdougall_herbalist/

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. If you're curious about natural approaches to support menopause health symptoms, today is an episode for you. Our guest is Melinda McDougall. She's

a registered medical herbalist specializing in women's health and menopause, and she combines the latest scientific research into botanical medicines with the traditional knowledge that women have used for centuries to manage their health. Today she shares a treasure trove of herbal information about how to improve sleep, brain function, reduce stress, help your body to feel better in so many different ways and she also shares her own personal story around the herbs she took to support her own healing process with very erratic and incredibly heavy cycles in the years running up to menopause one of my favorite

bits was when melinda described how our brains get totally reshaped and remolded during menopause as we wake up from this fog of oestrogen, people-pleasing hormone and drop into a different way of seeing the world and become less inclined to put everyone else first. So let's get started with the brilliant Melinda McDougall and how to recover your health in menopause with herbal medicine. Hi Melinda, thank you so much for joining us on the Menstruality Podcast today. I've got loads of different questions for you and I'm really, really glad that you're here. Oh thanks Sophie, it's so exciting to be here talking to you. Yeah, we're gonna have a good

chat today I know. And I know that you've read Alexandra and Shani's Wise Power book and you also, Alexandra came to teach on one of the summits that you ran for menopause. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm a huge fan of the book because it just resonates so much with what I see in my clinical practice, working with women going through perimenopause and menopause and just when I saw it all written down in black and white it was like yes someone has really got this and has just explained so well the sort of psycho-spiritual transformation that goes on through menopause and why it could be so difficult at times. And yes, and then Alexandra very kindly came and spoke at a natural menopause summit that I put together a couple of years ago. And everyone who attended absolutely loved hearing what she had to say. It was incredibly powerful so yeah just really happy to to be here talking to you today about all of this and it feels like we can get

into a really practical way of understanding how to access the power of menopause because when people are in the thick of I haven't been through it myself but from sitting with so many in our community when they're in the thick of it it's like power I'm not really I can't been through it myself, but from sitting with so many in our community, when they're in the thick of it, it's like power. I'm not really, I can't really understand how that could happen, but as we'll explore today, herbs are a gateway for it. Absolutely. They're here to help everybody. Okay.

So before we get into the conversation, let's do our cycle check-in, which we always do at the start of this podcast. What cycles are you connected to in your life these days melinda yeah yeah so i no longer have a menstrual cycle so that has been just over a year now which feels quite liberating. And what I love to tune into instead is the cycles of nature. So, you know, the moon cycle, you know, new moon and full moon, but also really important to me, and especially as a herbalist, to tune in to what's going on outside in nature. And I live in the middle of London but I still you know love to tune into all those cycles that are marked by the festivals that you know our ancestors laid down for us so you know looking at things like Beltane, for example, which comes up in May, all of those sorts of festivals that go on through the year are really important to me,

because it's also just a reminder to me to look out the window and go, oh, yeah, what plants are coming into flower or what herbs might be out there for me to go and start to check in on um so it's really important to me to stay in tune with with all those cycles of the year you know right through autumn and winter and back to spring again so yeah cycles are really important to me um one of the things I'd love to speak to you about actually is going out and being with the plants ourselves and harvesting them in nature. So we'll get to that. I'm curious how if and how you can do that in Brixton. It's a really big part of my life as well. And just the spring that we're having here in the UK is phenomenal isn't it and

we were just chatting before we got talking the blossoms are blossoming like never before and solutions everywhere yeah it's beautiful so beautiful I noticed I was um semi-stalking you on Instagram and I noticed that you've just come back from a trip, right, with walking with your girlfriends around the southwest coastal path. How was that? Oh, so beautiful. This is, it means so much to me, this project. So we started doing it back in 2020, just me and my friend Jo, and she lives down in Cornwall and I live in London. And so it's a great way for us to kind of connect and get together. And we've just been doing it in sections. So, you know, we're five years in and we're not even halfway because it's 630 miles. But every time we get together and go on one of these walks, it's just totally magical,

no matter what the weather's doing. And just getting, yeah, just exploring the coastline and walking. And it's, you know, it's been really tough going at times because sometimes that terrain, you know, has been very difficult. And I've got very creaky 52-year-old knees, you know, and sometimes we've wild camped so we've carried like huge backpacks on our back as well so it's kind of an endurance test sometimes but we always have a really good laugh and and quite often we're joined by other women that we know who might live along the path or who want to come with us and it's just a great way of being outside in nature and connecting with your dearest friends and yeah I think especially for women you know no matter what age you're at just taking time away and being with other women is always so important.

Yeah and in the wild too I was jealous when I read it because I've just finished reading The Salt Path, the memoir by Raina Wynne and her two subsequent memoirs. And I was like, oh, I want to do it so much. They're such great books, aren't they? They are amazing. And you meet lots of other women actually on the path who are just solo doing it on their own and yeah it's I really recommend it if you want to get out there and do it it's a great project just be prepared it might take you a few years if you're doing it like we're doing it gorgeous I'd love to hear a bit about your story and your calling to work as a herbalist can you share a bit about how this all got started where your passion began with this yeah so it came to

me a bit later in life I was sort of in my late 30s and I was I'd already had a sort of quite a big career in television as a documentary maker and a journalist and there was all sorts of things going on in the TV industry which has sort of played out over the last decade which meant that I could see that it was in decline. I could also feel that I was starting to burn out a little bit. And I just started thinking about what else I might want to do. And I've always been so drawn to plants and plant medicine. But the real reason that I did this huge career change and went and did a master's degree and studied for eight years was because of women's health, because I knew that plant medicines could support women's health in such a powerful way. And at that time, when I first started retraining, you know, no one was talking about menopause back then.

And I could just see this huge gap that was occurring and it wasn't being discussed. And, you know, my own mother went through an incredibly difficult menopause. And so that's always sort of inspired me, partially to make it better for other women, but also on a slightly selfish level to sort of say, oh, well, I don't want to go through that myself. Is there anything I can do to make the path a bit smoother? And I just knew that plant medicine was the answer for me anyway, and to learn as much as I could about it and I guess being a journalist in the past I really love researching and diving into things in in great detail and so I love all the research side of herbal medicine and diving into you know all the scientific studies that have been

done on on plant medicines as well so yeah it was a big undertaking but I'm glad I did it and I've yeah never looked back and now set up in clinical practice I have an online practice and I see women from all over the world really and it's just such a joy to really support people and to support women as they're going through such a big transition. You have, you've gathered some incredible stories of the women that you've worked with and how the herbs have shifted things for them and maybe we can get into some later. So how was your menopause? Yeah, it's been okay. It's been right when I was I would say that it's started perimenopause was it sort of started quite early for me in my sort of you know early 40s and I would say the biggest thing for me was lots of kind of menstrual cycle irregularities and you know getting lots of heavy bleeding and things like that that was

kind of the big thing for me but you know managed to get on top of it all with herbal medicine which is great and since the you know the monthly bleed has has stopped it's been pretty good, I would say. And I take my herbs every day and that helps me. But, you know, I've definitely noticed the more psychological, emotional, mental aspects of menopause that can start to creep in. All that sort of menopausal anxiety can start creeping in. But yes, I have lots of lovely herbs to help me with that so yeah I would say I've actually enjoyed menopause since the all the heavy bleeding has kind of gone away it's felt quite liberating yeah it feels really freeing but isn't that amazing to think of what your mum endured and what you've been able to create now

it's really really inspiring for me to hear and I imagine for our listeners too and I'm putting you on the spot here because we didn't plan to talk about this but since you've read Wise Power I'm just wondering if you are sort of tracking where you feel like you might be in those five phases like if you're more if you are sort of more towards the end of the like vision and emergence part yeah definitely definitely I feel I feel like I've sort of whizzed through some of those phases and uh you know I think because I've been preparing for menopause for so long because I've been so aware of it, you know, it's been over a decade now, that I think the sort of on ramp to menopause, the perimenopausal phase wasn't so

bumpy for me. And I definitely feel like I'm coming out the other side of those phases now, for sure. Exciting, right right third act time yes exactly exactly yes amazing yeah alexander speaks a lot about that about being prepared for menopause and how cycle awareness can help how taking care of our health and listening for our needs and all of the things that are coming up for me now perimenopause you know the autumn of the menstruating years are definitely kicking into gear for me at 43 and I'm just yeah trying to trying to follow the advice of just being more aware of what I need and then following it when I can just knowing that that's preparation for this yeah yeah and I think that's the best advice um that you know that you can really take on board because I think some of the

women that I've worked with who've really really struggled it's all come as a bit of a shock to them and it's like they've just suddenly crashed into a wall and that can be, you know, for all sorts of reasons, because midlife is such an incredibly stressful time. And often self care, and women, well, women put themselves last, yeah, you know, and so then suddenly menopause or perimenopause, you know, you really get into the fire of it and it can just be a really big crash and that's when I come in and have to sort of try and pick up the pieces a little bit and and set set the ship to rights again and it's no wonder because we're not there isn't any education around no as you said there's this huge gap luckily there are more many more conversations happening now which is wonderful but yes yeah and it's like it's nobody's

fault because women are just under so much pressure all the time and society puts us under so much pressure all the time as well and the expectations on women are just off the scale. So there's a lot of plate, you know, everyone's spinning a lot of plates. So, but you know, I think things are changing. And I think that women in their 40s, or even younger, are really starting to become much more aware of, you know, what's coming, and to start to look after themselves a bit more and to prepare for that as much as they can you know everyone's situations are different yeah yeah and we need allies we need we need each other but the plants the plants can be applies here and they're here just growing away in the hedgerows and you know let's so let's talk about this you um you shared i think it was in your free

guide or your website um herbal medicine has been used by women for hundreds if not thousands of years to ease the big energetic and hormonal shifts in our lives like we have something very important our fingertips here and in your free guide which i think is called how to harness the power of menopause with herbal medicine yeah beautiful so i really recommend going to melinda's website and downloading that and i'll put the link in our show notes uh with the podcast like you know you share some really really good general advice about herbs that can help with specific challenges so perhaps for those listening who are in the thick of this who are dealing with multiple levels of responsibility in their lives

and are suffering with various challenges I thought maybe we could go through one by one some of the top ones that we hear about in our community and just share your recommendations for what can help yeah um maybe starting with insomnia because sleep challenges come up all the time and I'm in a different phase of life where I've just I've got a four-year-old so I've just come out of the like desperate sleep deprivation and so I know firsthand I mean I was psychotic after the first year I'd say like I couldn't function very well at all and actually my husband said to me do you know what I'm gonna do the nights now and I was like there was a look in his face that was like because I don't want to look when our sleep is messed up everything else becomes so much harder doesn't it so yeah herbs

for insomnia yes so this is you're so right it's so fundamental and if we can get people's sleep patterns back on track again then everything else starts to fall into place and we start being less grumpy. We have more energy. You know, we're just able to function so much better. And also insomnia can actually be really inflammatory as well. and it can have lots of detrimental effects for things like blood pressure, you know, weight gain, cortisol levels, you know, it's really important. So herbs like valerian are really helpful and also passionflower. You know, you often get, you you know you see those sort of sleepy time teas um in the shops and they often contain those two herbs valerian and passion flower um but there can be other reasons as to why your sleep might be disrupted so if there's a lot of stress um and that's why you can't get to sleep

then you might be looking at taking something like blue skullcap, which is a really favorite herb of mine. It's really good for menopausal anxiety. It's really popular in America and not so very much heard of over here. But it's, it's really good for your nervous system and calming down anxiety. But there's another reason your sleep might be disrupted is because your stress hormone, your cortisol levels might be really through the roof. And that might be why you're waking up at sort of three or four o'clock in the morning and your brain is whizzing around and you can't sleep.

So then you'd be looking at using what we call adaptogens. And these are herbs that help your body adapt to stress. And one that's really good for sleep is ashwagandha, which I know everyone is really, it's a very popular herb at the moment. But that's because it's a herb really for our times. You know, it's a plant that we need increasingly because we're under so much stress in the 21st century. So, yeah, so there's some of my lovely sleep tips. You know, but also it's really important to have a think about what you're

doing before you go to sleep as well. Because so many of us are doing sort of late night scrolling and that can really upset your nervous system. And obviously, you know, looking at screens isn't great for your brain just before you're going to sleep as well. So, you know, switch. I always try to tell people to switch back to a good old book. So I did so well with this in, not this is all about me, but you know, it's every woman's story, really every person's story. I did so well with this over Christmas. I put my phone down basically for two weeks. We were away in Scotland. It was magnificent.

Surrounded by wild nature, back to the salt path and the southwest coast path. And I just read. I read those three memoirs. And I just read so much and a couple of other beautiful books. And then it's like a light bulb switched on in my mind. Reading. That's what we used to do but as the busyness of my life picks up honestly I could cry I just watch myself pick it up that

part of my brain that just you know I want the dopamine hit of the quick like oh who's messaged me who's emailed me on Instagram and I mean do you have some recommendations that have worked for you and for your clients to just help us to slow down that dopamine craving you know yeah I think you've got to start sort of weaning yourself off it a little bit and you know like you've just said um don't have your phone in your bedroom. That is so important. So many people have their phones by their beds. You know, get an alarm clock, wake up to some really nice music on the radio or something like that.

You know, it's all very old fashioned, isn't it? But, you know, just get your phone out of your room. It's not a good idea. You know, I know sometimes people have it there because they're listening to, you know, apps to help them go to sleep. But, you know, perhaps you wouldn't need those apps if you, yeah, just tried going to bed a little bit earlier. Everyone's going to bed around midnight, which is also not great for us. You know, we all struggle with that. And there's all sorts of reasons for that, you know, because women, that's their time late at night when they can do things and get things done.

But honestly, if we all just went to bed a little bit earlier, it's, you know, these are all things we tell our kids, right? Like, go to bed earlier and stop staying up late and stop staring at your phone. Inner parenting. We have to do some inner parenting. Yes. So good. Thank you. Those are all really helpful. Another thing that I hear all the time is brain fog can't find my words not working as it used to I imagine this is connected but there are other particular herbs that you recommend for this piece yeah so a really good one I use is called go to cola which is a an ayurvedic herb an indian herb uh that is also an adaptogen as well so it kind of doubles up a lot of the adaptogens um are also really good for mental focus so that's one go to cola um rhodiola is another one that's very helpful for mental focus and energy.

The only thing with Rhodiola is just to be a little bit cautious, because if you are feeling incredibly wired, it can sometimes take that to a little bit of an increase, a little bit of an increase, a little bit of an extra level. So just be mindful of that if you're experimenting with rhodiola, it might just make you feel a little bit more wired if you're already in a really depleted state. But rhodiola is really good for mental focus. Ashwagandha is also good for mental focus. It's a really good all-rounder for menopause, actually. And ginkgo, ginkgo biloba is another herb that is also just really good with supporting brain function. So there's some lovely herbs there for brain fog and just clearing the mind and making you a bit sharper uh you know because that that can be a real

struggle through menopause with women feeling a real loss of confidence and um you know going into meetings and not being able to sort of remember what they're talking about or you know where they left their car keys and things like that so yeah so there's because the transition isn't honored and dignified yet it's starting but not yet you know there are of course work policies entering the workplace which is I think is helping but it can lead to like extra stress and shame because we can't just be real about look there was a gigantic hormonal transition taking place in my body. And funnily enough, it's impacting me, you know, and that's part of life. And let's all work with it together, which is a place that I would love us all to be. But yeah, we're not there

yet. So yeah, it's very flustering to not be able to, I find on the podcast sometimes I'm like, I'm sure I had a question to ask, but it's gone out of my head. I'm just trying to normalize. Oh, cool. I forgot that one. Let's move on to the next thing instead and see what happens exactly but you know stress stress can also make you lose your words as well when we're under a lot of pressure and we also know that our brains are actually getting remolded and and reshaped as we go through menopause as well. So we will be experiencing some, you know, mental cognitive changes. But we know that our brains then kind of reshape and then we come out the other side of this. So we've got to sort of ride that wave as our brains start to reshape themselves into the the next stage of

life yeah i've been thinking a lot about snakes recently sorry this is going to seem like a real tangent talking about cognitive shifts and perimenopause but what happens when a when a snake sheds its skin and what a gigantic process it is but how vibrant the colors are underneath when the old skin is shed and it has to like rub itself up against rocks for ages to break through the skin and shed it then it has to do that hard work of slowly moving it out of the skin it takes a long time you know and I think that as a metaphor for the transformation that we go through all the different transformations we go through as women and people with cycles and wombs. We're shedding a skin here ready for this brilliant new brain that's happening on the other side of menopause, which we're learning much more about, right?

Absolutely. And I think that metaphor is so spot on, that shedding of skin, shedding of layers where you know I was having a chat with a professor of women's health the other day and we were talking about how estrogen is this incredibly sort of nurturing loving kind of kind hormone and when it starts to wear off through menopause, it's literally like we're waking up from a drug. And, you know, there's a reason why some people talk about menopause as being a real awakening, because it is like this veil has just suddenly been lifted. And all that estrogen, all that drug is wearing off from our bodies. And we're suddenly kind of clicking into a different way of seeing the world. And that doesn't mean that we're going to turn into nasty, horrible people.

But it just means that we might be a bit less inclined to put everybody else first and we might buy buy people pleasing yeah exactly exactly less people pleasing and you know and I think that's where the shedding of the skin starts to come in because we start to inhabit this other skin, this other life, this other way of looking at the world. And it can be really painful, but it can also be really exciting. Is this part of some of the liberation that you're feeling, the freedom that you're feeling? Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, one of the great things in the book, Wise Power, that I think is so brilliant is just talking about the power of no. That is so crucial. Just saying no to people, just say, I don't want to do that. You know, I'm going to do this instead. And just feeling so okay with that

is something you don't really feel when you've got all that estrogen coursing through your body. You want to make it okay for everybody. You know, I think women are so brought up to make it okay for everybody else. So this is such a liberation when you get to this point and you just think, no, it's such a good word. I love it I'm going to pause the conversation with Melinda just for a couple of moments to share some free resources with you so Red School has a lot of free menopause resources including the menopause remedies and resources free course which you can find and this is a mouthful redschool.net forward slash menopause

dash remedies dash and dash resources but I'll put the link in the show notes for this episode at redschool.net forward slash podcast and also our wise power retreat where Alexandra had these soulful intimate wise and beautiful conversations with a group of luminous women about what menopause awakened and revealed in them and you can find that at redschool.net forward slash wise dash power dash retreat red schools menopause the great awakener course is also happening later this year in november it guides you through the five phases of the psycho-spiritual initiation of menopause and we'll share more about it soon so if you're not already on the red school email list you can join at redschool.net okay let's get back to melinda

when you were talking earlier you mentioned heavy bleeding as one of your main challenges and I wonder if we could speak to herbs that can help with heavy bleeding but also very erratic menstrual cycles because obviously at Red School we teach menstrual cycle awareness and so one of the questions we face because I think 40% of our community are in their 40s and often cycles are changing and they're going well how can I track my cycle if I don't know if it's going to be 15 days or you know 45 days or longer and it can be yeah it can be very disruptive and create a feeling of no ground underneath your feet like who am I where am? Where am I? What's going on? So yeah, I'd love to hear maybe some stories too, like, you know, about the herbs, but also some stories too, of how

herbs can help with this. Yeah. So that you're, you're totally right that that's so disruptive, having your cycle becomes so erratic as you sort of go through perimenopause. You know, some women are having, you know, really heavy periods, but they're coming every two weeks. And that's so depleting, because it means that you're also potentially really prone to anemia as well. And that can make you very tired and fatigued. you know it can be a real struggle. What's causing that Melinda? I mean I'm sure it's it's multifactorial but yeah what what's going on with those? It's all about the balance of progesterone and oestrogen. Yeah. So when they're not in alignment anymore when they're not opposing each other directly, and there's an imbalance in the two hormones,

that's when you start to get these erratic cycles going on. And with the heavy bleeding, it's usually because the progesterone is dipping down and the oestrogen is actually surging. So, you know, people think, oh, I'm going through perimenopause, so I'm just losing oestrogen, but that's not necessarily the case. You can have incredible surges of estrogen. And estrogen is obviously a growth hormone. So it's going to thicken the lining of your womb. And then you're going to get these incredible, you know, crime scene bleeds that are horrible, you know, really hard to manage. You know, some women can't, you know, they just can't leave the house at all, you know,

for sort of days on end, because they're just dealing with all of this, you know, fluid coming out of them. And it's incredibly messy. So to get your cycle back into a regular cycle, one of the most effective herbs is agnus castus, which is also called chaste tree berry and it sort of grows wild all over Greece. So it's not really from this country, it's a very hot dry country whenever I go over to Greece I always see it growing everywhere and it's just so present in Greece um but that's really really helpful in terms of regulating your menstrual cycle um and then in terms of the heavy bleeds, so I make a really good tea for people. So and these are some of the herbs that are growing all around us in the UK as well.

So nettle, really good iron rich herb. So that's a really good nourishing herb to take as a tea. And also the great thing about nettles is even obviously you want to go and collect them with your gloves on. But you can use them just as you would use spinach in your food. So you can make, you know, soups with them, you can make pies with them, you can put them in your stir fries, you can do all sorts of things with nettles and they're just so nourishing and they're really good as you go through menopause um so there's nettles and also yarrow which again grows wild all over the uk and um that is very good at stemming heavy bleeding. So there's actually a, you know, yarrow's Latin name is

Achillea. And that's, you know, this is this is a plant that's been known since, you know, ancient Greek times. So it was named after the god Achilles. And it's very steeped in sort of Greek mythology and particularly for stemming the bleeding in Achilles wound in his heel. So it's got a really long history they used to use it on battlefields they used to literally just stuff yarrow like you know raw yarrow leaves into wounds and it would stop the bleeding so that's another one that's really good for heavy menstrual bleeding um and then there's a third one which is incredible which again is just like a weed that grows around the uk and it's called shepherd's purse which is a tiny little plant and it's got these little heart shaped seed pods that apparently once upon a time must have looked like a shepherd's purse

but those three are really amazing and actually I've been working a lot with midwives and a lot of midwives use a tincture of shepherd's purse for hemorrhaging that occurs after birth and they've found it to be incredibly effective so they're they're three really good herbs to think about if you're if you're suffering with heavy bleeding but you should also make sure that you do go and rule out any other causes of the heavy bleeding so things like fibroids um you know or any kind of malignancy um so make sure you rule that out before you just assume that it is just because of perimenopause yeah thank you have you got recommendations for this might be a bigger question but for fibroids because I know

they're kind of notoriously I have some but they're notoriously difficult to to shift and change yeah so I would probably do a more sort of holistic treatment for that because there's a lot going on with fibroids because again going back to what I was saying about oestrogen being a growth hormone there is usually a picture in the body where there is a little bit too much oestrogen going on and that's why these fibroids are starting to grow and there can be various reasons for that But one of the things I would look at is making sure that your body is actually breaking down oestrogen once it's finished using it in the body. And there's a certain pathway in the body that really needs to be cleared for that to occur.

Because oestrogen is broken down in the liver, it's metabolized in the liver, and then it is sent to the gut. And then it is excreted out of the body through the bowel. So if that pathway isn't working properly, and there's some gut health issues or some constipation going on, or the liver's not being supported, then you might get more oestrogen coming back into the body again. So there's sort of various things I would look at there. But dandelion root is actually really brilliant for our livers. And it's something I tend to put in most of my sort of perimenopause and menopause herbal medicine prescriptions

because looking after our livers at that time is really really important to make sure that those kind of pathways are just working optimally but you know you also have to look at things like you know are you drinking enough water are you drinking too much alcohol are you eating lots of processed foods you know it's so it's a it's sort of a bigger piece of work to sort of look at how you might not you might not be able to get rid of fibroids but you might be able to stop them from getting any bigger. I'm curious, were you able to reduce your heavy bleeding through herbs? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Through using those, those herbs particularly. Yeah. I was able to manage that. So that was, yeah, a great relief. Absolutely. You know, and then I wasn't walking around feeling dreadfully tired and anemic and depleted. And

yeah, and yeah, and my cycle became so erratic. So using those herbs I've just talked about, really helped to get things back on track and back into a monthly cycle again, you know, it might it might not have been as regular as it had been in the past but at least it wasn't sort of every two weeks you know yes yeah wow that's really really good to know okay two more that I come up all the time um anger rage fury um which you know possibly is just very warranted because the world is fucked up, especially right now. And with this oestrogen leaving our systems, of course we feel angry.

We should feel angry. But the level of rage and fury that so many feel in menopause is massively debilitating and is wreaking havoc in our lives. So do you have herbal recommendations for for the yes this is such a big part of of menopause and um i have so many women that come to me and as part of the consultation you know they'll say you know is there anything you can give me to stop me from killing my husband or you know I've had women who've been literally throwing things around you know the house and at people and um you know or it might not be their partner it might be their children that

are driving them insane. And they just, they want to, you know, I've had people come to me and say, could you, I just would really like to like my children again, you know. And, and like you say, I think the rage really has a place. I think it's important. I think it's really important to acknowledge that rage and where it's coming from and why you're feeling that rage, because there might be a really good reason for it, you know, because I mean, there's a reason why so many women get divorced, you know, as we go through menopause, because, you know, there might be in relationships that just are not working, you know, and they've been trying to make them work for years. And there comes a moment where they just go, no, I can't do this anymore. And, you know, or it might be your job, you know, you might have been in a job for, you know, quite a few years, and you just realize it's not suiting you anymore, that there are people, you know, maybe the person you and you just realize it's not suiting you anymore, that there are

people, you know, maybe the person you work for is driving you completely insane. You know, not everyone can do things about these situations they're in. You know, there's all different, there's different types of stress. There's stress that you can do something about and there's types of stress that you can't do anything about and you just have to get a toolkit together to work out how you're going to respond to those things so yes so there are some great herbs definitely and one of my favorite things for menopausal rage is actually rose medicine so I should explain actually to people that are listening that I mainly work with liquid extracts of herbal medicines so plant extracts and these are in tincture form

and so when I'm making a prescription for someone I mix together sort of six or seven different liquid extracts, and then they will take that sort of twice a day. But you can take rose in that sort of liquid form, and it can be incredibly concentrated and potent in that liquid form. But you can also have it as a tea as well. And rose is just so brilliant for that menopausal rage. And it just really helps us to be so much more patient with ourselves and with other people. It helps us to be a bit kinder to ourselves and other people. You know, because often rage can be a sort of an outward manifestation of the rage we're also feeling towards ourselves as well. And maybe an accumulation of a lifetime of stuff. Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. All that stuff is coming up out of, you know, and I had, you know, I sometimes think of menopause as, you know, you're going around and you're looking under all these rocks that you haven't looked under for a really long time and not really liking what you're seeing under those rocks. And you might just want to put the rock back down, but maybe it won't let you put it down again. You know, you've got to actually face up to some of these things. And it's a huge clearing. It's a time of clearing um so rose can be really good there's another herb called vervain which is is also a lovely

you know nervous system herb um and lemon balm which grow is so easy to grow in your garden um but lemon balm can be really uplifting and um supportive when you're feeling that kind of rage um and going back to that herb i mentioned earlier skullcap as well is a is a great one um and my favorite real my real favorite herb for menopause is actually um black cohosh which um is is sort of quite well known people have used black cohosh for a very long time um it actually originates in in North America where um you know indigenous women used it um and then obviously the um white colonizers came over and realized that this was a very exciting plant. And then it was sort of imported back over here to Europe, where it's just been hugely popular ever since. And that is a

really good one for menopause, because it actually works on neurotransmitters in our body. So it can really help to calm down our nervous system but it's also brilliant for things like hot flushes and joint aches and things like that so it's quite a good all-rounder as well. Amazing yeah feeling such a profound moment of gratitude for all the indigenous peoples who have held this knowledge and passed it on for hundreds and hundreds of years. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, and also it's important to acknowledge that in the UK, obviously I grew up in Australia, but, you know, my ancestry is from these lands.

And it's important to acknowledge that in the UK, we actually have a really strong, strong ancient tradition of these medicines being used in these lands you know and then and it carries on today yeah these lands were colonized too you know and a lot of those wisdom threads were broken were not totally broken but almost broken tried to be broken but yeah the wisdom kept streaming through somehow didn't it yeah part of our decolonizing work is to come back to the land and rebuild our relationship with the land that the relationships that have been broken right I can imagine your herbal medicine path has been has been a big part of that for you yeah absolutely and because it's not that long ago that we

have had these threads broken you know our sort of grandparents and great grandparents would have been so much more in tune with using these plants uh than than we are you know so it's not that long ago the connection is there you know and lots of women I think really resonate with plant medicine and really feel that connection yeah yeah okay two more pieces and then I do want to speak about us getting out into hedgerows ourselves and finding this medicine so you mentioned hot sweats hot flushes hot sweats is there is there a herb that you specifically recommend for that? Yeah, so black cohosh, definitely really good for that. But also sage is something that has been traditionally used for hot flushes for

a really long time. And again, something very easy to grow in our gardens. The best way to really use sage is to make a tea of it and really steep it for sort of about 10 minutes in hot water and then let that tea cool down because you obviously don't want to drink something really hot if you're having lots of hot flushes. Let that tea cool right down and then drink it, you know, as a cold tea. And that's really helpful for hot flushes so yeah there's there's lots you can do about hot flushes with with herbal medicine thank you HRT comes up as a topic of conversation in our community there are lots of people who are thinking about taking it but would like to know about other options or maybe can't take it because of lots of different reasons. Can herbs be a helpful alternative or support with HRT?

Yeah so I in my clinical practice I support all women so they might be taking HRT, but they need extra support. They might be wanting to transition off HRT. They might not want to take it at all. Or they can't take it for various reasons. And I also work with a lot of women going through breast cancer recovery as well. And for many of them, you know, HRT is off the table. So, yes, you can use herbal medicine as a viable alternative to HRT if that's what you want to do. That's what I do personally. If you're taking HRT, then there are certain things. HRT is really effective, but it's just estrogen and progesterone and menopause is so much more than just estrogen and progesterone. And, you know, we were talking earlier about stress hormones and cortisol and how that can become

such a big factor in in menopause and I think that's where the herbal medicines so those adaptogens that I was talking about earlier that becomes a really useful add-on with with HRT. But also with HRT, you really have to look after your gut health and your liver health. So again, things like dandelion root can come in and be really helpful when you're on HRT. So it's about making sure that your body's using the HRT properly, because when your body is struggling with it, that's when you start getting side effects. And I see a lot of women who struggle with HRT and get awful side effects. And, you know, they might get headaches, or they might put on weight, or they might have lots of breakthrough bleeding. You know, there's all sorts of things that can bother you when you're on HRT. So it's about making sure your body's using it properly,

making sure you've got the right dose, you know, all that sort of stuff. And then there's obviously the women who are going through surgical or chemical menopause. And that's, again, a bit more of a different scenario, because that's just an overnight sort of brutal entry into the world of menopause your body is so unprepared for that and they need a lot of support so the herbs really can help them a lot so moving and beautiful that you're able to help women in that way so what would you say to someone who's listening going, I want to get my basket and go out to the countryside or go out to the hedgerows and start gathering herbs for themselves or growing herbs for themselves? Maybe a good place for us to start?

Yeah, so I would really recommend people do this. It's such a good practice to get into. And once you start looking at what's growing around us, you become sort of quite blown away by how much there is out there. I mean, the first thing to do is really to get a good guide. So get a good foraging guide and a good identification guide, because you want to make sure that you're picking the right plants. You don't want to accidentally pick something that's poisonous, because there are some poisonous plants out there. And, you know, there are certain foraging rules and etiquettes that you should follow that you can you know you can look them up online but

just about you know not over harvesting and being respectful and and also making sure you're not collecting things where there's been lots of um you know sprays pesticides and and things like that and um you know I live in the middle of of London and I have a very busy local park near me. And so I do sometimes go foraging in that park, but I have to really make sure that it's away from where all the dogs are and to make sure that I wash everything really well afterwards. I also I'm really lucky I've got a little allotment in the middle of London. So, and, you know, so there's obviously the things I'm growing on my allotment, but then all around the sort of fringes of the allotment, there's all sorts of things growing. So, you know, I mean, it's springtime now.

I don't know when people might be listening to this, but there's so much out there at the moment. There's nettles, there much out there at the moment there's nettles there's wild garlic at the moment which is just so lovely you know and you can make that into pestos and so lovely you can make it into soups it's just so cleansing and great for us delicious yeah really delicious the hawthorn is just coming into bloom now and that's a really brilliant heart medicine we use that a lot you know for cardiovascular support um cleavers are coming up now um i don't know if you know them they're they're little sticky long goose grass goose grass exactly yeah and lots of kids sort of throw them at each other and they stick onto

your clothes yeah but that's a lovely sort of spring tonic so you just gather some cleavers infuse that in some cold water overnight in a jug of cold water and then just drink that for a few days and it's a really lovely spring cleanse to to have it's very supportive for our lymphatic system in our bodies um but yeah there's so much out there you can make nettle pesto as well so that's a good one um yeah it's I made nettle soup last weekend actually and it was was just so rich and beautiful. And, you know, you can, yeah, there's all sorts of wonderful recipes online. But yeah, there's so much out there. And, you know, just from really basic foraging for cooking right through to, you know, learning how to forage and make your own medicines. You know, and even like I was talking about lemon balm earlier,

every summer when the lemon balm grows, I just go out into my garden, snip a bit of lemon balm off, put it in a cup of hot water, leave it for 10 minutes, drink it, and it's just magical. You know, it's so simple. simple yeah there's all this talk of make sure you have 30 plants a week now which I love but like you literally just go out and pick 10 of them and put them in a tea and like you you're bringing so much goodness into your body yeah and even dandelion leaves as well you can just throw them into a salad you know people

treat dandelions like weeds i often think the weeds are the best medicine there's some wisdom there for those that are loving this um how what's the best way for them to connect with your work i've already mentioned the free guide which is on your website which is yeah come and download my free guide all about um harnessing the power of menopause with herbal medicine. You can follow me on Instagram, it's Melinda MacDougall Herbalist, and my website is melindamacdougall.com. Thank you so much. I really, really could chat with you all day. I appreciate your time and everything that you've shared, and everything that you're doing to bring this wonderful, wild medicine to the women that you work with thank you so much Melinda oh it's been my absolute pleasure

and I'm just really happy just to get the message out that there's so much you can do to support yourself through through perimenopause and menopause and it doesn't all just have to be about HRT there's lots and lots of other things you can do to really help yourself through that transition and to come out the other side feeling really amazing. So inspiring. Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks, Sophie. Thanks for tuning in today please forward this episode on to a friend or family member or colleague who is looking for natural approaches to menopause symptoms and we'd be so grateful if you would have head over to apple podcasts to leave a five-star review and rating it really is

the best way to help the podcast reach more people thank you so much for that all right I'll be with you again next week and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm