Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - 4 Female Dysregulations & the 7 Steps to Regain Balance

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

Dr. Mindy Pelz discusses how women disrupt and dysregulate their biology in seven key ways, by sharing her burnout journey and her need to prioritize health. Dr. Mindy emphasizes the importance of balance and control over your well-being in this fast-paced society, addressing metabolic, hormonal, nervous system, and emotional dysregulation with 7 practical steps that you can take. To view full show notes, more information on our guests, resources mentioned in the episode, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://drmindypelz.com/ep227 Check out our fasting membership at resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. Please note our medical disclaimer.

On this episode of The Resetter podcast, I have got something really fun in store for all of you. Here's the big concept I want to get across. And I've been really deeply thinking on this concept for about six months. And I finally feel like I have some language that I can give to you to explain it. And if you guys are, you know, I've opened up my heart and my mind and my life to you to help be an example of a rushing woman that says no more. And it's been hard. So you may take a piece of paper and write these things down or go back,

but I've come up with seven ways that we throw our bodies as our female bodies out of regulation. And I'm going to go through these seven ways so that hopefully you can find yourself. As always, I hope this helps. Welcome to the Resetter podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. How it came about to be public about my burnout was at the beginning of the new year. I was so physically and mentally exhausted from letting the world dictate my pace.

I'm now calling it the patriarchal pace. And I'll explain this in a moment that fast like a girl did so well. There were so many interviews. There were so many conferences. There were so many people that wanted to hear more that I got swept up in it. And about June, I actually started to realize that my nervous system was going into that freeze mode. I was reacting to stress very acutely. I was not a fun person to live with. And I started to walk into airports. I was in an airport every freaking week traveling somewhere most of the time

across the country. I knew the TSA people. That's how common I was in my airport. And I would walk into the airport and I looked down when I was in security line in June and my hand was shaking. And my brain was like, I can't do this, I can't do this. And then it was like, why am I doing this? What am I doing? And it really, I've spent the last six months in a real deep reflection over how I want to show up as a woman that has a large platform, as a woman who wants to change the health care of women and a big mission, but also as a woman who doesn't want to lose her health

in the process. And so it's taken me a lot of time to have language to it. It's taken me a long time to be able to create steps to it, which is what I'm going to give you today. But what ended up happening at the end of the year is usually I bring in the new year like, hey, this is my new goal. This is my word for the day for the year. And I'm like, perky peels.

We'll just call her that. I'm coming up with all these funny little name called perky peels. Perky Pels wanted to come to you and be like, positive, but about what I was going to create this year, because there are a lot of interesting things in my life. But I couldn't be inauthentic to you. That is a real, real value of mind is to always show up in my authentic self and always show up with congruency. And so I put a post out about a 90-day reset that I was going to take the first 90 days and repattern my life. And so I put that post on Instagram and Facebook and asked women if they were feeling very

similar and thousands within 24 hours, thousands of comments poured on to our platforms saying, yes, me too. So over the last 90 days, I've been really working on this. And I did a solo episode on my Resetter podcast, sort of sharing some of the mindset around it. So if you haven't listened to that, go listen to that. But I have now come up with a phrase that I feel like explains burnout better than anything I've ever heard. And I can't take credit for this phrase because it clicked when I saw Dr. Sarah Godfrey's post about her birthday two days ago. She's a friend, and I admire her greatly. She's one of the authors, health-influent doctors that I feel like shows up with so much integrity. I love the essence of this woman. And I was noticing that she had a book that is coming

out in a couple of weeks. And I was noticing that she wasn't doing all the podcast circuits and that she wasn't, you didn't see her all over social media. And I was like, what is she doing? She's doing it different. How is she doing that? And on her birthday two days ago, she came out with a post saying that she has, she's 57 years old. She turned two days ago and that she has finally come to a place where she's no longer willing to disregulate her body. And the post is really beautifully said. So I definitely want to give her accolades for that because where my brain went was, oh, that's it.

That's how I've been feeling. I've been so dysregulated. I keep telling my therapist, my breath worker, I'm like, I don't recognize myself. I don't know where she went. And what I realized is that the stress of really the last several decades, but the last year was the cherry on the top, totally dysregulated me. Now, Sarah has her version of it. I will share my version of it.

I'm a word geek. And so I went and looked up what the definition of dysregulation means. And here's what I found, one of them, which is it's an abnormality or impairment. in the regulation of a metabolic, physiological, or psychological process. So I started to think about that, and I was like, wait a second, not being able to metabolically flex,

that's a dysregulation. If you can't go without food, you are in a dis, and you are hangary and not able to fast, you're in a metabolic state of dysregulation. Perimenopause. Perimenopause is built into it inherently a form of dysregulation because you're going from a regular hormonal cycle to no hormonal cycle. And so the actual process of perimenopause is a dysregulation of a normal cycle before

a new cycle comes in. When we can't sleep, that's a dysregulation of a circuit. circadian rhythm. When we are, I actually, again, this is like fresh off my brain, you know, as so many of us are playing with bioidenticals and HRT, I want to make a really bold statement here. That is a dysregulation. When you look at what other countries are doing, they don't go into HRT to the degree that we do. The reason we have to go into these bioidenticals and creams and trokeys and the reason it's such a hot topic. And, you know, United States is because we're so freaking disregulated. We are living in this patriarchal pace that I will

talk about here in a moment. You know, in Japan, it's like 4% of women go on HRT. There's a reason that they don't have to go on HRT. There is some kind of regulation they're doing that we're not doing. Our food system is dysregulation. Our ability to access information is creating disregulation. So we find ourselves in these moments wherever you are along your journey of life and when we're not enjoying how our brain is thinking or we're not able to sleep or we can't get into a fasted state and drop weight or all of a sudden it seems like every relationship in our life is really tough, which I've been there. We have to, or we're so burnt out, we can't even like we go on a vacation and we get sick or we sleep all the time, that is all dysregulation

and your feminine body cannot keep up with that. And when we look at all the diseases that women get like autoimmunity, you know, 80% of autoimmune problems happen to women, not men. And 50% of women going through menopause end up with a thyroid problem. And I talked about how the most common decade for a woman to commit suicide is 45 to 55. This is all a dysregulation. And it is a dysregulation of four different systems. And for each one of us, those systems may be different. So the first system that is dysregulated for many people is the metabolic system. So this goes to that quote that only 12% of Americans are metabolically fit. Yes, if we can't go without food, if we can't do an eating window and a fasting window, we can't fast for 13 to 15 hours,

you're in a dysregulated state because your metabolic switch was meant to go in and out. So for me, in my burnout moment in November, I put a CGM on and I started to see that my blood sugar was unusually high. And that was the beginning sign that I realized I was physiologically breaking down, that my body was going into a dysregulated state. Now, here's the clencher. This is really tricky. My blood sugar was high because I had cortisol too high and I was just in this constant state of stress. So guess what wasn't my tool? Fasting. It was not my tool of the moment. So I had heed my own advice and start to look at, okay, what then would be nourishing to my body. And that's when I started going into more leafy greens. And I went into fiber and protein.

Those became my focus. I made sure with every meal, I had some kind of salad and I, and that I made sure I was going into the one gram of protein for every pound of body weight. So that became something very like my guiding light because I couldn't go into, I mean, I was, I wanted, like there's a part of me still, even as I'm feeling better, it's like, I can't wait to do a three-day water fast. But I'm going to wait until I feel really grounded and back in some type of regulation before I do that. So keep in mind that if you're under a tremendous amount of stress and you can't get your blood sugar under control, you may need to change your focus to food. and look at the quality of food that you're eating. Oh, the other thing I got off of and have been really working, I mean, and I'm not going to lie, it was a hard one was alcohol.

The glass of wine at night calmed me. And I was like, this isn't good for bringing my glucose up and it's not good for my nervous system. So I've been slowly bringing it down and now I'm effortlessly off of it. So that was just something that I found when I looked at that metabolic dysregulation. hormonal dysregulation is the second one. And again, I go to, I'm having this really acute understanding that why perimenopause and menopause is so tough for so many of us in the states.

And I know we have a lot of people from Europe. I know we have a big audience from Australia. And I know everybody's pace is a little different. but the pace here in the United States is stupid fast. And I, in my 40s, was a stress monger. And I just, I did everything to the extreme. I worked to the extreme. I worked out to the extreme.

I fasted to the extreme. And what I'm realizing now is one of the greatest tools for perimenopause and menopause is chill the F out. Calm yourself down. They're, hormonally, you will struggle in those moments if you keep the same pace you did at 20 and 30. You are, it's a slowing down, those perimenopausal years is a slowing down as your body regulates to a new rhythm.

So in that transition time, if you are skimping on sleep and you are stressing all the time, and you are going to be on a wild hormonal ride. And like I mentioned, I really believe right now that this is why we are having to lean in to HRT and bioidenticals because good old fashioned rest is not happening for so many of us. And I'll talk a little bit more about that when I go through the seven areas to look at in your life here in a moment. The third thing, dysregulation that happens to us is the nervous system dysregulation. and I will tell you that I'm a huge fan of Stephen Porges' polyvigal theory because when I learned

that, I was like, oh my God, this explains every teenager in my practice. And I was so, I had a family practice where we talked a ton about lifestyle. I mean, that has been my jam for years and years and years. And we did everything in my practice from nutrition to detox to fasting. to biohacking, oxygen, chiropractic, massage, like, you name it. We brought it in to support families in living a healthy lifestyle. And when I learned the polyvago theory, I was so excited about it. I literally pulled out a roll of white butcher paper, and I sat down and I drew out.

And I'm not a good, I'm not a good artist, although I'd like to change that. I'm going to work on not telling myself that over and over. I'm learning to become a good artist, and I'm at the beginning. But I mapped it all out and showed what happens when we are in a constant state or fight or flight, what the polyvago theory says is it says from at that point, if we don't relax, we move into the freeze state. And it's a whole new nervous system that's been created in humanity that is where we just tip out of fight or flight, and we go into a locked freeze nervous system. This is where I was in June when I walked into my local airport and my hand was shaking.

That inability to relax, that the nervous system on overload, that was like a real common sign. The other common sign is I was having in June lots of nausea. That's another physical sign that the body has tipped into this. freeze nervous state. But what's so interesting about the freeze nervous system is that you start to withdraw. You withdraw, you numb yourself with alcohol, drugs, social media, whatever your flavor is, Netflix series, whatever it is. And you go into a withdrawn numbing state. And so I was so like blown away by the symptoms of the freeze nervous system back in my practice that I drew it all out and I put it on the wall. And I can't tell you the number of parents of teenagers that

came up to me in my practice and they're like, this is my son, this is my daughter. And I'm like, I know, I know. We've got to come up with a collective way to help these kids. But when you're a junior in college trying to get into, you know, a good school, like there's no room for a balanced nervous system. We are a country of, you know, at least here in America, and it may be the same in other parts. We're a country of a dysregulated nervous system. that has put the whole world in freeze mode. And this was before the pandemic. So one way you know your nervous system is in a state of dysregulation is when you cannot

relax. When you are shaking, when you are nauseous, when you can't think straight, when you can't sleep, when you are just on edge all the time. When your heart palpitations, that was another common thing. I was like, I could feel my heart pounding so hard. And I was sort of watching myself and going, are you really, are you really going to do this? Are you going to continue this pace and teach that the women they need rest? Are you going to actually take your own advice?

But it was that nervous system agitation that woke me up. And trouble sleeping was a huge one too. The last dysregulation, I think, that happens to us is an emotional dysregulation. And I think there's a lot of pieces to this emotional dysregulation. For me, it was, I just was reacting to stress in a really horrible way. And you can ask my loved ones. It was like anything that was a little stress was a big deal to my brain. And what happens in emotional dysregulation is you're locked in your amygdala and you're not in your prefrontal cortex.

Now, we've talked about this on some of the coffee chat. We've talked about it on some of the fat burner reset calls. But when you're locked in your amygdala and you're seeing life from your amygdala, everything looks like a threat. Because the job of the amygdala is to make sure that you don't get injured. So if we use me in June and July, I was like, who's coming at me next? What's going to be, what appointment do I have next? When you travel, I think one of the challenges was travel is you have to be on a tight time frame.

You got to get to the airport at a certain time. You got to get to the car. You got to get to the hotel. And then you add a speaking engagement into that. And it's like everything is on this time frame. And so with emotional dysregulation, we're not able to filter stress in a healthy way. We also start misinterpreting what everybody is saying. And we take things very personal.

And emotional dysregulation could look like anxiety or it could look like depression or it could look like you bounce back and forth from those two things. And last summer, that was really me. That was absolutely where I was. I would have days of like I'd sit down. I'd be like, I feel like something horrible is going to happen. I feel like I'm missing. It was like I forgot something.

I forgot. What did I forget? And then I had to remind myself, oh, it's because I've been constantly going, what's next, what's next, what's next. And I have a day where I don't have any what's next, but the brain was stuck in the amygdala telling me what's next, what's next, what's next. It is the crazy experience. If any of you have experienced that, where you finally get a slow, and you're like, I can, I have a day off. And the brain is constantly telling you, get up, go do something. And you're like, it's like, I went into my therapist one day and I was like, can you just turn this

thing off. I just need it to like, can we turn it down? Because it was just, I even hired a meditation expert. I'm like, teach me, teach me. I need to know how to turn this thing down. So that was my emotional dysregulation. And I think we all have different versions of them. So those were the four dysregulations that I was experiencing in this burnout process. I think when we look at broad statements that you see a lot, like chronic stress leads to chronic disease. I think that is a very accurate statement that most doctors would agree with. But how does that help us? Like when you see somebody say like chronic stress leads to chronic inflammation,

leads to chronic disease, then you're like, well, what do I do with that? I don't know how do I take that information? And so by chunking this down into asking myself, like what needs nurturing right now? Does my metabolic system need nurturing? Do I, does my hormonal system need nurturing? Does my nervous system need nurturing? Or do I need to just work on my emotional system? Now, I've been really transparent about the depth of therapy I've been in this year

because I realized that some of the old traumas in my life were contributing to the emotional dysregulation. And so I took that whole emotional dysregulation and I handed it over to a professional who did EMDR. I interviewed my my therapist on my podcast. You can go listen to that about what EMDR is. So those were the four things that I looked at. So the four again were metabolic dysregulation, meaning your hemoglobin A1C is really high. You struggle to fast. You can't lose weight. Hormonal dysregulation, meaning you can't get progesterone, testosterone, and estrogen in balance. Nervous system dysregulation, meaning you're struggling to sleep. You can't relax. You feel your

brain is just always on the go. Or emotional dysregulation, meaning that you are really finding yourself easily agitated. You're taking things personal. Your reactions is over-exaggerated. So, okay, with that in mind, what I have been working on is, you know, you all know how I love checklists. So here's my checklist for regulating ourselves, for getting out of dysregulation, and how do we bring ourselves back into balance? And I do believe that all humans are meant to be in regulation and with their own bodies. But I believe that the dysregulation is more, has a bigger cost in a female body. Because the way our hormones operate, we are not meant to stay in a dysregulated state too long, or we start to see the hormonal, you know,

dysregulation really take over. So, so I, you know, this is going to be a checklist that's really geared towards women. But if you have a man in your life who's super stressed out, some of this may be helpful. Okay. So the first thing that you can do to get yourself back into regulation, and this, I learned from a book called Burnout by Emily Nagowski. And, uh, Amelia Nogowski, their sisters, they're both scientists, is when you have a stressful event, complete the stress cycle. This one is really interesting. And I read this book burnout years ago, and I was like, holy cow, I never looked at stress as something that needed to be completed. I looked at stress as something needed to go away. And yet what she means,

by that. What they mean by that is when you have a stressful event in your life, cortisol comes surging into your system. You have to do something with that cortisol. Otherwise, it starts to saturate your tissues and your tissues get the alarm bells that you're still under stress, even though the stressor is over. Think about that for a moment. You could have had a major stressor 10 years ago that initiated a cortisol response, that's saturating your tissues, and it never got completed, so the cortisol keeps coming. This is why I decided when I went, and it was actually the Nogowski sisters that got me thinking about this, where I was like, this is why we have to go back and look at our traumas and really unwind some of those traumas. And this is why I think the body keeps the score

is one of the most brilliant books that was ever around because it talks so much about how your body has a memory. Another language for that would be that you never completed the cycle of stress when it happened. And so it's still running you. I've been transparent about my near-death experience that happened at 37. I am very clear that I didn't have the tools to complete that stress cycle. And I'm 54 years old. The last two years, that's been a big piece of what of a stress cycle I've been unwinding. And that took deep therapy and a lot of breath work and some psychedelic experiences to really unwind because it was such a profound stress response for my body. When your body thinks it's going to die literally, it sees that you're going to die. It sees that you're going to

die and then you stay alive. If you don't figure out what to do with all that cortisol rushing through your system, if you don't need, if you don't figure out how to tell your body, everything's okay, you're alive, you will have a very dysregulated system. And that was me from 37 until this moment. So that was my trauma, that one of them that I really had to go back and figure out. On a day-to-day completing the stress cycle, what this looks like is twofold. When you have a stressful moment, I cannot emphasize enough that you need to go and move your body. Cortisol was meant to make us move. So if you've got a situation where somebody, you get in a fight with somebody, you, I mean, one of the things I did in the airports is I walked the airports

or if I got to a hotel and I was like, oh, I don't want to be here. I'm so stressed. I would walk. I'd go, you know, walk around the hotel, go to the gym, move your body because what you do is you tell your brain that you're running away from the stress and your moving. It's any forward movement tells the brain. We understand we got the signal. a tiger is chasing us. And so now we're moving away from that. Now, I have found some other really interesting things on this one topic that I've been looking at patterns of our brain.

And I realize that when I'm on at the end of the day, if I'm on my phone scrolling social media, which is a whole saturated stress saturation moment, but when my eyes are going up and down, that eye movement actually amplifies the stress response. Whereas if I can pick up a book and I can read left to right, left to right, and go back and forth, what that does to the brain is the same thing you would do if you were in the cave person days scanning the horizon. When we look left and right and left and right, this is the whole premise about EMDR. When you look left right, left right, you calm your brain. Well, reading a book was a much better choice at the end of my day than scrolling social media. It's a really, really interesting thing that I want to,

I want to point out because there are so many ways we can complete the stress response. And for those of us that have very stressful lives, it may have to be done in multiple ways. The other one that I think is really interesting is deep breathing. There's been a lot of interesting thoughts on two breaths in, through the nose, four breaths out through the mouth. So a shorter inhale with a longer exhale is one of those ways that you tell your nervous system like, okay, calm down, calm down. Other science-based tools, Yoga Nidra, very awesome tool because it basically

is where you are guided through a meditation that puts your awareness at different parts of your body. And one of the symptoms of burnout is your brain and body are disconnected. You're no longer feeling your body. And what I have said for so many years is that when I would get with a patient that was in a healing crisis, the number one thing I noticed is they were numb to their body. They didn't know disease was building in their body. They couldn't feel it because they were so disconnected.

So yoga nidra brings that back. Tapping is another great way. So there's a lot. Again, the list is long, but for this, we'll dive into it more. But for this one, you got to stop that stress cycle. So when a stress cycle happens, pick something that I said. If it's a stressful day, do a yoga nidra at night with some breath work, go for a walk at sunset. It doesn't have to be complicated.

Okay. number two in how we regulate ourselves. And this is a big one. This one's a very personal one that I am hoping in the coming years to be a better example of. And it's stop the patriarchal pace. We are as women in a very interesting moment in time because we can do anything we want, right? We have access to we can be working. We can have family. I mean, the world is at our is at our fingertips. But just because we can do everything doesn't mean we should do everything. And what I, that I was a poster child for that statement last year. There were so many fun, interesting things to do and interesting people to meet that I just said yes to everything. And I found myself caught in this patriarchal pace. And there's a

couple different ways. I came up, I came up with a handful of ways that for me, I found my self in the pace of production. That's what the patriarchal pace means to me. It means you've got to keep producing. You've got to keep keeping up with whatever your co-workers doing or your friends doing. I mean, the patriarchalical pace could be an exercise. It could be in fasting. It could be in dieting. It's like the more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more. Like the feminine body doesn't freaking do well with more. I'm going to be really, really opinionated today. but I am really distraught at what I'm seeing in some of my fellow health influencers or whatever you want to call us, where we sit up there with perfect bodies and perfect faces and tell you

how to do health. I promise you I will always stand up in my imperfection and just show you as a 54-year-old woman how I'm trying to keep balance and sanity and health back to my life. and I don't think I'm supposed to have a body fat of 12%. I know I'm not supposed to. In fact, I'm doing some research on what is healthy for the feminine body. What is our body fat percentage? But I tell you, once I identify it, it's not the body fat percentage that's going to give

you a lot of likes and follows on socials. And I also have to tell you, and I'm not meaning to keep going after Botox, but I'm really exhausted with trying to have a human connection with women that are Botoxed. I can't see if you're understanding my words. I don't know if what I'm saying is landing on you when your face is frozen. I can't understand or find your humanness. And so this is my humanness. I think a lot. I smile a lot. I laugh a lot. And all of my wrinkles are going to show you that. And so when you are in conversation or with me or you're listening to me, I want to show you that I'm making a hard line to use every lifestyle I tool I can to age as slowly as possible

at 54 years old, but I'm not willing to freeze my face to make you think that I'm beautiful. I know I'm beautiful. I love me. So I don't need your approval of me. I also am 54 and I'm supposed to wrinkle. And that's how it's supposed to look. I'm not going to do that anymore to please a system that doesn't even care about me. And when I look at all of the women out there that are losing themselves to that,

my heart breaks. Now, I'm not saying if you do Botox and you, look in the mirror and you feel really good about yourself, I'm really happy for you. I'm sharing with you my own personal ethos. This is how I believe and how I would like to show up. And I'm also trying to be an example for all other women that can't afford Botox. They can't afford plastic surgery. They're not getting their breast implants. They're not going to put on the patriarchal mask. They're going to do it their way. And I think that each time one woman stands up that way, we free all the other women. So the beauty world is

so big on this. Many of you are going to hear my podcast interview with Leanne Rimes on that we're putting out about her healing journey. I adore this woman for so many reasons. But maybe one of the greatest is she spends when you don't see her on some kind of tour or some kind of show or some kind a place where she's being, you know, put up as Leanne Rimes at home. She's in her jammies. She's in her sweats. That woman wears sweats more than any human I've ever seen on the planet. And if you follow her on Instagram, you'll see her in her sweats. And these aren't fancy sweats. They're just sweats. And she shows you, she's a normal human. So, but then we have a whole system that wants to reorganize itself to try to look like the version of her when she's on stage. And, and she's

just an example who has been willing to be that example. So you can do that with every single, you know, every single woman out there. So that's got eyeballs on her right now. Okay. A couple of other things that I want to say about this patriarchal pace is that in the patriarchal pace, we put, we become people pleasers. We put other people's needs ahead of our own. I'm going to again tell you that in my, in my emotional journey this last year, You're both my breath worker and therapists have asked me, well, what do you want? How do you want to create your life? And do you know, I couldn't find that answer?

Because I've spent so much of my life pleasing other people, serving other people, reorganizing my life around other people, that here I sit at 54 years old and I'm like, what do I want? Nobody's asked me that. I never asked me that. And I'm having to really dig deep and ask, okay, I don't, I don't, my kids are grown, my practice has been closed, I'm writing books, I'm doing videos, like what is it, what is it that I want?

And that's a real depth into my soul that I haven't been able to fully answer yet. And some of you may resonate with that. But we have to get out of the people pleasing. We have to get out of the not speaking our truth. I want to tell you something really interesting that actually Leanne taught me. which is that the vocal cords in the cervix were the same tissue in utero, and then they separate. But if you look at a picture of human vocal cords and you look at picture of a woman's cervix, they look very similar.

And I think there's something interesting about every time we don't use our voice, we are harming our reproductive system. Now, I can tell you how that works through hormones, but holding back and not speaking our truth is absolutely damaging us. So I'm coming back to what do I need and what do I want to speak? And can I speak it without, with knowing that if I speak it, it's going to upset people and I'm going to be okay with that. So that was a big one.

And then the patriarchal pace, I didn't have a downtime. All of a sudden, Monday through Friday, the work week became Monday to Sunday. There was no downtime. And so I had to learn to build downtime back in. And I had to start to look at my life as there are go periods and there are rest periods. So if I look, like I'll tell you right now, I'm in like a six week go period. So I'm already looking ahead and saying what after that, where does downtime come in? Where do I get to take some weeks off and slow the pace?

And that one I'm still working on. Okay, number three of this list is we are not honoring our circadian rhythms. And this one is what I've been talking about, you know, is we have to get ourselves back into rhythm. As a female, you are a rhythmic human. You are way more rhythmic than the male body. And you have a daily rhythm, even though we don't talk about it a lot, it's a call. to circadian rhythm and you have a monthly rhythm. And even if you're postmenopausal,

you have a monthly rhythm. So I'm not going to go into all the details on this because I've talked a lot about, you know, where we start to cycle food and fasting. If you want to rebuild your circadian rhythm and your monthly rhythm, the best way to do it is through food and fasting. The second best way to do it is through light and movement. But let's talk about melatonin alone. Melatonin is an incredible example of and how we don't mind melatonin. And when we don't mind melatonin, we gain weight and we have trouble sleeping. Melatonin is meant to kick in when the sun goes down.

It takes two to three hours after the sun goes down for melatonin to be in her full gloatone. Lori. Between two and four in the morning, I found a study this morning on this, melatonin hits her peak. So she actually peaks at two to four, but it takes a couple of hours after the sun goes down for her to start to ramp up. As melatonin ramps up, you are more insulin resistant. So if you are eating in the dark, when it's dark out, that excess, that glucose, that food is more likely to get stored as fat because your cells are naturally insulin resistant. When we wake up in the morning,

the minute we wake up and we see light, that registers melatonin to shut off. If you wake up with the sunrise, a hypothesis I have right now, I'm looking into the science, is that you would have this gradual shutdown of melatonin because the sunrise is red light. and when melatonin goes down in the morning, it signals cortisol to go up.

The research shows that cortisol goes up about between 30 and 60 minutes after you wake up. But what causes melatonin to shut off is red light and white light. So a theory that I have is if you wake up slowly and you turn on, red lights in your room or you wake up with the sunrise, you're going to have a more gradual exit of melatonin, giving you a couple hours to slowly like hang out in a morning vibe that might feel nurturing and you can read books and meditate. I've talked a lot about how I do my morning time. And then once it's full light out, go move because cortisol is meant to make you move. If you're the workouts you do in the morning will be more fat burning than the workouts

in the afternoon. You have testosterone in the morning and you have cortisol in the morning. Use her. So that's one way we throw our circadian rhythm out is we don't look at the timing of light and we don't look at the timing of food. And so we end up in this dysregulation with our circadian rhythm. Okay. Fourth thing that we need to look at to get regulated again.

is we need to look at our monthly hormonal cycle. So this is for my cycling women. This is everything I'm teaching. There's nothing new to say on this other than a new book that I'm writing for you. So it is that we have to go high carb, low carb, long, fast, no fast. Long, fast, short, fast, no fast. We are rhythmic women.

The female body is rhythmic. And if you're doing the same workout and the same food and the same fast and the same everything, every freaking day, you are in dysregulation. So I've talked about this, and this is everything from fasting to food to fitness, like to how you're working out. Like if I still had a cycle again, I would like push my aerobic capabilities day one through 10. I would lift heavy weights day 11 to day 15. I go back to some hit training. And I would do that like day 16 to day 19. And then I would starting day 20, it would be yoga and hiking and rest.

I did many years. I did Pilates. I would do all that the week before. And I would repeat that cycle. If I had a cycle again, that's how I would do it. But we can do the same thing with our social calendars. You can be really, you can put a seven day work weekend in the first part of your cycle, no problem, even all the way to day 15. Remember day 10 to day 15, you're like a superhuman. So you should use that intelligence with all those hormones to go and actually work hard. And then as you move into your back half of your cycle, especially the week before your period, you should cut back on work. You should learn to say no. We can do the same thing with our social calendar. Like, how do we, we can power up on our social calendar in the first half of our cycle and then say no in the second.

half. So that's an example of a hormonal monthly rhythm. The fifth one is what I call the aging hormonal rhythm. So in the new book, I have something where I call it the wind up, the main, the main act and the wind down. It's like how I see our hormonal system. There is a winding up when you hit puberty where your body takes many, many years. This is a misconception. It takes 10 years for your hormonal system to fully mature. Just because you're seeing blood doesn't mean you have a matured nervous system, which is why, I've talked about this before, that when I put Fast Like a Girl out into the world, I was shocked at the number of 20 and 30-year-olds that don't have a cycle.

And this isn't because birth control manipulated it, although some of it is. But what I've discovered is this younger generations under so much stress, they're so disregulated as this monthly hormonal regulated system is supposed to to mature. It takes 10 years for it to mature. It's not like, oh, now you're, you got your menstrual cycle. So we've got these kids, call them kids, teenagers, they're like flowing in to their 20s and they're infertile because they're so, their hormonal systems are so dysregulated because they didn't get the opportunity that our hormonal systems got when we were in

our teenage years, we didn't have the expectation that they now have of what college to get in. We didn't have to speak five languages and play four sports and do theater every other, every other month being a play in order to get into a college. We didn't have social media telling us we're not good enough all day long. That is a massive issue for this younger generation. And then the main act, the reason we've got so much infertility is because we're, we've got so much infertility is because we're now seeing the wave of disregulated women go into the main act and to their fertility years. And they're trying to find their way, but they don't know what to grab onto. I believe these four types of dysregulation could be a piece of it. And then the wind down.

Parymenopause, menopause is a 10-year process. If stress is high and your nervous system is in freeze mode, that's a bumpy ride. And so, you know, in the menopause reset, I, I, I about the five different lifestyle changes that need to happen at 40, what I didn't know in writing that is those are all forms of regulation. They're all forms of putting you back into a regulated state so you can do perimenopause in a much more efficient way. So that's number five is our aging hormonal rhythm. And I probably should say it's all ages. So it's not just aging because puberty is a big part of that as well. And then number six, And this is a big one and one thing that I've really been doing a lot more of.

And that is we are not prioritizing human connection. And I really am going to add to that live, authentic human connection where you are in the presence of loving people who support you. As my friend, Dr. Karen Gordon, would say middle chair people. If you're not familiar with the middle chair concept, go listen to the podcast I did with her. You need to surround yourself with middle chair people who are so excited for you when you win. I have recently discovered the power of these middle chair people. They are some really successful women that are in my space. And one of the women, two of the women actually, no,

three of the women are, you know them. They have very, they have really popular podcasts or a big presence. When I hit a million subscribers on YouTube, which was a very big moment because I've poured my heart and soul into that channel, I sent texts to those three women and I was like, you're not going to believe what happened. And do you know that all three of those women set me back, massive cheering me on, excited for me as excited as I was for myself? And I stood back and I'm like, oh, wow, this is a beautiful example. of successful women supporting successful women. But what we end up doing a lot in our culture is we compete with other women. We don't lift other women up. And it is time for us to lift each other up.

When another woman wins, you win. And if you want what she has, the best thing you can do is get in her vibration. And the best way to get into her vibration is to genuinely be happy for her. the minute you look at what somebody else has and you and you feel uncomfortable about it and you push it away by ridiculing it, you have now taken yourself further away from that. So when we, if nothing else, do it for yourself. But think about all women right now. If we could build each other up and and cheer each other on and support each other.

other in the winds and lift each other up in the lows, that would regulate all of our hormonal systems. So there's an example of that. And then the last one, and this is also another one that I'm greatly working on. This is I am a work in progress. It's not my expertise, but it's prioritizing or when we're burnout, we're not prioritizing, however you want to phrase these. We'll probably put them in the positive, is prioritizing. spiritual connection. And I mean that, however that looks to you. For me, I believe there's a truth in all religions. I believe that there's so many great examples of spiritual leaders that I want to learn from. And I also believe that the universe has got my back. And the universe continues to put

things in front of me to prove that. And when I'm disregulated, I forget that. When I'm disregulated, I think I have to do it all on my own. I feel like I have some control over this life of mine. But when I've been regulating myself, I start to see, oh, wait a second, everything's worked out okay for me. Even the tough stuff I learned stuff in. And I start to like come back to more faith. Whatever that is for you, for me, it's just trusting that the universe has a plan, that there's something magically unfolding here that is all in my highest good. It's coming back to different spiritual teachings and reading different spiritual texts and listening to different spiritual leaders so I can come back to grounding myself in the spirituality that works for me. So these seven

are ways we find our way back to our home frequency. And our home frequency is regulation. I believe so clearly right now that the reason so many women are suffering with their mental and physical health is because they are dysregulated and they haven't taken the time to sit and really think these seven through. I'll repeat them here in a moment. What I'm hoping is that this will become a guiding light for you. I actually, for me, how I know I'm on the right path for me is I'm starting to, you. to laugh again a little bit more. I'm starting to joke around a little bit more. I'm starting

to like remember like old patterns of thought are popping in my head and I'm like, oh, I remember I used to think like that. Oh yeah, remember I used to love to garden in an afternoon. Well, yeah, I remember I didn't always think I had to perform at this level. Like I'm like rediscovering myself. Like old parts of my thinking are emerging. And I feel like that interference of all the things I just talked about when I remove them, I come back to who I truly am. And that's what I'm here to do for me is really find my true essence of who I am. And I believe that at the core, and I know a lot of spiritual teachings teach this, at the core of all humans is love. And that fear and hatred is a learned behavior. And so all the limiting beliefs that still exist in my brain,

I'm really focusing on on breaking those apart so I can live in the most authentic, regulated, loving, playful, happy version of, and healthy version of me. And you may resonate with that. You may not. I'm not here to tell you how to be you. I'm here to share a journey that I've been on that feels like a coming home. And it's better than any amount of money I made about, better than any amount of following or like I ever got, any book deal I ever got.

It's better than anything to feel like you're being your true authentic self. And have the clarity of that. That is the greatest. I'd pay a billion dollars for that any single day. But that takes work. So the seven things are you need to handle the stress. Stop the, I'm sorry. Let me start again.

The number one is complete the stress cycle. That is how the Nagowski said it. I want to say it their way. You have to complete the stress cycle. Number two is you have to stop the patriarchal pace or slow it down. Number three is you want to honor your circadian rhythm. That's through the flight, movement, food, and fasting. Number four is you need to honor your monthly hormonal rhythm.

If you're a cycling woman, this is really leaning in. into knowing these different hormones. Number five is you need to honor your aging hormonal rhythm. This is for my menopausal friends, but if anybody's listening to this that has a daughter, you know, from like 13 to 20, we got to get them learning how to honor their age-appropriate hormonal rhythm. Number six is we have to start prioritizing human connection. And number seven is we need to start prioritizing spiritual connection.

You know, kudos to Sarah Godfrey, who gave me that word, dysregulation. And you know what's really interesting? I said to several friends, I'm like, you know what the problem with women that are standing up for being in regulation with those four different systems I talked about is you can't find them anywhere because they're resting and they're taking care of themselves? It's like there's no examples of it. So we can't change the patriarch, the patriarchal pace, because all the women on social media that we're looking at are stuck in the patriarchal pace.

So I promise you, I'm looking at how to be an example of it, which is why I wanted to come to you and just share what I've been going through in the most authentic way. And my feeling is if we can all do that, if we can all stand up and reclaim our regulation, that we can show by example to the younger generation what this. looks like. And back to Sarah's post, and I'll finish on this, she could, she, her final line, go read it. Her final line on, I saw it on Instagram, she said, let's all co-regulate together. And I think, again, I give her credit. I think that is a beautiful statement. And I, I leave you with that thought. You start with yourself. I love Gandhi's, be the change that you

want to see in the world. I want to seek regulation of women. So I need to start with myself. And as each woman regulates her own four systems, we start to come together as women in co-regulation. And we can raise the frequency, the vibration of this planet. If we make the decision to regulate ourselves first and then teach it to the women around us, if that moves us, if it's going to take you out of regulation to teach it, then don't. do it, but vibrationally we can change the suffering on this planet if we come back individually into regulation first, and then we look around and link arms and say, how do we co-regulate together? So, that's what I got for you today.

I hope, as always, it helps. But, you know, let's take this concept and start working it and support each other in it and standing in our authentic self, and our authentic self is a regulated woman that regulates with other women and raises the frequency of the planet. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it, so please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.