Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - Brain Changes in Women Over 40 (and how to navigate them)

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Dr. Mindy dives into the many changes that happen in your brain after the age of 40. She stressed the importance of community & support but also touches on the benefits of massage, chiropractic, breathwork, yoga, relaxation & sleep. Please enjoy this special solo episode that is filled with love & encouragement to all women on this journey. To view full show notes, more information on our guests, resources mentioned in the episode, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://www.drmindypelz.com/ep205. You can get 30% off your subscription when you go to HVMN.com/PELZ Check out our fasting membership at resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. Please note our medical disclaimer.

Okay, resetters, I am bringing you another solo episode. I just want to start off by thanking you all. We've had so much, so many positive messages about my solo episodes, specifically if you haven't heard the one where I talked about why you're struggling to lose weight. I saw so many people who were reading Fast Like a Girl that were watching my YouTube videos and they had questions about what do they do when they get stuck, then I decided, okay, I'm going to do a whole podcast on Hear All My Hacks. And it seems as if you all loved that.

So thank you for sharing it. And again, as always, thank you for your beautiful reviews. And because of that, I'm back with another solo episode. And this one is actually straight out of my new book, the next book that I am writing. And it's about the brain changes. that happened to women over 40. And to give you some context, I realized that there's all different ages listening to this podcast. But to give you some context, my personal menopause story really started at 40. I had one goal when I turned 40. I wanted to be in the best shape of my life.

I wanted to fit into a very specific pair of skinny jeans. I had a number on the scale I wanted. And so going into my 40s in the most fit version of me was a huge goal that I was shooting for. And I accomplished it. I hit 40 and I loved the body I was living in. By 43, within that three year period, everything fell apart. And I did not change one thing. I was still doing the same fitness routine, the same eating routine. Everything was the same. But in that three year period, something had shifted. in my body that all of a sudden had my body feeling so much more different. And I wrote about this in the menopause reset. And, you know, the biggest thing that I started to notice was I couldn't sleep. I was getting night sweats. I was gaining weight for no particular reason. I was really edgy and irritable. It was very easy to upset me. And I could just see of sort of watching myself from the outside in and thinking, this isn't me. I don't know what I did different. And I decided at that moment that I'm not scared to go ask for help, even with everything that I know about hormones. I felt like,

you know, sometimes we can become very blind to our own healing path. It's hard to walk a healing path by yourself. And we so often need somebody there walking it along with us. And so I reached out to friends to try to understand my perimenopausal journey. And I was met with very different responses. Some people said, yep, welcome to perimenopause. It's brutal and, you know, buck up. It's going to be a tough ride. My older sister told me I probably start to think about getting on antidepressants now. I had friends who were five and six years older than me that told me, you know, just painted the horror story of how much worse it was going to get. And so here I was at 43 thinking, I don't, I don't accept that path. I'm not going to take that path. And so I went to

a friend of mine who's an OB, very well-respected OB. I live in Northern California. She lived in my town. Our kids went to the same school together. And I asked her, you know, what could I do for these perimenopausal symptoms that were showing up. And her response to me was, Mindy, I have a practice full of patients of women like this, and my medical textbooks have failed me. I don't know what to do. I want you tell me what you're doing, like she wanted to learn from me. And I walked away from that moment, and that was the moment at 43 that I decided my menopause symptoms were my, in my hands, I had to find the solution, that I wasn't going to find it in great friends. I wasn't even going to find it in my OB. Nobody seemed to understand what to do. So I went deeply into the

research to figure it out. And what I discovered is that there were five lifestyle changes that needed to happen. And I write about those lifestyle changes in the menopause reset. It's a very quick and easy book, meant to be, get any woman in the darkest moment of her perimenopausal years, get her up and going. So you can, the topic of this video is not these five lifestyle changes, but you can go read that in the book. And I still stand by those five lifestyle changes. I think that they are profound. And, you know, just to touch on them, I will tell you that fasting is one of varying your fast, varying your foods is one of them, repairing your microbiome, detoxing, and slowing down the rushing woman. Those were the five that I really leaned into, and I explained it

in much detail in the metapause reset. And those, when I applied those five lifestyle changes to my everyday life, the hot flashes went away, the weight dropped. My mental clarity came back. I was able to hold on to information. And I was sleeping better. I could just feel the old version of me come back online. And at the time I started to discover those five changes, I was even like my mid-40s, I thought I was going into menopause. I had, I was spotting.

And I thought, okay, this is it. I must be going into menopause. But when I applied those five lifestyle changes, I actually started getting a more natural rhythm with my cycle again. So by the time I was 48, 49, I was having the best periods of my life. There was no PMS. There was no spotting. There was no, I mean, it was like, oh my God, this isn't nothing. I could probably continue to do this for the rest of my life. And then around 52, I started to feel the cognitive changes that happened to my brain. So my 52nd year, I saw a dramatic dip in how many periods I had. I must have had about four periods. And my 53rd year, I was my year that I actually

had no cycle. So I'm doing this recording. It is October 9th, I believe. My actual 54th birthday is coming up on Sunday. And ironically, it also happens to be my year without a cycle. So I'm officially post-menopausal. and but but what was really interesting in those final perimenopausal years and the transition year into postmenopausal is how much my mental state changed for the worst and that's what I really want to dive into because just like I went to go figure out what I need to do for hot flashes and sleep and weight loss I have been on a journey for the last two years diving into the science really getting clear what is happening mentally to women as we go through and transition into our post-menapausal

years. And this episode, I'm going to explain it to you. Again, you are getting information straight out of a book I'm writing. We've been discussing this information in detail in my reset academy. So if you want to play with this information more, come join us over there until the book comes out. For now, I hope you find yourself in the information I'm about to reveal to you in the research that I have found. And more importantly, I hope that you see you have more options than just deciding to put on HRT, you know, a hormone replacement patch or to lean into bioidenticals. I am not opposed, just so we're clear, I am not opposed to taking what we call an exogenous hormone. I have done, I have brought experts to you all here, hoping that

you all will find your own individual path with those. But I have to say that there is not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to hormone replacement therapy. Everybody has to find their own way. And that is leaving us still in the dark of how do we navigate the vast amount of symptoms that are showing up. I was recently in England on a book tour, and one of the first places that I stopped was I was in London and I stopped at Amazon UK. And this beautiful woman there has pulled together a menopausal support group for the women who are working at Amazon UK in this corporate high stress environment but are going through the hormonal changes that menopause and perimenopause offer us. And she told me that one of her driving factors for creating this support group is that from about our mid-40s until our early 50s is one of the more common times for women to leave the workplace. That they can't handle the stress loads, that they find it so overwhelming that their next choice is to get out. And her concern is not only for that woman, but her concern is for the companies that are losing

money with this mass exodus of perimenopause and metapausal women leaving because they don't understand what's going on with their brain and they are in a culture that doesn't understand what they're going through. And so what you're about to hear is what I explain to this group of women in Amazon UK. I call it our neurochemical armor. It starts to shed. And in that shedding of our neurochemical armor, our brains are left raw and exposed and without the resources to be happy, without the resources to think straight, without the resources to hold on to new information, without the resources to calm ourselves. And we don't understand ourselves. so we find ourselves often very reactionary, overwhelmed by stress, lashing out at people around us, struggling to perform at certain parts of our life. And my hope with this podcast and this book

that I'm now writing that will come out hopefully next year, I hope you will see yourself and understand that there is some more you can do than just lean in identical or a hormone replacement. Now, I'm, if those are working for you, phenomenal. But I want to make sure because our hormone replacement therapy isn't perfect for everybody, we need a big toolbox for menopause. We need a big one. So my feeling is that you're going to want to make these five lifestyle changes that I spoke about, but you're also going to want to talk, bring in, especially for cognitive focus and clarity. and enhancement of your brain, you're going to want to bring in the tools that I'm going to give you today.

So it was a very long way of just setting you up to understand what this is. So here we go. Hey, Dr. Bindy here. And welcome to season four of the Resetter podcast. Please know that 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. Enjoy. At around 40, I want you to remember that your ovaries start to go into retirement. So your whole system, your hormonal system is going to start to slow down.

That process is not overnight. that takes about 10 years. The most common age for a woman to go through menopause is somewhere in her early 50s. Between 52 and 55 is the best time because remember, you want to go in late. If you go into menopause early, that also means you've lost estrogen and progesterone, and so that affects your brain cognitively. So at 40, your ovaries, stop releasing as many eggs, which means that you are left with less progesterone, less estrogen, and in some cases you can lose testosterone. But that's a whole other discussion that we'll talk about at another time. But when you are losing estrogen and progesterone, because there are

less eggs being released, you are not just losing those hormones. You are losing, I'm going to count them right here. One, two, three, four, five, six other neurochemicals. And I'm going to go through these neurochemicals right now. So not only are you losing estrogen and progestron, but you're losing these six other neurochemicals that kept your brain working right. That is eat neurochemicals. So if you do not feel like yourself anymore, there is a neurochemical explanation. Eat neurochemicals. that affected your moods, affected your behavior, that kept your memory and checked, eight of those. This isn't just one, eight of them are gone. And there are things you can do to bring back these six neurochemicals that were stimulated by

estrogen and progesterone. And I'm going to walk you through those today. But what I want you to see is this bigger picture of what is happening. and why you don't experience it joy, why you can't think straight, why you are having trouble sleeping, why you're anxious all the time, it is not your fault.

You have lost eight neurochemicals. Here's how this works. There are three forms of estrogen. So you have estradiol, estriol, and estrone. Estradial is the diva. She is the one that we need to celebrate, that we need to speak so highly of. I do not know why estrogen seems to get a bad rap.

I wrote about this in Fast Like a Girl. I'm like, why is estrogen get such a bad rap? She's the queen. Well, Estradial is the diva. She has been showing up for you over and over and over again. She is the most powerful form of estrogen. And she has allowed an egg to be released. But if you listen to my interview with Dr. Felice Gersh a few weeks ago, she mentions that every single organ system in our body has a receptor site for estradiol.

So think about this for a moment. When you had a cycle, what happened was around day eight or nine, estradiol was peaking, peeking, peaking, maybe around day 10. She hit her peak, which allowed an egg to be released. But it wasn't like she just went away when she hit her peak. All of that estradiol went into all these receptor sites throughout your whole body and kept you cardiovascularly well, kept your muscles and your joints in good shape, helped your kidneys and your digestive system and your brain. So when you lose estradiol, you are losing a major stimulator of all of these organ systems.

Now, we could easily look and say, we'll throw on a patch, and now you're going to bring estradiol back. But at some point, you're never getting the same amount of estradiol. It does not biologically make sense for a 55-year-old woman to have the same estradiol amount as a 25-year-old woman. So even your patch over time, the dosage has to go down. And estradial stimulants stimulated some wickedly powerful neurotransmitters. The first is dopamine. So when estradiol peaked, when she was growing in your body from like day one to day 10 and then she peaks during ovulation, day 12, if you had a cycle and if you are perimenopausal and you still have a cycle, pay close attention. You're probably more motivated in the front half of your cycle.

and your brain is probably much more focused because that's what dopamine does. It gives you focus, it gives you focus, it gives you motivation, and it gives you a desire to go and build a life for yourself, to go and chase a goal, to go and work out. That is dopamine. It is the molecule of more. But estradiol didn't just stimulate dopamine. She also stimulated serotonin, specifically the world-famous receptor site that's getting a lot of attention right now in the psychedelic world, and it's the 5H-T-2A receptor site for serotonin, and estradial stimulated that. So in this front half, in this follicular phase, or if you've been an ovulation, if you've been following fast like a girl, I call it the power phase one and manifestation phase, you were getting

a massive dose of dopamine and serotonin that kept you happy. Those are our happiness hormones. Now, it didn't just stop there. She also stimulated a hormone called acetylcholine. Acetocoline helps you hold on to information. Estradial also stimulated a steroid called BDNF. BDNF is like miracle grow for your brain and made it so that your brain could create new neuronal pathways so you could learn new things. BDNF is massively powerful to keep the brain sharp as the years go on, and estradiol stimulated that. And she also stimulated oxytocin. This is the most recent thing that I found that is just blowing me away. So check this out. This is how virulia your body is designed. When you had a cycle, the days leading up to ovulation as estradiol went up, so did oxytocin.

Oxytocin followed estradiol. Okay, well, what does oxytocin do for us? Oxytocin is our bonding hormone. It makes us feel connected to people. So what happens when esteradial goes away, we start to feel disconnected. This is a major thing that menopausal women are going through. they just don't feel connected to their children, to their, to their jobs, to their, to their friends. Like, there's a disconnection. It's one of the chapters I'm writing about in this new book is ending the

loneliness that happens to women as they go through menopause because as estradile goes away, so does oxytocin. So one sex hormone, or as I love, Dr. Gersh says, one life hormone, made one, two, three, four, five different neurochemicals go away that kept you alert, focused, happy, and motivated. So if you're 48 years old and you're hearing this for the first time, I want to reach out and give you a hug. Because I want you to realize that it is not your fault that you feel disconnected. It is not your fault that you're struggling to hold on to information. It is not your fault that you can't read a book. book like you used to read a book and hold on to that information. That is a neurochemical shift that

happened and I want to give you the solution for it. But first, I want you to know that I see you, I hear you, and we're going to walk this journey together because so many women are feeling so lonely and so out of it in these years because of this neurochemical loss. This is a large reason why women kill themselves. The most common time for a woman to commit suicide is 45 to 55 because she lost all of these happiness neurochemicals with the exit of one sex hormone. That we need to scream from the rooftops. If that is new to you, please share this episode out. This is what I'm trying to get out to the world. Now, progesterone. Progesterone also influenced some of these happiness neurochemicals but had a major influence on GABA. And GABA is what calms you. It is what

keeps your nervous system in a more relaxed state. So if you think about it, I can only use myself as an example on this one. Like, I just noticed that I started to react to stress much differently when in my late 40s it was just easy to get me to flare up. And I think it was because I lost all the the yummy neurotransmitters that kept me happy, but I also lost GABA that kept me calm. So, and many of you are experiencing the same thing. So that means we also have to really discuss this differently with those around who are closest to us. And I've mentioned this on, if anybody listened to Stephen Bartlett's interview the diary of the CEO when he brought me on to talk about hormones and fasting, you know, he asked how my husband,

husband and I talk about hormones. And I said, at the end of a long day, I will say, like, I'm neurochemically depleted. That was such a big day. I need to reboot my neurochemicals. I need to take some time to myself to bring these neurochemicals back online. That is a much easier thing to say to the people you love than to say to lash out and blame everything at them. So I think it's really important that we take ownership over this moment and we need to have some solutions. So with that in mind, here's what I want to walk through. I'm going to go through each one of these neurochemicals. And I'm going to talk about what science is saying that we can do to bring these neurochemicals back online. And again, in the book I'm writing, I have all the studies will be cited.

I have lists. We're going to put together a huge list so you can see very clearly if you're missing certain qualities in your life what your options are. This is literally the first time I've publicly gone through this in this much detail. So until the book comes out, this is a really good start for you all to work on. Dopamine. Dopamine, think of it. It's the molecule of more, but it's what drives you to a goal. So I've heard a lot of women say they don't feel like working out anymore once they go through perimenopause. Yeah, their dopamine goes down so their motivation to work out may be less. Some of them, the motivation to work out relationship problems might be less. So there's a lot of places that dopamine shows up for us. We also can get, like I can

tell you, that I have found over the years, over my, my perimenopausal years, that I've just become more and more and more of a dopamine junkie because my body's not making as much of it, so I have to go searching for it. It's like addicted to go search for it. So it'll search for it in buying things, you know, it'll search for it in eating food. It'll search for it in new experiences. I just came back from four weeks in Europe and I am in the process of resetting my dopamine system because it was so exciting, so many things going on that I was like, eh, I got to reset the system and resetting your dopamine system is no fun. It's been last couple of days, I've been a little brutal, but I know that they're really going to help me be able to get small joys out of life. When you're

dopamine saturated, nothing brings you joy. The trick with dopamine is that you want to create momentum You don't need motivation with your life or your goals. You need momentum. This means you want to create small little wins. So if you are trying to lose weight and it feels like a daunting task and you're in your perimenopausal years, we need dopamine to get you to the gym. So maybe, but maybe you can't get to the gym or maybe you can't get out and walk or go work out for like an hour. So just a little allow yourself to go on a five-minute walk. Just put your sneakers on, go on a five-minute walk, and when you come back in, high-five yourself and acknowledge that you made it out the door with your sneakers on your feet, and you got out and you went and did something good for you,

even if it's five minutes. So if you're struggling with a task, chunk it down. Stop trying to take it on in this big totality because you don't have as much dopamine. you got to create new dopamine hits for yourself. The other thing to remember is that dopamine loves novelty. So switch things up. You might have to switch up your routine where maybe you're fasting in the morning. Maybe all of a sudden you fast in the evening. Maybe you are driving a certain way to work every day.

Now it's time to drive a different way. Maybe you need a new gym to go to. You got to go find dopamine will love it if you could. go into new experiences. So go and find those new experiences to keep your motivation up. Okay, second neurotransmitter that estradiol stimulates is serotonin. So when we hit a goal, so let's use, I recently bought a new car. I love my new car. It's the nicest car I've ever driven in my entire life. And when I got in it, the dopamine was just filling. my brain. It was like, wow, this is a dream come true. And that dopamine lasted maybe a couple of

weeks. Every time I got in, I got another dopamine hit. And what ended up happening was after a few weeks of driving it, I didn't have that euphoric dopamine hit, but I had that yummy serotonin hit that was like, I love this. It didn't feel like I need to go get more because dopamine always wants you to go get more. This is why, like, when you lose weight, you know, if you lose 10 pounds, you have a momentary like, woo-hoo, and then you're like, but maybe I need to go lose more. That's dopamine. But serotonin should come in, and serotonin should say you did a good job. Let's enjoy this. And serotonin is sort of that fulfilled happiness you get where you just are riding along feeling good. And it doesn't feel like you need more. It feels like you got enough. And this,

feels wonderful. That's serotonin. So dopamine gets you to the goal, serotonin pat you on the back and says, job well done, enjoy this for a moment. Estradial stimulated serotonin. So one of the things that I noticed in my clinic for many years was how many women who had these amazing lives would come into me and say, my husband's incredible. I live in a gorgeous home. I have everything I could ever want and I don't have any joy. And I have no motivation to work out, to get healthy, to do anything. So I'm lacking motivation and I'm joyless. And there's nothing on paper that shows that I should be that. Well, that's the combination of estradiol going away, causing dopamine and serotonin to diminish. So you, I already talked about how you can bring dopamine back online. How do you bring serotonin

back online? Now, this is where it gets really fun. So the first place that you can start to raise the serotonin is with fasting. And this is really cool. It's a study I didn't even put in the book in Fast Like a Girl. So you're getting it here for the first time. It's actually going in the new book. And it showed that a nine hour fast was enough to upregulate the five to stimulate serotonin by stimulating the 5HT2A receptor site is what.

and I assume it's doing this through ketones. The study didn't say that. But it stimulates this receptor site that upregulates serotonin and gives you an antidepressive effect. So small doses of fasting. It doesn't have to be a big dose. It can be a small dose, a nine-hour dose, and you can have that antidepressive effect. That's huge.

I get asked a lot like, well, what's the number one thing that menopausal and perimenopausal women should do? And I still stick by fasting because not only is it going to help you with weight and mental clarity, but it also helps with things like depression like we're seeing with the serotonin receptor. Now, that's not your only tool. The second tool that you have is exercise, but not just any exercise. If you want to get more serotonin, intensity matters. the higher the intensity exercise, the more you're going to stimulate that receptor site that will upregulate serotonin. So this is why I love short hit training style exercises. We do in my

reset academy, we do a Saturday morning workout where we do 15, 20 minutes of high intensity workout followed by community talk. And it's hitting all kinds of neurochemical upswings this one morning in our academy. The workout gets serotonin, the community talk, gets oxytocin, which I'll talk about in a moment, and giving my community new information stimulates neuroplasticity, BDNF, and acetylcholing. So I know that this one Saturday morning is having this tremendous effect on, you know, everybody that sits there and listens. But it's the high intensity exercise that makes a big difference. Now, something really interesting I experienced.

When I was in Abisa, I met these beautiful men that have a company, I guess you would call it, called Sanctum. You can go look them up. It's called We Are Sanctum. If you're in Europe, they're very popular in Europe. And we're bringing them to the U.S. because I fell in love with these men. And I want their work to integrate with mine.

So we're working on a collaboration project right now. But what we discussed what happened is they were headdemeanor. phones that you put on your ears. And one of the men, Luke, he led us through an exercise class that was like a mixture of aerobics, dance, CrossFit, yoga. And he, the music that he put in was very inspirational and he would bring in the in and out this incredible upbeat musical music with really incredible positive affirmations. And then he had a microphone and he was leaving. And he was leading us through this workout that was like something I'd never seen and and helping us stay focused and motivated to get through the workout. So he didn't realize it, but he was hitting all

the neurochemical explanations. I kid you not. I left. I was exhausted when I walked into that workout. I had been traveling for three weeks. When I left, I was at one of the happiest I'd ever been in years. And I know it's because it's stimulated serotonin because it was. such a high-intensity exercise. So again, stay tuned. I'll be bringing these beautiful men to our community more, but I say if you are down and out and you are perimenopausal and you have lost serotonin, please look at doing short bursts of high-intensity exercise. It will bring serotonin back online. And then the third thing we have for serotonin is something newly emerging and more and more people are learning about it, and it's microdosing psilocybin. So psilocybin is a

mushroom. It has, it's a psychoactive mushroom. When you microdose it, you do not get the psychoactive piece. You only get the stimulation of the 5HT to a receptor site. And so it upregulates serotonin and gives you a level of happiness, not an over-the-top happiness, a very just contented lovely feeling. And there is great research out on microdosing psilocybin. There's another, I guess you would call it a psychedelic that many are using or are experiencing as Sam Pedro also has great research without the psychedelics piece of it. So in the new book, I will be talking about what the science is saying there, but it's pretty profound, its ability to increase serotonin. So that's dopamine and serotonin. Then if we go into acetylase.

Acetylcholine and BDNF, estradial stimulates acetylcholine and BDNF, which is neurochemicals that help us hold on to memory. And so if we don't have estradiol stimulating these neurochemicals, then we've got to find other ways to create what we call neuroplasticity. So neuroplasticity is creating new neural connections in your brain. I like to call these new connections baby neurons, that they're like little baby neurons in your brain that are ready for you to train them how to think. They're ready for you to hold on to information so that you can do amazing things in life. I'm a lifelong learner. And so I love learning. And when I started to lose astrodial, losing acetylcholine and BDNF, and I couldn't hold on to information as well, that bummed me out. I had to go find new ways to create these new neuronal connections to regrow my baby neurons so that they could start to grab onto new information. So here's what I found. And there's a ton of research that I'm, again, putting out in the book. But here are some of the things that I found. We're back at exercise. Hit training. High intensity will increase BDNF, which is brain fertilizer for the brain. So now you're increasing your ability. to hold on to new information and you're increasing serotonin from one 15, 20 minute hit training

workout, high intensity workout, which is amazing, right? So weightlifting. When you break down muscle, what you're doing is you create a metabolite that goes up into the brain and it stimulates BDNF. So we've talked a lot. Hopefully, if you've been following me or you've in any capacity, I talk about this a lot is the importance of building muscle. So when we build muscle, remember weightlifting what you do is you break muscle down and the intelligence the body goes in and builds it back up stronger, which is amazing. It's in that breakdown that a metabolite gets formed that also makes your brain stronger and lets you hold on to information. A really great way to absorb information is to listen to a podcast like this while you're working out.

If you want to hold on to this information, if this is like, you know, you're trying to take notes, go back and listen to this again while you're walking or while you're working out, especially if you're doing a high intensity or a weight training because you're going to get all that BDNF so that you can hold on to the information more. So high intensity training. Learning something new. So the science that I'm found has been on learning a new language and that language. What happens, think about this from your brain's survival perspective, that when you start to force your brain to learn a new skill, the brain is so smart that what it will do is create new neuronal pathways so that it can take that information in and hold on to that skill. which is why whenever we learn something new, it feels very awkward, because there's not a neural connect neural network to hold on to it. So that makes sense. So we have to, as we go

through menopause and perimenopause and into those postmenopausal years, we have to put ourselves in new environments where we're forced to learn new skills. We also benefit from learning something new like a new language. I can tell you at 53, I have a goal next year, I am learning Spanish. And I've already got it set up, the tutor, the place, I know what I'm doing when the new year hits that is on my top priority. A, it's time to learn Spanish. I live in California and I, you know, it's time to learn another language. I can't believe I've gone 53 years without that. But B, I'm doing it to increase neuroplasticity in my brain. So I also noticed when I was traveling, especially in another country, how, you know, you're trying to figure everything

out from the currency is different to the language is different, to you walk into the hotel rooms, things are different, the way the ordering off menus is different. All of that is so good for creating new neuronal networks. The worst thing you can do as you go through menopause is keep doing the same thing, being in the same environment, hanging out with the same people, talking about the same things, listening to the same news channels, stop it. You need to experience new environments. You need to get around new people. You need to learn new skills. It forces that neuroplasticity. And if you don't, now we're looking at dementia and Alzheimer's. You have to go make neuroplastic changes in your brain. I can't emphasize that enough. We also know that there's

two other ways to increase neuroplasticity. Sleep is one. So when you go to sleep at night, what happens is something called neuronal pruning, where neurons that no longer serve you are pruned away and new neural networks are coming together to help you integrate what you learned that day. If you haven't listened to my episode that I did with Dr. John Lawrence, we talk about the blue spot. And the blue spot is this part of the brain that he discovered that is, gathers all the information from the day. And when we go to sleep at night, it transfers that information to the hippocampus, which is the middle part of the brain that stores long-term memory and access. It's like a library. It'll access memories from the past. So in order to make room in the

hippocampus, when we sleep, the hippocampus has to prune. back some of the memories it may not, you know, may not be at, you may not be accessing, may no longer be useful for you, neurons that are keeping information traveling across them. But then it also allows for the information from the blue spot to come in and store what it learned that day into the hippocampus for long-term memory. So if you think about what an amazing day to improve learning and to improve neuroplastics, plasticity and brain power for a woman over 40, it would look like a good night's sleep. You wake up in the morning. You do a hit training in the morning in a fasted state. Maybe you even lift some weights. And then you work on learning new pieces of information throughout that day. And then at night, you get a good night sleep. So that information could be downloaded into long term memory. It's that simple. But we have to be intentional about it if we're losing our memory. So I want to point that out. Okay. And then the last neurotransmitter that estradial is stimulating is called oxytocin. It's my favorite neurotransmitter. And it's what connects us. And I, again, full transparency. One of my promises to all of you is that I'll always show up the most authentic person that I can be. I'm not going to put on any face for anybody. And one of the things I've noticed as I've gone through,

Menopause is just feeling less connected to people I love. And I realize that it's an oxytocin thing, that I'm lost oxytocin because estradiol has been down. But that doesn't mean I don't need oxytocin. Oxytocin is what bonds us. So there's a lot of ways that we can get oxytocin, getting out for a hike in nature. Nature will bring down cortisol. Breathing in the air from nature can increase oxytocin, smiling. So I really, you know, I like to smile. I like to laugh. I like to play. And I have to constantly remind myself to not take life too seriously, to smile at people at the grocery store, to smile at people as I'm going along my life. Because not only am I giving them oxytocin, but I'm also giving myself oxytocin. So that that look on our faces when we smile is so

important. This is one of the reasons why it breaks my heart with all the plastic surgery and that people have been doing and the fillers and chemicals that people have been putting in their faces that you can't tell when they're smiling. And that doesn't do them any good or us any good. We need to be able to see human emotion on a face. That's how oxytocin is going to be released. Another incredible way of getting oxytocin is touch. So I've shared this before if my kids are around. They're always getting a hug for me. And I always tell them it's for my oxytocin benefit. So I am a touchy person. I hug people all the time. And I used to think of it as a way to connect to people. But now I realize it's how I get my oxytocin, which I love. I also have been leaning more

into modalities of touch like massages. I mean, I was at this at the Sixth Sense's spot in a Pisa, and I got the most exotic massage I could, which singing bowls and all kinds of strange vibrational, like, sounds and crystals put on me because all I could think was, like, this is going to be really good. It's going to help with oxytocin. So if you have the resources to go and get a massage, I highly recommended, a chiropractic adjustment, anything where touch is involved in a safe way, and please, this is about safety first. But loving touch can increase. oxytocin for sure. And then the last thing about oxytocin that I want to say before I go on to progesterone is that community matters. Now, community matters all the time, but community really

matters to the menopausal woman. Last night, I was watching the Netflix series on the Blue Zones. If you haven't watched it, go watch it. And the first one that he profiled was the women in Okinawa. And they have a phrase called Moai. And Moai is that they do life in a community. And that means they share resources. They share financial resources. They share where they're living resources, food resources. They do everything in a community. And they do it with joy and care and friendship. And they're thought of as elders of the community. Now, I can tell you, you, that alone is probably why they live so long because they have purpose, they are respected, and they are uniting. And that's what we have to do as women going through menopause is we have

to come together. And we have to create this moai. Why am I going to figure out how we do it in my Reset Academy because I really feel like community is so important coming out of the pandemic, but it's ridiculously important for the metapausal woman. So if you're feeling a lot of, alone, come join us in our academy and let's work together to really create community. I also will tell you I'll let a little secret out that I will be doing my first one-day live conference in March. It's going to be done with Hay House at the, it's called the I Can Do It event. And I'm doing a fast like a girl one-day workshop the day before. Join my email list. Stay tuned for that. and that's a way that we're going to bring community together and start to build what I'll have to

probably think of a different phrase, but to think of this moai, how do we create moai for all of us? I will be talking more about that at that conference. So come to that, come hug me, and let's together figure out what community will look like for all of us. Okay, last thing I want to say is progesterone. So progesterone starts going down around, around 35. And the more stressed you are, the quicker progesterone will tank. So, and progesterone calms you, progesterone helps you sleep. So, you know, of all the bioidenticals I've experimented with, I can tell you that progesterone's been the most lovely. It's the one that can help me sleep a little bit more. But if I take too much, I can get really depressed. So again, there's a fine line

that you've got to find your pattern. But knowing that it stimulates, Gabba, we have a lot we can do to stimulate GABA on our own. So the first is breathwork, all kinds of breath work. So for 7-8 breathing, box breathing, my new favorite app is called Other Ship, and I do breathwork in the morning. I do breath work at night. I love breathwork. It is definitely GABA producing. We also know that movement forward, just a walk in nature will bring cortisol down and stimulate GABA so that it will calm you. Something to the brain, when we go out for a walk in nature and we scan the horizon right to left and left to right, we actually are telling our brains, hey, there's no threat. You can relax. And that stimulates GABA.

You can relax now. We're running away from the threat. And GABA will come on and calm. Think of like dopamine as the exciter is like, look at what we can do. Oh, my, gosh, there's so many great things out there. And Gabba is the one that's like, hey, we got to calm down and relax. So that's kind of how the two of those work together. There's also great research about yoga. And because it combines breathing and it combines movement. And that not only brings cortisol down, but it also stimulates oxytocin and it stimulates GABA. And then if you do it in a community, you're getting even more oxytocin. I was so busy this summer.

I lost my weekly yoga class, and I went back to the community yesterday, and I was just euphoric hours after that because of being in community with people I love, doing yoga, breathing, I could feel my body coming back online. So we have to go find those resources, again, in the book, I will map it all out for you.

But hopefully, what I hope you just, saw was these six neurotransmitters, BDNF is not really a neurotransmitter, but we're going to throw it in there. These six neurotransmitters were all stimulated by estradiol and progester. And when you lose estradiol and you lose progesterone, if you are not intentional about your daily habits, you will lose these six. And then you will mentally struggle. So leave me a review, find me on socials. Let me know if this was helpful. These are just the beginning. They are just the tip of the iceberg of what you can do to bring back these neurochemicals in your life. They are literally that important. But what if we are not aware of it, if we don't understand what's going on with us, we either blame ourselves or we blame people around us. And it's simply a lifestyle change. And stay tuned in my Reset Academy.

If you want to come join us over there, I'm about to do a 30-day mood reset with that group. I will in the new book put a 30-day program in there. So it'll be very applicable for you. But until then, here's the research I got. I've got 75% of the book written. So here's the beginning of what I want to share with you all. you can start working these principles right now. If that was a lot and you're like, oh my gosh, what the heck did she just say?

Go back and listen to this while you're walking or you're working out and see if it sticks a little bit more. So with that, I just want you to know I'm hearing you and I really want you to know I look at your comments. I see what the needs are. And I'm responding with videos and podcasts and books trying to help us all navigate what it's like to women live in a female body, whether it's 25 or 65, our hormones make a difference. And knowing how to build a lifestyle to match the changes in our hormones is life-saving. It is life-saving. And if you resonate with that, again, share this episode out so we can all have this is the discussion we should have at Ladies' Night Out, not the bitching about everything going on in our life. It should be this discussion.

This is what I'm feeling. Here's what I'm doing. Let's come together and share how it's working for everybody who's going through this hormonal loss because if you're over 40, you're going through it. It's how it works. So from the bottom of my heart, I hope that helps. And I'm sending you all big love and hugs and know that I'm cheering you on. And don't worry, there'll be more information where that came from. So I'm just was so excited to share this with you. And I hope you have a beautiful day. 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.