Jennifer Smith: Welcome to You're Not Crazy, It's Perimenopause. If you're a woman over 40 and feeling more anxious, not sleeping well or disconnected from your body, this podcast is for you. I'm your host, Jenny Smith, functional medicine health coach, here to help you understand what the heck is happening in perimenopause. Each week, we're diving into real life conversations about how our changing hormones impact anxiety, sleep, and stress. and I'll share simple strategies to help you feel normal again. So grab a cup of tea or beverage of choice, get comfy and let's dive in. Hey there and welcome back to You're Not Crazy, It's Pyramidopause. I'm Jenny, thank you so much for being here with me. So today we are going to be talking about something that so many women quietly struggle with. And that is why things that worked in our 20s and 30s, and I'm talking about things that used to work for our mood, our energy levels and our weight just don't seem to work anymore. and you're confused because you're not doing anything differently at all. You haven't changed anything, yet your body is changing. Your mind feels different. Like there's something going on and the frustration is real. For example, in your younger years, you could potentially push through stress. You can sleep less and not be as impacted by it. You are juggling everything. and you bounce back quick. You can skip meals and it's not a big deal. You run on coffee all day and you have a glass of wine at night to unwind and feel mostly okay. But now that's not the case. Things feel different and you haven't done anything different. You have more anxiety. You're not as emotionally resilient. Your stress is unmanageable. And sleep, forget about it, sleep is like, where did it go? And why am I waking up in the middle of the night? Why is it hard for me to fall asleep? Why am I waking up not feeling rested? All those things can be so frustrating. And your body feels different. Don't even recognize yourself anymore. Your clothes are fitting differently. You're looking in the mirror and you don't recognize yourself. And let me tell you that there is a reason. It's not anything. that you've done differently, obviously, because you are like, haven't done anything differently. So why am I feeling this way? What's happening to my body? Why do I have all these changes? And it's really simple in that it's your biology. Your hormones are shifting. And because of this, it affects so many areas of our life, such as our sleep and being more sensitive to stress and your changing body. And in this time of our lives, we need to take care of it in a different way. It needs a different kind of support. I personally want to share that this is something that I experienced in my thirties. Life felt predictable. If I was noticing that my weight was creeping up or I just wasn't feeling right, I knew what to do to feel better. I would change my diet or not eat as much and not snack as much. I moved more. And my body responded. I was more calm. I had more stable moods throughout the day. And I felt like I could handle more, like I had more patience. But in my 40s, that is when it shifted for me. I noticed that I was more emotionally sensitive. Stress would hit harder. Sleep didn't restore me in the same way. I didn't change anything with my sleep, but I was more tired. I was dragging throughout the day. By two o'clock, I needed a nap. I need a more caffeine. And my body was changing too. I think for so many of us women, that's the hardest, especially when they're... I feel like I've always struggled with my weight, but there's a lot of women out there who didn't have issues with weight gain, especially around their belly. And all of a sudden they're getting that and they're like, what the heck? I haven't done anything different. This is so frustrating. I'm doing all the things. What is happening? And it's things that I hear from women. They say the same things over and over again. I don't feel like myself. My emotions feel bigger. I am so overwhelmed. I can't even handle things. And my body isn't responding the same. And also there are things that I talked about in the previous episodes that we have. more responsibilities, potentially we're in a caregiving role where we're taking care of people and that could justify more of how we're experiencing stress or more stress in our lives. However, for many of us, nothing's really changed and yet we feel like it's out of control and we can't manage it. And you're not imagining this, your brain and your body are going through a transition. So let's talk about what is happening. in perimenopause and remember perimenopause can span about 10 years, as early as 35 into your 50s. So it's just everyone's different when they start to go through perimenopause. Your hormones don't just decline, they fluctuate and that's why your moods can be like all over the place. You're like, I feel like I'm a wild person. And these hormone fluctuations, impact your your brain, your mood, your sleep, your metabolism, your emotional resilience, and this happens in the span of potentially 10 years. So if you remember in episode two, menopause is just one day, and that is the day that you go one year and a day, so 12 months, and a day without a period, and then you are considered postmenopausal. So menopause is one day. Perimenopause can be 10 years, give or take. And in those 10 years, you can be dealing with fluctuating hormones and symptoms that make you feel terrible. So let's talk about what's happening with the changes. Let's talk about the hormones specifically. First, we're going to start with progesterone because one of the earliest shifts in perimenopause is the decline of progesterone. Progesterone is our calming grounding hormone. helps you feel safe. It helps your brain feel safe. You feel more calm and you just have an emotional buffer. And when that drops, you feel more wired and restless. You're not as calm. You're feeling more anxious and anxiety is happening where you didn't used to have it before. You might be emotionally more emotionally reactive. It's difficult for you to wind down and to like bring your body back to calm and you have like an inner tension that you can't explain. You're just like, ⁓ I just don't feel right. I feel so tense. Like everything is just around me as I'm just feeling irritable. And essentially you are more stressed and when stress stays high, your cortisol rises and this is our stress hormone. And when you have the decline of progesterone and the rise of cortisol, you have more sleep disruption, your mood and hormones feel which furthers your sleep disruption. You have more ⁓ unpredictable moods and why you feel like you're just, you keep trucking along doing all the things and you're not feeling better. You are hoping to feel better and it's just not working. And that is why. Let's talk about estrogen. So estrogen also fluctuates. It And estrogen tends to amplify everything. You might feel more emotionally intense some days and flat other days. Like you just don't care. I call it the IDAF phase. I think you know what that means. You just don't give a crap about anything. And then you worry like you're coming across as cold because you don't care. You have brain fog. One moment and then other moments you feel like so much clarity and you're more clear headed and can make decisions and act on things. Your motivation comes in waves. Like some days you're motivated and you have all this motivation. Other days you can't get off the couch or you know you have all these things to do, but you can't get started. It feels almost like daunting to even take on the task so you don't do it. You almost feel like there's two different versions of yourself. a Jekyll and a Hyde and it can make you feel like you're crazy. Like what the heck is going on? I don't know what's wrong with me. I didn't used to be this way. Why is this happening? And that is why it's our hormones and there's something we can do about it and we'll talk about it in future episodes. want you to understand that what is happening in your body is part of the process of aging and we need to go easier on ourselves and not beat ourselves up over it because it's not something that we're intentionally doing. Another thing that happens with estrogen is this is when your body composition starts to change and it makes so many of us angry and frustrated. And it's not that you're doing anything wrong. Your hormones are essentially impacting your metabolism, your muscle composition and where your body stores that with the decline of estrogen. So testosterone also starts to shift. Testosterone also impacts your motivation, your sex drive, confidence, and your stamina. And when it changes, you're feeling less driven to do things. You think about it, but you have no drive, no push to begin. And procrastination feels heavier than usual. You have a lower resilience to stress. You are overwhelmed by the little things. I worked with a client who had a stressful job, but it was manageable for her. She was like, I can handle it. It's not a big deal. And then it became a big deal. And she's like, I don't get it. I don't understand what's happening. Why am I feeling this way all of a sudden? I can't seem to cope with it. It's hitting harder. And that is why, because of these hormones beginning to fluctuate and to start to decline. Your energy might feel a little flatter. You don't feel as physically strong. You are feeling less like yourself in the sense that things that used to excite you before, just not, they're not exciting you. You're not, you're feeling very meh about it. You're just like, ⁓ I don't care, you know? And you lose the confidence in yourself when in the past you can trust yourself. And now you're just, feeling this like lower sense of confidence and it doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good at all. And as you can see, everything that I just described with the fluctuating, progesterone, estrogen and testosterone, your hormones are running the show. And it might seem like no matter what you do, nothing seems to help. What used to work before, such as pushing through, running on stress, eating less, not feeding your body as well, ignoring your needs. All of that is coming to a halt and it's a wake up call. Your body's like, ⁓ let's put on the brakes here. We are not gonna keep pushing along. Our body needs support. We need to do some things differently. And that's what I'm gonna be talking about in future episodes. What we can do to support our body so that we don't just have to survive menopause, that we can actually feel amazing. And I am proof of that. I shared with you in episode one how that changed for me. And I just took a different approach than what I was used to doing. And I was able to come around it and feel so much better. In the coming episodes, we're going to take a deeper dive into each hormone and what it looks like when it's high and when it's low so that you can better understand where you might be on your hormone journey. And I'd love to hear from you. What feels hardest for you right now? You can message me on Instagram at jennyaz underscore simple. I love hearing from you and what's going on for you right now. With that said, thank you so much for tuning in today and I'll see you next week.