How Stress Hormones Shape Skin And Self-Image In Midlife

A random photo. A harsh Zoom angle. One glance in the mirror and the thought hits hard: “I don’t recognize myself.” That moment is incredibly common in perimenopause and menopause, and it’s not just about wrinkles. We sit down with Dr. Natalia Borakowski, a naturopathic physician specializing in women’s health and cosmetic dermatology, to talk about “emotional aesthetics” and why your skin is not a cosmetic surface; it’s a living organ shaped by hormones, stress, sleep, and self-perception.

Connect with Dr. Natalya Borakowski here:

Dr. Natalya Borakowski

We get specific about the biology of beauty: chronic stress and cortisol, inflammation, glucose changes, collagen breakdown, and why circadian rhythm is a hidden driver of radiance. Natalia explains how progesterone decline can affect microcirculation and puffiness, how estrogen decline can lead to thinner, drier, more reactive skin, and why no serum can replace deep sleep and a regulated nervous system. You’ll also hear a grounded take on tools, from skincare to procedures to hormone support, and how they can be empowering when they’re chosen from self-trust instead of fear.

Then we move into practical daily rituals that actually fit real life: simple morning light, less blue light at night, mindful skincare as a calming practice, hydration, colorful vegetables for vitamin C and antioxidants, and movement that feels like joy instead of punishment. If you’ve felt pulled into self-surveillance or overwhelmed by beauty culture messaging, this conversation offers a calmer, smarter way forward.

Subscribe for more women’s health conversations, share this with a friend who’s been dreading the camera, and leave a review if it helps. What’s one change you want to make this week for your nervous system and your glow?

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Alright, all right, perfect. Alright, well, welcome to the Art of Healing podcast. If you are just meeting us, me for the first time, so nice to see and meet you. If you're returning and part of the community, welcome back. So good to see you. We've got an amazing guest that I'm so excited she could come on and share her depth and breadth of knowledge, particularly because we just finished up the Hormone Harmony Summit. We've got another program coming up that complements that. So Dr. Natalia Borakowski is just so perfect to come on and talk to us women about our one of our most important organs, as she was just telling me. Dr. Natalia Borakowski is a naturopathic physician specializing in women's health and cosmetic dermatology. Her work sits at the intersection of clinical medicine, psychology, and cultural narrative, and she explores these themes deeply in her forthcoming book, Emotional Aesthetics. In her work, she helps women cultivate visible well-being by addressing not only the skin and outward appearance, but internal biology and psychological load that shapes how we feel in our bodies. So we're going to be talking about beauty, aging, stress, the nervous system, and self-perception. Just such a perfect complement to what we just did in the summit. So, Dr. Natalia, thank you so much and welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

So happy to be here, Charlis. Thank you for hosting me.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Thank you so much. So, your work is at the intersection of women's health, cosmetic dermatology, psychology, and cultural narrative. How did you come to build a practice and a body of work that brings all of those together?

SPEAKER_01 2:54

So that's a very deep question. It's sort of a kind of like a little internal shift that I experience myself as a woman who just figured out I am aging like everybody else. And being in our modern culture, we know we are obsessed with youth. And I am in the field of aesthetic medicine. So certainly I'm here to fix women's wrinkles, dark circles, you know, whatever the imperfections we see in the mirror. But kind of a returning narrative I saw, and every woman that came to my clinic, it's that very painful realization. I don't recognize myself. And typically it comes, and I'm sure so many of our listeners can relate to that. It will be this kind of uncomfortable moment when you either look at the photo that somebody randomly took of you, not very flattering photo, or you see yourself on the Zoom camera when the lightning and angle was terrible, and all of a sudden, this in narrative, this internal toxic critic turns on, and then you just start breaking yourself apart. So what I saw women see in the mirror a lot of times reflects with a really deep internal shift. And women become disconnected from their body, from the soul, and they start into chase an image that really doesn't belong in their faces. And of course, surrounding by social media, all those external mirrors we have, you know, everybody have an iPhone with a camera now and can snap a picture of you at any moment. That doesn't help. And it when we constantly evaluate ourselves and we're trying to pretend to look as an image of filter or a celebrity, that's when this disconnect happens. And I know we're going to be talking about hormones that often collide at that hormonal transition when we experience impairment of basal shift. And then we know it probably you guys discussed it in your last episode. The influence of progesterone and estrogen to our mental health is gigantic. So when those hormones start to withdraw, our brain goes into that software upgrade. And a lot of times women just aren't ready for it. And of course, pair it together with this aha moment. Oh my gosh, I aged overnight. This sort of a painful narrative got me into this rabbit hole to figure it out what really happens to our brain. How can I help that woman to rewrite narrative from the positive? And how can I help her to fall in love with her own skin, her reflection, her herself as a new woman that she's transitioned into now?

Emotional Aesthetics And Self-Trust

SPEAKER_00 5:37

So this is why I'm just so blessed that you could be here because in our community, we can speak to the internal, which you know, we explored the hormones in death. We we talked about progesterone, we we learned about estrogen. Um, we've had some speakers in the community in the summit that's that spoke to us about like the spiritual aspects, especially in perimenopause and menopause. But we really didn't get to touch on this part, and it's so important because I don't know, maybe sometimes it's the first thing you might notice. Like you said, we're surrounded by mirrors. So, and as you're describing, I'm even thinking myself, you know, sometimes I kind of dread when those cameras come out and those phones come out. Isn't that the truth? You start thinking, like, is the lighting okay? Is you know, so and it's it's the first so while that thank you for describing that for us. So you've got a book coming up, and I'd love to learn more about it, and definitely to get my copy, emotional aesthetics. What does that phrase mean to you? And what and what are you hoping women understand differently about your work and their beauty and their their aging process?

SPEAKER_01 6:52

So, yes, emotional aesthetics, it's a very um interesting, it's sort of I'm creating a new category, if you will, because I'm merging so many different disciplines together and helping to explain women, the skin, it's not just our largest organ, it is not a cosmetic surface. And we, conditioned by beauty industry, think that it is. We think we can just apply, you know, a red lipstick to it or, you know, put the shiny concealer or whatever. And you can look better, which temporarily you can, but overall the beauty comes from within. Of course, it comes from sleep, it comes from good nutrition, but it also comes from that internal connection to your body. And that's what I explore in my book. It's sort of this full arc. The uh second title of the book is Story of Aging, Biology of Beauty and the Art of Self-Trust. So, what I walk women through is first, how did our perception of aging really formed? Because what we conditioned to believe that we're supposed to be ageless, we're supposed to look a certain way. That narrative was created thousands of years ago. Because if you really look at women's culture, it's back into like ancient Egypt and Greece, the women back then were already applying different cosmetic products, the you know, eyeliners and whatnot, and then still pairing this narrative that our beauty equals worth. And then the more beautiful woman is, then more she can sort of get from life. And we carry that narrative through our entire life. Sometimes we're not even aware of it, but it still sits there. So being wanted to feel attractive in your body, there's nothing wrong with it. And I constantly repeat the same thing. It's not vanity, it's sort of that ancestral conditioning. So cultivating your own beauty, your own attractiveness, it's a very positive uh thing that you should do. And then biology of beauty, it's of course explaining women what happens to her body, her skin, her hormones as she ages. So when she experiences symptoms, like either it's a brain fog or a mood swing, or all of a sudden not feeling very happy looking at her reflection in the mirror, to really normalize that experience. Because once you normalize it, once you help her to truly embrace those changes, then she can cultivate that ultimate gift, which calls self-trust. I stop using the um narrative of self-love because it's so overly abused and people just kind of get really um sort of you know deaf to it. If you're telling, like, oh, you know, love yourself, and people's like, okay, whatever. I just heard it so many times from so many Instagram influencers. So instead, I rephrase it as self-trust. What does that mean to me as a woman? I see that we women born with a really deep intuition, deep connection to our bodies. We can feel our symptoms, we can feel shifts if something is wrong. How many times a woman being to a physician and say, I don't feel good, and then yes, all the blood work looks good, and then she feels being dismissed. But in reality, yes, there's something wrong with her body. And it usually takes alternative um medicine practitioners to really help her to dig to the bottom of it, what's happening. Unfortunately, in the 21st century, because we're surrounded by information, you know, all those, again, influencers, wellness practitioners. A lot of times people sort of overwhelm woman with all this external information. So she gets disconnected from her own voice. She stopped trusting her own intuition. And that's the final narrative of my book. It's re-establishing self-trust, it's finding moments of stillness, um, whatever it's a meditation or journaling, whatever practice you have, but it should be a daily ritual that every woman needs to develop for herself when she can reconnect with her body. Because really, that's the key to longevity, to radiance, and that internal embrace and love you can cultivate within you.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

I absolutely love that term, self-trust. I love that. So when you're saying self-trust, what I'm what I'm feeling is because you were saying this self-love is probably being overused and abused, but self-trust is sort of indicating to me to turn inward. So, you know, when I have a confusion or or not feeling well about something, what you're saying is that I should I can turn inward with meditation or I can turn inward. Am I understanding that correctly? Yes, yes, absolutely. Yes. I love that. I love that. So uh as I was preparing for our podcast, you are exactly correct. So one of the things, you know, in our data-driven world is we look for um, you know, searchability, SEO, and so you know, just background stuff. So uh you are creating a new category because emotional aesthetics was not out there, and I was just pleased that, like, oh, I can help introduce this as a search term because it's not and then I as I was getting ready for this podcast, it was interesting to me. Why is this new? Why is is this no one's discussing our emotions and aesthetics? That's interesting that no one has thought of this before. I mean, thank goodness you're doing it, you're a pioneer. So that's your thing, but it I did find that fascinating that this was not a term that was out there, that you're creating this.

Beauty Culture Fear And Tool Choices

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Yes. Well, I wouldn't say that I am the first person to speak about that, because essentially there is a psychological um uh sort of condition called body dysmorphia, which is a very extreme version of the either man or woman being disconnected from the image to the extreme. So they're trying to create something that doesn't even exist and often disfiguring their bodies or faces through the process. But um, aesthetic practitioners, plastic surgeons have described it in the past, and it usually comes from a moment when a practitioner, physician uh finds themselves very frustrated when we have either a male or female uh patient, when we're uh delivering the most beautiful procedure possible and the patient yet still not satisfied with the results. So that's kind of that phenomena that's existed for many, many years now since we started practicing this type of medicine. But what I really see in practice is that nearly every woman in the middle age experiences that kind of a moment of disconnect when she gets into the moment of panic, feeling like she's losing her worth, she's losing her identity. And that was the reason for me to trying to narrate this very like well-known phenomena and more of a medical extreme in mainstream female perspective, to first starting with a moment of uh completely uh normalizing the experience, because for women to want to feel attractive, there's nothing wrong with it. And also explaining that medicine just offers tools. There's nothing wrong with either scalpel or syringe or serum, but they're just tools. And what I really want to give to every woman, it's through that cultivation of self-trust, learning how to apply and choose the correct tools for herself. So don't outsource that decision to anybody. And that's what usually happens in our culture, that we are outsourcing our decisions to beauty culture. And then the beauty culture gives us this very toxic narrative. Like it's very fascinating if you think about every single beauty commercial from lipstick to mascara to a serum, what they're selling is either fear or shame. So they either giving you, you don't, if you don't use it, you lose it. Or shame. Oh, you have a problem, we can correct it, right? That's every single commercial has that. And I really want to rewrite that narrative. I want women to take the tools, embrace them. And then, yes, we are so fortunate in the 21st century, we have so many wonderful things from lotions, potions, you know, supplements. There's so many. But make sense of them and then choose those tools from the moment of empowerment because they are very empowering. They can really help you to boost that self-esteem. But if you only rely on tools to boost it and you're not cultivating within you, and again, there's no self-trust, those tools become very destructive.

Stress Biology Cortisol Collagen Sleep

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Thank you so much. And and again, the self-trust. I love that term, I just love that. So, something else that comes up in your body of work is that you talk frequently about how looking luminous relates to your nervous system, and how the how if your nervous system is not getting a break, that is affecting your ability not only to look your feel your best, but look your best. So let's unpack the biology behind that, if you don't mind. So, can you tell us what chronic stress actually does to the skin and to the face, and why when a woman is experiencing chronic stress, the changes she's seeing in the mirror?

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Yes. So let's talk about the biology first. Because when I start breaking it down, women really re-evaluate their relationship with stress. Because let's face it, I'm sure, Charlese, you've seen it in your own clients when they come to you and you're asking them, are you stressed? And often like, no, no, I'm I'm fine. I mean, yeah, I have a lot of responsibilities because women in midlife wearing so many hats, right? We are mothers, we are caregivers to our aging patients. We are typically have a more of a leadership position, management positions at our work, or we may be building businesses. Uh, we also obviously spouses, you know, so there's so many responsibilities and hats, and it's all on a woman's shoulders. And we are so used to being very giving people, and we typically put ourselves as the last person on the list. And what I'm trying to cultivate on women is to help her understand that putting yourself first is essential for you to be the best caregivers possible. So, what happens in the body physiologically when you constantly turn on, right? We have this lovely hormone called cortisol. And I'm sure many listeners heard about this, and it's kind of has a really bad reputation. Oh my gosh, my cortisol elevated, that's terrible. Which, yes, when it's chronically elevated, it is in fact terrible. Because what cortisol does, it will force your liver to increase glucose in your bloodstream. And we know high glucose, even if you have the best diet possible, if you will say, eat keto ketogenic diet, which I'm personally not a big fan of, but assume that you are, your body, your liver will still find glucose and that piece of stake you ate because the body is beautiful, it can do really miraculous things. So if your cortisol demanding that glucose, which it will, it will increase glucose in your bloodstream. So one thing they will do, obviously, the weight gain. How many women in midlife say, oh my gosh, I cannot lose that last 10 pounds? Whatever the weight is, it's irrelevant. And typically it will be a weight gain around the midsection. So it's kind of like the first uh moment when the woman is no longer feeling connected with her body. She becomes thinking, like, well, that's just middle age. I don't really look strong, I don't look uh young, the clothes doesn't fit right. So that's the first push away that she has. The next thing cortisol does, it's a very inflammatory molecule. So when it's constantly elevated, it suppresses your immune system. So you're more likely to get sick. So obviously, when you're sick, you don't look good. And then specifically for the skin purpose, cortisol directly destroys your collagen fibers. And I know when we talk about beauty, collagen is everything. We add collagen in powders for our coffee. We're trying to get collagen in our serums and our creams, and here you are constantly stressed, and your own beautiful collagen is getting eaten up. So your aging is accelerated when you're constantly stressed. But let me tell you uh another very important thing. It doesn't mean that we have to constantly suppress cortisol because it's another, if I tell my patients, oh, your cortisol constantly elevated, then women start Googling it and oh, what kind of supplement can I take? I want to suppress this. You don't need to suppress it. That's where the rituals, the self-trust come to be very, very important. We need cortisol first thing in the morning. It's supposed to be elevated, it's your natural cup of coffee. I always try to take women back into the childhood. Remember yourself when you were a little girl, connect with that image. How did you feel? You spring out of the bed in the morning, you're excited to see your friends, you want to play with your toys. That's your high cortisol. Then naturally, by the afternoon, it starts to slow down. It's about half of what it was in the morning, then you might take a nap. I mean, I'm not saying adult should take a nap, but the child, right? We usually give them naps. Why? Because the cortisol starts to go down. And once the sun goes down, and that's why our bodies, it's so it should be synced in with circadian rhythm, with a moon in the sun. So when the sun goes down and the moon comes up, your cortisol should be virtually zero. Opposing hormone to it is that beautiful melatonin. How many people have insomnia and they take melatonin as a supplement? Guess what? It doesn't get into your brain. It sedates your nervous system, but it's not really doing what your natural melatonin does. But if you honor your circanian rhythm, if you do the simplest things, it's trying to wake up with a sunrise, if possible, then go outdoors. If you can't be outside, you don't have a backyard, at least open up the window, look at that rising sun. Your eyes and your brain have a very, very strong connection. When you see the rising sun, you get that cortisol, you get endorphins. If it's possible for you to have a physical activity, that's another thing. Your heart rate is up, your cortisol will go up. So exercising first thing in the morning, whatever it is. You can do a yoga sun salutations, you know, you can do light jog, whatever works for you, please do it. If you can do it outdoors, bonus. And then by the afternoon, start to calm down. Try to limit the amount of blue screen exposure, especially after a sunset. Again, if you can go for a walk, you can look at the moon, that connection with the moonlight in your eyes sends signals to your brain to start secreting melatonin. If you start doing that circle every single day, honoring your body's circuit and rhythm, you'd be surprised how much glow you can get into your skin. Because that cycle of cortisol and melatonin, especially a full, restful sleep at night, no wonder our moms used to call it the beauty sleep, because it truly is. Your skin will repair. Your skin is magical. It can really recreate that collagen, it can repair microcirculation. There is no serum in the world that can truly replace that.

Perimenopause Skin Changes Progesterone Estrogen

SPEAKER_00 22:44

So I just want to highlight for the listeners and the folks watching us on the webinar and everything that you just shared with us about collagen. Cortisol inflammation in our skin. You didn't mention one beauty product. One beauty manipulate. You didn't mention one. Of course, you're a naturopathic doctor. So that's your background. But I was is I was I was totally fascinated because part, you know, hey, I'm a woman too. I want to look good. So I was thinking, oh, she'll drops. Not one product did you mention? Everything was natural. The sun, the moon, rest. That was beautiful. So thank you that. And uh just to point out, listeners, I think one of the most cost-effective we that we just got as far as our taking care of our skin. Because everything you just shared with us, not one of those things really had to cost us any money. So I'm find that fascinating. It's really powerful, very, very powerful. So for women who are moving through perimenopause and menopause, so Dr. Natalia, I'm sorry, just give me one second. I'm the editor of the podcast, and I don't mean to disrupt your flow. I gotta take a call because I have a guy's working on my house. No worries. Okay, so I can edit that out. I'm so sorry. So I'll take care of that. So I'll go on to my next question. So I I had just told them like stay quiet, I haven't your son. All right, so back to the interview. So for women moving through perimenopause, such as myself and menopause, what is actually happening beneath the surface when they notice their skin feels drier, thinner, duller, more reactive, or somehow unfamiliar? And I can attest to all of that. Oh my last year for me, I've noticed all those changes. So can you tell us what's happening beneath the surface?

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Yes, absolutely. But before we get into the whole hormone shift thing, because I think it's very important again for women to cultivate that self-trust, it's to recognize the hormonal shifts with you, with which they are normal. And then we can certainly embrace and create those routines for ourselves, for our body, for our skin, to really meet your body where we are. But the point is why I'm not mentioning any skincare products because first there's a gazillion different brands out there. I'm not going to um you know talk about one brand compared to the other. There's it's not really the point. It's more so, again, knowing what your skin needs in the moment. So when you have that high cortisol, you can certainly respond by first changing your lifestyle. Speaking of hormones, as you start entering to perimenopause, usually the beginning is so slow and gentle, most women completely don't recognize it. The first thing always happens in women is progesterone starts to decline. And as progesterone declines, the subtle changes happening in your skin, you might start recognizing, but would not contribute to loss of progesterone. The progesterone is mainly responsible for hair growth and microcirculation. So if suddenly you start seeing that you might be losing some hair, it could be a red flag. And then if suddenly you start seeing that your skin is just looking that dull, not so radiant, you might get a little puffiness around your eyes, that could be another little flag that your progesterone is slowing down. How can you address that? It's first when you go into perimenopause, the stress management or creating the moments of moments of stillness, the moments of self-love, or whatever that abuse word is, um, becomes even more important because your ovaries slowly start to shut down. And your most important endocrine or hormonal uh organ becomes your adrenal glands. We just talk about cortisol. That's where the cortisol really comes from. So if you're constantly stressed out, the adrenals are too busy making cortisol. So the rest of your hormones that your body will now desperately need will start to become deficient because all that building material, if you will, goes to cortisol. So cultivating those rituals, you know, like we talk about waking up with the sun, doing those gentle exercises, slowing down, breathing in the morning, in the moment, even when you're applying your skincare, give yourself two, three minutes of a self-massage. Because with a lack of progesterone, remember that it's a lack of microcirculation. So then the lymph that flow around your eyes starts to stagnate. It doesn't flow as it used to be when you were younger. So, what can you do? You can use a gentle guacha, or it could be like a little piece of ice that you're just rubbing on your face. All that to improve blood flow to your face. And as you're applying skincare products, be mindful again. Enjoy the moment, have a skincare product that feel great to you, the smell, the texture, and then just put it in your arms. Inhale deeply before you put it everywhere else on the face. And as you're looking at your face, always say, I love you. You're so beautiful. That skin is so radiant. Embrace every single little nook and cranny that you have. Because guess what? None of us are perfect. Imperfections, that's what makes a female face unique, charismatic, attractive, sexy. You don't have to be some kind of like whatever perfect walking dole or Barbie. That's not the point. The perfect, perfectly symmetrical, polished faces, they're boring. They're actually less attractive, trust me. And I'm an aesthetic physician, so I evaluate faces like this. And that's what I saw. Um, like one thing I can share, I travel abroad often. One of the conferences I go to every January is in Paris. I love French women. You know why? Because they're love themselves and not very toxic, selfish kind of way. And they're not coming into a room and just dominating the room. They have this such a sex appeal, the move, the confidence. They might not wear any makeup at all, but they will proudly put on stilettos and red lipstick. She might have a large nose, she might have some acne scars or a pigmentation. She doesn't care. She walks in because she loves what she is. She loves being a woman. We need to learn to cultivate it within ourselves. Of whatever imperfection you have, wear it proudly. Because guess what? This is your difference. This is your calling card. This is your uniqueness. And that uniqueness makes you so pretty and so attractive. Speaking of other skin changes, we know when estrogen starts to decline, estrogen is a main hormone. It's responsible for our skin thickness, it's responsible for the skin moisture. So unfortunately, when it goes down, then yes, you need to start adding those things to your skin. That's when cosmetic ingredients such as chaloronic acid, ceramides, even the natural things like coconut oil become very important because you need to repair that skin barrier. Now it's starting to suffer a little bit because there's no estrogens there. You can, of course, discuss with your doctors about hormone replacement therapy. There is nothing wrong with it. But again, I don't advocate for it because it's not right for every single woman. Some women just might have some kind of genetic variations that estrogen as external estrogen might be determined really bad for them. But you can get estrogens or phytoestrogens from plants. You know, things like adding flax seed, um either oil or seeds to your foods are very rich estrogen foods. They also have really powerful omega blends there, which are great for our skin. We know omegas are very anti-inflammatory. And guess what? The flax seeds are also wonderful in fiber. So our female colon, it's very different from male colon. Remember, ladies, we have uterus. So because of that, our colon is longer. We need extra fiber. So if you are on a trend of that ketogenic diet and you're eating more meat, which to female colon, it's very difficult to process. Make sure you add extra fiber so you can push all that toxin out of your body. When you're accumulating toxins, your skin is excreting organs. It will start to look like it's suffering from that extra toxicity. So obviously, your diet and feeding your body with what it needs is extremely important. And one more thing about the diet, what we often overlook, and I live in a desert, so that's even more important here. Glass of water, it's the cheapest and the most effective anti-wrinkle serum. Trust me, if you are dehydrated, you will look older, period. So please drink water. Our body, our brain, in order to function better. All that brain fog we're talking about during perimenopause, guess what? If your brain is dehydrated, welcome to brain fog. You need two liters of water, regardless of your size, regardless of where you live. And of course, if you're drinking a lot of caffeine, if you live in the Arizona desert, you need even more than that. And you need to be drinking a little bit throughout the day, not shagging a liter as soon as you remembered, oh wait, I'm dehydrated now. Because at that point you're gonna flush all that water out. It would not give you that full benefit.

Rituals For Radiance And French Confidence

SPEAKER_00 32:18

So uh I I tell I tell my own patients, and so I'm glad that you said that, to try to sip a little water throughout the day. So thank you for yeah, because and I I attempt to do that myself, but I know I tell my own patients, hey, try to keep some with you, try to sip on it a little bit. But from what you were just telling us, and of course you'll be telling us about your book and when it comes out, but um, you just described us a morning ritual that is so nurturing, so simple, so powerful that you take time when you're going through your your beauty steps. I'm not sure what you call it, but you know, when you're applying your your eye cream and all those things in your serums, that you, you know, you're mindful, you enjoy the scents, you use affirmations. Really, that could be quite powerful. I know that some of your offerings take us into that, but I I just envisioned how that morning routine could look so different, especially for women, as you were telling us, that often wear multiple hats and are often leaders, but then have to serve others. So that's just really I'm just so happy you're here. Oh my goodness, this is wonderful. So, um, so for how much of the distress that women feel about visible changes in aging is driven by biology, and how much is really driven by cultural conditioning, self-surveillance, and messages that when may women may have internalized over time?

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Yes, unfortunately, um, as I already mentioned, we are surrounded by very toxic beauty culture, and something that I am trying to communicate and sort of shield my daughter from because I have a teenage daughter, she's 16, and at that uh time, you know, the woman's brain is very fragile, it's very susceptible to the toxic internal messages. And I'm so proud of her because she is such a powerful young woman, so I'm sure she's gonna age with a breeze and then trying to be the best possible model for her, too, to helping her to understand the most important message. Loving yourself is not selfish. If you start first of charging yourself up through those little beauty rituals we already discussed, and speaking of those rituals, I never want to give those rituals a sort of prescription to women I talk to. Because whatever's my ritual, it doesn't have to be yours. I do encourage to, it's okay to go on the social media and listen to some Instagram influencers and try some ideas. It could work for you and could not. So essentially you take what's yours and leave what it's not. I typically give women that um narrative of thinking about raising children. For all the mothers who had the privilege of, you know, giving birth to a child, you know, those little screaming humans come out, they don't know how to sleep. So number one task we have as any young mother to teach that little child how to sleep, because if he doesn't, or she, you're not gonna sleep, you're just gonna exist like a zombie. So my question is: do you use the same routine for your old child and the young child? Often not. How do you find that routine? You try. You might try rocking, singing, bath, I mean, you know, reading a book. There's so many different remedies you can do. Your grandmother, your mother, your neighbor, everybody giving you some kind of advice. But once you found that magic juice of whatever works for that kid that makes him fall asleep easily, you're gonna repeat it every single night. And guess what? Your grown-up body is not different, it loves routines. So try different things. And once you establish those tiny little moments, that just makes you feel happy. It makes you relax, it makes you pause and to truly reconnect with this woman in the mirror. That's when you can start changing the narrative. So that's when those toxic messages no longer will have power over you. So you can take whatever that message is. Oh, the wrinkles make you look older, the wrinkles make you look ugly, or whatever that bad message is. And then you can just reframe it and say, you know what? Those smile lines around my eyes just show how happy I was. I laughed so much in my 20s. Now I have those lines, and I'm gonna wear them proudly, and there's nothing wrong with that. So then you can take those imperfections and then you make the choices. Maybe there's an old scar on your face, and that gives you a very bad story, connection, emotion that's linked to it. And then you can choose aesthetic tools or plastic surgeries to fix that, because now we can erase those things, but then you're not gonna rely on that erasure of imperfections as the only driver of your confidence. Because when you start with the rituals, you start with the connection, you start with that self-trust, the tools become sort of a helper of empowerment, not the source of empowerment.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

And it it reminds me again of your phrase self-trust, because you can embrace those tools if you need to, like you said, to it, you know, maybe look at that that story that's negative, embrace it, but then maybe remove it so you don't have to relive that trauma or accept some of those things. Because I actually have always liked um laugh lines, like, no, yeah, laugh lines, the ones around the eyes. I like those. So then I thought I was out of fashion fashion because everyone's getting rid of them. But I like I like those. I thought they were nice. So thank you, right? Because I'm like, I love them and I have them myself, and so I then thought, well, you know, I'm I'm maybe fuddy duddy and I'm out of what's what's in, because I know maybe we don't have those anymore, but I love that. So you kind of told us some about this, but can you walk us through what daily practices women can embrace? I mean, you've you have mentioned this, but just briefly describe to us some quick, easy daily practices that women can embrace to shift their inner state. So, of course, they may be listening or thinking because you know, beauty and your experience as a uh dermatologic naturopath, but what could they be doing on the inside? It's something they could be doing every day that's brief, that's maybe for us beginners.

Four Pillars Sleep Food Water Movement

SPEAKER_01 38:53

Well, uh, from the inside, I talk about the four pillars of beauty, and they're very, I guess, redundant because we talk about them all the time. But when I replace it from the point that when you follow those four foundations, that's when you discover your inner glow. We touched on the importance of sleep. So, sleep, it's something specifically in perimenopause, you must protect. You should never sacrifice your sleep unless you absolutely have to. Something tragic happened, you have to be in the hospital in the middle of the night, it's obviously a different story. But overall, don't sacrifice your eight hours of sleep for anybody. It's important to get those full hours because when we sleep, we go to cycles of light REM and deep. And during the deep sleep, that's when your body repairs, that's when your body detoxes, that's when your body makes this collagen. So if you are wanting to have this beautiful glowing complexion, not getting enough sleep, not giving you enough hours and a deep sleep. If you are suffering with insomnia, address it. Talk about those cortisol shifts in your body because often we living in our 21st century surrounded by blue screens, our body does not know the difference between sun and the blue screen. So when you're staring at your phone or watching Netflix until you go to bed, guess what? Your cortisol is high and it's suppressing your melatonin. When you don't have enough melatonin, you're not gonna get into that deep state of sleep. And melatonin in your brain, when it's secreted by pineal gland in the brain, it drips into this beautiful, like it goes third ventricle. And then it's based, like literally bathed your brain in this beautiful melatonin juice. It's not just a sleep hormone, it's also an anti-inflammatory hormone. So we know inflammation, it's one of the reasons why we age faster. You want less inflammation, protect your sleep. So that's a one pillar. The second is nutrition. Our body needs colorful vegetables. Yes, lady, you need ladies, you need to eat vegetables. You don't have to be vegan or vegetarian, but I encourage you to have three colors on a plate. Bayesian brown doesn't count. Yellow cheese is not color either. We're talking about colors of vegetables. So a few examples could be you're eating breakfast, you decide to make yourself a hot cereal for breakfast, oatmeal, add some berries to it. Blueberries, raspberries, you already have two colors. Chip down green apple or kiwi, there's your third. It's really not that difficult. But once you go into this kind of a fun game and go to the grocery store and start thinking, like, what's new color can I try on today? I would say the most powerful color in nature is purple. It's loaded with micronutrient group calls anti-cyanins. There's so much research. If our uh lady is trying to Google right now anti-cyanins, trying to look at the research papers, it's anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antibacterial, it's even cancer protective. So the purple is wonderful. And when you go into this fun game, let me try something purple, you'll be surprised what you find. We are so blessed to live in the United States when we have produce uh come here from pretty much all over the world. I, not that long ago, found purple asparagus in a local store. Who knew it even existed? And then, of course, we have things like, you know, purple um cauliflower, we have uh purple or red cabbage, you know. It's a lot of times when you talk about purple, people think of eggplant. Eggplant is actually a terrible source of purple because it's only the outer skin is purple, and most people don't eat that anyway. So think about vegetables or uh plants or um berries that's all the way through purple and trying to eat at least one purple something every day. Those micronutrients really helping you to charge your skin with essential nutrients you need for that glow, radiance, from that light within. Again, there's no external serum that can really replace that. And every vegetable, specifically things like bell peppers or broccoli loaded with vitamin C. Most women forget that we humans don't make vitamin C. We need to get it from external sources. Why is it important for skin? Because vitamin C is the cofactor or sort of that building block for our collagen. Without vitamin C, we're not gonna have a beautiful skin. Remember that disease, scurvy, you know, many centuries ago when women used to, oh I'm sorry, men used to travel, you know, uh on a really long voyages in the sea, and they did not have the vitamin C with them. What happened? They get sores in their skin, their teeth fall out because that's the collagen. Collagen is everywhere. It's not just in your skin, it's in your joints, ligaments, it's in your heart. So, yes, vitamin C for everything. And the best source is actually vegetables, not oranges. And then we touched on water. You have to drink enough water to flush on the toxins. And the last pillar is movement. I don't want to say word exercise because I feel like a lot of 40-something-year-old women, especially very busy ones, are allergic to the word exercise. They think they have to go to the gym and they need to destroy their body, and that's what we call exercise. No, the movement should be paired with joy. When you're cultivating that happiness and joy, and you do this every single day, that's when your body starts to glow. And it needs to move again to flush the toxins, to increase the blood flow. So find a movement that makes you happy. We women need sisterhoods, we need communities. Typically, it's a wonderful thing to find some kind of studio, Pilates, yoga, or some kind of fitness class that you go to and you have women around you that support you. Challenge you in the most positive way, or they poke at you and say, Hey, I didn't see you last Tuesday. What happened? So that way you cultivate this routine and joy and something looking forward to. And if you do this exercise first thing in the morning, like right around the sunrise, bonus, then that's when you're managing your cortisol. So really all those very basic things that we hear all the time, you know, exercise, drink water, sleep, and eat good food. If we rephrase it in the moment that this is how you nourish your body, and that's how you get that internal glow, the wrinkles would not matter. You know, great examples I can give. There's so many aging actresses. They do have gray hair, they do have wrinkles on their face, but they're so magnetic and luminous. What do they have that some women kind of lose as they age? They have a strong bodies, they have that beautiful posture, they have this internal confidence, the way that they look at other women, the connection, the brightness in their eyes. All that comes from the self-trust and the four pillars that you honor your body every day. And you do it not from the source of punishment, and I must, but from the source of love because you know your body, it's that selfless community of 30 trillion cells that want you to live forever. And it's up to you, to your big, beautiful brain, to give them the conditions to thrive.

SPEAKER_00 46:22

I love that. Your body consists of 30 trillion cells that want you to live forever. So your brain just needs to let them. I love that. I love that. So uh our listeners, some of us are in practice or clinicians, possibly physicians, functional medicine practitioners, other naturopaths, those of us that don't have your expertise, can you guide us on how we can talk to women about beauty, aging, and health, but in a positive way? Because you do it so positively. And without us reinforcing some of those more shameful narratives, because we hear them too. So just subconsciously, we're gonna repeat them. We don't mean to, but we'll repeat them. So, how can we learn to speak about this in the way that you do so positively?

Talking To Patients Without Shame

SPEAKER_01 47:13

Well, first, every single time when I have a woman come to me, the uh the first time patient, she sits in a chair, and I always give her a mirror, and I said, please tell me what bothers you. And I would say, night out of ten, start that self-critic talk. Oh my god, you can see this doctor, I'm so ugly. Oh my god, look at those wrinkles, those age spots, they are so terrible. My skin is dull, I just feel so disgusting. I age overnight. And I said, Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. Who told you that? Whose voice is this? And then that stops the narrative. Because then now she reflects back and thinks, oh my gosh, yes, this is not me. Did I hear it on Instagram? Did my friend maybe told me wishing her best, but ultimately it's the cuts you so deep. Maybe somebody gives you this random comment, oh, you look so tired today. And now you look in the mirror and like, oh my gosh, why am I tired? Is it my dark circles? Is it the puffiness? Is that my skin quality? Everybody can have a bad day. Guess what? Our skin is not a cosmetic surface. And some days you're gonna wake up, you might not look good. So what? But embrace those little swings, meet yourself to where you are. And then always, when you hear that negative voice, always ask, whose voice is this? I bet you it's not yours. And then once you, you don't even have to really specifically point out the person. It doesn't have to be, oh, that third grade teacher told me I'm ugly and I have a big nose. If it's that one person, then again, let them go, say, okay, thank you. I don't really need that comment anymore. Um, but often we cannot really pinpoint what kind of person that was. But you can definitely establish that the voice is not yours. Our internal self-critic, it's not a terrible thing, actually. What it does is trying to protect you. So it feels that if it's going to point out every nuke and criny and bad thing about you, it will protect you from a criticism of others. So every time you hear that voice again, say, okay, thank you for the comment, but I'm safe. It's okay if others might see something in me, because most people worry about what they look like, and they don't really care about what you look like. So when you just started conditioning yourself of taking that sort of advice from internal clinic critic, thank you for that comment, and then just move on.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

That is exactly what I plan to use, not just with myself, because again, as I'm listening, it's a little selfish because I'm going through it too. All of us women are men too. But uh, thank you. So that is exactly what I will use with my own patients. So um, Dr. Natalia, you have multiple offerings. Um, and so uh do you work with patients in person or do you take patients one-on-one? Or can you do are you working hands-on with any individuals or um we do have our skincare clinic?

Courses Book Timeline And Closing

SPEAKER_01 50:20

It's in Scottsdale, Arizona. That's where we do all the procedures. I don't assume people will be flying from all over the country to go see me. That's really not the point or purpose. But we do also have an educational platform, and that's when we dive deep in all the um narratives that we just talk about today. We have three foundational courses. Uh, the first one I call it Beyond the Mirror. It really talks about our relationship with our reflection and how we can really understand our self-critic and how can we shift that narrative, how we can understand how our brain rewires as we age, and again, meet ourselves through that little software upgrade. Because, yes, during midlife, you are changing into a different woman. Midlife, it's sort of like a second puberty. It's a very probably the biggest hormonal tornado you will ever live through. And then to helping your body to sort of flow and transition to it without self-destruction, without that criticism. And then meeting yourself in the moments when you don't feel great, either it's emotionally or externally, and then just kind of coach yourself through it because you should be your own advocate. And that again comes from the cultivating of self-trust. And cultivating that is a skill, it's a muscle that you need to flex every single day. And then you're gonna have a days when you just don't feel like the narrative really works. You might hear this uh critic so loud in your head. Just worry through it, just accept it. Okay, today I'm just gonna have a pity party because I'm just looking at myself and I really hate everything about it. Because guess what, ladies? Tomorrow you're gonna wake up and it's gonna be a different day. Because the mood is like weather. Today is a thunderstorm and tomorrow is gonna be sunshine. So if you just really look at it from that outside perspective, and then just allow yourself to experience thunderstorms once in a while, and it's only human of you not to always be perfect, that's when that really truly self-trust arises.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Beautiful. And then your book. Uh, can you tell us when your book will be ready and how we can get a copy? If we'd like to explore this with your book, and of course, for listeners in your show notes, whatever app you're listening on, I will make sure you have links to Dr. Natalia's programs online and then also about your book.

SPEAKER_01 52:46

So our website, unveil you.life, it's where you can subscribe to our mail list because the book is not yet available for pre-sale. I'm working really, really hard because the manuscript is finished, and but I'm a first-time author. So I do have uh wonderful coaches that go in through what we call developmental editing right now. And it's all for you ladies to make sure you take my crazy mambo jumpo out of my head and actually make sense of what I'm trying to deliver because the book is quite loaded. It has a lot of uh scientific information. There are very difficult medical terms that I try to break down and explain in the easiest way possible. So that editing process taking much longer than I anticipated. So we're hoping maybe it will be released this summer. But if you do subscribe on unveil you.life and go on a mail list, our mail list will get that first dibs on a pre-cell. It will be available on Amazon. We'll give it in digital form, or you call it Kindle, and we'll have it in soft and hardcover. So you it's your choice, how you want to get that book. And in the future, I'm also working with my dear friend who writes beautiful music, and she charges this is with 532 frequency, which is a frequency of love. And we are gonna have an audiobook that will have a piece of her music and uh narrated that book as well. So I'm super excited about that. But it's a project after when the book will be released. So, um, and I haven't decided if I will be narrating the book or are we gonna hire somebody. It's kind of like a little bit of that imposter syndrome in me because I'm thinking, I don't know if the people can understand my accent because I'm Russian. So I don't know. But either way, it's gonna be a beautiful piece, and I think audiobook is gonna be uh wildly successful because we're also gonna make it sort of a healing piece as well.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

So sign me up because I can't wait to get my copy. Uh, just as my personal opinion, I think if you choose to narrate the book yourself, it would feel super personal for those of us that are reading, because it would be like we're with you. So just if whichever you decide, because of course the book is a huge project, but um, you do have your online offerings, and of course, listeners, I'll make sure that you have every way to stay connected to Dr. Natalia, including her newsletter and definitely her online offerings that are available right now. So, Dr. Natalia, this has been really I'm just it was just such a missing piece for the community, and the way that you shared with us, I think that it might catch people by surprise because they're gonna think, oh, this show is only gonna be about beauty and what serum to use and what da da da. And that's not what it's been at all. It's been it inner beauty, but literally inner. So, oh my goodness, thank you so much. Thank you, Charless. It was such a pleasure. It was a wonderful conversation. Thank you. So, listeners, thank you so much for joining us. Check your show notes, whatever app you're listening on. I know we're listening on our phones and we're on the go. So, you should be able to click the episode directly and get to the links to stay connected to Dr. Natalia. If you're catching the webinar later, you will see a chat box on the side that will also have the links so that you can stay connected. And we will see you all next time. Thank you so much.