Nervous System Regulation for Moms: Signs, Symptoms, and What Actually Helps with Burnout, PMS, and Overwhelm, With Laurie Hammer | E288

Have you ever opened your supplement cabinet and thought, what have I done? Half a bottle of this, half a bottle of that, and you genuinely cannot remember why you bought most of it.

If that's you, keep reading, because this episode is going to feel like a permission slip.

I sat down with Lori Hammer, who works with moms on nervous system regulation, and we went back to some foundations we haven't touched in a while. The real, unglamorous, actually-works version. The kind that don't involve a $300 device or a fridge full of tinctures. 

She said something in this conversation that stopped me mid-sentence. She said the biggest thing keeping smart, well-educated women stuck isn't lack of information. It's that they keep trying new things instead of sticking with the basics long enough to see them work.

I have absolutely been that woman.

Here's what we cover:

• What nervous system regulation actually means, beyond feet up the wall and deep breathing (helpful, sure, but there's so much more underneath)
• Why your symptoms shift so dramatically between the first and second half of your cycle, and what's happening in your brain when that happens
• The connection between screen time, sleep, and the sudden rise in adult women getting diagnosed with ADHD in their thirties
• What Lori does instead of blood work or urine testing, and why her clients feel the difference almost immediately 
• The biohacking trend she watches backfire again and again, and who it's actually meant for
• Why the urge to shop, hoard supplements, or chase the next fix might have way less to do with willpower and way more to do with your nervous system

Okay, let's talk about the cycle piece for a second, because I think this is the part that will make you feel the most seen.

Lori and I talked about how the first half of the month tends to feel manageable, sometimes even great, and then the second half hits and suddenly you're snapping at your kids and wondering who just took over your body. She sees this constantly with the women she works with. Career going fine. Kids taken care of. Everything looking put together from the outside. And underneath all of it, she says, women are twisted up, forgetting things, hiding that they're forgetting things, wearing what she calls a really good mask.

That good week or two you get every month, where you finally feel on top of it? She pointed out that it's not false. It's true, you really can hold it all together during that window. But it also tricks you into overcommitting, because you think you've cracked the code. Then the crash hits harder because you built more on top of an already shaky foundation.

We also got into something I don't think gets talked about enough, which is how much of the "nervous system content" flooding your feed right now might actually be adding to the problem. Red light therapy, cold plunging, the latest stress supplement, the wearable that tracks everything. Lori's take was refreshingly blunt. None of these things are bad on their own, but if you're layering them on top of a body that doesn't have the basics in place, you're just adding more stress your system has to process. She said it plainly: sometimes these things are sandpaper to the nervous system.

And if you've ever gotten an MTHFR result back and thought, this is it, this explains everything? She sees that a lot too, and gently, she doesn't think it's usually the whole story.

What I really want you to sit with is this idea that your nervous system has to feel safe enough to actually let go of things, whether that's stored toxins, extra weight, or old patterns. If your body is still in overdrive, it will hold on tight no matter how many supplements or IVs you throw at it. Lori sees this constantly with clients who have spent thousands trying to detox while their nervous system is still sounding the alarm the whole time.

There was a moment near the end where Lori said something I haven't stopped thinking about. A lot of the women she works with haven't tried everything; they just think they have. What they actually need is to pick one foundational piece, whatever's missing right now, and build from there instead of adding twenty seven things at once.

If you've been in that cycle of trying, stopping, trying something new, and quietly wondering why nothing sticks, this one is going to feel like someone finally explaining the thing you couldn't quite put words to.

So here's my challenge for you this week. Before you add one more thing to your routine, take a piece away instead. Pick the one thing that's felt like sandpaper lately and set it down. See what your body does when you give it room to breathe instead of one more thing to process.

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Disclaimer: Nothing in this podcast is to be taken as medical advice, please take informed accountability and speak to your provider before making changes to your health routine.

This podcast is for women and moms to learn how to balance hormones naturally in motherhood, to have pain-free periods, increased fertility, to decrease PMS mood swings, and to increase energy without restrictive diet plans. You'll learn how to balance blood sugar, increase progesterone naturally, understand the root cause of estrogen dominance, irregular periods, PCOS, insulin resistance, hormonal acne, post birth-control syndrome, and conceive naturally. We use a pro-metabolic, whole food, root cause approach to functional women's health and focus on truly holistic health and mind-body connection.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we're sure you'll like ours too! 
Pursuit of Wellness with Mari Llewellyn, Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, Found My Fitness with Rhonda Patrick, Just Ingredients Podcast, Wellness Mama, The Dr Josh Axe Show, Are You Menstrual Podcast, The Model Health Show, Grounded Wellness By Primally Pure, Be Well By Kelly Leveque, The Freely Rooted Podcast with Kori Meloy, Simple Farmhouse Life with Lisa Bass

Transcript

00:00:42 Leisha

Hey friends, welcome back to the podcast. I have Laurie Hammer here today and she specializes in working with moms on regulating stress, anxiety, nervous system. And we just finished up the safety series, but this is going to be kind of like a bonus episode to that because we're going to go back to those foundations of safety in the body, safety in the mind, and really talk about what it takes

00:01:08 Leisha

to actually regulate your nervous system and what some of the factors are that she sees make the biggest difference. So Laurie, thank you for coming today.

00:01:16 Laurie

Thank you, Leisha, for having me. I'm excited to be here.

00:01:18 Leisha

I would love to hear, you know, I always like to hear a little bit of the why behind why you're doing what you're doing, right? You didn't just start doing it because you were having a great day and you thought it was a great idea. So I would love to hear the story of why this matters to you and why you're doing what you're doing.

00:01:37 Laurie

I struggle personally with a lot of anxiety, depression, nervous system dysregulation. Back when I was younger, I had an eating disorder for 12 years. I was suicidal. So my life was just messy. And I was introduced to, which wasn't called functional nutrition back then, but I was introduced to functional nutrition and amino acid therapy and literally

00:01:59 Laurie

saved my life. And so that's why I'm passionate about this. And then working with family and friends over the years and becoming a practitioner and my daughter's had several different concussions. So learned a lot about nervous system regulation. So everything that we do just drives us deeper into that paradigm and so that we can help more people.

00:02:16 Leisha

Yeah, I love that. So what I want to start with, I told you before we started recording that my audience is very

00:02:24 Leisha

Very smart ladies, well educated on crunchy things. And I know that you're listening and you're like nervous system regulation. Yes, I know that that's a thing. I know that I need to do it. Also, what is it? Right? What is it actually? I feel it's so easy to be like, oh, it's breath work. Oh, it's put your feet up the wall. Oh, it's calm yourself down. But actually nervous system regulation, I would love to hear from your perspective. Just kind of like what that means to you and how you focus on it.

00:02:53 Laurie

It really means like freedom. So freedom in how we live each and every day. All those things are important. Feet up the wall, breath work, all those things are a part of it. But it's just being able to get up in the morning, navigate life as life presents itself to you and to not have extremes in your mood, not have extremes in your reactions, but to be in that freedom. Like you cry when it's appropriate to cry, you get angry when it's appropriate to be angry. And the rest of the time,

00:03:20 Laurie

You're living life the way God created you to live. He didn't create us to have super, super highs and super, super lows. He created us to be in harmony with everything that's going on around us. So that's what it looks like to me.

00:03:32 Leisha

I love that. I love that you just say it's freedom because I think that that's what we're...

00:03:37 Leisha

That's what we're all after when we're trying to do the things, whether it's balance your gut or balance your hormones or eat the right food. It comes down to that where it's just like you want to be able to get up in the morning and live your life without these symptoms, whether they're physical symptoms, emotional symptoms, any of those things. So I love that.

00:03:54 Leisha

One of my last interviews on the nervous system, she talked a lot about high functioning burnout. And so I would love to hear from you what you see typically when women come to you and their nervous systems are dysregulated. I know it can look a lot of different ways and it does depend if you're a high functioner or an overachiever or those type of things, or if it's more of like total chaos. So I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

00:04:17 Laurie

Most of the women that come to me are functioning well. They're in their career, so their career is going well. So they're able to navigate their job. They have probably at least three kids and they're doing all these various activities. They're keeping everything else afloat, but inside they're like dying. And they're forgetting things, but they're not letting people know that they're forgetting things. They have a hard time.

00:04:39 Laurie

okay, like compartmentalizing and what do I do next? What do I do next? But somehow they're still getting it all done. But inside, they're just twisted up and just feel awful on the inside, but they have a really good mask on the outside.

00:04:51 Leisha

I can only imagine from what I focus on that this shows up differently in different parts of the month.

00:04:58 Laurie

Totally.

00:04:59 Leisha

I'm curious what you see there.

00:05:01 Laurie

Yeah, so usually the first half of the month is better than the second half of the month. And so you're going to see a lot of people with

00:05:07 Laurie

Probably just snapping. you get that outburst of anger. You're like, what just happened to me? And who just talked to my children that way? A lot of PMS symptoms I see in women when their nervous system is off, food cravings, weight gain, sleep dysregulation. Sleep is such a huge thing. And there's so many issues with sleep going on right now that I hadn't, the first like 10 years of my practice, I didn't see the sleep dysregulation that we have going on now. And that's a huge factor in everything.

00:05:36 Leisha

What do you think is causing that to change over the last 10 years?

00:05:41 Laurie

Well, I think a lot of it has to do with screen time. I really do. And because we run so much screen time, we're open to more possibilities. We're open to more influence. Our kids are open to more influence. We have more communication in a way that we've never had before. So our brain is never able to shut off.

00:06:00 Laurie

and then we're involved in more things and involved in this group and that group and the chats and nothing ever stops. So I think that's the biggest factor.

00:06:09 Leisha

So it's funny that you say that because I feel like almost every guest I have on that we talk about the nervous system or really anything related to the brain, I always want to ask about ADHD because I know it's, I think it's almost funny and don't take this the wrong way if you're listening and this is you because

00:06:26 Leisha

Truly, if I went to get a diagnosis, it's also me. But I had never until the last few years heard of women in their 30s being newly diagnosed with ADHD. I don't think that it's actually that our brains all of a sudden have ADHD in the same way as it's like the amount of stimulation that we are placing on ourselves, it's placed on us, whatever it is, has changed so much that our brains can't keep up.

00:06:54 Laurie

Exactly. And you're not getting enough sleep and then our hormones are so dysregulated. We don't want that much communication in the last part of our cycle. Most women just don't want to be touched. They don't want to solve big problems. And when you have all this stuff bombarding you, you're forced to deal with those things in a way that we're not meant to deal with them in a time of the month we're not meant to deal with them. And that stresses our body, stresses our brain out and we feel like we're losing our mind.

00:07:18 Leisha

When we go back to

00:07:20 Leisha

what's happening at different parts of the cycle. I know that these overwhelmed symptoms, burnout symptoms, ADHD symptoms can almost, they can often improve right around ovulation because of the estrogen changes. But then I think that even just when you're overachieving, when you're doing too many things all the time and expecting too much of yourself all the time, then that's almost like fuel for that fire because you get one good week out of the month or maybe two good weeks out of the month where you're like,

00:07:47 Leisha

actually I can do all of these things and I've got it. And then it's almost like a worse crash because you got that false. It's not false. It's true.

00:07:57 Laurie

It is true. We can solve the world for a few days of the month. Absolutely.

00:08:02 Leisha

Exactly. So you get that and you're like, okay, actually I'm not a hot mess. Actually I've got this. I can hold it all together.

00:08:08 Leisha

I've got plans, you start to overachieve even more because you make more plans. And then if you have PMS symptoms, like many of the ladies listening do, then it all falls apart. And then that causes even more of this emotional roller coaster, overwhelm, overstimulation, all of those things. So I think we've pretty well covered this overstressed nervous system. I actually, I wanted you to go back to some physical symptoms of that too, because I know that we think

00:08:36 Leisha

Nervous system, stress, brain, cortisol, adrenal glands, that's what the nervous system is. But you mentioned weight gain. I think that there's so many physical symptoms. I mean, honestly, every physical symptom almost is caused by stress in general. But what do you see most physically with the nervous system being dysregulated that maybe people wouldn't identify?

00:08:57 Laurie

we'll go back to a lot of emotional outbursting or responding inappropriately to whatever situation you're at. So overreacting is huge, crying a lot, or maybe even the lack of emotion. All of a sudden you're just blunted and you're not reacting to home much at all because you're just kind of like checked out. That can be a symptom. Just chronic pain, especially with your cycle. You're going to have more chronic pain at the end of your cycle. That can be a huge sign of nervous system dysregulation. Your eyes changing. We shouldn't. Our eyesight

00:09:26 Laurie

while it's common, really shouldn't decrease a whole lot as we age. It might a little bit, but if all of a sudden your eyes are drastically changing, that can be a nervous system issue.

00:09:36 Leisha

Interesting. So let's just go into how you support the nervous system and maybe some beginner steps and practical steps. I always like that, but I would love to hear more of the big picture too, because I know that you do a lot of different things, testing and different things like that. But where do you usually start for those people who are like, wow, this is me?

00:09:57 Leisha

What do I do next?

00:09:58 Laurie

When we're talking therapy, I'm starting with amino acid therapy. We mentioned before feet up the wall, breathing techniques, grounding, making sure you get out in the sunshine, watching your rhythms. Those are all part of it. But my main piece is amino acid therapy. So it's taking specific amino acids, which your body needs amino acids from head to toe, inside out for your hormones, for your digestive enzymes, for everything.

00:10:22 Laurie

But in particular, I'm focusing on those neurotransmitters that affect our mood. And so taking specific doses of single amino acids to target a very specific neurotransmitter like serotonin or GABA or your catecholamines and building those back up. And so when we build those back up, we actually nourish the brain

00:10:44 Laurie

then your stress response becomes less. Then your hormone response becomes more sensitive and gets more in rhythm with what your body is created to do in the 1st place because it helps your pituitary, your hypothalamus, right? So using that amino acid therapy first, I find that when I do work with hormones, cortisol levels, those kind of things, everything else is just easier to deal with once that brain is balanced.

00:11:09 Leisha

So give us a crash course on amino acids. For those of us who are like amino acids, we need them for muscles. That's in the workout supplements. Tell us what amino acids are and why they actually matter for the brain.

00:11:21 Laurie

Right, so amino acids are the building blocks of everything. So if you don't have amino acids, you can't rebuild anything, right? So they're just the foundation of everything. And like I said before, everything is from your enzymes to your hormones to your hair, skin, and nails. Everything depends on amino acids. Your neurotransmitters,

00:11:39 Laurie

What I'm focusing on is five different areas. So we're focusing on the neurotransmitters, serotonin, your GABA, endorphins, catecholamines, and then all of those depend on glucose regulation. And then there's specific amino acids that help those neurotransmitters function. And so when we're talking about serotonin, which is like our inner sunshine, so we just feel good, our glasses always half full, that's going to be 5-HTP or tryptophan. And when we're dealing with somebody who has a serotonin

00:12:09 Laurie

dysregulation or deficiency, we're going to come in with a therapeutic dose, not just one capsule a day, but we're going to target 500 to 2000 milligrams one to four times a day for that person, depending on what they need. Okay. If it's GABA, GABA, let's us go take a deep breath and just let it all out and like life is okay and you respond to stress appropriately. And so again, we're going to target that with like GABA, theanine, taurine, maybe glycine.

00:12:36 Laurie

So in those specific areas, there's amino acids that help to rebuild those neurotransmitters so that you produce those chemical messengers appropriately.

00:12:46 Leisha

What kind of testing do you usually do to see what needs support? Is it symptom-based? Is it physical testing?

00:12:54 Laurie

It is symptom-based. I don't use urine. I don't use blood to assess that because the symptom-based questionnaire actually works better than that and it's in real time and people can actually relate because we're going to take the amino acid because I send all of my clients a kit of nine different supplements in the mail, nine different amino acids.

00:13:14 Laurie

And we actually get on a Zoom call like this and we open up the capsule, put the powder under our tongue, stare at each other for a couple minutes, and then like, okay, so I'll use tryptophan for an example. How did you respond to that? Do you feel something different cognitively, emotionally, or physically? What has shifted? And oftentimes people say,

00:13:33 Laurie

My brain feels lighter, or I can see better, or the green is greener, the blue is bluer, or things just look lighter. This thing on my chest is gone. It just feels like something lifted off of me. So you get a profound response most of the time from the amino acids, which is better than a urine test.

00:13:51 Leisha

Definitely, yeah. Well, and if you don't have to spend money on a bunch of testing.

00:13:57 Leisha

to find out what you need to know, then that's great as well. I know sometimes people use muscle testing and things like that for the nervous system too. So I was just curious how.

00:14:05 Laurie

And you can do that. I love that real time testing, Lisha, because then people can actually feel the difference. And so by the time you're done with the appointment, you know which amino acid your body responds to. And that's what we're going to start with because that's what made the difference for you and you should feel better by the end.

00:14:22 Leisha

I like what you're saying, that it's real time. It's not a

00:14:24 Leisha

long-term process for at least knowing what comes next.

00:14:30 Leisha

When we go back to what I'm seeing on Instagram for nervous system, it's such a hot topic right now, or maybe it's just my feed, I don't know, but I think it's a pretty hot topic. What I see is I see a lot of talk about circadian rhythm, which I know, I mean, I fully agree that that's super important. I also, from my perspective, I feel like blood sugar balance is a huge part of this because these are all just stressors on the body.

00:14:58 Leisha

that are causing more dysregulation. I'm always a proponent for like, let's stick with the basics. Let's really make sure that those foundations are in place. And most of the time we see such profound results just from that. But I think that there's a lot of weeds out there with the nervous system. Like you need this stress supplement or you need specific biohacking devices. You need all of this red light therapy or cryotherapy or it's just like all of these things. And while I don't think that most of them are bad in and of themselves,

00:15:27 Leisha

My perspective is they honestly cause more dysregulation because you're trying too many things. You can't tell if they're actually working. You don't know if they're really for you. Probably wasted quite a bit of money. And then I feel like that causes more dysregulation. So I'm just curious what your perspective is on all of that. And especially if there are certain things that you're like, every time I see this, it's not helping. I would love to hear that.

00:15:50 Laurie

Yeah, I'm in agreement with you on all that. Let's just go back to the foundations.

00:15:54 Laurie

There is so many things. I think people overuse red light. I see people who are using red light 30 minutes every single day. And that's just too much for your system. And then I see people.

00:16:04 Laurie

their pain may have disappeared in the beginning, their mood might have lifted, but all of a sudden they're kind of going backwards or too much cold plunging. Our bodies, when we're, especially when we're still menstruating and stuff, most of the month we're meant to be warm. And so we really need to pay attention to that rhythm. If you are cold plunging, you need to balance that out with a lot of sauna time and stuff like that. So I think we go to extremes

00:16:27 Laurie

And I see a lot of issues with a lot of those therapies, which can be really good in certain situations at certain times of the month, depending on your age. I'm not going to cold plunge as a 52 year old, like maybe a 25 year old is going to cold plunge. My rhythms are different than somebody at 25. So yeah, I see a lot of issues going on out there without foundations being covered. If anybody has the MTHFR gene and you've experienced good therapy, great for you. But I see so many times

00:16:57 Laurie

people going down that pathway for anxiety and the people that I see is not who it's worked for and it's actually made them worse. So I never go down that rabbit trail. I honestly don't care if you have an MTHFR gene mutation. I really don't because it doesn't matter with amino acid therapy I do. It doesn't really matter with any of the other stuff I do. And the way I do detox and stuff in the end, it doesn't matter. So I just keep things as simple as I possibly can. And then we go from there.

00:17:22 Leisha

I agree. I do think that MTHFR

00:17:26 Leisha

I think it can matter. And I think that a lot of times people find that and they're like, this is it. This is the cause of all my issues. And it's probably not.

00:17:34 Laurie

Probably not. Like it's too focused.

00:17:37 Leisha

Yeah. And even with an MTHFR, there's variations of who does best with what type of B vitamins and things like that. And when we're, again, we kind of like get on these rabbit trails of synthetic vitamins versus

00:17:50 Leisha

the foundation. So if we're talking about someone who's like, okay, my nervous system is dysregulated, I need to do a cold plunge every day, and they're cycling and they're wanting to get pregnant, they're not understanding that even these quote unquote good like biohacking things are still stress on the body. And they may be doing the cryotherapy, they may be meal prepping a certain way, they may have these check marks in place, but are you getting morning sunlight?

00:18:15 Leisha

Are you eating really consistently through the day? Are you sleeping enough? How much are you on your screens? I think that all of those things are going to make such a bigger difference than something like red light therapy or cryo. Even though, you know, again, I agree, I really wouldn't recommend cold plunging or cryotherapy to almost any of my clients.

00:18:35 Leisha

I think that for men it can be good in certain seasons. I think also they can overdo it. But with that being said, there are things that are like biohacking that can be helpful. But I think it always needs to be like, this is the cherry on top. These are the sprinkles because I already have such good foundations and I just want to see a little more progress or something like that.

00:18:53 Laurie

Yes, that's exactly my thought too.

00:18:56 Leisha

I'm hearing you say,

00:18:58 Leisha

the amino acid therapy can almost meet you wherever you are, even if you don't have those foundations in place. But I would assume that the combination of having foundations, taking good care of your body and the amino acids would be the best case scenario.

00:19:12 Laurie

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. We want people to eat well, live well, be well.

00:19:17 Leisha

Okay, so I want to hear a little bit more from you when you say

00:19:21 Leisha

I think what I heard you say was that you also use amino acids for detox eventually when people's bodies are ready for that. I would love to hear a little bit more about how that works too.

00:19:29 Laurie

So we really work on the amino acid and then the foundations of the diet, exercise, lifestyle, those kind of things first.

00:19:36 Laurie

And we do that three to six months. And then I'll introduce some detox stuff along the way because when we take that burden off, then a lot of other things can heal. Your nervous system can heal as well. And amino acids are really important for the detox process. They're important for your liver function. And so.

00:19:52 Laurie

Once your nervous system is calmer and regulated, then your body has that ability to release those toxins, to release those deeply stored heavy metals, because your body is not going to release them if it doesn't feel safe enough to release them. Because if it's too stressful to process those, to eliminate those, are just going to stay stuck. And one of the biggest things I see, Alicia, is people with nervous systems that are still in overdrive trying to detox. They get nowhere and they're spending

00:20:21 Laurie

of thousands of dollars on detoxing, whether it's with supplementation and IVs and all those kind of things, and they're still stuck where they were before because their body can't let go.

00:20:31 Leisha

And I see that from that same stress perspective, and even with minerals, that especially women who have had multiple babies, they're going to be potentially, probably most likely depleted in minerals.

00:20:43 Leisha

And the mineral depletion is its own

00:20:46 Leisha

thing in some sense, but also it's the lifestyle that caused the mineral depletion that also needs to be addressed.

00:20:53 Leisha

That's what I hear you saying too.

00:20:54 Leisha

You're like, we could do amino acids all day long.

00:20:57 Leisha

We could add mineral supplementation all day long.

00:21:00 Leisha

And if that same lifestyle is there that caused the depletion in the 1st place, not that you can't see some improvement, I think I'm sure you can, but it's not going to be the same as being able to heal those pathways and

00:21:15 Leisha

lifestyle choices that have been.

00:21:17 Laurie

Absolutely.

00:21:18 Laurie

Yes.

00:21:19 Laurie

In total agreement with you.

00:21:21 Leisha

I think that I would love to just hear from you kind of as we wrap up, when you're looking at the body as a whole, when you're looking at the nervous system, when you're looking at neurotransmitters and really wanting to see change, is there anything else that you see as really very unhelpful?

00:21:38 Leisha

Because I think that, again, like so many of us have just tried so many things,

00:21:45 Leisha

What I will say, I'll just answer my own question.

00:21:47 Leisha

I love to hear your answer too, is I think the very most unhelpful thing I see crunchy moms do is just keep trying more new things.

00:21:56 Leisha

And I'm so guilty of this myself because if something hasn't worked, then you need to try something else has always been my belief.

00:22:04 Leisha

But sometimes

00:22:05 Leisha

I think that you can just go so overboard with that.

00:22:08 Leisha

And I think a lot of people will relate, you open your supplement cabinet and you're like, what have I done?

00:22:12 Leisha

This is a disaster.

00:22:14 Leisha

Half a bottle of this.

00:22:15 Leisha

Where did all these come from?

00:22:17 Leisha

It's so easy, especially I did an episode on, a couple episodes recently on spending and habits related to the menstrual cycle and neurotransmitters.

00:22:27 Leisha

And there are a couple different phases of your cycle where these purchases really feel like they're going to change your life.

00:22:33 Leisha

I'm sure there's a lot of dysregulation there.

00:22:36 Leisha

That's what I see the most as one of the biggest things that I think keeps these really smart, really well-educated women stuck is just feeling like the next thing is going to be the thing in this shiny object syndrome, especially with supplements, but with all of these devices and things like that too.

00:22:53 Leisha

And I know that comes back to nervous system being dysregulated because you're like looking for that dopamine hit, looking for the fix, looking for the answer and outsourcing it.

00:23:02 Laurie

Yeah.

00:23:03 Laurie

I 1000% agree with you.

00:23:05 Laurie

And that was going to be my answer is just not sticking with foundations first.

00:23:10 Laurie

And you were talking about spending, which I think is great because I had a client who she just bought and bought and bought, just a chronic shopper.

00:23:17 Laurie

And again, certain times of the month, her husband was like the last half of her month, she's just wanting to, I don't know, comfort herself, do whatever.

00:23:24 Laurie

You know, Amazon comes every day, all those kind of things.

00:23:27 Laurie

And we got, we did the amino acids and her nervous system was calmer.

00:23:30 Laurie

She was feeling just

00:23:32 Laurie

good.

00:23:33 Laurie

She just felt good and she wasn't looking for anything.

00:23:36 Laurie

And her hormones got better because her nervous system was calmer even before we even did a hormone test.

00:23:41 Laurie

And he's like, there's less packages coming to the house.

00:23:45 Laurie

So you're not trying that next thing.

00:23:47 Laurie

And a lot of them were just lots of different supplements.

00:23:50 Laurie

I'm working with a mom who has a very difficult child.

00:23:53 Laurie

I started working with her and I said, first thing we're going to do is we just have to stop trying stuff.

00:23:57 Laurie

If you're going to work with me, we have to do this and nothing else.

00:24:02 Laurie

And we're going to have to pull back on all these B complexes and all the things that are kind of like sandpaper to the nervous system if you have too much of it.

00:24:10 Laurie

And so I see that as the biggest detriment because there is so much information, because we're scrolling constantly, especially as moms.

00:24:16 Laurie

We're like, we want our babies to be good.

00:24:18 Laurie

We want to feel good.

00:24:19 Laurie

We want our hubbies to feel good.

00:24:20 Laurie

And a lot of times that's just such a disservice to us.

00:24:24 Leisha

Definitely.

00:24:25 Leisha

And I think that it comes from such a good place most of the time, to be honest, because it's like, okay, I know that I want my family to be healthier.

00:24:34 Leisha

I know that sometimes supplements

00:24:36 Leisha

help and the marketing on supplements is great.

00:24:39 Laurie

Oh my goodness.

00:24:40 Laurie

Yes.

00:24:41 Leisha

It's great because even as a practitioner and I'm really pretty, I try to be as minimal as I can with supplements in any case.

00:24:50 Leisha

And some people would be like, what about when there's all this stuff going on in the gut?

00:24:53 Leisha

And sometimes it does get, it gets to be bigger than I want it to be for a little while.

00:24:57 Leisha

With that being said, it is still, even though I know what a lot of these herbs do, I know what a lot of these supplements do, I understand the processes.

00:25:05 Leisha

It is still so easy to get that ad, wherever that is, right?

00:25:10 Leisha

That ad that comes in, you're like, maybe this is the thing.

00:25:13 Leisha

Maybe it is peptides or maybe it is this hormone supplement or maybe it is this one skincare, even if it's not a supplement.

00:25:19 Leisha

It's just so easy to get sucked into that because these companies have gotten so, good at marketing.

00:25:26 Leisha

And there's nothing wrong with that.

00:25:28 Leisha

But I do see that it's easiest to get into that when you're dysregulated.

00:25:33 Leisha

And even thinking about some of

00:25:35 Leisha

A few of the clients that I've had that are like the most well-meaning, really well educated on their bodies, understand gene mutations and they know their patterns and all of these things, but they almost just can't get out of this problem-solving mode.

00:25:50 Leisha

we just don't see the progress that we want to see.

00:25:53 Leisha

And so I think that it's almost like an over-education issue sometimes.

00:25:56 Leisha

And I am such a proponent of women and moms understanding how to take care of their families and understanding our bodies and all these things.

00:26:03 Leisha

But even another practitioner friend and I who we go back and forth on things sometimes, it's almost like sometimes when you know too many things, you're just like, where do you even go with it, right?

00:26:12 Leisha

And so I'll just continue to preach probably forever that simplifying and actually making sure that those basics are in place

00:26:20 Leisha

has to be there before any of these fancier things are going to work.

00:26:24 Leisha

Even though the fancy things seem easy, you're like, oh, just $50 and I'll fix all my problems.

00:26:29 Leisha

Right, yeah.

00:26:30 Leisha

Just kidding, just made more problems.

00:26:32 Laurie

It doesn't work that way.

00:26:34 Leisha

Yeah.

00:26:34 Leisha

Well, this has been great.

00:26:35 Leisha

I'm so thankful that we were able to talk through some of these things and I love having more tools for people to understand that there are more angles to look at and

00:26:45 Leisha

Some angles are right for some people and some angles are right for other people.

00:26:48 Leisha

So thank you for sharing a lot of this with us.

00:26:51 Leisha

Is there anything else that you would just want to say to that mom who is in all the cycles that we're talking about to help them maybe make that first step out today?

00:27:00 Laurie

I would just say a lot of you I know probably are thinking, I have tried everything and nothing has worked.

00:27:07 Laurie

And I will just say you haven't tried everything, so just take a deep breath and go, what piece, what foundational piece am I missing?

00:27:15 Laurie

What do I still need to address or what can I incorporate today?

00:27:17 Laurie

Because you don't have to do them all.

00:27:19 Laurie

Just take one piece at a time and implement that.

00:27:23 Laurie

And when you find that that's working well, then you go to the next piece.

00:27:26 Laurie

We're not meant to implement 27 things at one time.

00:27:29 Laurie

So take a deep breath, take a step back.

00:27:32 Laurie

Of course, I love amino acid therapy.

00:27:34 Laurie

I think when the brain is calm, everything else gets easier to deal with.

00:27:38 Laurie

And then you can compartmentalize, then you make better decisions, whether it's purchasing or parenting or whatever it might be.

00:27:44 Laurie

But your brain is important, so make sure you're taking care of that first.

00:27:47 Leisha

Yes, I love that.

00:27:48 Leisha

Thank you, Laurie.

00:27:50 Laurie

Thank you so much.

00:27:50 Leisha

Let's see you girls next week.

00:27:53 Leisha

Hey, thanks so much for hanging out with me today.

00:27:55 Leisha

If you had as much fun with this episode as I did, make sure to share it with one or three of your besties and leave a rating and review so that more and more women can find this podcast and have happy hormones.

00:28:07 Leisha

And when you're ready to have pain-free periods, no more PMS and energy and capacity to live the life you really want to live, then it's time to join us in Nourish Your Hormones.

00:28:17 Leisha

I can't wait to see you in there and help you have balanced hormones all month long.

00:28:23 Leisha

See you next time.

00:28:29 Leisha

Any information shared on this podcast is solely for educational purposes, is not to be taken as medical advice or to be used as a diagnosis or a treatment plan for any medical condition.

00:28:40 Leisha

I'm sharing my educated opinions and experience, but nothing shared here can be taken on a one-size-fits-all basis.

00:28:46 Leisha

We always recommend that you do your own research, talk to your own doctors and take full informed responsibility for any

00:28:53 Leisha

any health and medical choices that you make.