Dream Power Radio
Dream Power Radio
Amita Sharma - Menopause Myths Busted: What You Really Need to Know
Let’s face it. The one thing we can’t change is that we all get older. And women know this all too welll.. When they reach a certain age, they stop getting their periods, which creates all sorts of changes in their bodies, both physical and emotional.
However, these body changes don’t start with menopause. They actually start occurring years earlier in a state called perimenopause. Many women are not aware of this – I know I wasn’t when I went through it – and the whole subject has been a taboo one for many people.
But not anymore. We dive into what happens during perimenopause and menopause with the founder of Nourish Doc, Amita Sharma. Amita started this program to help her better understand what was happening to her own body and she tells us:
· all about the natural changes in a woman’s body
· the practices that help alleviate symptoms
· the pros and cons of Hormone Replacement Therapy
· how what you eat can make a difference in how you feel
· why it’s important to break the stigma and silence that has dominated this subject
· the unique processes and techniques that can promote hormonal balance
· practical tips for dealing with hot flashes and hair loss
· how to maintain a healthy libido during these life changes
If you want a better understanding of how to manage the changes in your body as you age, don’t miss this insightful episode of Dream Power Radio.
Amita Sharma is co-founder of NourishDoc, a holistic wellness platform focused to empower women in peri-menopausal years and beyond! She brings her personal struggles as a peri-menopausal woman in corporate America and challenges at workplace for lack of resources to this platform. Inspired by her own struggles, she designed a holistic self-care as well as assisted care with experts to bring the taboo subject of Menopause discussed out in the open. She has also developed a culture sensitive, affordable, innovative self-care app. http://www.nourishdoc.com
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Announcer 00:00:04 This is Dream Power Radio, the place where your dreams turn into reality. Here is your host, Debbie Spector Weisman.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:00:13 Hello, hello, hello and welcome to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Certified Dream-Life Coach Debbie Spector Weisman. This is a place where we talk about dreams, both daytime and nighttime dreams, and how you can use them to make the internal shift to a life you love and rediscover the truth of who you really are. And if you're a woman, that definition is going to change naturally as you age. For instance, a few months ago I devoted an entire episode to the subject of menstruation, something we all go through and something that was rarely discussed in a public forum for most of my life and still doesn't get talked about that much today. And yet, our periods helped define us in so many ways you may not realize. I know I just sort of took my period for granted and didn't give that much thought to how it affected me. But my guest on that episode showed me how by paying more attention to our body changes we can get a deeper connection to our soul.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:01:12 And I'm certainly all for that. Well, today we're going to shift the focus to the other end of the reproductive cycle: menopause. This phase also has profound ramifications for women in so many different ways. And it's only in recent years that more attention is being paid to how women can empower themselves to make this time in their lives as healthy and is worthwhile as possible. One person who helps women do that is my guest. Amita Sharma. Amita founded and runs a holistic platform called Nourish Doc that offers personalized wellness programs and workshops for middle-aged women. And she's here to help us navigate how we can successfully manage our bodies in this important phase of our lives. So welcome to Dream Power Radio, Amita.
Amita Sharma 00:02:04 Thank you. Thank you so much. And I love the work that you're doing. You know, empowering women to realize their dreams, that confidence and that all ties into this phase of life that we want to talk about in midlife when the perimenopause starts inching towards the menopause and post menopause.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:02:23 Yeah. And I just wanted to start out with just a brief definition because you do focus on perimenopause. And to be honest with you, I didn't know much about perimenopause when I was going through it. I mean, it wasn't something my OBGYN talked about with me and that I didn't realize my body was going through changes at that time. So let's start off by just talking about what perimenopause is and how it affects us.
Amita Sharma 00:02:54 Yeah, it's a taboo topic for many years, as you rightfully mentioned. So perimenopause is actually a transition phase when your periods are going to become irregular, inching towards menopause with the cessation of your periods. Your periods basically stop at menopause. Now you are technically in menopause. If you haven't had a period for 12 consecutive months. So that becomes your menopause, like for 12 months, you haven't had a period that is your menopause birthday date or whatever you want to call it, right? Now this could be 7 to 10 years, or maybe for some women, or when you start getting not your regular periods the way we have been used to 28 days, it could be 21, it could be longer, it could be shorter.
Amita Sharma 00:03:45 That's the perimenopause. When your hormones are going to start inching, playing a dance like going to a rock and roll, and then you start noticing all the symptoms of what we call about hot flashes and so many other symptoms during this perimenopause and beyond.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:04:02 So what are some of those symptoms that would be attributed to perimenopause?
Amita Sharma 00:04:07 Well, it's actually I don't want to scare your audience here, but I just want to state the facts. The facts are that are over 37 plus symptoms that are recorded that a woman can go through. Can you believe it? In addition if you can imagine a woman at 40 having some kids, right? Most of us have kids growing kids, and we also need financial because the kids have to be fed and go to college or whatever. So in addition to that, these symptoms are stressing us. Some of the common symptoms most of us know are hot flashes, night sweats, not being able to sleep at night. Stress. Stress is very common. Then also some skin issues. You know skin eruptions can happen.
Amita Sharma 00:04:55 Your hair thinning can happen. Your pelvic health can go a little bit crazy. Your urinary infections, your libido can go down your mental health like brain fog and tell you, I don't want to be scary, but this could happen. Seriously. Your memory, you could say short term memory lapse, you know? So all of these can you imagine being dealing with all these along with your teenage kids and you become like a complete wreck. I mean, your home could be a complete wreck.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:05:26 It's enough to make you go nuts for sure.
Amita Sharma 00:05:31 Absolutely.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:05:32 Yeah. And what can women do to help minimize these issues? I mean, obviously your period is going to stop. It's a part of life. You're not going to change that. But some of these other effects, I think, could they be minimized or--
Amita Sharma 00:05:49 Absolutely. So there is hope. You know, hormonal imbalance is about bringing the balance to your hormones to sex, female sex hormones, estrogen and progesterone.
Amita Sharma 00:05:59 That's on the technical terms. I'm not a medical doctor, but I've learned enough to talk about these two hormones are the ones that are going down as we progress through perimenopause. So hormonal imbalance is very important. Changing your lifestyle, changing your diet, exercise routine, and limiting some of the things that you have are used to eating all those things. That's what we talk about is embracing a holistic lifestyle becomes very, very important. Irrespective the fact if you want to take HRT. HRT is hormone replacement therapy with gynecologists or some women who cannot cope up with these symptoms, they might be recommended. But irrespective of that, we as women need to understand our bodies and need to change our lifestyle completely and embrace a holistic life set to make sure that we can prevent chronic conditions post menopause.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:06:59 Absolutely. I was going to ask you about the subject of hormone replacement therapy because as somebody who takes a holistic attitude toward our lives, I would think also some, some things like diet and exercise could alleviate the need for hormone replacement therapy. Or is that a naive assumption on my part?
Amita Sharma 00:07:22 So, you know, and this is a very controversial topic, one with at least one therapy, some of the people or some of the researchers, some of the doctors you might talk to, they might say, well, everyone needs a hormone replacement therapy, right? Because the hormones are depleting. And we know the fact that there's a chronic condition that is that has escalated, for example, specifically in women, the osteoporosis, bone density goes down as we age. We know that is a fact. And then, heart health and weight, all those issues. The chronic conditions are on the rise. So some of the doctors and the researchers might say every woman should have hormone replacement therapy. I am not a doctor, but I could say that there is enough research that says that if you embrace the right kind of diet, the exercise and the other holistic therapies, including acupuncture, acupressure, are you whether naturopathy or supplements, the right type of supplements, right.
Amita Sharma 00:08:22 Don't just start doing whatever by yourself that can definitely help you maintaining the hormonal balance. The trick is your estrogen and progesterone. You're no longer producing babies. I am no longer producing babies at the age of whatever. The trick is to maintain the balance between these two hormones. Now, if you start putting in more estrogen and progesterone, you can't. You're not going to. You don't need so much to produce more babies, is what I'm trying to say, that the trick is to maintain the balance between these two hormones. Right? So I think it depends on the gynecologist or what your doctor says. But what I can say from the researchers that I have interviewed, the research that I have read is that all the holistic therapies now have enough clinical trials that can alleviate so many of the symptoms and help you balance your hormones.
Amita Sharma 00:09:28 What we are talking about, for example, yoga, meditation research has been done on herbs and supplements that some of the food items of research has been done, even essential oils, Hypnosis, hypnotherapy. Even some Ayurveda practices -acupuncture, acupressure. We have the research available now if we use it carefully.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:09:55 And you also talked about changing eating habits. So what kinds of foods are the kind of foods that would help us in this change of life?
Amita Sharma 00:10:05 Nutrient dense foods. You want to give energy? See, we women have been programmed with this diet kind of a culture. That we need to look in a certain way. The thing is you should not diet at all. During this time, you need the energy, the right type of energy. So your body has the nutrients, right? You don't want to starve yourself of the nutrients. What we are generally, most of the women end up doing the 20s and even 30 and beyond.
Amita Sharma 00:10:34 So you'll be all or what you want to do is nourish your body with the right type of nutrients, like protein. You need to uptake your protein. The protein will help you get through the entire day. Also your healthy fats. You need to incorporate that. For example, avocado, all these things you need to incorporate the healthy fats, fish. So carbohydrates you limit it but don't completely eliminate. You can eat the complex carbohydrates. And then caffeine, alcohol you need to get rid of it. Processed foods need to be out of your life. White bread, sugar all these things have to be saying bye bye. Red meat limited. Increase the plant-based diet. You know that that's recommended because it's easy to digest or that gut health becomes a little bit more crazy as we start aging. So you need foods that are easy for you to digest. Meats are difficult to digest. So these kinds of things, you start incorporating it slowly and you'll feel the difference in energy, and in your metabolism.
Amita Sharma 00:11:40 Because we always say, oh my God, my metabolism has gone down. Oh my God, I'm putting on weight. I might be bloating, right? Most of the women have these issues. So these are some of the things.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:11:54 And a lot of people don't really realize that what they put into their bodies affects how their bodies are going to react.
Amita Sharma 00:12:05 You know, unfortunately there's no one weight loss medicine or one menopause medicine that I can say, okay, stop taking this and you will be beautiful, and everything is going to go perfectly fine. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. I mean, I'm not opposed to medicine at all, but what I'm saying is that if you don't take care of your body, in terms of food and exercise and some of the things we're talking about, then slowly, you're going to join 50% of the women who have won chronic conditions over 55 years old.
Amita Sharma 00:12:45 You know, unfortunately, you're going to be one of them, and you don't want to be one of them. Right. The data is shocking and alarming. It will in the United States and in fact, all over the world for that matter.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:12:59 No you don't. And on that note, we are going to take a short break. We are speaking about perimenopause and menopause with Amita Sharma, and we'll be right back.
Announcer 00:13:39 Welcome back to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Spector Weisman.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:13:49 Yes, welcome back to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Debbie Spector Weisman, and we're talking about menopause and perimenopause with Amita Sharma.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:13:59 Well, Anita, it seems like menopause is actually coming on earlier for a lot of women than it did like several generations ago. Is there anything that could be done to prevent the early onset of menopause?
Amita Sharma 00:14:12 Yeah, you're absolutely right. And menopause is also very culture specific and ethnic specific. And some of the culture and ethnic women are getting menopause 6 to 7 years earlier than it should come at the age of 51. So a lot of it is related to stress and lifestyle. And also if they have been subservient as a society, for example, Muslim women in Sudan, they get in mid 40s as an example, or in other cultures like in India where there are women get menopause in the mid 40s. Now United States is 51, 52, but Latino and African American women, even in the United States, get it earlier. So a lot of it has the responsibility of family stress levels, lifestyle, all that you need to incorporate, and you need to really start changing yourself. If you don't want to get into the earlier menopause age.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:15:11 And would you say that stress is the number one factor?
Amita Sharma 00:15:15 Stress and lifestyle, right. And what you're eating. Because if you're eating junk food, if you can't afford to buy organic or just fresh fruits and vegetables so you don't have time to cook. All these factors will take into the place. So stress, your lifestyle and what you're eating. And in some of the countries, as I said, in Muslim countries and so on, the other countries, women are a little bit more subservient. they're not -I shouldn't use the word allowed -but it's like a hidden thing that they're not opening up their emotional digestion. So all these factors will play with your body and get you to where you don't want to be.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:15:56 So if you do things to try to alleviate your stress and eat healthier, you think that can help?
Amita Sharma 00:16:04 Absolutely. Absolutely, yes. So it's all stress, right? If women are not processors and in some of the countries, then of course there's some kind of a hidden stress that's hidden in your head that you're supposed to act in a certain way, but you're not yourself.
Amita Sharma 00:16:19 So emotional digestion, venting up your feelings, getting the stress out. It's all stress, right? It's all chronic stress. And of course, eating right and movement. All these things will help in not getting you earlier than you're supposed to be. Because what happens is you're reaching a destination earlier, right? the problem is, yeah, it's not like a race. Right? Then. Oh, I'm earlier than someone else, right? The problem in this one is I'm trying to make it a little lighter, because I don't want it to be so serious with women who, when they hear the podcast is the problem, is your hormones also really decline earlier than they're supposed to? And then there are other ramifications that we don't understand.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:17:08 And is there any way to change the change in our hormone levels, or is that just part of the natural process?
Amita Sharma 00:17:18 I mean, you know, the hormone replacement therapy is there. One should absolutely go to your physician. But from what I have done the research earlier, menopause like really early menopause like in the mid 30s, now that is now serious because that's now affecting fertility.
Amita Sharma 00:17:31 So for that women has to go to hormone replacement therapy if they want to start a family because the hormones are getting depleted now as well as earlier menopause. And actually, I'm not going to call it in because I don't think there's that much research right now or to my knowledge, that's available, that if you start taking hormone replacement therapy early on, your menopause will be at age 50. But there's not that much research that that has been done in women's health. It's very unfortunate.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:18:07 It is. Let's talk a bit more now about the actual symptoms of menopause. What can be done to alleviate symptoms such as a hot flashes, for example?
Amita Sharma 00:18:20 Yeah, a hot flashes. you can do a lot. So first of all, and hot flashes suddenly starts happening and sometimes you can't control it. But there are some breathing practices, what we call cooling breaths that can help contain the hot flashes.
Amita Sharma 00:18:36 Also wearing loose clothing. I mean, that's something that women can do. But in addition, having some kind of simple herbs, you know, so you need to talk to a naturopathy doctor, a functional medicine doctor, some kind of herbal supplements that can help with hot flashes and regulate the temperature in your body, and also eating some kind of a certain kind of a food to pacify the heat inside their body. Right. So I think there's a certain kind of a diet is what I'm saying that one should definitely get a consultation with a naturopathic doctor, that a certain type of diet can be done either, which is cooling in nature, also some kind of cooling pranayama. What I'm calling about the sheeting pranayama in particular. That's what they call it. This cooling breath that helps you immediately cool down with your breath, with your tongue roll out and your kind of breathing through your tongue. And also some herbs and supplements.
Amita Sharma 00:19:31 And then one night, one person I talked to, she had a cooling bra. You get the cooling pads, you know, having you cooling down. So these are the things. But more importantly, I think it's a holistic lifestyle and getting rid of junk foods and all the other things we talked about. But then that is not instant. If someone is looking for instant relief from hot flashes, then you have to go with herbal supplements or some kind of medications. But if you're looking for a holistic lifestyle, it takes time. It's not an instant thing that suddenly I start eating right and tomorrow my hot flashes are gone and might take a month or two.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:20:12 Understood. Another symptom that very often happens around menopause is hair loss. What if anything could be done about that.
Amita Sharma 00:20:21 Hair loss is also due to the hormonal fluctuations. Right. Because of our hormones estrogen and progesterone. When they start going down, we have issues with their skin, wrinkles and hair loss.
Amita Sharma 00:20:32 I'm also losing hair, but on the other hand, there are actually lots of things you can do. You can use topical oils. Certain type of topical oils like Bhingaraj oil, you know. And other formulations like some kind of a rosemary oil. There's a lot of oils, topical oil that can be put on the hair to help. Also, biotin, having foods that are rich in biotin can also help and balancing your hormones. Again, it's all about hormones, right? So bring your hormones in balance. The trick is the balance. The hormones are going down, but the estrogen can be higher than the progesterone. And when that imbalance happens, all those things that you're seeing the whole hair loss. Right. So these things you can do applying some topical oils, like I said, nourishing your body with the right kind of biotin related foods, some spinach, making sure hormones are balanced. These things can be reversible, believe it or not.
Amita Sharma 00:21:34 And collagen and biotin, these are the herbal supplements that women should consult with, their naturopathic doctor. But if you take all these things, hair is something that you can grow. It's not that you will start losing and you won't bring it back, but you have to be proactive with it.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:21:52 Another important issue for menopausal women is maintaining a quality sex life. So what kind of advice do you have for women to keep their libidos going as they age.
Amita Sharma 00:22:05 And you know, that is important. And we don't want to talk about it. And that part of our body is our body. Right. So sexual health is very important because it helps releasing these happy hormones. There is science about it. So I think pelvic health, strengthening your pelvic health, to answer your question that is so important. Not much emphasis has been given to the maintenance of your pelvic health area right there. Lubricants and vaginal health. Doing some exercises to make sure your pelvic health is good.
Amita Sharma 00:22:45 Also again your hormones emotions are also connected with your sexual health. Believe it or not. So it's all interconnected. So again maintaining your pelvic health. There is some exercise and some yoga poses. Some physical therapists have some exercises that you can do to maintain your pelvic health. And as well as having your emotions and hormone balance, this is again, your hormonal balance can play havoc to all of your things that we are talking about the sexual health, the hair loss, maintaining a good hormonal balance and also letting your emotions out is very important. Suddenly everything bubbles up. By the time women get 40, they said, oh my God, I've been just taking care of my family, my kids. I haven't done anything myself. So I think letting go of that as well. Emotional digestion. But there's another thing that women can do, believe it or not, is in research on orgasmic meditation. There is a meditation that is called orgasmic meditation that yes, they can do. And also some yoga was called tantra yoga that a certain poses to activate that whole area.
Amita Sharma 00:23:53 And also some muscles. So these are the things that there is a whole pelvic health strengthening of your pelvic health muscles. And also doing certain types of meditation and yoga poses can help with the sexual health.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:24:06 Oh, I'd like to know more about that.
Amita Sharma 00:24:08 Yes, we can do another podcast talking just about how to do or to get into that.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:24:14 Very much so. . What led you to create nourish doc?
Amita Sharma 00:24:21 I also suffered. Actually, I started having perimenopausal symptoms, which I had no clue of the word perimenopause. I was kind of embarrassed at a lot of times when these suddenly hot flashes started happening in meetings where I did not think that it would happen. And my flow was like a tap. So all these things started happening to me. And I like millions of women. I didn't want to tell anyone. I wanted to keep it to myself. All these emotions and it started bothering me. To all the things that you're talking about.
Amita Sharma 00:24:56 Everything started happening to me. Then slowly, slowly, I realized what I said. Doing research that majority of the women keep bottled up. They don't talk about perimenopause. And that is when I started looking into it and I said, no, someone has to stand up and start talking about it openly in a scientific, in a research way, so that women start taking care of themselves. So that's kind of it . It was not like a one-day switch. It was a slow journey. Like millions of women. I was afraid to age as well. I was afraid to get old. Women are like that. Unfortunately, you don't want to lose.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:25:33 So I think it's a very important point you just made that we don't have to fear getting old. Getting older.
Amita Sharma 00:25:42 Yes, yes. We fear. We live in fear that we will become unattractive. Or there's a lot of physical attributes that are associated with the woman's body when they're young. And then they, as women start getting older, it's a lot of hard.
Amita Sharma 00:25:58 The society has kind of brainwashed and position women in a way. Right. If you think about it. And perimenopause is something we don't want to talk about. And we again all start putting on weight, losing hair, all those things that happening to a lot of women and said, you know, I need to start researching into the holistic lifestyle. And what I mean by holistic is that women need to take care of themselves on a daily basis. Not like you pop a pill and you're going to be again what you were when you were 20 years old. That's never going to happen. But you can make an effort, a conscious effort to take care of yourself every single day, using a holistic lifestyle. And that’s when I decided, okay, I need to do something. I'll bring out an app or bring out awareness about this entire topic that's kind of a taboo. It's in most of the world that the majority of the world, it's still considered taboo, and a stigma attached to it.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:26:56 But it's a great service that you are offering to women everywhere. So, Amita, any final thoughts for my audience?
Amita Sharma 00:27:03 Yeah, women should really prioritize themselves. They have done enough service to their families, to their loved ones. But I think it's time, this particular time when they're entering perimenopause is something that they need to take care of themselves. They need to nurture themselves for their self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-love, whatever you want to call it. So that's really embracing a holistic lifestyle is what I want to end up with.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:27:34 Very important. And I mean, how can people find out more about you and your work?
Amita Sharma 00:27:39 Yeah. So people can go to our website www.nourishdoc.com. The app is coming out literally in a few weeks now. The app will be super affordable for every woman to really understand what's going on in their body. So the app will be out but go to our website or reach out to us through our social. We are everywhere on the social media as well.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:28:03 Okay, so the information about the app will be on your website.
Amita Sharma 00:28:06 Yes. And then people can download and play around, and the pricing would be less than $10 a month so that women it will be super affordable. It has been done in collaboration with all evidence based natural therapies, holistic therapies. So women feel very confident that yes, if I do this or I eat this, then I should be able to get on a journey towards health and day to day daily routine. What we were talking about.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:28:32 Well Amita, thank you so much for being on Dream Power Radio today.
Amita Sharma 00:28:36 Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Debbie Spector Weisman 00:28:38 Okay. We have been speaking about menopause and perimenopause with Amita Sharma. I hope you've enjoyed today's program. If so, please hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any future episodes. Until next time, this is Debbie Spector Weisman saying sweet dreams, everybody.
Announcer 00:28:55 You've been listening to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Spector Weisman. For more information on Debbie or to sign up for her newsletter, go to DreamPowerRadio.com. This has been Dream Power Radio.