Midlife Madness Podcast

EP#11 Brain Fog, Forgetfulness During Menopause! WHY?!?!

• Martha Savloff, Dr Marty Nalda, Dr Donna Pontoriero

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Have you ever wondered why you can't remember where you left your keys or why your thoughts seem foggy as you hit midlife? Join us as we explore the often-misunderstood phenomenon of brain fog during perimenopause and menopause. Drawing striking parallels to the memory struggles many women face during pregnancy and new motherhood, we unravel the significant impact of hormonal changes on cognitive functions. The conversation includes a revealing study from Healthline, which found that a staggering 60% of middle-aged women report concentration difficulties. Listen in as we discuss how mood swings, sleep issues, and hot flashes contribute to this cognitive decline.

Imagine suddenly losing a substantial sum of money—this is how we liken the hormonal changes women undergo during perimenopause and menopause. We shed light on the physical, mental, and emotional challenges that accompany these changes, particularly during the first year of the last menstrual period. Our discussion provides practical solutions, including hormone replacement therapy and lifestyle adjustments, to manage symptoms and ensure a smoother transition. Through personal anecdotes, we illustrate the severity of symptoms like breast tenderness and spotting, emphasizing the importance of addressing these changes early on.

Finally, we delve into the crucial role of optimal hormone balance and nutrition for better health outcomes. We share how working with specialized providers for bioidentical hormone replacement therapy can effectively address issues like brain fog, menstrual irregularities, and thyroid dysfunction. Highlighting the importance of good sleep, proper nutrition, and regular exercise, particularly strength training, we offer practical advice to enhance brain health and overall quality of life. Join us as we navigate this transformative journey with personal stories and expert insights, empowering you to take control of your health during this pivotal stage of life.

We are not Medical Doctors and are not here to diagnose and treat.  We are simply sharing our life stories and tips to help us through mid-life madness!

Speaker 1:

midlife madness podcast. I hope I don't forget what we're going to talk about today. Well, that's what we're talking about today what are we talking about today? Oh, wait a second. It's coming back to me brain fog, what?

Speaker 2:

the f.

Speaker 2:

Brain fog, what the F? You know. I remember when I was pregnant with my kids. I remember people talking about like pregnancy brain and like new mommy brain and I thought that was bad. You know, I thought that was. I've always had a great like memory for memorizing things and you know I've always been like pretty good at that. And I remember pregnancy brain just absolutely kicked my butt and I thought, well, you know, my kids are grown, surely that phase of my life is over and I'll be smart again someday. And then, and uh, perimenopause happens. Yay, um, fun being a girl, always, always perimenopause.

Speaker 1:

So let me tell you okay, I'm in perimenopause. What about you? You, dr Marty.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I am done, I'm done, I'm done and I'm okay with being done and I'm very grateful. I'm very grateful for the process and for the things that I've discovered during the process, which we're going to talk a little bit about some of those today. But let me tell you something even with everything that I do every single day to to keep my brain basically because, as you know, it's not like I'm trying to get smarter or I'm trying to get whatever I just I want to be able to keep my faculties for as long as I possibly can. Yeah right, I want to age, age gracefully.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure. I mean we still. We still have a long, a lot of life to live.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Things to accomplish, like we got goals, we have things that we want to do, but this midlife madness situation is no joke, man. Like let me tell you I am very proud of being a person that is very productive, like I. I like every moment of my day to produce something, whether it's something for work, you know, for the office, or inspire, for our franchise, for, you know, our kids, or, you know, resting.

Speaker 1:

that's something productive, right, like no matter what it is like every moment of the day. I want to be um, I want to have output, I want to produce, I want to do stuff. I'm highly energetic. I got, I am very organized. I I kill things. I do a lot in a short period of time I've always been 100. I've always been like that. I've always been a multitasker. You know I I attack things.

Speaker 1:

You know, putting out fires is my thing, like all all those things, and one day, there's one time one day, you know, I was sitting here at my desk working and I had like this out-of-body experience that I was like staring at the screen of my computer. I'm like what I literally was like like it's like time to sit still and I did not know if I was coming or going. I'm like what am I supposed to do next? Like this is freaking crazy. What is going on here?

Speaker 2:

think it sneaks up on you. Yeah, you know, and you know we talked about, like the pregnancy brain, the mommy brain, right, and I think, whether you have kids or not, most of the time as a woman you're being pulled into like 50 different directions all the time anyway. So to an extent it's normal that you forget something or that some drop the ball on something because we're busy, we're doing a lot of stuff all day long, so was walking around with literally two pairs of glasses on my head and then nobody told me. Nobody told me I left my house like this. Nobody told me. And it's things you know, it's things like that. It's things like you walk into a room and you forgot what you got there yeah right, you out-of-body experience.

Speaker 2:

You're in the middle of working. You had this out-of-body experience. All of a sudden you can't remember. Like, what am I doing here?

Speaker 1:

or you're like in the middle of a conversation and you're like I was getting. I was getting at something. What?

Speaker 2:

was I getting at like there was a point to this.

Speaker 1:

What was I? It's like oh my gosh, like what the heck? We're there. I'm fluent now.

Speaker 2:

we're there, like we're turning into our parents.

Speaker 1:

Holy crap. So there's a study. I read this article from Healthline and there's a study and the study showed that 60% of middle aged women report difficulty concentrating and other issues with cognition. These issues like in women going through perimetopause and you know what?

Speaker 2:

I think the other 40% just weren't pulled, because I don't know a single woman that goes through the process completely unscathed, unless they have been very, very diligent throughout their whole life to try to avoid that. It's crazy. It's basically your body turns into a hormonal shit show that like there's nothing. It's like what? What happened?

Speaker 1:

but I'm eating clean, I'm exercising, I'm doing all the things, um, and you know, there's definitely, there's definitely strategies, but strategies, and and it also like in this in this um article it says that researchers explain that women going through menopause may generally feel a more negative mood, and that mood may be related to memory issues. So like that's another topic that we could talk about. But I'm I've been nasty to my husband when I was in the process of figuring out that I was going to carry menopause. I wasn't nice a couple of times. But it says here that it may be related to memory issues. Not only that, but brain fog may also be connected with sleep issues and vascular symptoms associated with menopause, like hot flashes, like it's a ball of hitting the assness, you know like sleep issues, hot flashes, memory issues, mood issues.

Speaker 2:

So for people that don't know, because I you know, I know that most people have heard the term menopause and perimenopause and all these things Right. But as women, we have hormonal cycles from the time we hit puberty OK, and we have those cycles right. We have a rise in progesterone, we have a drop in estrogen, we have, you know like things go up and down cyclically every month, and then all the time fluctuations, all the time, and then all of a sudden it stops. But it doesn't stop in a way that it's like a balanced stop. It's just like you know you had $100,000 in your bank account and then today you have none. Good luck, have a great day. Have a great day. We hope you enjoy that.

Speaker 1:

Like from one day to the other.

Speaker 2:

And so this is why the changes that women go through in middle age are so drastic and why there's such a negative connotation with getting older and with aging and all the things that you go through, and it affects you physically, it affects you mentally, it affects you emotionally, um, and so there's a you know, there's things you could do to cope with it a little bit better.

Speaker 2:

There's things you could do to prepare yourself for a healthy old age, which I think is important, because we're getting there Right, like we're. You know we're definitely, you know we're not over the hill, but we're definitely standing on the peak looking down at this point point, you know, um, and so it's one of those. It's one of those processes that could either be, you know, very friendly or extremely, extremely drastic all around to yourself and to the people that have to cope with you yes, that's why there's some husband that says, that's why it's called men, no pause, because a man in your life is paused men oh pause, oh my gosh I don't want to be around you either really great marriage.

Speaker 1:

But listen here it says so it's like you're in perimenopause, right, but in this article, with the study, it says specifically women in the first year of their last menstrual period for the lowest on testing evaluating verbal learning, memory, motor function, attention, attention and working memory tasks so you're not losing your mind.

Speaker 2:

You are truly experiencing these things. It's not in the head but you're like perimenopause, but then it shows like the first year of their last menstrual period so that last year, when you're skipping periods all the time, that last year when you're like when is it ever gonna go away, so that last year is the peak for all of the horrible symptoms, basically, and it makes sense because you, basically, your hormones are completely leaving you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so and then it says but then after that the memory for women improved over time, so like there's a crescendo, there's like a crescendo, and then it comes back.

Speaker 2:

I think it's more like you get used to your new way of existing right, kind of like when you bring a newborn home, your life is going to change. It is 100 percent going to change. It's a different stage of life. It's a different. You know there's things you could do before that now you can't Right. And I think it's the same thing as you're in this new phase. I think it's super important for everybody that's listening to realize that there are some solutions and there are some things to make it better. There's things you could do at home.

Speaker 1:

There's definitely things you could do with a provider ups, but there's, you know it's not the end of it's not the end of the world and there's ways to go through the process as healthfully and as peacefully yeah as I can share one thing that I did, like when I had that moment that I was like an out-of-body experience and it was so out of my character, like and how I functioned, um, and besides that, my boobs were hurting me, like my breasts were tender three weeks out of four weeks a month. That's awful. It was awful the last time my breasts were tender like that was when, like after I gave birth. You know how your your boobs get like you don't want anybody to like touch them, don't look, do you remember that?

Speaker 1:

That was that's crazy right. My breast was tender like that three weeks out of four weeks, like three weeks out of a month.

Speaker 2:

That's literally the PMS from hell.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and not only that, I was spotting, I was spotting three weeks out of the month, so I was not only breast tenderness, not only I was spotting. And then I find myself like having this automotive experience and I'm like what the heck is going on? But you know, I since I, you know, I know about this stuff. So I'm like, oh yeah, I'm perimenopausic, like I'm there so I what I did, and I I'm.

Speaker 1:

I'm normally a good sleeper. I've always been a good sleeper, maybe too good of a sleeper, but um, and I was kind of experiencing some of the stuff like that too. So I I went to get hormone replacement therapy. Like I am very, very, very, very far away from menopause.

Speaker 2:

That's what the doctor said however however, I'm in perimenopause, having these little symptoms, and so and typically, perimenopause can be like four or five years long, like some people. Some people go into perimenopause in their 30s yes and some people are pushed into menopause clinically. And I remember different.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's different. It's not like a, it's not like you know, you hit 50 and all of a sudden you're, you're out of luck. This it trends and it's kind of interesting and there's different things that shift your hormones throughout your life. I remember I always I'm always hot, like I'm always just warm, yeah, and people ask me like, are you having hot flashes now, as I got closer to actual menopause, and I said I've had hot flashes since I got pregnant with my first child, so that hormonal shift never went away to an extent. Right, I didn't know any better. You know, when you ask our mothers, right, the generation before us, you ask them about hormone replacement therapy and bioidentical hormones and all these things and it was very demonized.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was very, you know, just recently. Their studies show that are that they're publishing showing the benefit long term in term of bone health, cardiovascular health, obviously mental health, because if you think you're going crazy, you know, or you think you're losing your mind, that's not good. Um, you know. So there's. So there's right now there's a lot of acknowledgement of for the benefit which prior to our generation, that was not the case well, let me tell you, like I never thought I was gonna do that, like it never was in my brain when I started, you were like I don't need any, I'm, I'm old, I'm the old friend didn't need any, and then yeah, and then, and I told you need it, you're gonna be like, uh, where do I go?

Speaker 1:

I didn't want to go like as natural as possible. I did the bioidentical and and my my estrogen levels. I'm estrogen dominant and I just need a teeny, tiny little bit of progesterone for right now. And when I tell you the first month that I did that, I mean you know this is a midlife madness podcast, so we're gonna get really real in this podcast. I don't give a crap. So I have not had such a great menstrual cycle since I don't remember the last time like it was the most non-eventful, most beautiful menstrual cycle. I had no, you know, I had no pain, I had. It was just like it was awesome.

Speaker 2:

I think that it was how it was, how it's supposed to be when you're you know, my boobs are fine.

Speaker 1:

I I it just kind of like took care of business. Um, my brain fog is. I think it's better. Um, I don't, I haven't had like one of those weird episodes yet. I do forget things here and there, but I it could be just because I'm nine years old. I don't know, you're busy and I'm busy and I have multiple things going on, so who knows. But but that's helped me a lot. You know, that's one of the things.

Speaker 2:

One of the things that helps with brain fog a lot for a lot of women. And again, you know everybody's at different stages, right? So it's important to find the provider that you trust. First of all, it's super important to understand that most providers don't do bioidentical hormone replacement. They just don't. They're not educated. It's like us. We do a lot of nutrition. This is what we do at Inspire. We have a weight loss center.

Speaker 2:

Most providers have no clue of how to put somebody on a well-managed eating program that is sustainable. So it's you know. It's not uh, it's not saying you know your doctors don't know what they're doing. I can't do open heart surgery right. Everybody's trained. Every, every everybody has don't know what they're doing. I can't do open heart surgery right. Everybody's trained, everybody has their will. We all have our things right. We all have our thing. So please find somebody that this is what they do, not somebody who dabbles. Not somebody you know, not your regular OBGYN, who's never done it before but is going to try with you because you asked your regular ob-gyn, who's never done it before but is going to try with you. Because you asked please, yeah, please find an expert.

Speaker 1:

You know a local expert in this, because it's amazing well, the thing is dr marty is like this is a way I explain it and and I got in this, I got some of this from you was that when, sometimes, when you go to your regular doctor and you're like, hey, can you check my hormones? You know they only do a certain panel, that you know they just check your hormones and they just make sure that you're within range, right, and I went to a functional med doc because I don't want to be within range.

Speaker 2:

Or be optimal.

Speaker 1:

This is your word. I want to be optimal, like I don't want to just be in range. When I went to a doctor and the doctor told me you're within range, okay, but my boobs still hurt. My brain is shot, I'm bleeding three weeks out of four weeks. So I'm glad I'm within range, but something's definitely not right and I don't want to be within range.

Speaker 2:

I want to be optimal and it's super important on med docs who told me, this is where you should be even though you're within range based on your symptoms, you still have a lack of x, y p because that was based on a scale is based on because and the reason the reason I found out how important this was is um right right. Post covid, I think my thyroid went bye bye. Okay, I my lab work was normal, it was within range and I was gaining one to two pounds a week, no matter what I did.

Speaker 1:

I had.

Speaker 2:

I had. I was super puffy, I was all swollen, so much inflammation. Nothing that I changed nutritionally was making any kind of long-term progress difference. Right, and I was like, okay, this is kind of whack. I own a weight loss center, I know how to lose weight and I'm doing it, and then I'm losing 15 and I'm gaining back 20, like literally like this like you know, you know how much I have to eat to gain 20 pounds in a month, like baffling, right.

Speaker 2:

I was like something's wrong. So that's at the point where I found my bioidentical hormone guy, right, my, my specialist. And so he's like, oh, your thyroid is is not working. And I was like, what do you mean? My thyroid's not working, my numbers are within range. And so he was like, well, but all of these symptoms that you have are of a deficient thyroid.

Speaker 1:

See, that's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2:

Brain fog, sometimes thyroid, sometimes testosterone.

Speaker 1:

And then, when you have all of the above, right.

Speaker 2:

So you know, unfortunately, you know, covid hit me as I was hitting the middle, you know of my perimenopause, so all of the symptoms all at once. I was a hot mess and I was like, okay, I don't know how to do any better than what I'm currently doing. I don't have the energy to go exercise. You know, 27 times a week I'm eating clean. You know, I, I, I don't. I'm not a drinker, I'm not a heavy drinker, I'm not. I was like what the heck? Like I? I looked like I was, I was so puffy, it looked like I was like binging and and it's amazing so that was huge for me was, um, the hormone replacement has been a life changer. I don't know anybody, honestly, I don't know anybody that has gone through it, um, with a qualified provider. That doesn't. That isn't just like yep, amazing. That's the key.

Speaker 1:

Like you know, we're not. We're not doctors, we're not medical doctors, we're not. We're just like, we're just sharing our personal experiences.

Speaker 2:

For consumers in this case.

Speaker 1:

For consumers in this case, for consumers in this case, for consumers at this case. So we're we're sharing, like what there's things that you can do to help you guys, like those of you that are listening, watching, you know you don't just have to like go through life, you know, miserable and and going through these things, like there's things that you can do. That's one of them. Right, um, just make sure, like dr marie said, go to a provider that knows what they're doing. They, they specialize in this, um, because it can, it can be life-changing if you're going to the right place, you know, and getting the right treatment. Right, yep. Second to that, like in under every single umbrella when you check, what can you do to feel better?

Speaker 1:

it was always the number one thing is always eat well eat well, diet and exercise, baby does that matter what you google or what you research, the number one is always eat a well-balanced diet, right?

Speaker 2:

and super important for brain health and for hormone health is healthy fats, right, healthy fats, lots of lean protein. Eat your veggies, eat the colors of the rainbow, I mean, you know people you know, if you're one of the, if you're 47 years old and you're like, nobody taught me to eat vegetables, uh, you can teach yourself to eat vegetables. You're a big kid you're a big kid, I'm cuban.

Speaker 2:

You know what cubans consume Yucca, yeah, yucca, yucca, okay. In my household, growing up, vegetables were iceberg, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onion and avocado. That's it. What other vegetable Every once in a while? Every once in a while, my mother ventured out like the canned green beans and the peep peep yeah, and the peas, the canned peas, which typically go in rice. Like we don't eat those as a dish right so then you have the in.

Speaker 1:

What is it? The your, your um, your baseline, which is the onions, the pepper and the garlic, not the adobo, there's a word for it. Yeah, the sofrito, the sofrito. There you go, that's vegetables.

Speaker 2:

But that's the extent of what I was taught, and then you had the starchy ones. You have all the plantains, the pasta maduros, the yuca, la malanga papa, none of which is healthy for you, and typically in a Cuban household, it's given to you fried Like. Just to make it even better, it's starchy and we're going to deep fry it.

Speaker 1:

Yes, we're going to deep fry it for you.

Speaker 2:

We're going to deep fry it Okay.

Speaker 1:

And then it yes, we're gonna deep fry it for you, we're gonna deep fry it, okay, and then we're gonna put salt on it because?

Speaker 2:

and then we're gonna stuff it down your throat, because if you, if they're asking you for seconds, if they're asking, do you want more?

Speaker 1:

and then you say no, they're serving you, so it's like you have no choice so you know.

Speaker 2:

So when people come into my office and they're like, oh I nobody ever taught me to eat vegetables, it's just not what we did at home. It's like you're 47. You could change the narrative. Yeah, like you have a choice.

Speaker 1:

Take control of your body. Take control of your body.

Speaker 2:

Teach your body to do what you need to do to reach the goal that you want and you know, and to be 100% transparent, I prefer fried plantains to broccoli. Let's just, let's just get it out there. I'm I'm gonna put it out there. Um, if given a choice like, what would you rather have? I'm gonna have some, I'm gonna have some tostones. Thank you very much. We're golden, right, but I can't do that every single day. No, I cannot do that every single day. I cannot do that every single day. I cannot have my family doing that everything. I'm doing something different in my household than what my parents did with me. Right, they did their best. I know better nutritionally than their best, so it's my job to teach my kids better so that their baseline is starting at a better point than mine was For sure, and so that's kind of what we're asking everybody out here. It's easier to revert to things that we know how to do. It's definitely a heck of a lot more comfortable, but you don't grow in comfort.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, or like willing to try because I've had where it's like well, I don't like any of these vegetables. Well, have you? Have you had them before?

Speaker 2:

no, well, or they, or you steam them. Steam them in the microwave like how do you know?

Speaker 1:

you don't like you've never, you've never tried it before in your life, maybe. Maybe you do, like it's a psychological thing too. You know what I mean? Okay, so number one hormone therapy. Number two eat a well-balanced diet healthy control of your nutrition they control your nutrition and so like it's. It's funny how many people don't know what healthy fats are, like you know, so I can tell you that it's not canola oil.

Speaker 1:

It's not corn oil or vegetable oil frisco it's none of that which our family used to buy in gallons by the way like lard.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, really good on the rice when you you know yes, oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Anyways, it's incredible how we survived our job. It's amazing, um. So, yeah, you know, use the coconut oils, avocado oils, the olive oils, right, all of those butter, butter, grass-fed butter grass-fed butter is so good for your brain.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, um, you know we could go into. We could go into that rabbit hole in a different session because you know we we could talk about. I could go into the brain and cholesterol and we'll do that so that's a whole festival.

Speaker 1:

Whole grains fish is a great one. Good beans, because not all beans are created equal. So some good vegetables and and um, garbanzo beans, right. Good nuts and of course, the oils. Okay, number three, get enough. Rest, again your typical tip.

Speaker 2:

We keep saying that, right, sleep, sleep. There's a whole book written for children called Go to Sleep, and sometimes I tell my adult clients that I'm like why are you TikToking at 11 o'clock at night when you know you have to be up at 6am to work? Plug the phone in elsewhere, shut it off. Give yourself that break for your brain to shut down so that you could rest and heal.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and, and, and sleep. You know? It says here that 61% of postmenopausal women report insomnia issues. It says here that 61% of postmenopausal women report insomnia issues. Well, you know why I talked about that in another podcast too.

Speaker 2:

You know why? One huge reason for that is the lack of progesterone, which your body doesn't really make naturally Going back to the hormones, Yep.

Speaker 1:

So getting enough rest and I don't have enough time? Yes, we do. I told a client yesterday I said we all have 24 us all the time. We also waste a lot of time on things that in no way matter, and I think that it's super important to be honest with ourselves, right.

Speaker 1:

It's something like we have to take a good hard look and see where we can trim the fat right in terms of activities that don't bring life to us for sure, 100, and and sometimes we just have to, like, switch out things, like maybe there's an activity that you do, that you enjoy, but and in this stage of the game, in this stage of your life, you need to switch it out to something else, because you know, we want to be able to remember things. We want to have quality of life.

Speaker 2:

We want to have quality of life. It's life to your years, not just years to your life, and it's something that we have to. You know, maybe you haven't had to eat vegetables up to now. Well, guess what?

Speaker 1:

Guess what you know? Maybe you haven't had to eat vegetables up to now. Well, guess what? Guess what? I know somebody in my family, which I'm not going to mention, that she does not eat any vegetable like zero, and she's in her 20s and I look at her and I'm like man, it's gonna, it'll come it'll come.

Speaker 2:

Your body it'll come to you, but not body doesn't give you, doesn't forgive you in your 50s like it did in your 20s yes, don't worry, you'll be eating vegetables later.

Speaker 1:

Um so not having enough sleep actually makes your brain fog worse and that's at any stage of the game.

Speaker 2:

That's why even little kids require 10 to 12 hours of sleep before school. That's why you're not, you're not supposed to let little children or even high schoolers stay up till 11 12 o'clock at night when they got to get up early in the morning, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And one thing that it's. It's incredible how, like there's so many things you have to. You have to get an awareness of your body, to listen to your body. I figured out that if I eat any sugar or I drink wine which I'm not a big drinker but if I go out to dinner and I have a glass of wine, I am hot at night. If I, if I do those two specific things, I'm hot at night. So then I don't sleep well, so the next day I'm all discombobulated.

Speaker 2:

And that is factual, especially for me more than anything. I mean, if I eat something super carby at night, yes, but I don't do a lot of that but the alcohol of any kind, not just wine, alcohol of any kind. I've had to become a day drinker in my old age because I cannot do it with dinner we can't handle that anymore I can't.

Speaker 2:

My body just doesn't. My body just doesn't like it. In spite of the hormones, in spite of everything else, I have to do my part right. I have to not exacerbate things yep, okay.

Speaker 1:

Typical tip now. Now that's a new, a new thing, a typical tip, typical typical tip. Number three exercise your body, hello, of course, and specifically strength training for all menopausal women. That's the best If you can do it physically right.

Speaker 2:

You get to exercise and, martha, you know that I am not the exercise lover that you are, but I've had to wrap my brain around the fact that it's a privilege. It's a privilege to have mobility, it's a privilege to be aging strong, it's a privilege to, you know, be able to, you know, pick up my friend's kid and carry her around and get on the floor and get off the floor and did it at it and play, and it's a privilege. It's I get to do that. And in order for me to get to do that long term, I know, I tell it, listen, I tell it to myself every day, every freaking day, I tell it to myself it's a privilege, as I'm putting, I'm putting on my gym clothes going.

Speaker 2:

it's a freaking privilege. Come on, I'm working on it.

Speaker 1:

And then you text and you're like, oh my God, I'm hurting.

Speaker 2:

I hate my life. And I'm like, yeah, I love that feeling, that's an awesome feeling, and you're like, you're probably getting a finger, but I do it Because at this point in my life I have no choice, right? So that to me is like some people's broccoli. Yes, and I understand that, but you have no choice. Like it's come to a point where you have no choice Um a couple of other things you know we. So now we have hormone replacement.

Speaker 1:

Smith.

Speaker 2:

Eat well, eat well, get enough sleep. Move your body.

Speaker 1:

And here here's a not so typical tip. This is a different one, and it's actually the last one on here, but we may have some more. Exercise your mind.

Speaker 2:

So, lately, fun thing, fun fact, something, ok. So as we get older, so you're growing up. Right, as you're going through your life, you're growing up and every day you're actually learning something. If you think about it, as an infant, you know nothing, so obviously you learn everything. As a toddler, you're learning something every day. You go into school and, whether you want to or not, whether you enjoy school or not, you're being put in a learning environment every single day, and this happens for a very long time in life. Right, whether you go to college or not. You start a new job. You're learning something at your job. You have kids. You're learning how to parent your teacher, learning along with them. You are doing helping them with their homework. You're actively utilizing your brain every single day for something. And then all of a sudden, all of that goes away.

Speaker 1:

And now you're sitting here like a lump on social media like this yeah, we don't really use our brain so much anymore, right, everything is handed to us on our phones, everything, right, we don't have to think anymore.

Speaker 2:

We don't have to think anymore, we don't have to say anymore, and it's getting worse and worse. I'm doing a language course on an app online every day. Takes me five minutes, but it's five minutes that I'm doing something that I normally wouldn't do learning italian okay might as well be able to listen in on Donna's conversations with her family.

Speaker 2:

So also being recorded. Now I know what you guys are saying, so, but so I do that. It's you know. It's three minutes a day. It's a free app, zero excuses. Yeah, yeah, everybody has three minutes a day. Do it while you're on the toilet, right. So three minutes a day I do, um reading.

Speaker 1:

You do a lot of reading I read all the time.

Speaker 2:

I read all day, every day. Sometimes, yeah, it's actual books I read. You know, sometimes it's non-fiction, usually it's fiction, because that's what my, that's what relaxes me. But regardless, every single day I read. It's very rare that I don't read. I have been doing fun things like Wordle, which is I mean again, it's free I try to do a crossword puzzle every day. I try to do Sudoku every day.

Speaker 1:

I do word set searches some type of way I need every day I need to do something because I I don't do any.

Speaker 2:

Give it a couple more years, and then you'll feel the urgency I need to.

Speaker 1:

I need to implement some of this in my my life, kind of like kind of like the hormone replacement. You didn't feel the urgency until the day you did you always, you're always the first one, and then, a couple of years later, it's my turn, yep and so, and so that's what, that's what I do, and again, it's.

Speaker 2:

You know, it's my little routine. It takes me total, total. All of this takes me maybe 15 minutes a day, and I don't necessarily sit down and do it all in one go a day, and I don't necessarily sit down and do it all in one go. I, you know, I do it, I pop it into my day, depending on when I have the time to, but I don't know how much. I don't know how much it's doing, but at least I am actively making an effort to use my brain.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know that reminds me of like when people retire and they just start declining physically because they're not as active, but then they also start declining mentally. It makes sense. Yeah, so, like whoever's listening, you don't have to wait until having brain power, having all these symptoms to to start working on it like work on it now.

Speaker 2:

Yep, if you're, if you're just going into your forties, now is a good time, right, to make sure that you are setting yourself up for a healthier middle age, right? The other thing that I that's not on the list that I a 100% recommend is Bacopa and Ginkgo biloba. Okay, bacopa is for long-term memory and Ginkgo is for short-term, and they make a great combination. Get them, you know, just don't buy the cheapest one. You don't have to buy the most expensive one, just also not the cheapest. That's, you know, somewhere in the middle, is usually a decent quality supplement.

Speaker 2:

And you have to take these for about I don't know. I would have to say probably you'd have to take them consistently daily for about two to three weeks before you start feeling a difference. But I used to do this when I had finals for school, like the month before, because, you know, I was a broke student, so I couldn't afford to take this all the time and I also had nothing to do but study. So it's not like I was, you know, brain fog, that 22. But I used to take it like the month before finals would start and, holy crap, did it make a difference in terms of learning. You know, know, now I just take it so that I could remember where I put my phone. But you know, different stage of life we're good, but those, but they do, they do make a difference. Just keep in mind that, like with most supplements, you're going to have to give it time to work right, yeah, well, listen.

Speaker 1:

I think this is an awesome podcast. Like what was it about? What was it about? You forget what it was about? Rain fog, oh my gosh, it's a thing all right. So we have so much to talk about, like we're gonna cut it up midlife madness. In this midlife madness, we have so much to talk about, um, and there was a lot of good tips here. So, like you know, those of you that are listening like you're not alone and you don't have to be and also there's things that you can do so.

Speaker 1:

Reach out, reach out if you, if you need some help. All right, dr marty, that was fun, right, it was. Anyways, talk to you next time.