Find Your Lady Tribe

Thriving Mentally at Midlife with Proven Health Strategies

• Brenda Billings Ridgley

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Unlock the secrets to a sharper, more vibrant brain at any age, as we welcome neuroscience ninja Dominika Stankiewicz to explore the riveting world of midlife women's brain health. With Dominika's vast expertise, we journey through the cognitive and emotional shifts of perimenopause and menopause, illuminating the profound role hormones play in our mood, energy, and overall well-being. Prepare to be empowered with practical strategies that promise not just longevity, but a life brimming with purpose and joy.

Feel the transformative power of friendship and the rush of self-improvement on your brain's health in this episode that promises as much heart as it does science. Together with our remarkable guest, we probe the brain-enhancing lifestyle modifications, discussing everything from hyperbaric oxygen therapy to the benefits of omega-3s. Join us and discover how to fortify your mental vitality, cultivate your Lady Tribe spirit, and truly embrace the magic of aging with unwavering grace.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back, beautiful souls, to another season of Find your Ladytrap. My name is Brenda Richley, your host. You know there's a certain kind of magic that happens when women of a certain age come together. We've weathered some storms, discovered our strengths and are ready to tap into the wisdom we've accumulated to create our next big thing.

Speaker 1:

This season we're diving deep into the Wall Spring of Longevity. Let's explore how to nurture our minds, bodies and spirits so we can not lose, walker, but live vibrantly, whether you're dreaming of traveling, starting a creative pursuit, building an empire or even saving the world Yep, that's right, saving the world. This season is your guide to building the foundation for a life full of purpose, joy and an unstoppable sense of self. So grab your cup of tea, settle in and get ready to be inspired. But before we get started, I want to remind you to subscribe. Give us a thumbs up if you're enjoying the show and share it with your fellow midlife goddesses. Together, let's create a wave of empowered women who are redefining what it means to age gracefully, powerfully and with a whole lot of Lady Tribe spirit.

Speaker 3:

Hi everybody, welcome to Find your Lady Tribe. I'm so excited to have a special guest to share with you today. Her name is Dominica Stankiewicz and here's I want to share with you just a little bit about her before I let her share with us some amazing information on women's brain health. Ready to unleash your inner magic and conquer your dreams? Time to spread your wings and fly, because Ms Dominica, the brain coach, is a one star elite neuro encoding specialist, an author of the number one Kindle New Release, the Magic of Dreaming Big, acting Small and Achieving Success. She's ready to ignite your life. Coach D isn't just another regular life coach. She's a neuroscience ninja armed with deep knowledge and actionable strategies gleaned from multiple peer reviewed studies and her own experience. Dominica welcome, thank you so much for being here today.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be your guest and I'm so excited to talk to you about women's brain health, because we really don't talk about it enough.

Speaker 3:

Oh, you know and I've kind of been geeking out on it lately myself because I'm all in this season is all about longevity and you know, my people are women and girlfriends and supporting each other. So I've been learning all different ways because, as midlife women, this isn't our mother's midlife, you know, we are all living longer already. But hey, let's, things are rolling along well. Now let's keep it going. So the brain health piece is such an exciting topic, so tell me, tell me in our listeners, why you're so passionate about it.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm passionate about brain health because we forget that our brain is responsible for everything in our life, and I mean everything how healthy you are, how you react to things, how you feel, what you think, how you react, what choices you make, how well you sleep, what relations you build. Your brain is literally responsible for everything and eats up your energy. Or it can keep you awake, it can keep you stuck, it can keep you flourishing, it allows you to be in love, or it prevents you from building relationships, or it puts you in a state of fight or flight, or it takes away your power to make decisions. And all of that is interconnected with your whole body, with your gut and with your heart.

Speaker 3:

It's really incredible. Our brain is magnificent and, you know, I'm not sure I think it's a toss up your heart or your head which is more important, but the brain's right up there for sure, and I want to really ask you a lot about different factors of brain health. But I'm particularly interested right now in how menopause affects our brain. And because we all having recently kind of, I think, gone through that transition. There's a lot of what we call brain fog moments and all that good stuff. What's going on?

Speaker 2:

Okay, Explain so two things affect us when we grow and mature like wine and we become more aware of the world and we are calmer usually, although that comes with time. So we have perimenopause and menopause, and perimenopause can can start as early as 35, but it can start also as late as 50. You never know. So both of these you're in full blown menopause if you have lost your menstrual cycle for over a year and they test your hormones and it turns out that they're basically gone and depleted. Menopause shows up when we're out of eggs and we're not fertile anymore. So our body starts going through changes and your brain is extremely susceptible to hormones. Not to say that this is the only reason you get depressed, you get anxious and everything else happens, but it is one of the reasons. So first thing is keeping your hormones in balance. Hormor replacement therapy is super important for the brain and a lot of people still live. In the past, we used to think that hormone replacement therapy is something that will give you cancer, something that will hurt you absolutely not. We need that balance for our brain. So I highly highly recommend being in touch with your doctors, obviously, if you had cancer or some other issues, that might not be for you. But right now we have so many phenomenal light supplements that can keep you going, get your muscle mass going, have your brain regulated and stabilized from the hormone perspective. But that's not all. See, those hormones regulate how we feel. They give us the hot flashes or the mood swings.

Speaker 2:

So I found out okay, this is the funny story. I found out I'm in perimenopause when I saw this beautiful great squirrel jumping up and down and eating stuff and jumping on trees and I went oh my god, it's a squirrel, why am I crying? Oh my god, it's a squirrel Like. Why am I crying? It's not freaking dead. And then my light bulb went off. I'm like oh my god, it's starting. I literally ran to a doctor, had my hormones tested and I started observing myself and I immediately started doing hormone replacement therapy because I do not want to go through the emotional swings, the feeling of being ugly, nobody loving me and everything that can happen. Doesn't have to. And, to be very clear, I know women who enter menopause like this. They have zero side effects and it just showed up, left gone. Thank you, nothing, no changes. Yet a lot of women go through very heavy menopause and that influences your moods.

Speaker 2:

So one of the important things to understand about your brain is that your thoughts and your feelings are actually chemical releases into your body. So every one of your neuropathways, every one of your thoughts, is connected to a chemical release that creates an emotion and it's programmed into you throughout your life. So when those things are off balance, you react differently and your body goes kind of into overdrive and goes, oh my god. And your brain picks up on that. So it doesn't really know how to react and your ability to self-regulate lowers if you don't take care of yourself. So for our brain and our brain health, first thing we need to do is make sure we take enough sunlight and we go outside and it's not a negotiable 20 minutes outside every day, preferably in the morning, if possible in the green area. Why it helps to regulate your nervous system. It calms your brainwaves down.

Speaker 2:

Next thing, absolutely besides going to doctors, taking care of yourself medically, doing the blood work, making sure that your D3, magnesium, potassium, iron and ferritin are at the optimum levels. This is not the same as in the norm. Those are two different things. Optimum is usually much higher than the norm because, for example, d3, the norm is between 30 and 100 to be in an optimum level so that D3 gets actually to our brain. That helps produce serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. That is one of the neurotransmitters. You need to be between 60 and 80. So that's a very big difference. Most people have a deficiency, and deficiency of that will influence your mood swings.

Speaker 3:

Can you repeat those? The D3, magnesium potassium, because I was jotting them down real quick, but I want to make sure.

Speaker 2:

D3 magnesium, potassium, ferritin, iron and also levels of inflammation. Inflammation in your body has direct correlation. It doesn't have to be a cause, but it is correlated to anxiety, depression, adhd. So if you have permanent inflammation in your gut, your brain will not function as well as if that's gone. So what if part of being a brain coach it is the understanding that nothing is separate? Now, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a therapist. But my knowledge, the moment I see things that have been taught to be aware of, I will send you to a doctor because I cannot treat you, I cannot diagnose you, but I can help you get to the point where you are actually thriving and it is possible to thrive at our age. And men have lost and last up to 10 years. Ladies, yeah, it can last forever.

Speaker 2:

I mean do you really want to suffer for 10 years and have mood swings and be unbearable to everybody around you Because I don't.

Speaker 2:

I enjoy my life being happy and joyful. So that's the one part of it, and there are a lot of other medical elements which I'm not a doctor. Again, I learned from doctors things that are related to the brain, so I'm aware of it. I highly recommend that you check yourself, you know, every six months to every year, check your blood work, make sure you do go outside, make sure your hormones are in place and if not, you do a replacement therapy so your brain can function properly. Brain fog can, for example, you know the wonderful progesterone. I love progesterone. Progesterone is amazing because because of progesterone I can sleep and if we sleep the proper amount of time, brain fog is much less probable. Nothing is 100% in either way, and medicine and coaching and brain coaching Nothing is for everybody, but it's worth looking at because for me, when I have problems sleeping, I found out that when I create a ritual of going outside, I go outside in the evenings also for longer walks. I do my steps, or you know my interval running, and then I come back home I take my progesterone. I sleep like a baby. But if I don't do the walk, I don't oxygenate my body, I don't calm down. Being outside I still. Progesterone is not enough. So it is creating routines that your body gets used to.

Speaker 2:

Another thing for your brain is very important it creates associations. So if you're tossing and turning in bed, please get out of bed. Do not stay in bed. If you cannot fall asleep, Get out, go to the living room, move around. Also, your brain waves change and when we watch TV in bed, when we look at our phone in bed, when we walk on a computer in bed, your brain believes that it's daylight. It takes about 45 minutes to over an hour for your brain to get the signal that it is getting dark and it's time to go to sleep, and they're called Sarcadian rhythms that are basically out of whack. We hurt our brain by tricking. So if you want to sleep well, two hours before bed, TV off, computer off, phone off, you can read a book, you can chat, you can have some tea, you can do a lot of things. Stay away from bright light or computer light.

Speaker 3:

I'd like to go back just on a couple of things, because I want to interact with my own experience, because I think that's a great tool for other women to go. Hey, I'm not alone in this.

Speaker 2:

Well, absolutely. There's all that.

Speaker 3:

I think at one point you said something about menopause can vary so much, and that is just what I want to preach to everybody. Of course, I asked my mother when I started going through it we actually a couple of years because we just didn't talk about it First of all, why not? It's not something that we talked about. But after a couple of years of kind of going through in the paramedipause phase, I was like mom, what was it like for you?

Speaker 2:

She goes oh, it was a breeze.

Speaker 3:

Don't even hardly remember it. I was done before I was in 50. And I was like what, I'm 53 going? Oh, this is like no fun at all and I thought I'm going to just do this. Naturally, my body is good, I'm healthy and it should be able to just take care of yourself.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it should be able to. After three and a half years of the hot flashes at night and stuff, I said that's enough, I got to check this out. So I think that I respect completely the women who say I'm just going to whatever if it doesn't, they don't go through that experience and need that and want to go the natural route. There's a lot of women that are going to say hey, I want to do natural stuff, but I opted to get that progesterone and estrogen and it really provided relief very quickly, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And so, right now, over 80 symptoms of menopause from stiff shoulder hurt, your bones hurting. I have problems with my hips Although I'm not skinny, but I'm definitely not obese and I have problems after walking. My hips hurt and there's nothing. It's just part of this process. Right? Women gain weight, and they don't gain weight outside. They get the visceral fat, which is the dangerous one. Yeah, there's so many things your eyesight, your mood swings, your skin, all of those things, and the list goes on and on. And what is important to understand is that we, as women, didn't live long enough to experience that. So we actually are living long enough. For about last 30 years.

Speaker 3:

Yes, that is so fascinating to me. I thought one of the first things I read when I was really digging into menopause was like it's kind of a new thing, menopause because we just didn't live long enough.

Speaker 2:

And anecdote in Europe, in Eastern Europe, we would have hospitals for women in menopause and we would lock them up as crazy because of the mood swings and sweats. And they would be locked up and they also had some interesting ways of treating menopause. They believed that they didn't get enough sexual satisfaction, so they would go to doctors who would provide that.

Speaker 3:

Male doctors?

Speaker 1:

I bet I'm guessing, Of course, hey lady just wanted to take a moment and interrupt right now in the middle of the show, to ask you to subscribe. Yes, press that button right now. This show is all about you, the midlife woman. Let's do this thing together, so join us, subscribe now.

Speaker 2:

So, but then again, I'm not a doctor, I'm a brain coach and I deal with the brain. So menopause absolutely has huge influence on functioning of your brain and if you practice certain things your brain will stay alive and healthy. We have examples where women at age of, you know, 70 came with a brain that looked like 95. So basically highly deteriorated. And with the change in lifestyle of things that they did, we reversed the age of the brain to about 15, where they were sharp, quick and everything was happening. And we don't have to reverse. We can actually start living in a way where brain fog will not be typical, that the fact that something is normal, it doesn't mean that it's optimum.

Speaker 2:

You know it used to be normal that when we were 50, we're old women. I'm 48, soon to be 49. And this is the first time. Last month was the first time I missed a period, so I'm at the very beginning. I don't have hot flashes. I never did, but maybe because the moment I saw that this is starting, I put myself on a hormone replacement therapy. And again, if you choose not to do it, naturally you enjoy it. What I saw in my mom that was horrifying. My mom would be sitting out of the blue. She was drenched, not wet drenched, she was dripping all her clothes. You could just rinse it out. It was horrible. I could not watch that. She was suffering and she was suffering for 25 years.

Speaker 3:

And it's just not necessary, right? Can you share some of the steps that were documented to reverse that woman's aging from the 95 brain to the 50 year old brain?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. One of the things that is recommended to keep your brain healthy it is doing bilateral exercises, and we highly recommend playing ping pong or pickle ball. Oh, both of them are high in intensity and both of them require bilateral stimulation of the brain. Another thing that is highly recommended, if you are able, is to go into hyperbaric oxygenating chamber and have about 40 sessions of 20 minutes. That helps your brain oxygenate and it helps your brain to get the blood flow going, which helps the brain to regenerate on its own. Another thing that is absolutely important for the brain it is knowing your brain type, which I can run you through the assessment and then adjust your diet accordingly. Now, mind you, doctor from the Galveston diet, the one I spoke about she's not correlating that with your brain type, so sometimes things might not match, but overall the trend is very similar and it's easy to adjust.

Speaker 2:

Another thing that is very important for your brain is learning something very new and unusual for 10 to 15 minutes a day, so something that you cannot wing it. So, for example, I learned Arabic. I speak four other languages and I chose Arabic because I cannot cheat on this Right. There is no cheating. The others are different, the pronunciation is different. I have to learn how to read because it makes me think. So anything that's easy actually deteriorates your brain and that's very, very important Challenging your brain with new knowledge. Third year university. So all the programs that universities have for people 55 plus and over, absolutely go attend. Learn new sports, learn new skills at least 10 to 15 minutes a day.

Speaker 3:

I'm starting to learn Italian as of November Fantastic fantastic.

Speaker 2:

Another thing is choosing, for example, routes that you never took. So when you get on a free on your driving, usually don't even think which exit to get off, you know it automatically. You're on out of pilot Switch, that aisle of pilot off. Get off a different exit and find a different route. Where your brain has to wake up and go, hmm, another thing it is the diet that you use and we're not gonna get into this because that would go quite detailed depending on brain time, supplements and everything else. Omega-3s, good quality Omega-3s, are absolutely necessary for your brain for it to function well.

Speaker 2:

Another thing that is very common to reverse the age, it is the exercise part and it's not necessarily the muscles. Muscles are important for menopause and that you can get from doctors. Why is that important? It prevents osteoporosis and a few other things. But walking and being outside, getting the blood flow going, making sure that you're oxygenated properly, and at least 3.5 hours times two of sleep.

Speaker 2:

So seven hours of sleep is the absolute minimum for the health of your brain, recommended between seven and three and a half, and three and a half, that's seven, and then three and a half, that's even 10 and a half.

Speaker 2:

So what we have found is that going to bed at the same time is even more important than the length of sleep.

Speaker 2:

But if you're waking up between 2 am and 4 am, most likely you're living in a high stress environment and that needs to be addressed and you might feel you're not as stressed as you are, because that's the cortisol spike that shows up at night and that's why we wake up. Of course, I'm not talking about when you have hot flashes or you freeze to death out of the blue, but when you wake up for no reason. At those hours I would definitely look at your lifestyle and stress levels, which do not help your brain. Another thing that's important is that we have our rhythm of sleep is about three and a half hours, so we go into first phase and deep sleep. All of that is important for the brain, so it can clean the BS out of the brain, so it actually regenerates when you're asleep. Another important thing is looking at if you ever hit your head right and if you have, it is so important because they say oh, no, you're fine. No, no, you're not fine.

Speaker 2:

Your brain is the consistency of soft butter and the skull that you have has ridges and when you hit that it actually hurts your brain. If you look at history, they would leave NFL and five, six, seven, 10, 15 years later, out of the blue they would become aggressive, start drinking, doing drugs, spending money. They're not bad people. They had brain trauma that was not addressed. So sometimes those changes do not show up unless there's a TBI which is immediately visible. Those changes will not show up until your brain starts deteriorating, meaning when you get older.

Speaker 3:

Interesting. Well, I haven't thought about that one. Well, I have a couple more questions for you. So are you familiar with Dr Luen Brizdin? She wrote the upgrade. I have not read that book.

Speaker 3:

So it's specifically about menopause and it was fascinating. I read the whole thing, but basically in it she explains and she champions that we really we shouldn't even call it menopause anymore, we should call it the upgrade, because she says that women's brains are actually reshaped for the better in a way that creates new power, energizing clarity, creates the opportunity for highly focused sense of purpose, and you've talked in our pre-show talks, you talked about the plasticity of our brains and how interesting that is that we can teach all dogs new tricks. All right.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, absolutely. Our brains are plastic until the day we die. The difference between a young brain and a developed brain is that we need to direct plasticity. So, first of all, misconception is that when you try new things, that's when your brain rewires. No, that's not when your brain rewires, that's just when it gets experienced. The rewiring happens when you sleep. Second of all, as adults, we need to direct, so your brain has to be directed, that this needs to change and it's important and it's gonna be better if we do it a different way. So it doesn't just happen because you've experienced something.

Speaker 2:

Notice that personality changes, behavioral changes happen after emotional trauma or something huge Other than that. We keep going with our behavioral patterns that we always had, unless we feel discomfort. That's why, or we feel extreme pleasure, your brain is looking for those signals and, working with a brain coach, we do notice, and then there are certain things we do to signal to your brain that this is time to learn new things and it's important. But the rewiring and the neuroplasticity happens when we're asleep. So that's why, also, sleep is very important for your full look and for your body to function well, especially your brain.

Speaker 3:

Awesome, I love hearing about that. So, dominika, is there anything? How can people find you?

Speaker 2:

Well, you guys can go to your brain coach D. That's the first place as my website. You can find me at your brain coach D on Facebook. You can find me your brain coach D on Instagram. You can find me your brain coach D on LinkedIn. So everywhere you go, it's your brain coach D. And I deal especially with depression, anxiety, ADHD. Recreating your life so it becomes your superpower instead of your downfall and stress, self doubt, self loathing all of those things that we can address with brain coaching and working on your lifestyle and feel the things. And neuro plasticity, and that's what I deal with. And again, women in menopause I love working with doctors who are taking care of you on the medical side, so I can support you on the brain side. It's a great synergy there.

Speaker 3:

Oh, wonderful, and just a few of the takeaways that I got to down. Where ladies get sunlight at least 20 minutes a day in the morning if possible. Your supplementation D3, magnesium, potassium for for ton, I'm not sure what was that one.

Speaker 2:

So that's a blood work that you do ferritin for the level of iron in your cells and it's different than level of iron in your blood.

Speaker 3:

Okay, great. And then to make your aging go backwards in your brain, you want to do some bilateral exercises ping pong, pickle ball, hyperbaric chamber, I think how many times did you say so?

Speaker 2:

the recommended usually those such as 20 to 40 times 20 minutes.

Speaker 3:

Okay, I'm gonna check that out. Knowing your brain type, yes, and how do people find out their brain type?

Speaker 2:

They can either write to me and I'll send them the link so they can assess their brain type and it'll give them general information about their brain type.

Speaker 3:

Okay, I will put your link in the in the comments as well. Learn something new, like language, something totally new that you can't cheat on. You're driving new routes. Just you know, check things out, take a look around, learn some, see something new. Find a diet that's beneficial to your brain with a mega threes and getting some oxygen through your body with exercise and movement. So those were all fantastic tips and I so appreciate it. I'm gonna the magnesium piece I'm gonna find out exactly which one that is, because I think it's kind of important Put a link to that in the comments as well. But I like to just always wrap up with since this is about for midlife, women and we're all about community and friendship and our girl tribes Tell us don't mean to guy, how do you try?

Speaker 2:

Well, I have my tribe from Tony Robbins world of women and I have also a group of women that we explore femininity and the new aspect and how we can balance the feminine side of us with the masculine side, and we dance and we sing and we chat. I don't drink, so you know my friends drink I don't, but then I get myself a lovely cocktail or moktail and I enjoy time with them and it's a lot of laughter and exchanging knowledge and information and finding ways how we can support each other. There's a network of women. We can always give each other a call when we're feeling not so great. That's okay, because you don't need to feel great every day. The question is are you allowing yourself to feel down or are you looking for ways to get better? And we're all about cutting down the time of feeling down to make ourselves feel better and feeling loved and appreciated. It is always a great way to do that.

Speaker 3:

Friendship is good for your brain, absolutely. Let's just end with that. So, hey, I so appreciate you being on the find your lady tribe podcast I'm going to cast Thank you so much for being here and everybody please share this with someone that you care about that might need some going through some of this stuff for you know, anyone who's just on this path of learning about it, like I am. So thanks for being here and make sure you like and subscribe and share.

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Brenda Billings Ridgley

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