TINAH Talks | Mental Health and Wellbeing Podcast

39. The Link Between Hormones and Mental Health: Navigating Women's Wellness

TINAH Season 2 Episode 39

In this episode of the Tinah Talks podcast, we’re talking with Leah Christian, founder of The House of Hormones, to explore the critical intersection of women's health, hormones, and mental well-being. 🧠

Leah shares her journey into women's health advocacy, highlighting the lack of education surrounding hormonal health and the systemic issues within the healthcare system that often leave women feeling unheard and misdiagnosed.

We delve into the complexities of hormonal fluctuations, their impact on mental health, and the necessity for women to understand their bodies better. Our conversation emphasizes the importance of community support, personal advocacy, and the need for better education on hormonal health from a young age. 👧

Listen to an open discussion around perimenopause symptoms, the significance of nutrition and self-care, and the importance of open conversations about women's health, including involving men in these discussions.

Want to learn more about Women's Health & Hormones?

💗 Check Out The House Of Hormones

🔔 Follow The House Of Hormones on Instagram 

#WomensHealth #HormonalHealth #MentalHealth #SelfImprovement #Mindfulness #PersonalDevelopment #Perimenopause #PMDD #HormonalBalance #HormoneEducation

About The TINAH Talks Podcast: TINAH (Time Is Not a Healer) is your go-to mental well-being marketplace and community! In this podcast, you can expect empowering conversations to support you in your mental health healing journey.

We are on a mission to: ✨ EMPOWER you to prioritize and take control of your mental health ✨ EDUCATE you on mental health and wellbeing practices ✨ ELIMINATE stigma around mental health

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Sophie (00:00)
Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Tina talks podcast. Today I am joined by a guest and we are talking about all things women's health and hormones. So today I'm joined by the founder and CEO of the House of Hormones, Leah, and she has a background in psychology and it's also a massive advocate for women's health. Leah is on a mission to bridge the gap between understanding women's hormonal health, which ties in really nicely with the work that we're doing at Tina because obviously women's hormones are so closely linked to mental health.

So I want to introduce you to Leah, if you want to give us little bit of an overview of yourself, your business and everything that's going on for you right now.

Leah Christian (00:36)
Hello, and thanks so much for having me, Sophie. I'm really excited to be here on Tina Talks. I just love, love, love, love what you guys are doing. Obviously, mental health is massively important, obviously, but it's always been a massively important thing in my life. And we'll go into that a little bit more, even with my early days of studying psychology.

Sophie (00:42)
Thanks for joining us.

Leah Christian (01:01)
And I then went on to study more in children's mental health when I had kids. And now, of course, women's health and women's mental health and mental health is tied in so much. with hormonal health and things like that. So I'm really excited to dig in more. But thanks so much for having me.

Sophie (01:19)
No, thank you for joining us and exactly what you just said. The more that I learn about hormones and women's health, the more I see the direct correlation between mental health personally for myself and in other people. But I just can't understand how we're not more better educated on this from a younger age. It actually blows my mind a little bit.

Leah Christian (01:41)
Yeah,

it is pretty mind blowing. And to be honest, this is the reason why I launched the House of Hormones. So I mean, I know you're interested to hear about why we launched the House of Hormones. I think that's actually a really nice little crossover. had, you know, like we said, I studied psychology, it's a hugely, hugely interesting topic, and has always been of interest to me. Throughout my life, I've had

friends, I've had family, myself have struggled with anxiety, loads of people I know have with depression and so I find it when I had children I find it so important to further my studies and so I did some diplomas etc on children's mental health and just really that wasn't with any work in mind that was just to understand and to help my children grow up in such a difficult society I think.

you know, in this day and age, which I know you guys dig into a lot, but just the pressures of society and the different things that we're actually dealing with and the things that we're going to see our children dealing with in different generations is mind blowing. And I kind of wanted a helping hand in understanding that. So why can't they give them a helping hand? But what I've seen after I had my son, so I was maybe around 35, I started to see something that was happening constantly.

with every single one of my friends that was a similar age. So, and I didn't really understand it at first. So it could be mental health, it could be fatigue, it could be just loads of different symptoms. And we were all going to the doctors and saying, I'm just so tired or my anxiety has just cracked right off or this has happened and this has happened. And it was all from the age of 35. And then the more research that I started doing into this because what was

fascinating was me and me and so everyone has a girl's group chat right so and a boy's group chat similarly or a mixed group chat but everyone has like that one group chat that you go to for advice or you know whatever and so all three of us so three girls all went to the doctors with the exact same you know symptoms complaints whatever you want to call them

And we all came out with three different things. So somebody was offered B12 injections, somebody was offered the coil and somebody was offered antidepressants, right? Fascinating to me. Absolutely fascinating. Now, needless to say, I am not, by the way, here's my disclaimer, in no way, shape or form, am I against antidepressants, okay? For the right times and the right people, very important. So there's my disclaimer and I am

pro in the right situation. However, in this case, was antidepressants were not needed. Okay, because it was a cyclical thing and it was quite clearly hormones. So I started to really delve into this education because it was blowing my mind. At the same time as doing that, we're seeing women's health products on the rise. So you're starting to see things like collagen and supplement, supplementation.

all these different products, like you must be using this and are you using this? So at the same time that I'm really delving into women's health education and what's going on there and why did the doctors not know about any of this and why are we being offered antidepressants when we're just talking about a period of the month when our mental health isn't, and the doctors aren't able to tell us anything about that, but they will happily give us antidepressants. So.

This was where all my education started to come together. So I started working and interviewing different doctors. There are some amazing doctors out there at the moment doing amazing things. Dr. Negata Reef, who is UK based. She's amazing. She's like, you know, the TV doctor of the moment she's on this morning and she's just doing great things. Dr. Aziz Assasay. my goodness, she does amazing things. And then you've got people more stateside like Dr. Mary Claire Haver.

who I just love and she is doing fantastic things. And I started listening to these doctors and having meetings with these doctors and speaking and hearing to what they were saying. And they have been treating women. So they're not listening to the guidelines anymore. They're going off their experiences of treating women for over 25 years. And so things just started to become more evident. And what I was realizing was women...

couldn't trust their doctors or were feeling gaslit by their doctors and couldn't go to their doctors anymore. So they were going to their group chats. They're going to their group chats and going, well, how are you feeling? Well, are you taking a supplement? Have you been told you need to take, if you've got B12 injections, are you taking zinc? Like literally it was all coming back to community and group chat. And so that is why I launched the heisoformones because I realized that there is nowhere to go where you can get

up to date education that, you know, that isn't because an NHS website obviously has to be like, things have to be tried, tested. And here's the problem. They have not done the tests on women's bodies. The research does not exist. So we are no closer to understanding even women's bodies. So they don't know all medications that are out there have been tested on men.

Sophie (06:49)
Yeah.

Leah Christian (07:06)
bodies. So the medication that you're even taking, even if it's for something like, you know, heart medication, or that's just been tested on men's bodies. So we actually don't know how well that works on women's bodies. And so there's a huge, huge gap in the system. It's really letting women down. And I just decided that I wanted to do something about it. So I put together, you know, all the the

research that I've been doing and I put it all into the hysoformones and I also thought you know what let's add some fun to this too because women do love products, we do and also although we are a nutrition first, mental health first, all of this, everything that we do educates on nutrition, exercise, mental health, all of these practices but

If you then need to top up with a supplement or whatever, we want women to be able to trust the brands that they're using because of course, women, because this society is broken and we can't get help that way, women are turning to products. And of course people are going to start jumping on that bandwagon. So that what's going to come with loads of amazing products, right? And loads of really good research that's being done. Of course there's going to come loads of rubbish too. So we like to try and test.

and work with some brands and we are not paid by these brands that are promoted on our website by the way I need to be clear they are hand picked and we the ones that we love will put on our website so the idea is that you can trust that we do not we're not trying to sell the brand we don't have our own products we're not trying to sell anybody products we're just trying to say if you then want to top up like if you're still struggling sleeping and you want to take some magnesium hey look here's some brands that we like

It's that type of vibe. And I know you guys do a similar thing, which I just think is amazing and super helpful. And yeah, we just want women to know that they can come to the House of Fours and it is a place that they can trust. And you can trust the information. But as well, if you go to our Instagram, we kind of like to do it with a more relaxed vibe. We're not here to be saying, women have had it so hard. This is outrageous. All of that's true. But...

It can be a bit more lighthearted and we do want to help educate younger women. And so we just do feel like, you know, we can take the piss out of ourselves a little bit. Yes, I am a psycho a week, a month, the week before my Like that's okay. And I just think women love, like we love that humour in it as well. And I think when we also engage men in that conversation, and I want to dig into that a little bit later too.

when we bring them in, like they can have it, like if they're not scared to like say you're a psycho or you know, but if we can bring them into the conversation, it's better for everyone, right? We're gonna make more progress like this is, and also they're not as clueless as you think when you actually open up having a conversation with men about it or you drag them into it and ask them for their thoughts, it's actually a really nice conversation and that's what it's been like in my experience, but yeah. I hope that.

a little bit about the highest performance and why we launched and what the problems have been in society.

Sophie (10:19)
Yeah.

Definitely. Thank you for that. That's so relatable, honestly, that that whole story that you've just told about, like, you and two of your friends, like all going to doctors for the exact same symptoms, all coming out of different diagnosis, all coming out with different supposed solution for the problem. And then having to go on your own investigation, like I hundred percent have gone down that route so many times for different issues that I've struggled with. And the the response is just tech.

but no one's actually looking into my personal situation or my personal health. It's literally just like, let's tick a box. yeah, we've done this, we've done that, we've done that. And I'm not trying to dig out the healthcare system in any way, but my personal experiences in all honesty haven't been particularly positive. And I've had multiple issues, not necessarily just with hormones, although I definitely have got issues with unbalanced hormones, but other things, for example,

Leah Christian (10:57)
I'm in there now.

Thank you.

Sophie (11:21)
a years ago, I was actually under investigation for lupus because I had all of these unexplained symptoms. So I was referred to, what do they call it? I can't remember the department in the hospital now, it's so long ago, but I was referred to the whatever the department is and I was under their observation for two and a half years. And I was under these like going through all of these crazy tests and they just could never get to the bottom of it. And I was like being

Gaslit by all sorts of different people telling me that there was nothing wrong with me and I was like well these symptoms are present like there's something happening Anyway, fast forward three years. I'm living in Bali and I meet this girl who's got exactly the same symptoms as me and she starts telling me it's all from like Hers was all from my histamine imbalances in your body's overproduced So for the past like three years

Leah Christian (11:47)
I know.

Yeah, I've heard, yeah.

Sophie (12:12)
I have completely changed my diet because previously I'd say I had a very high histamine diet. I'd eat bananas all the time. I'd always eat avocados. They are very high in histamine. I've cut those out.

Leah Christian (12:22)
Who would know that, right?

Who would know? And your doctor certainly doesn't know that.

Sophie (12:27)
The doctor 100 % never mentioned any of this. Anyway, I start reducing all of these foods that I think that I'm intolerant to based on the research that I've then gone down a rabbit hole into online to try and figure out if that's actually what's causing all of these symptoms for me. 90 % of the symptoms that I had completely gone. And that's just from my own personal investigations because I haven't been able to get that. The doctors would never have even warranted a conversation with that.

Same when I was struggling with my mental health, the first thing rather than me like going down a route of therapy or like whatever else, straight away, do you want, we'll put you on antidepressants. I'm like, there wasn't even a conversation. It was literally just like, here you go. Here's some, here's some like really high drugs.

So yeah, I completely understand like the situation where you know, you want to fight for like something that you know is wrong, but you're not getting the answers. Then you go on your own investigation. So that's why I think the house of hormones.

It's absolutely perfect place for somebody that does think that they are struggling with hormones to come and educate themselves. As you say, get recommendations for products that may be able to support them very similarly to what we try to do with Tina from a mental health perspective as well. So I think it's great what you're doing and thanks so much for coming on, joining me and talking about this because it's such a big subject that, it's such a, as I said at the beginning, a subject that we are not taught enough about as it from an early age as women. And we then have to go on in later on in our lives.

Leah Christian (13:44)
Yeah.

Sophie (13:54)
maybe almost go through like a trial and error process of struggling with things to then actually figure out what's wrong and then go down the route of like solving it. one thing, one good, sorry.

Leah Christian (13:58)
I think you're right, Sophie. Well, I think you're right. And just to quickly talk about, you know,

your in your instance there. And I mean, this is exactly what we're seeing with women everywhere. So you were talking about your personal experience of having to go back and forth and feeling gaslit and feeling like the doctors were believing your symptoms. so this is what we're seeing. We see this a lot with hormonal balance.

even around perimenopause, which we'll go on to talk about, but also even in things like, I mean, I was chatting to a young girl the other day about her hormonal acne and how she was being given antibiotics and arguably sometimes that can actually make it worse and it's ruining your gut and it's just having so many negative effects. you know, you touched on a point that I think we'll probably mention this a few times, and this is not

kind of what you said earlier, but this is not to dig out the doctors, the GPs or the NHS. Absolutely not. It's a systematic problem in general. So the doctors actually do less than two hours of education on hormones, unless you're a specialist women's health doctor. And that's just pretty shocking. you know, sometimes people, I have obviously now gone on to do

Diplomas in hormonal health and and I'm a menopause coach and so it's so I've got lots of but even before that I've done more research Than a doctor and knew more than a doctor and I was asking the doctors questions They just couldn't answer and you hit the nail on the head when you said that the doctor didn't ask you about nutrition I mean, of course normally a doctor is meant to say

Sophie (15:35)
while.

Leah Christian (15:42)
are you having a balanced diet or, but they literally wouldn't be able to go in and start talking to you about micronutrients and all these different things that, and your microbiome and all these different things that we now know are so important for mental health, for physical health, for, you know, everything. And so again, I've gone on to do education in nutrition because as soon as I realized how important this was, it was one of the first things that I went to, but you know, it's crazy and

We're just seeing this over and over again. And this is why, you know, I started the House of Formers, but this is also why we need to get the message out to as many women and just, everybody in general, honestly, you have to advocate for yourself because if you are not educating yourself and if you are not, you know, trying to find the answers of what's going on,

Unfortunately, the system is not going to help you at the minute. And that's not to be negative or to make anyone feel depressed about it. There is stuff you can do. we are doing the like we always say we're doing the hard work so you don't have to like we're trying to bring the education here for you. We're trying to find you the best products. We're trying to find you the things that can be done. It's not always about buying products and, you know, things like that. But just what small changes can you make like walking? Don't get me started on the benefits of going for a walk. But we'll talk about that again later. But

Yeah, and so it's just so important to get the word out there. So thanks for, you know, having me on because we just want to reach as many women as possible so they can advocate for themselves, their daughters, their mothers, their friends, their partners, you know.

Sophie (17:17)
No, definitely. Like you said, it's shocking. As you just mentioned, the level of education that is actually given around hormones and then the result that that then has on the care that we're given as women.

So we've been speaking a lot about hormones. It'd be really good just before we kick off into like further conversations around it. When we're talking about hormones, what specifically are we talking about, particularly those hormones that are related more so to mental health and like what's impacting our mental health? Can you talk us a little bit more through that?

Leah (17:50)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think this actually goes unrecognized, but it's pretty obvious. our hormones, and we can get into the breakdown of these, but mainly when I'm referring to hormones in terms of hormonal balance and females, we're talking about estrogen, progesterone, and also testosterone, which people don't really consider that to be something to do with women's health, but it is massively. And so when these hormones, these three hormones,

are fluctuating or are out of balance or out of sync, then basically we start to see huge differences in women's moods, in anxiety, in depression, in just how they're feeling overall in their mental health. And when you think about it, when you take it back to basics, of course it's so obvious, like we all know.

the week before your period or during your period that you feel a bit more down. It goes like saying everybody knows that and it's accepted but it's not really talked about. This again going back to why I launched the House of Hormones, I have a daughter, my daughter is seven years old.

and I actually got my period when I was nine. And so realistically speaking, my daughter's two years off because you are meant to naturally follow kind of your mother's journey, hormonal journey. And so if she gets her period when she's nine, to me, I want to be in a better place to be able to educate her because this is something that is kind of widely accepted that yes, there's mood fluctuations, but let's dig down deeper.

into that and what that means and actually how people can be feeling because it can be really dark or really sad and it's not just you're a bit grumpy which is kind of how we've allowed it to be passed off for years and it's really sad that actually and there's so many great great great companies now that are doing fantastic marketing campaigns like it's not just a period and you know all these types of things just to get

women's health and also the hormonal, the cyclical journey that we go on every single month to get it to be taken more seriously. But these fluctuations do cause huge effects on our mental health. that is when you look at it, like that is happens on a monthly basis to every single woman. So this is over 50 % of the population. I think it's actually 51 % of the population, but also

the journey from the start of your hormonal journey at age nine or whatever, 10, 11, 12, whatever age that's gonna be, right up to when you go through menopause and then post-menopause. So we can look at it like that as well and the impact that it'll have. But definitely, there's lots of things that aren't spoken about too, like PMDD, that so many women suffer from and that's a really...

Sophie (20:46)
Yeah.

Leah (20:50)
serious condition that really leads to such, can lead to depression and such severe anxiety. But, you know, there's just so much I could speak about when it comes to mental health, but it's easier for me to sometimes maybe give my personal experience because when honestly, Sophie, like even earlier when I opened up to you and I'm speaking to you about hormonal balance and I'm speaking to you about

all these different things and you're like, and yeah, and then my experience, every single woman does this. So every single woman that I'm speaking to, once you're talking about this topic for 10 minutes and anyone that's watching this, I know they've already said, yeah, well that correlates with me or that happened to me or you know, like every woman has some form of experience, whether it's hormonal acne and it's not an age thing. I know we talk, we do at the highest forums talk a lot about perimenopause and I'll.

explain a little bit more why but honestly we're about the hormonal balance of every age and like I said my daughter's seven and I think it's so important to really start teaching this at a younger age and really talking about the mental health side of it because I just think you know it can have so such psychological damage on people and women have had to internalize this for so many years and have been painted as moody and

Sophie (21:57)
the other day.

Leah (22:13)
Please don't get me wrong, because like I said, I do find it funny to say, I'm such a psycho this week or, you know, whatever. And I do love the memes of, you know, like my husband's breathing annoying me, like warm up, like I like them. I just think it's lighthearted. It's fun. But also, as long as we're taking serious the education that's behind it, because let's face it, women have been forced to internalize this or have been sent to their group chats to discuss this. I think it's really interesting as well to.

quickly point out that I grew up in Belfast. I grew up with three brothers so I am an only girl and I grew up in household where you would hide your sanitary towels up your sleeve to go from. And like that's such a sad, like I didn't grow up in a household where I was made to feel ashamed or like it wasn't anything like that at all. It was just the norm.

my brothers nor my dad would ever have spoken to me about my period or would ever have spoken to And that was just normal. It wasn't because they were horrible or because like that wasn't the case at all. But that's crazy. So the biggest part of a woman's biology and you're a young girl going through, you know, this change and you're hiding and you're ashamed of it and you're maybe and imagine then dealing with those mental health issues that come along that week before and

you know, it just can be so challenging and to not be there to be supporting our younger women, that's just, it's crazy to me, you know, and I think in this day and age when we know so much more about mental health and we know so much more about these things, it's crazy that women aren't given the support that they need.

there's so many other aspects to it like for example hormonal acne. So we know that so many people suffer from hormonal acne and it won't be diagnosed as hormonal acne it will be diagnosed as acne in many cases. And that's something physical like potentially on your face or on your back and as we know the psychological damage and you know the mental health issues that can come out or how it can make you feel if something is you know

physically impacting you, it also mentally impacts you so much and I just think these things aren't addressed again. know, doctors will maybe say here's some antibiotics and you know there's no discussion of your mental health and how that's actually impacting you and that's happening for a lot of young girls and I just think we're in 2024, it needs to stop, like it just needs to end.

Sophie (24:49)
Absolutely.

Leah (24:51)
we have to understand it's a really simple concept to understand that with fluctuations of the hormones that I mentioned before, so estrogen, progesterone, and we'll dig into these a little bit more, and testosterone, when they fluctuate, whether that's on your monthly cycle or whether that's on your whole hormonal journey, so from when you get your period to post that, then that is...

completely directly correlated to mental health and it needs to be taken more seriously.

I think as a mother with a seven year old daughter who's coming into this world, I feel really like we have to change things now. Like I almost want to make the biggest amount of change that I possibly can in the next two years.

before she enters this kind of world of hormones and that type of thing.

Sophie (25:39)
I understand that and it's amazing to see like your passion coming through as you speak about it and the fact that it's all mainly fueled by your daughter and that she's gonna go through this so soon and actually just as you were talking there it made me think like what did I know at that age and the answer was zero. Like zero. I knew nothing. I knew how to put a sanitary pad in my knickers. I knew how to use tampons but like that was it. I knew nothing about the fact that

Leah (25:41)
Thank

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sophie (26:09)
my mood directly correlated to this thing that was happening to me every single month. I just knew it was going to come every month. then as I got all throughout my teenage years, I was a chaos of emotion throughout my teenage years. And I didn't understand why. And if I had understood why, I had had that education that you're going to then give on to your daughter, like I may have reacted differently. Like that, that education has the opportunity to change her whole.

Leah (26:23)
Yeah.

Sophie (26:36)
adolescence, her adult life, like it really does have an opportunity to change the whole course of her life because she's gonna understand herself better which I think is an amazing thing.

Leah (26:45)
And that's just one side of it. So yeah, know, my passion to educate and to make the world a better place for her and that might sound a little bit cheesy, but it's true. But also my passion for, like I turned 40 this year.

And for the last five years, I've just been witnessing every single woman who's my age, around me from the age of 35. And so this is moving kind of into perimenopause. So to talk a little bit about perimenopause, starting to have all these different symptoms, right? And these are symptoms.

Sophie (27:15)
Yeah.

Leah (27:22)
that can be explained away, right? So like, let's dig into a few symptoms that you wouldn't even know tonight is. Let's talk, and again, we'll talk about me. So we'll talk about my case studies so people can, know, because some people will say, well, that's not a symptom of perimenopause. It is. There's 80 symptoms that have been noted so far. We have them listed. So you can, if you go to the Heiser Foreman's website, so [theheiserforemans.com](http://theheiserforemans.com/), we've got a free download section and you can go and download.

loads of our visuals, we try and simplify things and make them in really nice way, but also on our Instagram, we have listed these. So let's go through a few of them that I got from the age of 35. So not all at once, right? And just to say, doctors and the system basically would not consider anybody or think about anybody even being perimenopausal until the age of 45 plus, right?

Whereas this was happening to every single woman I knew from 35. So firstly, anxiety. I put that down too. I just had a baby, so I was like, ooh, I got a bit of post-natal depression. Could have been that as well, right? But here is how, as women, we explain everything away. Exhaustion, like I don't mean tired. I mean chronic fatigue, right? Like tired. And I've got two children. Of course I'm tired, of course I'm tired. There's my explanation for that.

Bearing in mind, I'm surrounded by women that are having all the same symptoms and they're explaining in way, but I was out at the weekend, so I've been really tired this week and da da da da, and you know, I've got two kids or I'm working really hard because of course, you know, we're all in this generation, mostly, we're mostly working full time, plus we have kids, plus we're doing the mental load of the household and...

xyz and this is again not to dig out men or not to but this is just what's happened in society and women have just taken on more and more and more and so then we're explaining away all these symptoms and we're not really digging into what the problem is tinnitus have you heard of tinnitus before so that was one of the what that was one of my first symptoms now it's like that is weird i've never had this before in my life itchy skin

Sophie (29:27)
That's this, yeah, I did not know it was simply primanipause.

Leah (29:38)
I used to have eczema when I was a kid, so I was like, maybe I'm just getting a bit of eczema again, or again, you know, I just had two children, maybe my body's just changing, maybe I'm using a different moisturizer. You will explain away nearly every single symptom. It is crazy. Brain fog, right? Brain fog was one of my biggest symptoms that I started having that actually was one of the ones that made me delve deeper.

Like there is an explanation for every single one of these symptoms. So because nobody knows that this is normal, because we're told that this is 45, firstly, 35 year olds are just walking around thinking, couldn't possibly be, won't even say the word, are scared of talking about perimenopause or menopause or anything like that, because that feels like it's for like women that are way older and it couldn't possibly be.

for us, however, if women knew what to look out for, if they understood what they could do to advocate for themselves, I cannot tell you the changes that I've made that are not only making my life better and making me healthier and making my whole family's life better, and also kind of slowing down, you know, the onset, not slowing down the onset of perimenopause, but just slowing down everything becoming really overwhelming.

And so if I could just tell you by doing some simple things, it's life changing. And not only is it making it better right now, but it's also making me healthier and stronger for when I fully go into, know, for when these symptoms become increasing. So essentially the way I seen it was the system was set up to basically make women completely

desperate and just have, you almost needed to have 50 of those symptoms before a doctor would listen to you. So you had to, say you start at 35 and I then had tinnitus and I was having a bit of anxiety and I was a bit tired and I was explaining them off and then two years later I had more symptoms and then, you know, I've gotta wait until I'm 45 and I'm literally having hot flashes and I can't sleep at night and I'm having all the real obvious symptoms because I've ignored everything else and it's all building up.

Of course my mental health would be completely shot by then because you're just, and you're going to the doctor and they're saying, couldn't possibly be perimenopause because you're not 45. So, mean, now it's been proven by so many doctors. Two weeks ago, they actually brought the age down of where they would offer women HRT. They've brought it down from 45 to 40.

Sophie (32:05)
Yeah.

Leah (32:20)
It needs to be brought down more, but at least it's a start. So let's not be negative, but at least it's a start and they've brought it down to 40. So now, like at my, now I'm 40, I would be considered, you know, come and would you want to have HRT, blah, blah, before they would not even offer it to me. They wouldn't consider anything. They'll say before they offer you HRT, which is a whole different podcasting to be, because we could go on for ages on that.

Sophie (32:24)
Yeah.

Leah (32:48)
but they would offer antidepressants before they would offer women. And the way I view HRT, everyone has different views on it and they're entitled to them. However, all the links to cancers and the research that people were worried about, that's all been proven incorrect now through many studies and spoken about at length. And I can send people...

studies and discuss it with anybody that wants to ask quite more questions on that but that's in my infield so we won't get too into that but the point is you know they really the system was set up to make women like completely desperate and really low really at cracking point as opposed to help women and teach them and teach them how to advocate for themselves and there's some really simple things like really simple things.

Sophie (33:18)
Yeah.

Leah (33:36)
and it doesn't have to cost you a lot of money and it doesn't have to be the newest supplement that's out there and this and that. I mean, obviously nutrition is my first thing and you've talked about that yourself for your own health issues that have gone on and how that made such a huge difference to you. And I think if we could just get it across to women, the difference.

that it would make for their mental health, their physical health, like everything and the small changes. And it doesn't have to cost loads more money and it doesn't, and I get it, it's really overwhelming on Instagram. It is, you just go, you need to have this amount of protein and you need to have this amount. And you're like, my God, I literally need to give up my full-time job just so I can try and eat enough protein in the day. But like if you just change,

Sophie (34:22)
Yeah.

Leah (34:27)
certain things honestly it can make such a big difference. Strength training is another one if you're not strength training I don't know what you're doing because we just talk about muscle mass and when we start talking about like the depletion of estrogen and we start seeing things like that go down like honestly you just lose muscles. hear like Dr Mary Clare really explains this well and she talks about like

Sophie (34:31)
Yeah.

Leah (34:52)
you think of like the old woman that's in an armchair that can't get up, like that's because of this, right? So you've even got to, when you're thinking about yourself, you know, and your hormones starting to change at a certain age, like around perimenopause, you've really got to start thinking about your older self, like do it for your older self too, not just for yourself today, do it for your older self too, because you need to protect yourself. And I think that's the really important thing, like

Again, we won't delve too much into HRT, but people have been looking at HRT almost like it's a medication or is, and really I think we need to change the way we look at that. So I now kind of see HRT like a supplement. So if you think of any other hormone that depletes in men, like men get their topped up like this. It's crazy in America, by the way, because men get testosterone.

through their insurance because obviously they have a different healthcare setup whereas women do not. So it's just the way it's been set up for women is so crazy but when estrogen starts to go down which starts to go down at the age of 25 so when that starts happening basically why not top it up? kind of I've started looking at hormone replacement therapy as you know

think of it as doing what it says on the tin, it's just replacing the hormones that you're losing. So by keeping them balanced, it just means that, your mental health's not gonna be all higgledy-piggledy. It probably still is a little bit, but you know, in your normal cycle, but not as bad. There's graphs online, and we've put graphs online, where you literally see, you know, this is like women's hormones, and then around perimenopause, it's literally like this. So,

you know, it's just crazy and I think the education, we just need to educate people more because if they could understand by doing simple things, by adding protein, adding fibre, by getting out and walking like exercise and walking is just the best thing for your mental health. Like I swear by it, I cannot get through my day without going for a walk and I just, I know people just think, well, I'm too busy for it or I can't do it. Maybe if you're walking to the train station or

Like I dropped my kids off from school and I forced myself to do a half an hour walk and whether I need to fit in calls or whatever it is, I do whatever I can because it's non-negotiable for me now. And I think to advocate for yourself, you just have to make some things non-negotiable. And that is one thing that's non-negotiable.

Sophie (37:33)
Yeah, I really like what you said there about like thinking about your future self because you know that person that you are today, like, yeah, you're going to benefit yourself as you are, but actually you're also benefiting yourself in the longer term as well. And like you gave the example of like a frail woman like sitting in a chair, not being able to move. Like, do you want that for yourself or do you want like better for that? Do you want to still be living and being active and going out and doing all those things? Like that starts now. That doesn't start when you're 85. That's going to start when you're younger.

and you spoke a lot about like different ages where different things happen. Could you summarise that and talk me through like a bit of a timeline of what should we be looking out for at different ages? So for example, I'm 32 turning 33 next year. Like what should I be thinking about at this stage? Like where you're saying, know, 35 potentially that perimenopause could start setting in. Like what should I be looking out for at this point? And like, where does that journey kind of go from there?

Leah (38:05)
.

Yeah, so I mean I would start by saying and I've thought about this a lot because again my daughter back to that and I've just kind of thought you know what what how should we be teaching people about this I think a lot about this right what way should we go about it what have we done wrong why don't we why don't women today know these things that why don't you know the answer to that question is my question and I speak to so many different people and

Honestly, Sophie, I speak to people in this industry, like selling women's health supplements, right, or working for apps, know, cycle apps, cycle tracking apps, and I'll ask them, can you name the four stages of your cycle? Nobody can name them. No one, honestly, I've asked people. And of course, like if you're doctor or whatever, yeah, you'll be able to name them, but like even people working in this cannot, so like your luteal menstruation.

follicular ovulation, that's the four, right? And if we can even get that down, right, and just understand, and of course now there's lovely tracking apps and there's all this different type of stuff, but where I would start for every single woman is symptom tracking. We have a free downloadable symptom tracker, which is the equivalent to what the NHS use, and you know, everyone's got them. I don't even care if you get it from the highest of hormones, but have a symptom tracker.

We also have a beautiful journal if you want like a wellness journal and you want to track it that way and you want to write things down or maybe you're on a fertility journey or maybe you know you just haven't been feeling yourself or whatever so if you really wanted to go more into it you could do that and again use any journal I don't care obviously we've got one but use whatever one you want but for you I'd be saying like you know your early 30s just be educated in

The fact that firstly this isn't scary, it doesn't have to be the big like crazy thing that everyone makes it out to be or the really like impending doom of no, like getting older is actually amazing and I've always loved getting older and all my friends will tell you this because there's so much wisdom you actually are a lot happier and settled in yourself I find but

There are little things that you could be doing for yourself. you know, for a young 30 year old, you know, you would say, look, just, you know, like start good habits, start good habits early. Like make sure you're looking after yourself, but make sure you're in tune with yourself. Make sure you're in tune with your symptoms. Make sure you know when something's wrong. Make sure you know what the symptoms are. So if you're feeling a bit down or if you're all of a sudden really tired,

you're not just explaining it away and allowing yourself to be gaslit because you start going into a halt. Do you know what I mean? And I think luckily for me, I have a background in psychology, mental health and all those types of things. So I was able to see that, a second, this isn't right. This isn't what we're being told. And I'm really interested in psychology. I didn't just...

Sophie (41:21)
Thank

Leah (41:40)
do it because that was what like I love it it's a passion so I really wanted to look into this more and I was really inquisitive about the whole thing so I was able to look into it more and go this is weird that all this is happening to everybody but if you're aware of that like if I tell you these ED symptoms and then all of a sudden when you're 34 you get tinnitus and you're gonna go I remember Leah saying actually and it doesn't mean that you need to be like

goodness I'm perimenopausal that's it I'm gonna get hot flashes and I'm never gonna be able to sleep again. Absolutely not but the point is you'll know that your body you need to then advocate for yourself more so your body's starting to change. Think about it this way in women have naturally learned in your cycle so in your monthly cycle you have naturally learned to and we don't do it enough but you've naturally learned to if you have your period you're told to have a little hot water bottle and a bar of chocolate right.

And like self care, just self care is the message. And I think we're all okay with doing that a little bit. We don't do it enough, but I think we're all the general messages we can do that. That's kind of the same message for getting older. And that's what I want to get home to people. Like think of it like that. When you start getting a few little signs, think of it as like time to start putting a little bit more into X, Y and Z. Time to start.

I can't keep my diet the same way it was in my 20s. I'm not gonna go out and binge drink on a Friday and then eat burgers and the da da. No one's saying don't have fun. No one's saying don't do these things, but we're just saying be aware of what's happening to your body. Advocate for yourself and put good routines in there for yourself and good self-care systems in place for yourself. I now know I need to walk. I need to walk. And I'm not, when I say like I do,

strength training and things like that. I'm not, like I'm not a gym goer. So for me to start doing things like this, it genuinely makes my friends laugh so much. But I just see it as non-negotiable now because I know what's happening to my body and nobody, without sounding like impending doom and without trying to scare anyone, you don't have a choice, but it doesn't have to be bad. Like look at women like...

Jennifer Aniston and do you know what I mean? Like there's women that are getting older and you're like, you're getting younger. And it's not because they're having work done or it's not, it's because their nutrition, they're working out, they're, you know, they're doing these things and you just do have to change. And I know women that have children, trust me, like I have two kids. I get it. It's busy. Where is the time? Trust me. I get it.

Sophie (44:06)
Life flow.

Leah (44:23)
but there are things you can change and you can change your diet 100%.

Sophie (44:28)
I mean, I used to work with supplements brand and over the past, I'd say probably since 2021 ish, 2022 is where really I started to understand more about hormones, my cycle, my nutrition. And like I said, going through that like histamine intolerance situation, I had to understand some of these things because they are all still ultimately linked.

I didn't really look at that until I came off the pill. So it's really interesting that you say like, you the first kind of thing would be to track all of your moods and track, track all of the symptoms that you're experiencing. Because when I was on the pill, I was on the mini pills. I actually didn't have a period for about six years. Like it was not good. in now I look back at that, but that for me was just normal, but I didn't think anything of it because obviously you're just put on the pill as a teenager and you just don't think about it ever again. But I was on it. And then I came off.

Leah (45:06)
No.

Yeah.

Sophie (45:18)
two and a half years ago now, the symptoms I had for the first like year were wild. I was all over the place. My hormones were completely unbalanced. I was all over the place. But then I was tracking them. And that's the only thing that I felt like I could control to be able to then be like, right, what do I need to do? Because I know at this stage of the month, for example, I'm going to experience X, like how can I help myself through that situation? Going back to what you said about like self care, like looking after ourselves, incorporating different routines and

Leah (45:33)
Yeah.

Sophie (45:47)
habits into our life, but doing the strength training, figuring out like what we're going to eat that's going to help these things. But I think, as you say, it all comes just down to education. until you like don't wait until you've got the symptoms, like try and educate yourself as much as possible earlier on. Because I think that's only going to help you as we were talking about, like as I go through my thirties and maybe as I start having some of these symptoms, I'm going to understand them way better.

if they start coming up. So I think that side of things is amazing and what you're doing is amazing because it is helping with that education piece. I guess once you understand the symptoms and you were mentioning earlier, you know, when you hit day five, you had all of these symptoms, but you were justifying them with other things that were happening in your life. How do we determine whether it is, you know, our lifestyle that's causing some of these symptoms or if it's our hormones? Like, how do we make that differentiation? Because I think

they are so closely linked, like what's hotel signs that it is one or the other.

Leah (46:42)
Yeah. And this is really,

this really gets tricky because if you go to annoyingly, here's another thing. But if you go to the doctors and you have a blood test, right? So they might say, great, let's check your estrogen levels or, or, you know, and so you'll do a blood test. Here's the thing to try and get an accurate blood test is near impossible.

you do just have to advocate for yourself like

if you came and spoke to me, Sophia, and you said to me, I am just not feeling myself, I had tinnitus, I'm feeling really down, and I just can't sleep, I'm really tired, this is the beauty of some of the things, because they're like catch-22, I'm so tired, and then I go to bed and I just can't sleep. Or I go to bed and I wake up at four o'clock in the morning every single night, right, and I hear that loads. And I would say, okay, cool, let's put you on this diet, this is what I want you to eat for the next two weeks.

and we have a 20 day reset, hormone reset on our website by the way. So if anybody wants that, please come and get that from us. And I would say to you, right, let's look at your diet, let's do a 20 day reset, but also I want you to be walking every day. I want you to go for a strength training class. want you to be kind to yourself. Let's look at your cycle. So on our Instagram.

and on our Pinterest, we have these cycle charts and I love them because we've tried to make them fun and it's like what you should eat in your cycle. So in your luteal phase, you should eat this or what exercise you should be doing. So you maybe shouldn't be doing like huge cardio the week before your period. And I think then we could start looking and going, well, have you noticed a pickup? And I think...

the moods and how you feel, something happens and you're almost able to stand outside of yourself. And I know people talk about this a lot, people that have had depression or anxiety and it is really interesting. I find this so interesting. But at some point when you understand it and when you know it's to do with your hormones because you can feel.

that day, like that day of ovulation, like you can feel a whole hormonal shift within your body. And so once you start symptom tracking and you really start advocating for yourself and really thinking about yourself in this way, honestly, I can't describe it, but you just can feel it to the point where everyone's heard this, right? But you know what it's like as a woman. Sometimes you don't know your periods come, but you know your periods come.

Right? And it might not be because you've had a pin or you felt something. It's just like, you just know. And women, everyone I've said that to goes, yeah, I know what you mean. And so it's kind of that. Like once you've started symptom tracking, and by symptom tracking, I literally mean just right down to today, like, you know, what's your symptoms? How are you feeling? What do you mean? Have you got pins? Have you got, you know, you're feeling down? You know, have you, is your period really heavy? Like, what is it? You know, let's talk.

Did you sleep last night? Did you not? Have you got brain fog? How are you getting on at work? Can you concentrate? Can you not? All of these different things. Are you snapping? Are you snapping? Are you snapping at what's happening here? This type of thing. I think you know when there's an increase in that. So for perimenopause, a lot of the time it'll be like new symptoms that you've never had. I never had tinnitus. I never had brain fog.

That really bothered me, the brain fog. I think that was my big one because I kind of love working and I love going to work and I love being on it and I love being productive. That was just like for anyone that's had it, that's really frustrating. So the other thing is, annoying thing is a lot of the symptoms that you'll then get.

lead to you having feeling down or you know so that was was making me feel really frustrated and really anxious and really all of these different things so that's sort of saying about the symptoms then racking up on top of each other until you are just overloaded and cannot cope and so that's kind of what was happening to women before we can't allow that to continue so if we can educate people earlier they can get the help that they need

earlier but you can alleviate a lot of these symptoms or ease them with you know your nutrition, the working out, you know all the things that we discussed and also meditation like don't you know underestimate the powers of stress meditation, sound baths, yoga, tai chi. Tai chi is amazing by the way and you know anything whatever or

walk and talk, go for a walk and a talk or I ring my you know mother-in-law or whoever I don't always just walk in silence and breathe in the you know it's fine to walk and talk and speak to your friends like talk about it speak to men about it like they're not as clueless as we think about it and they're not as scared to get involved in the conversation and I actually love a lot of their their opinions on it and it's just really interesting and I like

lot of the time when you bring men into the conversation they're actually really grateful to be brought into the conversation they're like yeah I'm allowed a point on this and they're they're play and it's great and they have some great points on it so you know and and you know again it's one of those things that the house hormones we like to keep things light-hearted like it is scary it is any type of change you know perimenopause is kind of looked upon as

the second puberty and puberty was scary. It's kind of like when there's a big change in the hormones and so puberty is like the start of it and then perimenopause is kind of like the next bit and so it's scary but it doesn't have to be if we're all in it together. It doesn't have to be if you've educated yourself. It doesn't have to be if you know the tips and tricks and this isn't about buying the...

most expensive supplements out there. just really isn't. However, there are supplements out there to help you. So if you're having problems sleeping and you need to take magnesium, go do it. If you're having a deficiency or if you're not able to get enough omega-3 in your diet, go supplement it. Find a good one. We promote plenty of good ones. so all those types of things. And I think...

The thing is as well that we want to lean into a bit more because it kind of is more the commercial side. It's what women respond to and we want to mix that in. When we're talking about these things, nutrition, we are talking about, it does help your skin and stuff too. Because women will go and spend anything on a beauty treatment or a face cream or a this or a that and don't get me started about the toxins in product.

and the hormone disruptors do not get me started. But it's, you know, if we lean in a little bit and just let people know, but hang on, if you're being more nutritious and if you're, you know, working out more, going for walks, like that is better for your skin. It's better for, you know, people are talking about high cortisol and belly fat and, you know, all this type of thing, but walking lowers your stress. So I know it doesn't like

burn the most amount of calories, but by having lower cortisol levels, it actually helps your belly fat. And so we do want to lean into these messages a bit just because it gets through to women and we can say, hey, you we know you prioritize looking good and we also want you to prioritize feeling good. So, you know, that type of thing.

Sophie (54:42)
Absolutely, I think it's so important and you touched on it briefly just then about like the conversation between women and men as well and that men really enjoy being part of the conversation and being invited in to talk about that subject. how would you, what would you recommend to someone that's kind of in a relationship with a man and how could they be starting to bring up these conversations? Because I think it is really important, particularly if you're in a relationship, that they understand.

Leah (54:52)
Mm.

Sophie (55:11)
you're going through it because especially if you live together or you're with each other all the time like they need to know about the different cycles you're going to go through and the different moods that you're going to go through throughout that cycle so like how would you go about bringing up that conversation with someone?

Leah (55:25)
Well, so we've actually done some cheat sheets for men. So one thing you could do is you could just print that off and give it to them. If you don't want to have the conversation, can print it off and give it to them. But I think those days are done. Men can handle it. We can talk about it. It's all right. I think, again, instead of talking about other people's instances, why don't we just talk about mine?

I thought a lot about the education side of it because I'm thinking, well hang on, how am I teaching? Because I've got a son as well. So I'm like, well, how am going to start teaching my five year old son? Like maybe in two years time, when my daughter gets her period, that's going to be a good time. He'll be seven. How do we start? So I think we'll introduce that early and he'll know. So the next generation might be fine. But in this day and age, a partner who wants to talk to their partner about it.

When I started speaking about this more with my husband, my husband's massively into ultra-processed food, right? And he was on this whole reading books about it and we were kind of on a big health kick at the same time. And what I did was I started talking to him about it, but kind of framed in something he's interested in. Not because he's stupid, he's far from it, but just to kind of make him more interested in it.

So to give him an interest and to give him his own voice in that so I was like, well, do you know like basically I'm gonna eat different things at different parts of my cycle. Boom, that was it. He was like Googling it. He was like messaging me. I'm making this for dinner tonight because you're on day. And that was just because I kind of, you know, think, well, let's see how we can frame this to make it more interesting because listen, let's face it. Does he want another, you know,

podcast clip of how, you know, like estrogen starts going down it to the no, he's probably seen enough now, like I've probably shared enough of the statistics and the this and the that. But he definitely is interested in the food side of things. And he definitely understands that more. But to open up the conversation, recommendation would be like, make them feel involved. Do you know what I mean? Like

It doesn't have to come from a preachy place and it doesn't have to come from a you'll do it You don't understand you'll never understand I mean we probably will still say all those things at a certain time of the month because it's true but if you want to have like a proper conversation Allow them to come in allow them to have an opinion like let them in and if you need to lead them in like little breadcrumbs of something they're interested in or whatever that may be cool, you know

you know your partner, like maybe with that advice you can think, yeah, he loves football, maybe. I don't know how you'd make that one work, but yeah, yeah, but I bet you could, but I bet you could. you know, it's just try and find something that they're interested in. And honestly, it's such like a minefield of a topic that there are so many different ways to open it up, whether it's, you might have a partner that's really interested in exercise.

Sophie (58:15)
always got to go with a football analogy.

Leah (58:33)
And you can say to them, hey, look, I've got this chart and it says I shouldn't be doing X, Y and Z. Like maybe your partner's trying to meet, can you come out for a run? You can bring it up and go, sorry, I can't run. I'm on day, you know, whatever day is of your period. So, and they'll be like, show me that chart or, you know, whatever it is. And so therefore you've opened up the conversation. And also I just think it's important to say like, be open, like be kind to them too. Like, of course they don't know, like they haven't.

had a period, I wish they can. You know those machines that now men can wear to simulate periods and they all just like crumble after a minute flurries. But we should do one of them. But yeah, I think just be kind and help educate them but not in a patronising way because nobody likes that and it's not their fault that they don't know.

Sophie (59:07)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, it's not happening to them, right? It's something like, you don't know what you don't know. So it's all about, again, going back. think this whole conversation has just highlighted the need for education in so many different aspects of life around this subject. And we could talk about this for hours and we can go down so many different rabbit holes. There's such a broad subject. But I think ultimately one thing we just all need to really remember is that as a woman, our hormones are directly linked.

Leah (59:37)
Yeah. Yeah. I know.

Sophie (59:51)
pretty much everything else that we do. It's a link to our mental health, it's a to our physical health. And as you just said there, like we should be doing different things, eating different things, different stages of our cycle. And we should be doing more to listen more intently to that and understanding it better. And ultimately then we're going to feel better for it. So thank you so much for sharing all of that and all of that knowledge with us. Hopefully we can do another episode and dig into some of the other bits that we've been speaking about, but just...

Leah (1:00:18)
Absolutely.

Sophie (1:00:19)
But just to summarise then, so anyone listening to this is currently struggling with, they know they're already struggling with something to do with their hormones, what would your number one bit of advice be? Where would you recommend that they go and seek further support?

Leah (1:00:34)
I mean, of course, always go to your doctor, But what I would say is there is meant to be, and nobody really knows this, so within every GP practice, there is meant to be a specialist within each division, okay? So there is meant to be a women's health specialist within your GP. So ask for that. Don't just ring and say, I speak to a doctor? Ask for that.

and advocate for yourself, okay? If you know something's wrong, trust yourself, something's wrong, right? And if you feel it, then you can reach out. Like, you can reach out to us at the House of Four Bones, you can start educating yourself. You know, the education is out there.

There are amazing doctors online that you can speak to and community. Like I love working in this sector now because as soon as I find like even you today, as soon as you start talking about your own experiences, honestly, you'll be in a room with women and then everyone opens up and it will be fascinating how many people have had the same experience. And I don't care what anyone says, but the second that.

A problem shared is a problem halved. And the second that you know that somebody else has been dealing with that exact same thing or something that was even worse or this or this and you know just community and you come together. It does make you feel better because it just doesn't make you feel like it was just you or you know and you've got to remember keeping these things whether it be acne or whether it be really heavy periods or whether it be you know brain fog or any of these things. Those things then

will get you down. Okay, so it will always have an effect on your mental health. And so it's about really paying attention to that too. And I know I spoke loads about nutrition and this type of thing, but can I just do a disclaimer? Like I am not against a bar of chocolate on the sofa, but you know, be kind to yourself. It's all about balance. And yeah, I am guilty of...

Sophie (1:02:20)
Go for it.

Leah (1:02:30)
you know, if I'm being really looked after, my nutrition and whatever, and then it's just that couple of days before you appear new, just can't you know what? Indulge. Have it, enjoy yourself, and don't feel guilty about it, that's the important thing. But I think it's all about balance, and it's about, you know, living your happiest life, and just looking after yourself. Self-care shows up in many forms and in many ways, and that's important to remember, and sometimes that is having a day-by-day.

and watching a Channel 5 Christmas movie and eating a Dairy Milk.

Sophie (1:03:04)
Yeah, absolutely. It is all about balance and I love what you said there about advocating for yourself. Ultimately, we all have an instinct. We all know when something is wrong with us, like listen to it. Let's start listening more to your body and then advocate for yourself and get the whatever it is support that you need. Do the research and then find the way of being supported. I think that that's a really important thing that not enough of us do because as we say, we are uneducated in this topic.

One way definitely people can start educating themselves if they want is to head over to the House of Hormones and start looking through some of your resources. Tell us a bit more about how people can find you and what kind of things that they can get involved in with you.

Leah (1:03:41)
Yeah, so you can follow us on Instagram at The House of Foremones or head to the website on Instagram. You can find all the links anyway, but head to the website, is [www.thehouseofforemones.com](http://www.thehouseofforemones.com/). There you can find our free downloads and lots of other educational podcasts. So if you're going out walking, we've got some podcast suggestions there. There's some really, really great ones. And you can also

you can sign up for our Meal-er. So make sure you sign up for our Meal-er actually, because I love our Sunday morning Meal-er. So every Sunday we'll send out a chilled kind of South Care Sunday Meal-er and there'll be tips in that. some of the stuff you've asked me today, or is collagen important? We wanna know, do we need it? And we'll answer these things or sleeping tips and...

all these different types of things that might be of interest. And we always have like discount codes in there for if you do wanna get supplements like, and we always have giveaways as well. Really good giveaways.

every week a new brand will want to give away something so we always want people to be able to try stuff so yeah make sure you sign up for the the Sunday morning mailer.

Sophie (1:04:53)
Definitely, we'll put all the links in the episode description, so make sure you go and check that out. But thank you so much, that was so helpful and so insightful, and hopefully we can do another conversation delving into some of the routes that we could go down talking about this subject. But yeah, thank you so much, really appreciate it. And through the House of Hormones as well.

Leah (1:05:00)
you

Thank you so much. It's been so lovely to connect and I absolutely love your community and everything you guys are doing too. So thanks for having us so excited to do more with each other in the future.