75. How to Take a Little Bit Better Care of Yourself in Midlife

Have you ever felt completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of advice about what you "should" be doing in midlife? You’re NOT alone. After speaking to a room of over 125 women at a recent local business event about "Busting the Myths of Menopause," I realized something important: we are drowning in information, but starving for simplicity.

In this episode, I’m stripping away the complicated 10-step morning routines and the overwhelming lists. Instead, we are focusing on how to filter the noise, trust your sources, and implement the smallest, easiest shifts that actually make a difference to your body and your mindset.

If you are tired of feeling like your aging body is failing you — and you want a gentler, more effective approach to navigating this season — listen in.

What You’ll Learn:

✔ The "Information Overwhelm" Trap: Why having too many podcasts, videos, and articles about menopause is actually causing us more stress (and how to filter it) 

✔ Why you need to stop blaming your body for getting older, and how to shift into a mindset of gratitude and care 

✔ How to train your brain to look for "Glimmers" (micro-moments of joy) to naturally lower your anxiety without toxic positivity 

Take Action Today:

• Listen to the episode with Adrian about talking to your doctor and with Kirsten about hydration.
• Grab the Discount: Use the code PROFILE50 at cherylpfischer.com/coaching to get 50% off your Being Profile assessment and a 2-hour debrief with me (only a few left!). 
• Hydrate with Purpose: Add an electrolyte drop (like 40,000 Volts) to your water to actually absorb your hydration. 

Why This Episode Matters

We are navigating one of the most complex physical transitions of our lives while being bombarded with conflicting advice. By learning to quiet the noise and focus on tiny, achievable acts of self-care, we can move through midlife with less friction and more peace.

Take a little bit better care of yourself in midlife.

Grab your Vitamin G pixie sticks for detoxification and wellness at cherylpfischer.com/vitaming.

Transcript

Cheryl Fischer 0:00

If you and I are connected on social media, you may have seen me share that last week I had the opportunity to speak along with Adrian Thompson, who is a physician's assistant, to a group of professional business owner women in my local area. And what we were speaking on was entitled Mind Your Midlife Busting the Myths of Menopause for Women in Business. And the comments and questions that came up during our talk as well as after really showed me that even though I'm talking to you every week here on

Why Menopause Talk Belongs At Work

Cheryl Fischer 0:45

Mind Your Midlife, there are a lot of us as midlife women out there who really don't necessarily know what is the best way to go through this tumultuous period and what do I really need to do and how can I make it easier? And is it okay to talk about menopause and who's talking about it in a trustworthy way? So we're gonna talk about that. Welcome to Mind Your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time. Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body. Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and, oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife. This is the Mind Your Midlife Podcast. First of all, I loved the fact that the organization running this event, the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, was willing to have in the main stage area, 125 or so women were attending, a discussion about midlife mindset and menopause. That is not something that you find at a typical women in business type of event, right? And there were women who were there in their mid to late 20s, in their 30s, as well as, of course, in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. So we were speaking to that 40s, 50s, and 60s group, and everybody was there listening. So the first thing that happened is we even got some questions from 30 somethings in the audience saying, What can I do to have the best preparation as I'm headed toward this period of life? Fantastic. I love that. I know that you, as you're listening to a podcast called Mind Your Midlife, are probably in your 40s, 50s, early 60s. So we're going to focus on you. And one thing that kept coming up when people would chat with me before or after we did this talk was surprise that it was okay to have this conversation about how women are doing during this stage of life, and that it was okay to have this conversation in this business conference setting. And it's interesting because being in this world of podcasters, I know there are quite a few podcasts about being a woman in your 40s, 50s, 60s. Now, of course, I think Mind Your Midlife is one of the best. And I'll tell you, there are a lot of great ones out there. So it's not just me that you might want to be listening to when you're learning about this stage of life.

Information Overload And Menopause Myths

Cheryl Fischer 3:47

So if there's a lot of podcasts out there, to me, that felt like, okay, we're talking about this more. We're speaking about this more. It's becoming more the norm. We're not necessarily having to hide it. I was always thinking of a scene in Father the Bride II, I guess it was, when they show them getting ready for bed and the dogs are there. I don't know if you remember Father the Bride. I love those movies. And they show her nightstand, The Mom, and she has a book, I don't know what it was called, probably not a real book, but something about, you know, your time or the change or something like that. And she's reading this book. And I guess 20 or 30 years ago, when those movies were made, maybe that is the only way that women got information about midlife. Quite possibly that is the only way. You went to the library or the bookstore and you got a book. Now we have so many sources of information. And so I wonder if we have the opposite problem. I wonder if we get overwhelmed and we don't know, well, what do I really need to know? And who should I listen to? And now you're just stressing me out. And so I don't want to listen to all of that stuff. Or maybe it's not something you want to think about. So you stay away. I wonder if it's the opposite problem, that we have information overwhelmed. Because isn't that true in so many areas of life? Isn't that true now that we have social media? And I know I'm speaking to you in your 40s, 50s, 60s, you're around the same age as me. This is not how we grew up, right? When we were growing up, how did we get information? Well, we got information in school, we got information from books, we got information from TV shows, we got information from other people we knew. We certainly got information also from professionals like doctors or therapists or anyone who is in a people herp uh a people helping type of profession. And that was it. Because we are pre-Google and pre-internet. So now we can get information from podcasts, from YouTube videos, from websites, from people we know, from professionals, from books, from articles, from shorts, from reels, from memes, from fireside chats with a business group locally. And it's a lot. So one of the things that we tried to do with this talk, and that I want to do for you with this episode, is to kind of distill it to what do you really need to know? And for my part, what do you really need to know about managing your mindset, being kind to yourself, making it through this phase of life without so much stress and trauma mentally? And then Adrienne's part, and you will have heard her in a previous episode, which I will link in the show notes, was about the more physical menopause, menopause hormone therapy, all of those pieces. So for my part, I could tell that people really resonate, and you as a listener maybe resonate with this as well, with what I often say, and that is I don't want someone to tell me in any phase of life, you have to do these 10 new habits every morning, and then in the middle of the day, you need to do this and that and that, and then at the end of the day, make sure you do these 10 things, and then it's really gonna help. I'm overwhelmed just look listening to the list. And I also think that some of this information overload, overwhelm comes from not knowing who is the source, or maybe who are the sources that really are worthy of our trust, worthy of being listened to, and who out there are just making things up and don't have any personal or professional reason for saying the things that they say aren't trustworthy, just are trying to get you to do something. There are quite a few people out there saying quite a few things, and I struggle with this as well. Who is it okay to listen to? Now, you know, I'm gonna tell you why it's okay to listen to me, and I'm gonna also tell you to be skeptical. Check the people out. By the way, there's a reason that you're not seeing a video if you've gotten used to Spotify video. I'm recording this after having gotten home from a workout and washed my hair. I have wet hair, and

How To Vet Who You Trust

Cheryl Fischer 9:03

I decided you didn't need to see that. So there you go, a behind-the-scenes tidbit. But when I say be skeptical about who you're listening to, maybe go and actually look at their website. Go and actually look at their social media. It doesn't have to be all their social media. Maybe find them in one place. Now keep in mind that people focus more on some social media outlets than others. I mostly focus on Instagram and LinkedIn, but a lot of my Instagram goes on Facebook, so there's some on Facebook. The others, not really too much anymore, because I do think at a certain point we have to choose. Otherwise, again, it's overwhelming. But look at their bio. Look at their About Me page on their website. Do they have any professional qualifications? What have they been through? Maybe someone doesn't have any professional qualification for the topic they're talking about, but boy, do they have a powerful personal story. I certainly have had guests on the podcast that fall into that category. Absolutely valid. For me, when I started the podcast, I wanted to make sure that I also had a coaching certification. And I in fact have two, almost three, because I wanted to make sure that I could, even just for my own self, believe inside that I am qualified to talk to you about mindset and living during this period of life in a way that you may want to listen to. And I'm not saying that every coach has to have a bunch of qualifications necessarily, but I do think, I do think it's good because I learned things doing those qualifications. One of them is ongoing right now with the being profile, and that I'm super excited about because now I have an assessment that I can use with my coaching clients at the beginning of a session, and we can figure out exactly what they might want to work on from looking at the results of this assessment. Amazing. They're not making it up, I'm not making it up. Here we have it on paper and we know where to go. Go by the way and check out CherylPFischer.com/coaching if you're curious about that. It's all on there. See, check out the website. There you go. So do be skeptical about who you're listening to. Maybe it's listening to a few episodes, maybe it's looking at a few of their posts on social media. I don't want us to become this kind of grouchy, untrusting, you know, assuming the negative group. I just want us to make sure that we we understand who we're listening to. And so that's my first tip for you as you're going through midlife and you're trying to figure things out. There are a lot of people talking about this. It may not seem so, but there are. Go look for them, go search midlife, go search women over 40 in your podcast app, in your social media, maybe Gen X women, see who's out there, and then, you know, use a healthy dose of skepticism and see what you find. So once we figured out who we want to listen to, and hopefully we've lumped me and mind your midlife into that group. Next, after the session, I had some really great conversations with people, and in fact, have been getting emails and messages on social media as well with people who were saying, thank you for giving me something simple that I can focus on. Because they got overwhelmed. They don't have time to add a million new habits. They are listening to people telling them they need 40,000 grams of protein a day. They basically need to attach themselves to some sort of protein hose or a hose of liquids, water. It's overwhelming. And so this is why you'll see me throughout the podcast in the show notes saying, please take just a little bit better care of

One Simple Rule For Midlife

Cheryl Fischer 13:18

yourself in midlife. And I just want to focus on that for a minute because we often get frustrated with our bodies at this point. And that would be because maybe our joints are hurting a little bit, they're cracking, they're popping. Sometimes I get up from bed or from a chair or something, and it's just crazy. We know that there is the potential to lose our fitness level, to lose muscle, to lose our waistline. Sometimes everything just seems a little bit harder from that perspective. We also have so many challenges going on. You may have challenges with your kids, with your partner, with your parents. There's you may be feeling like this is my last chance to change a career into something that I always wanted to do because I'm about to run out of time because I'm about to retire. There's a lot that is challenging us. And sometimes we we kind of blame ourselves. We blame our bodies. We say stuff like, this stupid body, like, why are my knees falling apart? You know, everything is harder, everything is harder, everything is harder, everything is harder, everything is harder. It's very possible that something like that is going through your mind quite often. And it is true that in midlife, you need to take a little bit better care of your body. It's true, but I don't want us to blame our bodies for that. Your body has taken you through 45, 50, 55 years with flying colors, doing the best it absolutely can, and you've been doing the best you absolutely can. So instead of kind of blaming our body, our situation, and just staying in that energy, what if we say, you know what? I get it. My body's now 50-some years old. Let me just let me just be a little bit nicer to it. Let me just take a little bit better care. And that's okay. That doesn't feel hard. It doesn't feel overwhelming. Or it doesn't for me, anyway. I can't speak for you. But here's what I mean, especially when we're talking about physical things, you actually do need to be hydrated. And I'm gonna link the hydration episode I did last year with Kristen Cofield in the show notes. It was a fascinating discussion. One of the things she said was electronics, which are everywhere, computer, phone, you know, plugs of every possible thing, dry out the air. So when we think, hey, in the 70s and 80s, I used to go on three sips of water fountain water for most of the day. I wasn't carrying a water bottle. Well, maybe the air wasn't so dry. Interesting to think about, right? So you do need to pay attention to hydration. If you take a look at Cherylpfischer.com/recommendations, I shared

Hydration And Electrolytes That Help

Cheryl Fischer 16:43

something from Amazon. It's not an affiliate or anything, but this is what Kristen shared called 10,000 volts. And it's just drops that you can put in water. You probably want to put it in something flavored because it can taste a little salty. So do read the directions. And of course, there's plenty of hydration drinks out there, but what she said was please be careful of the sugar. Some of them have so much added junk in them that you really don't need or want. So you could check that out. But our water is not the same as it used to be when it was a babbling brook flowing over rocks and getting minerals. We need electrolytes, which are minerals, to help us absorb that water. And we need to hydrate. And in midlife, maybe ramp it up a little bit. Because you know what that does for you? It makes your skin look better, it makes your joints feel better, makes your brain work better. Hydration is huge. So that's a way of taking just a little bit better care of yourself. Just drink a little bit more water. In fact, I had someone email me afterwards and say, you know what? I took a few more sips of water when I thought about you today, and I'm going to keep doing it. And that's amazing. It matters. Maybe it's protein. Oh, protein. I always feel like I'm falling short on protein. But maybe you just actually pay attention when you are eating and ask yourself, Am I getting any protein? And you add something, and it doesn't even have to be meat. It can be lentils, it could be quinoa. But those are two of my favorites. I don't really eat much dairy, but it could be cheese. It could obviously be all sorts of meats. It could be bone broth. Anyway, hopefully you get my point. Think of your food as fuel as often as you can. I have an old, old, old podcast episode on this. I struggled with eating when I was in my 20s.

Protein And Food As Fuel

Cheryl Fischer 18:41

And I have a guest coming on sometime soon to talk about this as well because she helps women with this in their midlife years. But if we can look at food as fueling our body, what can I eat that will make me feel good and will not make my joints hurt and will give me energy and won't make me fall asleep in the middle of my afternoon? And then sometimes food is fun, celebratory, sometimes. That, just that little shift, is taking just a little bit better care of yourself. And my other favorite one that I shared in this talk, there's many, goodness, tapping, actually having maybe therapy for things that are traumatic in your life. There's many, many, many, many. But here's my other favorite little one that falls under take just a little bit better care of yourself. And that is to train your brain to look for glimmers. So as I've talked about before, it's very easy to say positive thinking is really powerful. We have to think positive. It's not very easy to do. And the last thing we want to do is just shove everything under the rug because you do need to feel the bad stuff sometimes. You do need to feel it because then you can move through it, and then you often can process it better, and you don't necessarily get stuck in it. That's a very generalized statement. But it's often true. You allowing yourself to feel the sadness

Glimmers And Training Your Brain

Cheryl Fischer 20:19

or the embarrassment or the longing or, you know, I think you need emotion words to figure out what you're feeling, allows you to move through it. And tapping helps with that too. But what we can do, instead of just positive thinking all over everything, is we can start to train our brain in a very specific way to look for good things. Because your brain likes to be right. By that, I mean likes to be correct. Your brain wants to see in the world what it believes stored deep in your subconscious brain about how you believe things about the world. So if we can start to teach your brain that that really cool things happen, it starts to look for more really cool things happening. And it starts to look more, and it starts to look more. And when you look for something, you'll see it. That's why you've maybe heard the saying, what we focus on grows. So the concept of a glimmer is actually a psychological term meaning a tiny moment of joy. So the the example I always use, and it's so funny when I say this in a live situation, people always go, you are having a cup of coffee in the morning, and you got your cream and sugar exactly right. And it tastes so good. It's the right temperature, all of that. That's a glimmer. You look outside and And the day just looks beautiful. Maybe there's a little breeze fluttering leaves on the trees. It's sunny. After maybe a period it wasn't. That's a glimmer. You see somebody who's important in your life looking so happy. Or maybe you say something that makes them laugh. That's a glimmer. Little tiny things. You get the best parking space you've ever had when you get to work or you get to the mall or whatever, and you didn't even think about it. You didn't even try. It's a glimmer. And what I want you to do is just sit for a second and feel it. Appreciate it. Feel how great that feels. Just one breath. You're drinking that coffee and you just pause. Oh breathe in and out. Love it. You look out your window, breathe in and out, love it. It's so simple. And it forces us, or not forces, it teaches us to change our focus to look for the good things. Because let me tell you, I've mentioned this before, I have some really hard things going on in my life right now. And they've been going on for a long time. And I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen. And so sometimes I sit in that and I struggle with it. And I have a professional therapist who helps me as well. And at the same time, in amongst all the hard stuff, I might find something really cool. I went to the elevator for the metro the other day, and before I even push the button, it's often a long wait, the doors open. It was there, it was ready for me. Glimmer. Could be such a tiny little thing. Pause, take a breath, in and out, appreciate, feel it. Because imagine if your brain starts to see them everywhere, all through the day. Oh, amazing. Amazing. Oh, amazing. This will change how you move through your days if you switch that focus. And it doesn't mean that we're just spewing positivity everywhere. It means we're looking for the little tiny pieces that I promise you are always there. They're there. They're hidden inside the hard stuff sometimes, and they're there. So those are the pieces that I want you to take away in terms of what do we do about mindset in midlife? There's a lot of hard stuff, and we're going to keep talking about all of that on the podcast. I'm going to have it for you myself. We're going to bring in guests. We're going to talk about all this hard stuff and help help you, help me figure out how to get through it. And my overarching advice for you is take just a little bit better care of yourself, your body and your mind. And there's just really some simple ways. Give your body water, give it food. You're like a houseplant, right? Just like we talked about last week with Mary Rothwell. And give your mind glimmers. Teach your mind how prevalent glimmers are. And that's such a great starting point for taking just a little bit better care of yourself. Okay, we are coming towards the end of the 50% discount period for the being profile that I mentioned before and the two-hour one-on-one debrief with me to go through how your results came out, to make a plan. What do you think you might want to work on? And that can move into coaching or not. You can just do the profile and have the debrief and find out more. So there's only a few 50% coupons left. The coupon is profile 50. You can go to CherylPFisher.com slash coaching to find out all about it. And make sure that you have hit the follow button because starting next week, for the next two weeks,

Discount Offer And What’s Next

Cheryl Fischer 26:12

we have a little two-part series with some really interesting guests to talk about. Well, you guessed it, menopause, perimenopause. Next week we're talking about cognitive health. And I think you might be surprised at the advice that she is going to give us. So I will see you here. And in the meantime, midlife is your time to take just a little bit better care of yourself on the inside and on the outside. Just a little bit better makes a huge difference.