01 - Balancing Your Hormones Naturally - A Naturopathic Workshop

Welcome to a special three-part workshop edition of The Naturopathic Voice. In this first session, recorded live, Emma Jones Phillips explores one of the most vital aspects of women's wellbeing: hormone balance.

From perimenopause to post-birth recovery, Emma explains how oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone affect every stage of a woman’s life. She shares why symptoms like fatigue, low mood, brain fog and weight gain often trace back to hormonal imbalance, and how the body responds when it's supported in the right way.

You’ll learn how to identify oestrogen dominance, adrenal burnout and progesterone deficiency, plus how to work with food, herbs, and supplements using Emma's naturopathic hormone formula. These are the foundations for real, lasting change.

Whether you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s or beyond, this episode offers practical guidance to help you reconnect with your energy, mood and sense of balance.

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Transcript

Hi and welcome to the Naturopathic Voice, your dose of inspiration for living a vibrant, conscious and naturally healthy life. I'm Emma, I'm here to guide you through the wisdom of naturopathy, healthy living and self-love, so you can thrive in your body, mind and soul. So grab a herbal tea, get comfy and let's dive into today's episode. 

Welcome everyone, thanks for joining the hormone talk this evening. It's a talk actually that can be fitted into sort of every age group, so when we're looking at hormones we're looking at all phases of life and there's something that really correlates with all phases of life actually when you look in a naturopathic nutrition. So we're going to go through those stages that actually you can bring in during different phases, post babies for example or pre babies, fertility and then move on to hormones during perimenopause, menopause, postmenopause and of course for women who are just going through the general cycles of hormones etc. 

So it's very much designed for women this evening and this will really be I think something you can really transfer to any part of your life and help most women actually with these types of tips this evening. So we're going to really cover the basics but also very powerful basics in terms of understanding the hormones and then we'll have a little bit at the end then for the new people who are on the call if they want to find out about courses etc. So hormones, when we think about hormones we think I think most people think about just the ovaries as a woman and maybe the thyroid you know occasionally people talk about but when we're thinking about the hormones actually there's seven hormonal glands in the body so when we're thinking about hormones actually it's much more complex than than we realise and of course these seven hormone glands they actually need to work in harmony so they're sort of almost like sort of disrupting each other if one is overworking or one is under working so they work as a team really. 

So I'm just going to sort of describe those hormones and actually what they do and how they keep us well and then what goes wrong and how you put that right actually when you're actually supporting your body naturopathically. So with women with the hormones of the ovaries when we are going through different phases in life we might become top-heavy in one of the hormones or deficient in all of them actually for some. So when we're looking at the hormones relatable to our sexuality and our reproductive system we're thinking progesterone, oestrogen and testosterone. 

So we need all three in balance but not in equal measure and we all have our own unique profile so how to test that really if you wanted an accurate test you would look at something like the Dutch test which would be done by a urine. Blood tests are quite inaccurate because they really they look at what's what's measuring in the blood that day really so it doesn't give it gives a snapshot of a window of a week but when you're looking at the Dutch test which is urine analysis you're actually looking at the full hormone profile. So you can test it but very rarely do doctors test via that approach or you'd have to go into the surgery at certain times of the month to get more accuracy with the blood testing. 

So when you're looking at women classically who feel they're going through perimenopause they might actually have just burnt out their adrenal glands and what that means is that actually when the hormones are declining maybe post babies maybe you're diet deficient maybe you've been under a lot of stress these are some of the factors that really affect people it can look like you're in perimenopause and of course perimenopause can happen for up to seven years prior to your period's finishing and that can be quite challenging for some people especially if they're in their 30s and I'm seeing this a lot these days when people are coming and saying actually I think I'm in perimenopause but actually when you reduce their stress and increase their nutrient levels they actually move out of it. So in that position if the adrenals are already tired the adrenal glands actually govern our stress levels it regulates cortisol etc so if the cortisol is actually overproducing then the hormones within the body throughout the body are suppressed so stress has a massive factor with hormonal profile so when the adrenals are overworked maybe too much coffee too much stress maybe poor nutritional content in the diet the person actually when the hormones are declining and actually the adrenal glands can't take over so they usually would take over if the progesterone or oestrogen or testosterone were running low if they don't then you go into a sort of chronic fatigue picture and therefore that looks like perimenopause for some people so chronic fatigue really you know that adrenal fatigue really affects our hormone profile and the next stage there is blood sugar and then thyroid profile so it kind of goes in that order adrenal fatigue craving the sugar eating the wrong carbohydrates having a diet that's very carbohydrate heavy that increases weight of course which doesn't help and then the person in those cases if they're gaining weight and they're eating a lot of carbohydrate sometimes become oestrogen dominant so oestrogen dominance actually is very very common these days because oestrogen stores in the fat cells so if people are overweight it can happen that way but more importantly is to do with actually synthetic oestrogens within you know the food industry the cosmetic industry perfumes the waters you know non-organic dairy non-organic meat etc so often women are loading up on their oestrogen over many generations and if you put something like contraception in the picture or HRT that's the tipping point that's where the woman may gain weight feel terrible in fact develop more sinister serious health issues in relation to oestrogen dominance so oestrogen dominant women they have a particular shape and they feel a particular way they feel tired they crave sugar they're usually people who have are craving carbohydrates and they're often behaving in a certain characteristic way as well they feel lethargic they feel like they haven't got that sort of vigor for life so oestrogen dominance is very very common and people think actually when they're going through menopause they need oestrogen but actually they need oestrogen detox because there's bad and positive oestrogen and the bad oestrogen blocks the positive oestrogen so we're in a position in society where people are so confused where they you know they go through perimenopause or hormonal changes and they're prescribed oestrogen with progesterone but usually oestrogen is the dominant hormone and they make things feel worse they have heavy bleeds they may feel like they're you know it has no effect or worse it's actually really aggravating the person on every level really so there's a huge amount of research these days that talks about progesterone therapy now progesterone can be done through bioidentical hormones herbs which we'll talk about later and actually a lot of it is to do with oestrogen detox so there's foods that actually help to find the negative oestrogen in the body and take it out by the liver so we call them methylators so things like MSM which is a that's a supplement which is high in sulfur so we would go to things like sulfur-rich foods we would look at broccoli extract passion flower tea herb wise sometimes known as passion flower we would sometimes look at wild garlic we would sometimes use supplements like MSM you do broccoli extract so that would sort of bind the the oestrogens and take that out of the body and actually coming off things like caffeine for reducing alcohol white sugar processed carbohydrate allows the liver to detox so it's all about the liver really with hormone profile so when people are looking at actually should they take this or that to boost their hormones we start with actually this first stage of treatment which is hydration good quality water filtered water so you haven't got the oestrogens in there clean diet high protein lowering the carbohydrate so taking out the gluten ideally taking out the white sugar and taking out stimulants that really aggravate the adrenals so you know you're highly processed coffee and you know the very highly processed drinks the people drinking of the caffeinated drinks absolutely terrible for this time the woman's life because you know they really aggravate the adrenal projection so your stress reaction is going to be sort of fight-or-flight really so really supporting the adrenals with adaptogenic herbs and we again will talk about that later things like ashwagandha maca using foods that are high in B vitamin profile which supports the adrenal balance and then of course the medicinal mushrooms chaga reishi so you can get these amazing coffees these days which you know are mushroom based which really supports the energy and they regulate the adrenal glands so adrenal glands are very very important now testosterone is an interesting one as well because women tend to think why why would we need that but we actually do need it in a percentage in order to feel motivated so motivation comes from the time of the month where our testosterone peaks which is the one week before our period so if you're not having a period there'll be one week of the month maybe your energy goes down if you're low in testosterone so this evening we can look at testosterone boosting herbs it's okay to take those as women for periods of time until you feel like you've got your levels back up but ultimately it's building the again liver energy and the hormone profile through what I call the hormone formula the supplements the balance or the foods that balance the hormones on a sort of synchronistic level so they help all the glands then work together so moving up to the pancreas which is a hormone gland believe it or not it's you know where we produce insulin the pancreas is overworked usually and if you're going into menopause the classic symptom would be belly fat and that what we call cortisol belly insulin resistance so it's very very important to exercise especially when you get into your 40s and women who haven't got there yet you often think of no that'll never happen to me but it definitely did with me you know 40 plus I felt but you know all the things I used to do prior 40 stopped working and then exercise needed to have a priority so I think that exercise is huge in this in terms of muscle mass and you know helping the liver function helping the mood etc but obviously looking at quality of proteins as well carbohydrates so lowering your carbohydrate content taking out gluten taking out the white sugars so regulating the blood sugar is huge for this time of life and so as you then regulate blood sugar your mood is more balanced the thyroid is happier so the thyroid regulates your metabolism and we need iodine rich foods for the thyroid so if you're slightly overweight and you need to lose some weight working with iodine foods makes a huge difference of course you can't use iodine rich foods with overactive thyroid or Hashimoto's but you can support with other cofactors such as selenium tyrosine and certain herbs and then finally the pineal gland which regulates your sleep and eating patterns and your pituitary which is called the master gland and it regulates all the other glands within the body so they're working in harmony and most of the time they do quite well unless you have you know big stress in your life or you're nutritionally deficient your liver function may be going down due to dehydration so these factors really affect how our hormones balance and most of most people say when they do detox their hormones improve massively within a month so I think some of you already would have experienced that if you've done liver cleanses or many deeper detoxes there's a change in how your period is or there's a change actually with how you feel in your mood quite rapidly when you cleanse the liver so just to recap so when we're looking at the hormone profile in women we're looking at oestrogen progesterone and testosterone it's really rare to see a lady who's like prior to 50 who's oestrogen deficient I think the times where it's sometimes crops up would be low body fat so maybe the lady is low in fat in the body and she's lost a lot of weight and there's a problem with oestrogen storage and those types of symptoms would show up as libido low libido dryness having sex feeling like a total lethargy and sometimes it does show up and in those cases you could use certain herbs such as wild yam ashwagandha you could also use oestrogen plant creams which there's a lovely company called organic excellence which is a product from iHerbs that company does oestrogen and progesterone blended or you could go for a just a progesterone so progesterone I really focus a lot on in working with people and it's because it's the hormone that has the least side effects with the biggest benefits so with progesterone it actually creates longevity that youthful energy it helps with fertility also helps to recover your body post birthing when you've had babies it also helps with working with perimenopause and postmenopause so when you're progesterone deficient it really shows up in the personality as a lack of independence a feeling of losing yourself if you feel like you know you've done mothering and or you've gone through life you've given out a lot maybe that feeling of individuality for yourself or pushing yourself forward lacking in confidence could be a factor with progesterone deficiency so it works wonders for those types of issues that women experience at all phases of life so you can apply progesterone cream which is bio-identical via the skin you can also work with wild yam orally in an oil form which has the balance of the progesterone and the phytoestrogens and certain herbs will build up the progesterone profile so it's it's absolutely amazing I find that in my work these days the results from progesterone are so huge for women and for me post babies when I had my own children I felt like it was a huge transformation for me working with progesterone I can't over estimate you know over promote that really it's a really good one so I'd like to look at now working with what we call the hormone formula so once you've really looked made some changes in the diet you've hydrated you can then address supplementation if needed so within the naturopathic approach we have a formula that actually balances all hormones and some of this can be found in the diet and some of this can be added through supplementation so we start always with omega-3 so omega-3 is very essential EPA and DHA the brain function thyroid function and ovary function so that can be found in fish oil krill or algae and if you're not consuming fish maybe you're a vegan it's going to be really essential for your mental health and your hormonal health so bringing in some of the EPA and DHA through food but also supplementation so anything from 500 milligrams of both up to a thousand a day the EPA and DHA is going to be very important for hormones and then secondary to that would be a B vitamin complex so that covers all bases and that's actually supporting the adrenal glands all the glands but particularly your energy so B vitamins are really important because they are water-soluble and they actually get excreted daily so the foods that are high in B vitamins are your leafy greens gluten-free grains things like quinoa brown rice gluten-free oats that sort of thing and for people who eat meat it's high in red meat or seeds for plant-based eaters so when you're working with B vitamins you've got to think about it every day so when you supplement it just really supports the energy I think most women will say either the week before their period or during the month if you're post menopause you might feel that diff at different times it's usually when the adrenal energy is going down you just need that extra boost so I'd highly recommend a B vitamin complex at least a hundred milligrams a day overall of the B vitamins and then alongside that good dose of magnesium citrate the magnesium citrate is very very beneficial for the electrolyte balance which helps with the fluid balance in the body but really supporting the mood the hormone profile muscle health sleep balance because as we know sleep can go out when your hormone profile is out of balance and I think these days people need a lot more than we used to think because of the way stress is caffeine electromagnetic stress due to you know things like mobile phones Wi-Fi etc so the electrical field changes when we're around a lot of synthetic lighting or energies like EMF that then excretes magnesium because it plays a stress on the body so magnesium usually needs to be supplemented these days usually the average woman will take 400 milligrams or about depending on the situation with their own age and you know diet dietary issues as well etc so we know when we're magnesium deficient we feel twitchy we may have cramps we can't sleep well we feel irritable you may crave chocolate coffee actually coffee and chocolate has good amounts of magnesium but they're diuretics so you excrete out what you've put in so it's an interesting one around cravings when you bring in magnesium citrate you start to lose those cravings for chocolates and coffee so omega-3 b-complex magnesium and then we then go to the antioxidants and as I said you can use some of these factors in diet you don't have to supplement with the whole balance of these but they are needing to be covered and so that zinc is next there on the list so zinc is a really really important mineral and it regulates mental health also helps your body utilize fat so if your body needs to metabolize fat well and isn't maybe you feel nausea after oils maybe your hormone profile is out because you're not metabolizing fats then zinc is really great for that so it helps with taste and smell as well so it's interesting collectively there's been a lot of problems with taste and smell and zinc deficiency is one of the big factors with that problem zinc citrate is the natural form of zinc and you would usually take it at night and that one is anything from 15 to 45 milligrams and that's brilliant for melatonin production thyroid production taste and smell as I said eating habits so sometimes people overeat or undereat or become more addictive when their zinc is deficient and then moving on to vitamin C vitamin E and vitamin D they're all antioxidants so they help with anti-aging vitamin C comes from all the fruits and vegetables that are raw we would go for the color for ones like orange yellows and it's important to have some raw food daily juicing is one of like the best things you can do in this area for anti-aging beauty and hormones so when you're looking at vitamin C you may need to supplement or you may just do it through diet it's very very good for the immune system of course that's a hormone gland the thymus gland here so we we know vitamin C can be so beneficial so around about a thousand milligrams twice a day if you're supplementing and then moving on to vitamin E which is a uterine tonic so it helps with the uterus it helps with toning that part of the body so help can help post-birth and help if there's any issues with prolapse or anything like that or issues with cervical issues so vitamin E is great for skin it's anti-scarring so it helps with recovering the body from cesarean birth that sort of thing it helps with skin rosacea helps with anything to do with the skin so helps with stretch marks and that sort of thing so on average you'd use about a hundred and fifty international units or above for vitamin E and the vitamin E rich foods are all the healthy fatty foods avocados seeds nuts coconut and so anything where there's essential fatty acids present you will then bring in vitamin E in your body through those foods. Vitamin D is an interesting one because it had a huge amount of research medically and we know that it switches on and off healthy genes and switches off the bad genes so potentially if you were vitamin D starved your hormone production would go into chaos and potentially there could be cancer risks because medics now are saying that vitamin D deficiency has a big effect on how the blood cleanses and actually how the body regulates its hormones so they're prescribing it in situations where there's cancer in order to support the the person and we know that we're mega deficient in the UK because of lack of light and not being outdoors enough etc so I think you know you can weigh that after yourself whether you need to bring in as a supplement but most of us especially in Wales you know we need at least to be taking it during autumn and winter in order to get the levels up to a certain amount. 

It does get stored via fat cells it does get stored in the body once you bring your levels up but it really depends on how much outdoor light you're having that helps the activation of the supplements. Vitamin D rich foods would be anything really that's taken from the animal so fish, meat, eggs, good quality feta and then if you're looking at veganism you're looking at mushrooms really that's the only source of vitamin D there to supplement so that's interesting isn't it when you're thinking about vegetarianism and veganism people really need to look after this side of things. If you're enjoying this episode and want to take your next step into natural health come and explore I've got waiting for you on my website at theschoolofnaturopathicnutrition.com you'll find my full range of resources including courses downloads and my member vault space where you can dive deeper into hormonal health nutrition and naturopathic living. 

Whether you're brand new to all of this or already on your wellness path there's something there to support you so take a look get inspired and let's keep learning together. And then lastly iodine which is again huge for fertility perimenopause helps with hot flushing the thyroid really needs iodine and selenium as well as many other co-factors. The iodine is just so helpful for metabolism so someone is gaining weight and needing to boost their fertility we would look at things like seaweeds, good quality salt, miso. 

You would think about okay how can you bring in the the algaes into the diet maybe in smoothies things like spirulina, blue-green algae so you're really thinking about iodine production. Irish moss is a really common one these days which is easy to make and very good for the body and very good for the hair, skin and nails. So that is the hormone formula so when you're looking at any situation with hormones whatever age, teenagers, women looking to conceive, post-birth, perimenopause, menopause, postmenopause we're really looking at covering all those bases with a hormone formula either through diet and or supplements and once you've got that right you then move on to herbs. 

So that's the next part of this evening's talk. So when we're looking at herbs we have to be super clear first of all of what we want to create in the body because actually when you change hormones it changes your personality and as we know your whole chemistry. So if you as you know when hormones have been down at certain times of your life you might feel like your personality is completely changed. 

Some women talk about feeling like literally happens overnight with menopause if they haven't prepared for it. So let's talk about the the positives of those hormones and you know what happens to the body how to recognize if someone is low in certain hormones and how they present and so you can recognize that for yourself and then what to do with the herbs. So I think if you're confused at this point of which hormones need supporting it's important to go and look at the adaptogenic tonics and for people who are hearing that word for the first time they're basically hormones that are made via the adrenal glands that need supporting via herbs. 

So the herbs the adaptogens actually regulate so when you regulate the adrenals it they do what's needed. So when you regulate the hormones the body will do what's needed so a boost on the right ones and lower the wrong ones. So adaptogenic tonics are just so great for for the body and they can range from anything from maca to as I said ashwagandha which is my vedic herb and other herbs such as licorice which are more Western. 

Licorice is a there's a contraindication with licorice around high blood pressure you can't prescribe it with high blood pressure. So the adaptogenic mushrooms are pretty safe with most people the chaga and the ratio of the you can get the sort of blends which have a great amount of mushrooms in which regulates the hormones and regulate the energy levels. So there's a lot there. 

Rhodiola is another really nice one less common but fantastic for the adrenals. Just have a little glance at my list. Red clover is a lovely one for regulating what's called phytoestrogens. 

So phytoestrogens are regulators of the estrogen. Red clover is just so good for that and as we move towards more of the progesterone side of it we might use wild yam we might use something called agnus castus which is known as chasteberry or an Ayurvedic herb called shatavari. Some of these names we might go into later in questions. 

I have some questions around them but they're all there really for us to work with which means that we don't have to do HRT. HRT does have side effects. It's getting better you know people sort of are aware of the effects of negative estrogens and so they don't want to put synthetics in these days but it does take a lot to get a bioidentical prescription from the GP over the synthetics. 

You have to really you know really get the right person. So when you're looking at hormones you're really thinking about okay what do I want to do with my hormones and if you're unsure go with the adaptogenic tonics so ashwagandha, rhodiola they're very safe. Maca they're brilliant for just regulating the hormones. 

So we've talked about estrogen dominance so estrogen dominant women will often gain weight on the thighs and the belly area and feel like that's happened like relatively quickly so maybe the metabolism has changed quickly. They may have become that shape post babies especially when women have female babies there's estrogen dominance if they've had consecutive babies so that's a common factor. Sometimes women have been on contraception for years and estrogen has built up or it may be you just don't have enough progesterone so the estrogen has become top-heavy and your liver is sluggish so you're storing it and it starts to then get stored in fat cells.

So it does how it looks in the body, cellulite is one factor of estrogen dominance it can really show itself in that way. Not always but you know that's that may be a factor. So liver detoxification things like your sort of lemon, juicing water, grapefruits, using you know good quality oil over hydrogenated oils, taking out all the bad oils and really hydrating the body so having good quality two liters of water and sometimes we do not use naturopathic techniques but just compresses to the liver and that will help detoxify the liver. 

MSM is a great supplement as well for detoxifying estrogen so that yeah so personality-wise the person would be experiencing lack of motivation and usually weight gain and if that's the case the person then the thyroid energy goes down so it's more difficult to lose weight and more difficult to maintain weight balance. When there's estrogen deficiency it's usually in someone who's very slender and maybe they're not storing positive estrogen and maybe there's not enough fat in the diet as in good fats so therefore the estrogen can't hold in the system so in those cases you could work on phytoestrogens so that would be things like your fermented organic soya, miso, you'd use soaked linseeds, fennel, yams as in eating them, sweet potatoes they all boost the estrogen and there are specific herbs which would work in this category so one of them is known as Dong Quai which is a Chinese herb you could use again the adaptogenics I mentioned, you could use red clover so sage is a great one as well as a tea for estrogens and post-menopause it's more likely to be estrogen deficiency showing up in libido motivation and drive for life really so it can show up in postmenopause as well. Low progesterone will be that feeling that you've lost your youthful energy maybe you're aging more quickly than you want to maybe there's a feeling that you don't know what you want next like there's a lack of focus, a lack of ambition and that's all linked with progesterone so we are mostly progesterone high when we are in our 20s when you think about yourself in your 20s usually you feel like you're unstoppable yeah and at that there's some point it happens where depending on your history you know where you suddenly go actually I used to be able to do that and have the confidence and now I'm questioning myself and some women talk about going into work and feeling like the job they used to do like every day suddenly they feel like they can't and it can be as quick as that really within the short period of time so when you're thinking about confidence and that feeling of motivation for life you're looking at progesterone and it's the you think of the youthful energy so the feeling that you know we have when we feel full of energy able to really feel like we can conquer anything really so progesterone is amazing for that type of energy that you need. 

Testosterone will show up a particular week of the month and often yet testosterone is used at certain phases and that would be you know usually pre period that one week before and if you're past that if you're in menopause then you'll find that when your energy goes down that's the time to bring in testosterone boosting herbs or maybe your focus goes you know you're lacking in clarity etc so there's some brilliant sort of balancing herbs which work for this so the first one is tribulus which I find amazing I find that that's a really amazing herb for testosterone men and women can use that short periods of time and you could also use something called Damiana which is more of an English herb and that works with again the testosterone production so remember we do need it but not in large amounts certain phases you might bring it in at certain times but for women in perimenopause they might need to take it every day initially if you've got that classic testosterone deficiency and it will show up often in women who have probably been estrogen dominant for a long time and then testosterone drops with with that high estrogen so it's kind of see-saw effect really on the body so just to recap on the some of the supplements that you might want to use magnesium, B vitamins, vitamin D, omega-3, zinc, vitamin E, iodine and working also the phytoestrogens if you feel you need to regulate the estrogen that would be a flax, sesame, you could use fermented soy remember you have to go organic with soya these days it often is genetically modified so balancing your hormones at every stage does need some work but I think once you've gotten into the mood of this you will find that menopause becomes a breeze and you know certain phases start to become sort of more easy to cope with and it's all about thinking you know ahead of the game with menopause because you know we ate seven years prior so you know it can happen to us earlier than we realize and by the time we've got there then all the symptoms kick in so you want to prepare in advance and if you're already in that usually medically they say that one year not having a period means menopause so that's interesting isn't it because you know many women as we some of you know when they come to the course naturopathically they switch their hormones back on sometimes go on to have babies in their 40s or they you know they they reinvent themselves because suddenly they've got a new lease of life and though it can make a huge difference when you change your nutritional profile to all those phases and very quickly as well once you get this right it's something that is really lacking with the medical approach of course there you know the blanket prescriptions of one fits all you know works for a short period of time but women tend to say if they've gone down that route medically it doesn't you know the the effects of the medication wears off and then they're having to look at other things then so I think that you know one of the dangers of synthetic hormones is going to be masking the hormonal menopause and when they come off it they still have to go through menopause and I think it's an interesting phase because you know if we were to really look at it in an empowering way it's actually a passage to power in the Chinese medicine tradition we talk about it as the third phase of life the empowerment phase so if women aren't managing it well and they're masking it with things like antidepressants using HRT using sleeping tablets that's the classic combination that women walk out with for prescriptions they then have to deal with this in their 60s you know when they decide to come up their medication and then they're dealing with that feeling of you know what happened you know I've lost I don't know 10 years of my life and here I am in a phase where I need to like gather myself again so that that energy of moving into a new phase is about you know creating the life that you want post menopause so that you have that that phase where we call the wisdom phase so the wisdom phase is very rewarding because women have a chance to really find themselves within that and I think in that in the generations we're now it's a it's an opportunity to really do it naturally without having to you know suppress or push down these phases that maybe other generations had to because of lack of information lack of knowledge etc and I think that's very exciting because there's a whole generation of women now having babies in their 40s experiencing high levels of energy in their 50s 60s 70s etc so that that's the upshot of looking after yourself and doing all these things right so I'm going to leave it in there and we're going to go to questions I think it would be nice if it's okay to record the questions as I said earlier we won't be on camera so just be a recording if you feel you don't want to be heard on the recording just pop your hand up and I'll pause the recording who wants to go first to the questions I've got a couple of things yes thanks Joey yes and I I know you said that this is mainly for women but I was very interested to hear about that vitamin D efficiency so this isn't really a question it's just a comment because Lucas my youngest who's now 26 would you believe it well he is just being diagnosed with vitamin D deficiency and I was really shocked to be honest yeah yeah yeah I think it's very common now because well you know lifestyle that we have you know in front of computers and synthetic lighting and one of the big factors is skin care products you know they you know the skin you know sun creams they block vitamin D completely because of the synthetic nature of that so it's remember 20 minutes a day of outdoor light the eyes need to be exposed so sunglasses don't help and making sure that he's on that 5,000 international units of vitamin D with vitamin K so vitamin D and K work together and then finding food sources as well alongside that but it's something where if he's become deficient he'll need to be doing that for about a year to get the levels back up yeah Wow okay thank you and it can really affect mood and you know his hormonal profile so easy to turn around as well okay now he knows what it is yeah okay that's really nice to hear that thanks but there was um there was something I was just going to I don't know if I've got a question and really but you know and it was really interesting to hear about all of these hormones particularly you know in different ages and for me now so I'm definitely postmenopausal and I have found that you know lots I would say you know periods of time where I've really lost my you know I've got a lack of focus and ambition and motivation and you know just no energy and all I want to do is like just sit down on the sofa and just do nothing and like nobody bother me and just leave me alone so yeah so it was very interesting to hear all of those things you know I you know I'm sitting you know I sit at home and wonder you know why is this you know because naturally I'm not that kind of person but yeah yeah yeah and do you use any herbs or supportive methods at the moment no I haven't I mean in the past I have had I've used the chaga and the reishi and the maca but I haven't been using those recently no yeah I think it's something like you know looking do you know cornella cornella holdings the company that's that's a really nice company because it does you know a lot of nice products which with no fillers without any with low cost as well and so they do a product called maxi mag plus which is a hormone regulator it's got the B vitamins magnesium and minerals in there so it covers a lot of bases that so if you chose three things I would choose omega-3 maxi mag plus plus magnesium to start with because it seems easy I was thinking tribulus actually for the for the testosterone balance but I think if you don't do the basics first the herbs don't work as well all right so I think go there first to cornella holdings do I spell that sorry yeah so it's a c-o-n-e-double-l-a cornella holdings hey yeah then it's Andy Wren's company so that's um yes it's very good for you know naturopathic advice as well they do lots of trainings there yeah Samantha's just popped it in the chat there as well yeah yeah I just saw that and did you say maxi mag plus maxi mag plus as is what we consider the hormone formula naturopathically and I would put extra magnesium in and extra omega-3 because those are two things that are missing from there there's a small amount in there but not enough but what you would need yeah yeah okay all right super thank you out with that yeah yeah okay cool okay does anyone else have a question Samantha I was just curious about when you were speaking about estrogen dominance coming through the cosmetic industry is it mainly sunscreens or is that makeup is it skincare products what specific yes it's all all of the products that have synthetic plastics in and sometimes people think what you know cosmetics lipsticks have parabens in and plastics which you know we absorb into the body and it builds up over time and so anything from lipsticks lipsticks are very commonly high in these types of negative estrogenics they're called xenoestrogenics are like fake ones that match no they don't match the body they're in perfumes because estrogen of course is very attractive it's like the female hormone so they put fake fragrances in fragrances of oestrogenics to attract people towards it because you know we're all drawn to that sort of the female energy energetic smell so it's like a sort of trick in a way isn't it because we're drawn to it and they smell great you know but then there is toxic for the body so yes fragrances and bath products and soaps are really commonly high in these problem problem ones so on my list here I have a list of so things you need to avoid so these things like anything that's got paraben on the label phytolates BPA so they're called xenoestrogenics plastics which are found in perfumes and in the pesticide industry as well so when we read to non-organic foods but I think as women we're more susceptible from the fragrance industry and the lipstick industry because we're you know those are the two things that most women use and deodorants is another factor as well yeah so going natural with all those those things spray tans are one of the worst things for estrogens unless you go vegan and paraben free and they they really build up you know under the skin and you absorb so it's lack of awareness isn't it I think it's that's you know one of the biggest problems is a lack of awareness yeah but if your liver is working well you're more likely to detoxify over the next person who hasn't got a good functioning liver and of course fatty liver is a big issue these days because there's so many hydrogenated fats in the food industry and fried food people who overuse alcohol coffee women there's an impact on a fatty liver which then the body is not detoxifying these things and there's buildup then in the lymphatic system which then is has its side effects yeah yeah so to simplicity things like coconut oil on the skin there's so many amazing natural skin care ranges now from cosmetics you could make your own as well and natural deodorants there's a wide range now isn't there so we and we can do it more easily now compared to before yeah thank you so much for joining me today on the naturopathic voice I hope you're leaving with something to reflect on something to try or simply a sense of feeling more connected to your health if you've got a question a thought or just want to say hello I'd love to hear from you head over to speakpipe.com naturopathic voice and leave me a voice message your message might even be featured in a future episode if you're enjoying the show don't forget to subscribe share it with a friend or leave a review it really helps us grow this beautiful community until next time stay well stay curious and keep listening to your body