Moms, Mats and Manuscripts
Moms, Mats and Manuscripts is a podcast hosted by Ivna, a PhD student in biomedicine, a yoga teacher and a mom, and Ksenia a former molecular biologist, a yoga teacher for scientists and a mom, too. This is a space to talk about all things academia, motherhood and yoga with humour and vulnerability.
We chat about mental health in academia, mindful productivity, and surviving and enjoying early motherhood while bringing yoga wisdom into our lives, share our stories and offer tips on navigating life's chaotic adventures.
Moms, Mats and Manuscripts
S3E7 - Interview with Emilia Villegas
Stress, overwork, and constant hustle can wreak havoc on your hormones, especially if you're constantly ignoring your natural cycle and your body's cues. In this episode, Ksenia sits down with hormone health expert Emilia Villegas to discuss how modern work culture impacts our hormonal well-being and what we can do to reclaim balance.
We cover everything from how stress throws off your endocrine system to menstrual cycle-informed productivity, to simple and practical tips you can start using today to support your hormone health without needing to overhaul your entire life.
Whether you're dealing with fatigue, anxiety, burnout, or any cycle-related issues, this episode will help you begin to understand your body better and offer science-backed strategies to start healing.
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Emilia's links:
Website: https://flowwithemilia.com/
IG: @flowwithemilia
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Hi and welcome to this episode of Mom's Maths and Manuscripts. Today's episode is another special interview that I had with Emilia Villegas, a hormone health expert and wellness coach. Emilia's work focuses on helping women not just merely survive but thrive, specifically in perimenopause and menopause. But I wanted to pick her brain exactly about the topic that i find particularly interesting when it comes to hormone health menstrual cycle and our cyclical living is hormones and productivity the way our hormones affect how productive we are how focused we can be what kinds of work we are best or most equipped to excel at in a particular menstrual cycle phase and how to figure it all out and how to optimize it to your unique situation to your unique stage of life or stage of your cycle so that you can be sustainably productive and work with your body and not just push against it all the time and potentially make your situation and your productivity as well a bit worse. I hope you enjoyed it. It was a wonderful conversation. We shared our stories. We talked a little bit about me as an example, as an exemplified coaching client. And Amelia told a few tips and tricks about what could have done in the past and what you know if you recognize yourself in this description in this situation what you could mean could potentially implement into your life right away and we also talked a little bit about how specifically scientists but any overachievers any really passionate really ambitious professionals could little by little begin bringing their work life into alignment with their cycles in their shifts in productivity depending on the state of the cycle. Enjoy and let's welcome Emilia in. So today I'm joined by a lovely hormone health expert called Emilia, Flo with Emilia, and she is here to talk about hormones and productivity. So we will discuss a little bit our Typical, let's say so, view on productivity and how it actually can impact our hormones, how it can impact our hormonal health and in turn impact our productivity in a negative way. So decrease it in pursuit of increased productivity, we can actually have the opposite effect. Let's do this. I'm so happy that you're here. I'm so happy that we can see each other. We can actually kind of interact face to face and not just face to a blank screen on the phone.
SPEAKER_01:Agreed, agreed.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. All right. I was just introducing a little bit the topic and saying that we're here to talk about hormone health and productivity and
SPEAKER_01:how...
SPEAKER_00:that can impact one thing can impact the other or our typical view of productivity can impact our hormones and our hormone health
SPEAKER_01:yeah perfect
SPEAKER_00:so yeah let's start with you actually since you're my guest can you please just talk a little bit about yourself introduce yourself how did you arrive to the decision that okay something needs to change about the way you view your hormones and your hormonal health and then how did you arrive also to helping others
SPEAKER_02:of course thank you xenia for having me as your guest i'm even more excited to be here super happy to be talking to you as well face to face um so well my name is emilia i am a hormone expert and wellness coach and i've been on this wellness journey already for almost three years now my wellness journey started in 2022 When I started experiencing what I know are today hormonal imbalances, when I was having all these symptoms, sorry, back then, I didn't know what they were. They included migraines, but they will be like monthly migraines that sometimes would last even two, three days. Headaches almost every day, anxiety for the first time in my life. my libido was also really low I was constantly emotional and you know you always say oh yeah it's the hormones the hormones but at some point it's like all the time you're like okay what something's happening just to name a few I was 39 at the time so it was also really scary because I didn't know what's happening to me I think one of the most scariest things was also that I would I wouldn't recognize myself in the mirror I would look at myself and I didn't know who that person was but I couldn't put words in it and it was it was so difficult and so scary for me that even though I'm a very communicative person I didn't tell anyone for months like I think sadly many women I was suffering in silence for many months before I on an migraine episode I was having on a trip. I was with some girlfriends and I started having another migraine episode, but that also triggered a lot of anxiety because I realized then that I couldn't stay quiet anymore, that something was really wrong, that my body was screaming for help, but because I didn't understand it, I was like, I need to speak out. And I called my mom. I called, I was like just crying with her on the phone. And it was my mom who said, That sounds like hormonal imbalances. And I was like, what was that? Like, you know, completely like, and now we have this view of, oh, we don't have to think about our hormones until we're in menopause almost, right? Or just think about them on our periods, you know? And she said, that sounds a little bit like what happened to me when I was on the pill. This is obviously 30 years ago. And at the time I had the hormonal IUD for 14 years because I didn't want to have kids. So I got it since I was 25. Doctors, I've lived in many places around the world, everywhere in the world. Doctors were like, oh, you're fine. You're healthy. You can keep it on until menopause almost. One of the side effects of the hormonal IUD is that you don't get a period. I used to ask about that constantly and they said, oh, it's fine. You're healthy. So it doesn't matter if you don't have a period. Okay, but of course, After 14 years, my body started complaining about it. For those of you who don't know, what happens with birth control is that it suppresses the normal production of all your hormones because obviously that's how they prevent you from getting pregnant, the different methods. So when you're suppressing the normal production of hormones, we'll get into it, of course, but there's so many other effects and it can have a negative impact in your body if you do it for years on end. So I went to the healthcare system here in Amsterdam where I live. And unfortunately, again, like many women, I didn't get any help. The gynecologist, she actually said to me, if you don't want to have kids, but, oh, because I wanted to remove the IUD. I said, well, I don't know what I need to do, but I think I need to remove this because it has some synthetic hormones, whatever they meant. I know now, but at the time. So I must, you know, I need to remove it. And she said, well, if you want to remove it, I can give you the pill. And I said to her, this is me also crying because I was very vulnerable. I said, I don't want the pill. I just want your help. She said, well, I cannot help you if you don't want the pill because you don't want kids. That's it. Dismissed me completely. When I asked if she could help me with my hormones, her response was, I don't know about hormones. You'll have to Google that and send me on my way.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. Wow.
SPEAKER_02:So you can imagine when I left, I was crying, angry, frustrated, everything. But that's what actually triggered my drive to think, well, then I'm just going to, I'm going to figure it out on my own because I refuse to believe that at 39, this is how I'm supposed to feel. Of course, in between there's the process that they're working out with. The mindset part was a big part of my journey because I did feel like I was broken, that there was something wrong with me, even though it's not, but that's obviously, you know, a very common feeling, unfortunately, with us women when all of these things start happening. So what started as a hobby of let me start listening to podcasts, to experts, read books about it and understand what's happening, started turning into a passion. I even did like a little hormone course of five weeks. And I started turning into a passion for several reasons. First, because I really was loving the topic. I started feeling empowered with the information I was learning, understanding my body, understanding what was happening. I heard the word perimenopause for the first time. It freaked me out. It doesn't anymore, but it did freak me out at the time, of course. Now I've changed my whole view on narrative with a word because I see it as a new era of like power and rise. That's not a conversation, but I still had a long journey ahead of me
SPEAKER_01:that
SPEAKER_02:lasted a long time. But just I realized that by doing changes at home, i was already feeling better and i was feeling empowered because at least i knew what was happening and i was working towards my healing and then through this whole journey it's when i had the opportunity to also start um to certify myself as a coach i was also at the same time going through another process of um leaving my current job in tech which i was never like super passionate about so uh I was trying to figure out what to do with my life next. I was about to turn 40. So both things were happening at the same time. My healing and then my professional life. It was a lot at the time. So many roller coasters and up and downs. But then at the end, they both merged together. Because as I was studying and healing myself, I realized that I was not alone, first of all. That so many women are unseen and unheard. and not undismissed like I was. And I also realized that I wanted to support women on this journey because I didn't want women to feel the way I did, so alone and powerless. So that started shaping my business, inspiring my mission of helping other women, empowering other women, raising awareness about our bodies, as well as being an advocate for women's healthcare. And then here I am a year ago, over a year ago, I quit my full-time job, never looked back to tech. And I'm now a coach, helping other women, helping make a difference on women's healthcare. And yeah, here I am with you today.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, this is beautiful and also heartbreaking that you had to go through this. And this, yeah, this is a very common story that we are dismissed in in healthcare or biomedical professionals, I can fully relate to that. I was not on such a big journey, but I started learning. Yeah, I started learning about hormones and what is actually happening and how I can maybe address certain things because my periods were always horrible they were always very painful and ever since they started so ever since like i was 11 i think 11 or 12 and the the only answer is that i was getting as a child or my family was getting when i was that little is either birth control at 11 or 12 or you will feel better after you have a child yourself and i'm like now you know thinking thinking back to it this is just completely mind-blowing and crazy to hear that when you're 12 that you are supposed to suffer for all this time 20
SPEAKER_02:years or 15
SPEAKER_00:or yeah yeah yeah however many or maybe you never want to have a child and then you are always suffering right so hearing that was just ridiculous but there was no answers there was no um change it like i'm not obviously i'm not blaming my parents because they didn't know any better but i am blaming the medical system because they could have thought a little bit about it and addressed that a bit instead of just saying well either birth control or you know just pop painkillers like it's candy and that's what i did that's
SPEAKER_02:you have
SPEAKER_00:so i was was just in really intense pain all the time on the first maybe two or three days at least if not longer periods were always heavy and then eventually as it went along so the the doctors were always telling me that after a few years it's going to regulate and it's going to get better it never got better they did get regular but they were still regularly horrible
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_00:and then eventually i started developing also some hormonal acne and skin issues and severe PMS symptoms so before my period I was always incredibly emotional crying every single month like you know I couldn't even I didn't have any reasons to I couldn't understand what was going on but I would just bawl my eyes out and yeah when you are a teenager like there is also so many things so many other things going on in your life that on top of that also this is is a lot and it was never really getting any better I eventually got an appeal but also didn't really like myself on appeal and didn't recognize myself it was messing with my head a lot and I stopped eventually I think I only lasted for about a year okay and then I between that between getting off the pill and also experiencing all the withdrawal and actually realizing that maybe there is another way maybe there is also some you know cycle thinking or whatever we're we're gonna get into it there were i think like three or four years of suffering in silence and not really doing anything about it not really knowing what to do and
SPEAKER_02:by then
SPEAKER_00:you I was just in
SPEAKER_02:your 20s. Sorry.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's that's like 23 to 27 ish, something like that, something like this. And I would have to take days off from work or I couldn't go to lectures when I was still in university. I couldn't go to classes and I would have to just take time off pretty much every single month because I couldn't get out of bed. And at some point, this is just not sustainable. And then when you're working, your colleagues or your bosses are going to start kind of side-eyeing you a little bit. Maybe you're pretending, especially if you don't really want to disclose that you're taking days off for that reason. And sometimes it's just not available to you, right? Like, I'm very grateful that here in Austria, where I live, I could take up to three days at a time without providing any explanation, without providing any doctor's note. but not everywhere is like that right so in some places you just cannot do that you cannot not show up to work for no reason so yeah then eventually i started practicing yoga i started becoming more interested in more kind of holistic approach to health and well-being and then at some point i discovered Through the powers of Instagram, I discovered another hormone health coach. And we did chat because I thought, OK, you know, I'm out of options. I have to do something because I don't want to be in pain all the time. And I don't want the answer to be the pill because I don't want to go back on the pill or on any hormone birth control. And I don't want to be this. sad sobbing emotional person all the time I want to do something about it so we did chat to her and she kind of opened my eyes on this topic and from there on I started introducing small changes that we will also talk about a little bit later and I started seeing huge difference very quickly that the periods got better I started seeing that the energy levels the fluctuations in my energy and my focus and my productivity are not so dramatic or at least if they are I can work with them instead of trying to constantly push against the wall and push against my body and yeah this is where we are now
SPEAKER_02:you still work with that health coach?
SPEAKER_00:We did have a small kind of deep dive of 90 minutes with some changes that she suggested. And I implemented them pretty much right away and in little baby steps. And then eventually I added a little bit more. And then I also took a course from her about fertility awareness method. And initially it was more about just learning more about the topic and learning more about my body. and we did with my husband we did manage to first prevent pregnancy naturally through that and then also conceive very easily when we were ready to have a child so i did i do credit that as well
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_00:yeah but obviously like this is this is such a huge topic and our hormonal health has implications not only when it comes to just personal well-being and preventing pregnancy or getting pregnant, so fertility, but it impacts everything. So this is something that we don't really understand, right? How our sex hormones impact also other things in our bodies. So maybe let's touch a little bit on that. What do we get wrong about hormonal health and productivity?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I can tell you the first thing that comes to mind is that hormones are just for your period and the mood swings. That's such a narrow view because hormones, like you very well said, impact everything. And when I say everything, it's caps, you know, literally everything in our body. We have over 50 hormones. So they would impact our mood, the way we think, even our decision-making process, our immune system, our energy, our sleep. From morning to night, we like just, our hormones are working for us. So I think that's a big misconception that they only affect your period. So for example, speaking of when someone has either missing periods or very painful periods, that's the way of your body saying something is not working, we need help. What the root cause may be, there's so many options, which is so good that you work with a coach. I actually, the first year I did a lot myself, but then for the second year, I actually started working as well with a coach and that has helped me incredibly because there's so much you need to look at for the root cause and it's that accountability piece as well, right? But I would say definitely that's one misconception. Another one would be that you don't worry about menopause until it happens. That's certainly not true. Because perimenopause, which is the stage before menopause, it would last between 7 to 10 years. And it can start as early as your mid-30s. In fact, I was in a In a conference in Austin of wellness and biohacking, it was great, this past weekend, one of the doctors, Dr. Vonda Wright, which I love, she was actually saying there's studies now where your brain actually starts changing from age 35, even if you don't feel it. So the changes will start happening. Then how... we may feel the symptoms or not. That's obviously very personal. But waiting until you're 50 or waiting until you get all the symptoms we don't even know sometimes, then that's, you know, I think we should start thinking about, like you said as well, what changes we can prepare our body. It's not about causing fear or panic. It's just knowing how to support our body because our body is going to need different support when we reach our late 30s and throughout our 40s. what we've been doing up until then will not work the same way. In most cases, of course, will not work the same way because of the hormonal changes we're going to go through. And I would say the third one, just to keep three because there's so many misconceptions, would be that perimenopause is not about getting old. I work a lot on changing that narrative and that misconception because perimenopause is simply, well, not because it's simple, but just to put it very Simple. It's a sequence of hormonal events, meaning your ovaries will start to repair because your reproductive years, yes, they will end. But it's not the end of you. It's the end of a chapter to begin another very powerful chapter, which will be your life. So it's not about getting old. It's just a hormonal, like a hormonal sequence of events that would eventually disappear. have your ovaries fully retired from reproduction
SPEAKER_00:i love the you know the beginning of a new chapter it's i think rare that we see maturing and growing wiser in this way yeah it's it's a good it's a good reminder yeah because and what you said about um kind of preparing for the changes that are happening or going to start happening from the age 35 plus is so important because we think that we can just go on in the same way and things will kind of like fall into place by themselves. But at some point we might be hit with an unpleasant realization that things don't work anymore and we need to now scramble to find something that will. And instead, why don't we learn about it and prepare a softer landing for ourselves in advance.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I love that. Exactly. It's like a softer landing. I love that. Because the reality is that it's going to happen. I mean, the alternative, if you don't go through perimenopause, it's because, you know, you're not alive. It sounds hard. Like, we're all going to go through perimenopause and menopause. So what I like as well is, about the preparation is that because you have, let's say, age 35 to 45, it's a good time to prepare. It doesn't matter if you're 44 as well. It's never too late, you know? But it's sort of like a good gap because that's still when you still have youth on your side. You still have your regular reproductive hormonal fluctuations working for most women. I mean, give or take the years, of course, but... You still have a lot of things in your favor. If you wait till the last minute when the symptoms start to hit, because the symptoms are going to come. It will depend in three different factors. One is obviously genetics. The other one, which is very important, it's how was your period and your cycle in your reproductive years. And of course, lifestyle. So if you have the tools, we have the studies nowadays and the information is everywhere. It's just taking care of our hormonal health. Because also how we go through perimenopause will have an impact on not just our short-term health, but also long-term health by long-term, meaning like, you know, the last decades of life, you know, the second half. It sounds a bit dramatic, but the last, the second half of our life.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:No, this is also a really good thing to keep in mind that, yeah, what we are doing now is going to have long-lasting ripple effect all throughout until the last breath that we're taking. So let's shift gears a little bit and come back to productivity and focus. And can you... As the expert, tell us, walk us a little bit through what is actually happening throughout the cycle, throughout, let's say, the regular cycle, its four stages, and how it impacts our focus, our productivity, attention, things like that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, of course. So we have a non-regular reproductive menstrual cycle. 28 to 35 days, give or take. We have four phases. So the first, and our cycle begins on the first day of our period. For those people who don't know, our cycle, that's when it begins on the first day of our period and the menstruation phase. During the menstruation phase, of course, that's when we get our bleed. And it's a phase where we, our energy, And our focus might be lower. Of course, it's our general guidelines, but it's important that everyone also sees their own patterns. But it's a phase of reflection. and a phase of reset. Our body's already going through a lot with the bleed, so it's important that we give it the support it needs. It doesn't mean that it's the opposite of productivity. I can't highlight this enough. Rest is not the opposite. It will set you up for success for the next period. And also rest doesn't mean, I mean, unless of course it's very painful, which then we also know, we now know that's a red flag. But rest means that it's the time, because both of our hormones, our sex hormones, estrogen, or three sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone are at their lowest point. We are going to feel a little bit, that's what we feel a little bit like more in this cozy mood, less sociable. We don't have this go-getter attitude and that's normal. So we, deep focus is still possible. You can plan. So it doesn't mean you just sit down and, oh, I cannot do anything. No, it's more like deep focus work, right? the focus work to kind of like prepare and plan, organize for the cycle coming ahead. Because then what happens? We start getting out of our period, we go into our follicular phase. As we go into our follicular phase, estrogen will begin to rise, meaning our energy will begin to rise. And also when estrogen rises, also our cognitive function, because estrogen has a very close relationship with how our brain functions. So, we will start feeling more energetic. What this means is as well that we are, it's a great time. Well, estrogen would also boost serotonin and dopamine. So that would improve focus, creativity, motivation. Your communication skills will be heightened, networking, brainstorming. Of course, you have to go like sailing with emotion. It doesn't mean like you finish your period on the next day. It goes, it's, you know. It goes like this. It's a good time when you start trying new things, more risks. If you have that difficult meeting with a client for a work conversation, this is when it will be good to have it. You start feeling that go-getter attitude. Your brain is more clear. Sorry, I'm a little bit deadlocked. Sorry about that. We have more resilience to stress. Sorry. We have more resilience. I also am on my luteal phase. In a week, I'm going to get my period. We have more resilience to stress. Estrogen helps us have more resilience to stress. So that's why you can deal with more things coming at you. So then we take advantage of that. And then as the estrogen continues to rise and rise, we are gonna reach the peak of our cycle, which is ovulation. Ovulation, it's the most fertile window in many aspects, not just the aspect of fertility for conception, but also it's a period where all of our hormones, estrogen and testosterone are at its highest level, meaning you have a lot of confidence, you have charisma, you feel even your self-talk is more positive. You get dressed and you look at yourself in the mirror and you're like, I look great. And maybe 10 days later, you put on the same outfit and you're like, oh, why do I look, I don't look great. 10 days ago I did, but it's just all self-talk. It's again, the whole almost having that influence in us. You're more goal-oriented, risk-taker. Again, great. I mean, if you were already feeling good on the follicular, this is like an enhanced follicular phase. For people who do content, they film themselves. It's a great time for filming, for speaking in public. Of course, I understand life still happens
SPEAKER_01:and
SPEAKER_02:you can't plan absolutely everything, but it's good to know these things because then you can a be more proactive and then if there's a meeting you can move move it if not okay you'll have it but just you're aware of how you're going to be feeling right testosterone boosts sorry a lot of like confidence and motivation um so then you're at your peak and then as you like once you reach ovulation once you start like um Once that's finished, that phase, which is only last like a few days, then you enter into the luteal phase. The luteal phase is the last phase, is the longest, because usually they have second half of the cycle. A very short luteal phase, it's also a red flag, just FYI. And the luteal phase, estrogen will start to decline, same as testosterone, and progesterone will start to rise. And progesterone is a calming hormone, the hormone that makes you more inward instead of so outward. But this is a great thing because it's a phase where you can be more detail-oriented, more reflective. If you need to do editing, reviewing, little tasks that just require, again, that deep focus instead of go-getter, it's great for it. You have, because you have less estrogen, you don't have a lot less estrogen in your body. That's why you're less resilient to stress. So things that didn't upset you before might upset you. That's why sometimes mood swings, because if it's not managed properly, then the mood swings can get out of control. It's normal to have some, but if they're out of control, like for example, in your case, then this is a red flag. So deep focus work, not multitasking, finalizing projects, organizing, and setting up plans and systems for the new cycle. So that's like in a nutshell, of course, I could go on so much more. But in a nutshell, that's how it goes. Our brain changes up to 25% every month when we have a regular cycle. So all these changes cause a change of 25%. Wow. So, yeah, it's just being in tune with yourself. Once you reach the end of your luteal phase, it's when you get your period again. And then the cycle starts over and
SPEAKER_00:over. Thank you for that. I think this is so since I work with scientists, let's use science as an example. But I think this can be relevant to people in any kind of stressful careers or maybe careers where your job is seen as a passion and you are kind of putting pressure on yourself or maybe there is outside pressure on
SPEAKER_01:yourself.
SPEAKER_00:That, you know, if you're passionate about it, you have to be on all the time. So maybe it can be like medical professionals, scientists, maybe people in like high stakes corporate jobs, maybe artists because, you know, it's a passion and then you have to work all the time. So as you said, life happens and there's no chance that we can foresee and plan everything according to our cycle. But I think this... You said it well, that little things and little changes, if we can do them, if we can move a meeting and schedule it for a phase of our cycle where we feel better, that's perfect. That's already enough. And even maybe even just awareness of where we are and, you know, knowing why we feel the way we feel in a given phase. is already enough at some point. But then, you know, if you have to have a difficult conversation with your PhD thesis supervisor and tell him that you're an asshole and you need to supervise me better, then maybe schedule it for the phase where you feel like I'm gorgeous and amazing and you don't appreciate me. I
SPEAKER_01:love that.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. So, yeah, maybe there is little things with how we little changes with how we schedule things. Well, we don't have a lot of time, but let's quickly maybe talk about ways we kind of unknowingly push against this. And we were discussing this. We can use me sort of six, seven years ago as a case study and all the things that I did wrong in pursuit of productivity or in pursuit of my career.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:so i can just tell you kind of roughly how my my life was structured or unstructured um i was yeah
SPEAKER_02:i think we are but actually when it's okay the most unconstructed yeah
SPEAKER_00:yeah absolutely so i think uh our view of productivity in general like the most typical quote-unquote view of productivity is that we have to be consistent day in, day out. And then you realize that as somebody who has periods and monthly cycles, you cannot be consistent because you are fluctuating and your energy, your brain changes, everything changes, right? So your view of productivity has to change. But then it's not... um it's not seen as such in the environment in your culture wherever you're working so your maybe expectations from the outside and also what you put on yourself are that you have to be consistent every day and sometimes then it looks like you're just kind of punishing yourself with more work yeah yeah because you are not so focused you're not so productive so you are staying longer You are coming in on the weekend to catch up on something. So this was my story. Working regularly on the weekends, working long hours, staying into the night sometimes. And how
SPEAKER_02:were your periods?
SPEAKER_00:Painful. Horrible.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:this was my body screaming at me to stop that. But then it's kind of a loop, right? You are not so productive because maybe you're closer to your period. And then you are thinking, no, I have to catch up on this. I have to stay longer. And then it progresses into the next cycle from there. So then there were also things like surviving on coffee. So coffee instead of breakfast, coffee instead of lunch.
SPEAKER_02:Fits to the excess cortisol that you already have in your body.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. So that was one of the things that I told the hormone coach that I worked with. I'm just not hungry in the morning. I want to have a coffee and that's it. I want to have a coffee to wake up and then I will eat later or I will just have lunch. And she was like, maybe that's the problem.
SPEAKER_02:It's very common. I'm glad you brought it up because it's the worst it can do to your body, but it's very, very common. A lot of women do it, and I'm not blaming women who do it. It's just, again, nobody told us or taught us any better, right? So we just do what we think we're doing okay. So,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. Yeah. Then I think it's... you know, not being hungry in the morning, it might be just because we are also so trained to ignore our body signals that we kind of, our hunger cues are a little bit messed up on that level, but also maybe even the signaling itself, like the hormones that are responsible for feeling hungry and feeling full are a little bit messed up out of us ignoring it. So it might be that going on. I'm not... You know, if somebody is listening to it and thinking, OK, that's me, I'm not hungry in the morning. I'm not saying, you know, you have to just stuff yourself if you're not hungry. But maybe, you know, again, little changes, little things. Don't eat a huge meal, but eat a little bit or maybe delay your coffee until a bit later in the day. Right. This this kind of little fixes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I was actually going to say that. I think if there's one actionable step that I always tell women that it's less complicated to implement, because I understand coffee, obviously, it's very important for people. So I don't ask, and it is good for you, but taken at the right time. Absolutely no coffee in an empty stomach. is people like for women uh like our audience absolutely no coffee in an empty stomach it's okay to drink coffee it has a lot of benefits but when they do it on an empty stomach like you used to do you know what it's like so uh it's just gonna cause havoc havoc sorry in your body and your hormones yeah so with breakfast is fine again as you said something small because like you very well said your hunger cues are all over the place they are suppressed because you don't need so you need to start eating little by little and then your body start asking you for food in the morning and that's the healthy
SPEAKER_00:part yeah
SPEAKER_02:yeah
SPEAKER_00:what are other maybe small small small changes that can be implemented you know whoever is listening or whoever will listen to the recording um if they recognize themselves in this and they're thinking, oh my God, that's me. I'm skipping lunch because I'm so busy. Or I, yeah, I, as you said, you know, they probably have to stop drinking coffee on an empty stomach. If somebody recognizes themselves in this, what are the little things that they can do, you know, immediately starting tomorrow?
SPEAKER_02:Well, that one would be the coffee, which I'm glad you brought it up because I had it in mind already. The other thing, actually have three that people can start implementing tomorrow one do not skip meals um especially for women it doesn't matter what age you are if you're reproductive years per menopause it's essential that we don't skip meals uh i can go maybe in the next podcast because i'm conscious of time there's a whole it's like there's like a whole hierarchy of hormones why this is important not skip meals uh but it's really supportive for your hormonal health and your hormones where you're trying to get pregnant or not going through perimenopause, we need to support our hormonal health for all the reasons we've mentioned before, right? The next one will be prioritized sleep. Prioritizing sleep is super important. Of course, I understand, especially for new moms, it's more challenging. But whenever you can, if that's a challenge because you have a newborn baby or something, also our body knows when there's a mom with a new baby, our body's adapting to it. It's a different story because our bodies, for women, I mean, they're meant to, what's the word, to go, like they're meant to be able to cope with that, right? Because that's an evolutionary situation. But prioritizing sleep, It's super important. Sleep, I made it one of my main, it was one of the main changes I did on my healing journey and it helps me so much. I mean, I still do it. And then another one, track your cycle. Tracking your cycle gives us so much more information, whether you have a healthy cycle or not, because if you don't, then you can go informed with the doctor. Look, this is happening in this phase rather than... don't feel well, you don't even know when. When you track your cycle, you can also identify your energy patterns, your behavioral patterns. And if there's a specific pattern, it doesn't need to be a negative one, but if there's positive things, like with this productivity piece, for example, then you can be like, okay, this is where I'm most productive. Then I'm scheduled my work commitments like that when possible, you know? And if you're not, then you also know, okay, well, I might just take it easier. Like now, for example, the conference in Austin, I give a real life example. I was starting my luteal phase And I knew I had two full-on days in the conference. For whoever's been to conferences, you're there from like 9, 10 a.m. till like 6, 7. And it's a lot. It's amazing, but a lot of like energy and socializing and da-da-da. Because I knew where I was in my cycle, I finished the conference on Saturday, both days actually, at like 6, 6.30. And I was like, okay, I'm ready to be on my own. I'll skip the after parties because my body's just, it's just too demanding for my body already. I've been walking around meeting people, I'm just going to have dinner, have an early night and support my body to be able to, you know, to the conference the second day. And then I was flying to the day after the conference finished. So because I already knew where I was in my cycle. And I also could feel I was social, but not like extremely social. I was the social levels that I needed for the conference. Just examples like that. I'm sure you have as well some yourself.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I agree with the sleep piece. That was actually something that I wanted to mention as well and didn't because this is also something that is very common, especially in the younger days, maybe as you are in university and then going into workforce initially and, you know, wanting to prove yourself and then maybe sleep kind of takes a backseat as you're trying to figure out the balance of working and socializing, having a life and doing all the things at the same time. So, yeah, sleep can take a backseat for that stage of life. But, you know, it's not sustainable and you cannot do it forever. Yeah. So this is something that I also really relate to. Like my sleep has not been great and I was also not very good with it. You know, I was not sort of allowing myself to improve it or improve. work on it because well sleep can wait i need to work or sleep can wait i need to do all the other things and then at some point you know it cannot wait any longer because then you are struggling your body screaming at you and you need to take a step back and then yeah the the tracking of the cycle piece i think this is so important and maybe even we could go deep I think we will have to have a second life together to just go deeper into it. Maybe even, you know, just tracking further, really tracking your fertile signs so you know for sure when you are ovulating and you know for sure what's going on instead of just relying on an app that will tell you, okay, your average cycle is 31 days, so you are ovulating on day 15 and, you know, that's good. to start with, I think, but then, you know, kind of as you go deeper, maybe you will want to track it a bit deeper. But just understanding where you are and understanding how it impacts you, how it affects your moods, how it affects your energy levels is so helpful. You cannot always adjust to it as we've been talking about, but maybe some little things that you can sync with your cycle, with where you are, starting from maybe working out or the way you move. Maybe a little bit in terms of your productivity, the way how you work, maybe going even deeper, the way you eat, the way you nourish your body together with your different stages of your cycle. That could be so helpful. We think this is such little things, but it could be already the change that I think some of us need and require for optimal well-being and productivity as well.
SPEAKER_02:I agree. I couldn't agree more. Um, I'm actually not thinking about this. We're doing a second life. I'm just thinking out loud that probably we could cover those areas. Um, since we have activity now, we could cover those areas on the next one. Um, I like what you did about the questions. We could even like post the questions so people can have, because it is, they're all big pillars of our lives. But I think, um, I can probably speak for yourself in aligning your life with your cycle. It's life changing for the better. I've been doing like a long time now and you probably have as well. And it's just so transformational, I would say.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. So I'm a year and a half-ish postpartum, so my cycle is still not back to normal. But I can tell you, like, if I thought... a couple of years ago before I had my child that I would miss my period or if somebody told me you will miss your period because you will miss this regularity and this, I would be like, you're crazy. You're joking, right? But I, in a way, I do miss this because I miss the predictability and regularity and kind of knowing exactly where I am and what I have to do in this phase and that phase because right now it's kind of like it can come tomorrow, it can come in two months and three months. So... Now it's a little bit hit and miss, but I do look forward to when it's more stable and regular and I can know exactly what's happening. So I think it is aligning your life with it can be really, really transformational, as you said. Definitely. But we'll go into it deeper. I think we have to.
SPEAKER_02:It was such a good conversation. I didn't want to rush it. So, yeah, so glad. Thank you for the invitation. It was so good.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much for joining me and sorry for all the technical issues. I hope that we will, yeah, we'll cover all these things and go deeper. We just scratched the surface. So we'll go deeper in the next life. Thank you for joining. I'm going to let you run. It
SPEAKER_02:was a pleasure doing this with you and I look forward to the next one.
SPEAKER_00:Same, same. Okay. Have a nice day and see you soon. And bye. Thank you for listening.
