#84 - Dr. Brittany Pearce on all things HORMONES. Balancing vs optimizing them.. — Transcript

I mean first and foremost i' would say if you're questioning at all it's always good to go bounce ideas off of a healthare provider whether it be your family doctor whether you're working with a naturopathic doctor and in fact I would recommend having both on your Healthcare team um and if it requires as well also a gynecologist also an OB it's nice to have more people looking at your health more education everybody brings something different to the [Music] table I'm Erica and I'm CJ and you're listening to the her podcast we are thrilled about today's episode because we've got Dr Britney Pierce joining us Dr Britney is a licensed naturopathic doctor based in Saskatoon Saskatchewan with nearly 10 years of education including a registered holistic nutrition designation a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and a degree in naturopathic medicine from the Canadian College of naturopathic medicine in this episode we chat about how you can understand and balance your hormones effectively recognizing the signs of unbalanced hormones and their impact on your health practical tips for incorporating hormon balancing

strategies into your busy life and simple changes or swaps you can make to support hormone balance and overall well-being you're in for an inspiring discussion that will Empower you to take charge of your own health on that note let's welcome Dr Britney Pierce to the her [Music] podcast yeah so your drive out here was good you a good day so far yeah it was good I was just saying I I took the day off of work and I went to the gym did some self-care then made my way out here it was kind of nice to have that hour played some music sang a little bit where you from what side of the city are you on um newana area oh yeah okay so yeah it would take you about an hour yeah I don't mind the drive I mean I'm biased because I obviously live here um but I am like I don't think it's that bad I think it's okay no I think it's like once you live outside the city you're just so used to everything about an hour to go anywhere but it's the

people who live inside the city are just like what do you mean it's more than 10 minutes I was going to say exactly that 10 like I remember growing up I grew up in Calgary um but my parents would not go anywhere outside of like our community it was like the 10-minute rule like you know like shinook mall is like Central Calgary and to like go there was like once a year you would drive that 20 minutes to like get to sh Mall you know the big mall was just like nope that's not happening and then now living the city it's just like it's what you do yeah it's just what you do I noticed like since living in the city again I grew up in delman um even things like groceries you really had to plan like you got something for the next week or two weeks maybe and that's what you were eating whereas now I find I'm quite lazy with groceries I'll go get stuff I'm like I can come back on Wednesday and pick up a few more things I've definitely gotten used to the luxuries of living in the city but right well I'm so excited to sit down today because our audience is primarily female and super interested obviously we're

interested our audience is interested in just like women's health and hormones and it's just like all these things that we talk about and obviously we have guests that come on and share sort of their experience but to have someone that actually has some educational background um is so exciting so we have so many questions for you today but I think what I was thinking about this episode one of the biggest things is we talk about lately I feel like people being like balance your hormones and female hormones and so it's like I have a couple thoughts like one it's like what even you know when I hear that most of us are probably like what okay I need to balance my hormones what does that even mean what am I balancing you know what I mean so like I think we like understand so I'm hoping today that we can get into like yes some of the detail but like make it palatable to be like how is this actually impacting us like what are we looking for so even maybe starting off when we talk about unbalanced hormones like what are common symptoms or things that our listeners and us are maybe experiencing that we

can be like oh this could be unbalanced hormones and then get into what even are balanced hormones y I think it might be helpful to just start with going over the menstrual cycle and I know that that can kind of seem a little bit rudimentary but when we talk about balanced hormones I don't think and again depending on who's talking about for myself anyways if I were to say that in practice I'm not necessarily meaning that I want all hormones to be exactly the same um it means I think saying optimizing hormones is probably a better way of of talking about it um as to balancing yeah CU we're trying to optimize the levels as to where they should be throughout the menstrual cycle and each hormone has its different time to shine during the menstrual cycle as well so if we look at a menstrual cycle so typically it's about 28 days it can swing anywhere from 26 to about 34 days that's considered normal um so again we have usually two phases of the cycle we have the follicle stimulating phase and we have the Lal phase in the first half of the cycle so we have um FSH and LH so

again from there in the brain we have the hypothalamus so it secretes something called gonadotropin releasing hormone and it goes to the pituitary and tells the pituitary hey could you make some follicle stimulating hormone and some lutenizing hormone those then go to the ovaries and stimulate the ovaries to mature a follicle which has the egg in it which is released during ovulation um and then for once FSH goes to the ovaries and stimulates the follicle it also stimulates estrogen secretion and so estrogen is what is more um I guess available or more predominates during the first half of the cycle well I feel like lots of us hear about estrogen like FSH not so much LH not so much you know I'm like we're usually hearing about estrogen you're using words I'm like oh so I tend to go really deep into things so tell me if something doesn't make sense you have questions let me know but I tend to just dive into because what I learned from this is something in my brain tells something else else in the ovaries in the ovaries time to make an egg yes time to make an egg time to make some estrogen is it okay yes okay so the two are

important so D during the first half we're looking at yes stimulating the follicle to start to mature in order to release the egg halfway estrogen is also stimulated because we're trying to build the uterine lining so that when the egg is released it can implant so this is what's happening the first half of the cycle progesterone doesn't even come out yet really yeah that's it's more so just estrogen and so estrogen starts to rise over the first half and as estrogen Rises um once it hits past day 10 then lutenizing hormone comes out and it's the LH surge so some people if they've gone through trying to become pregnant and they're tracking their Cycles it's that LH surge Midway that we're looking to see if you ovulate oh okay so LH is correlated with ovulation so that is the L that we ovulate it's a surge so this is then when after we um ovulate and the is released and it goes into the uterus um if there's of course sperm around we get fertilization and it is then implanted into the uterine lining and we

can go along with pregnancy if there's no sperm and it's not uh fertilized then we get a breakdown of the egg and a breakdown of the uterine lining we get our period And so during the second half of the cycle we actually want more progesterone around and so after the follicle is released um what's left behind is called the Corpus ludum and the Corpus ludum makes progesterone and that again is what is more available during the second half it helps to maintain the uterine lining along with estrogen um but again it's we want more progesterone during the second half so what are we feeling if we have you know so okay again I'm taking away and maybe cutting out the other ones that were not supposed to be cutting out and we can Circle back to them but I'm like estrogen and progesterone are higher at different periods and I'm like obviously if they're backwards or mixed or whatever I'm sure that you have things that are wrong or like you symptoms right so I'm wondering what are some symptoms or some things you can experience if the estrogen is not correct doing what it's supposed to do and or if the progesterone is not correct right so a termal often here thrown around is called um estrogen

dominance um yes and so this is typically referring to when we have higher levels of estrogen now it could mean two things it could be estrogen if you were to run Labs estrogen is actually out of range and it could mean that estrogen is within range but in comparison to Progesterone is again much higher okay um so again estrogen being at the top end of the range in estone being at the bottom end of the normal limit yeah so with estrogen dominance or higher levels of estrogen we typically see symptoms like uh heavy periods really short Cycles so something around day 21 or earlier and again if we think about what estrogen is doing in the body the higher the level that estrogen gets in that first half of the cycle that's what brings on the LH secretion that's what brings on ovulation so if we have higher levels of estrogen earlier on that will stimulate ovulation to ear happen earlier on and we'll have more frequent Cycles um so again like some women are having Cycles every two weeks because of this oh my gosh that's a little much and so that tells me that okay there's a chance we're looking at higher levels of estrogen here um other

simp symptoms question then I'm going to take a side tangent because we actually had a listener ask about this so heavy periods which you just associated with estrogen yes is the only like so if someone is experiencing high estrogen or heavy periods and they're not wanting to use birth control yes to manage it are there other options there's lots of options and this is where we would need to look at so again there's for heavy periods yes it could be high levels of estrogen usually estrogen is involved to a certain extent but it also could be endometriosis it could be PCOS it could be uterine fibroids so depending on how heavy and other symptoms coming along with it will govern whether or not I send them for more Labs more testing more imaging okay so yes is there other ways to manage it yes absolutely can we pretend for a second that this person just has a heavy period and doesn't have any of those things other things yes pretend her name is Jessica and she has a heavy flow but we know there's no fi no we already know she's just got a heavy flow yeah so things that you can

do I mean if somebody were to come in to me and this would be um the situation we look at ways to optimize estrogen levels so I'm looking at okay and this is where it gets there's many different aspects of this we might dive into more of it later but I'm looking at okay are you and I hate to use the word deto but whether it be a hormone whether it be an environmental chemical we all have to detox it through the body in order to actually get rid of it so for let's take estrogen for example when the body is done utilizing it it sends it to the liver and the liver it's going to go through two different phases in order to be metabolized in a way or packaged in a way so that we can actually get rid of it so it's go going to go from the liver then it's dumped into something called bile which we know kind of do with the gallbladder breaks down fat um so it's thrown into bile from bile into the small intestine and then you have a bowel movement that's how you get rid of it so I'm going to make sure that that whole process is happening optimally so we look at the two different phases in the liver in order to metabolize or like I said package estrogen phase one has to do with more of your B vitamins and

phase two a huge chunk of it is your amino acids so enough protein so I'm looking at okay does the diet have enough B vitamins and are you eating enough protein I'm going to go ahead and say that 95% of my female patients are not eating enough protein unless they CJ unless you're CJ are you good with your protein like 140 G dang girl good your liver detox is on point okay but that is not normal and that is something that I have started doing we've talked about protein on here a lot exactly so where do you get B vitamins from though could be anything from leafy greens uh complex carbohydrates meat so if you're vegetarian that's something like B12 I think most vegetarians know that B12 is something that's hard to get in if you're not having meat so then we got to make sure that your B12 levels are good or we're eating more foods high in B12 um in order to compensate and or some times even supplement um but then after the liver after the liver um when we hit the digestive tract I want to make sure that things are actually moving on and out efficiently so if you're a person that you know every 3 days a bell movement is your Norm I'm going to want to speed

that up I'd like to see it every day I want that stuff moving on and out because it can actually be reabsorbed the longer it sits there okay which like we need to talk about this because poop a lot on the podcast so many women struggle pooping regularly so I'm like please go into this you know how do we have more regular BS and make sure that it's going through and not getting reabsorbed so help us so again that is what I'm here for help me poop um so yeah the longer it sits there the more will be reabsorbed or the more chance it has to be reabsorbed pause cuz that is the part that's freaking me out right now I've been fine being constipated okay I've been fine living in a state of uncomfortableness now now my body is going against me and reabsorbing me why yes well is this crap and it's not even just hormones like cholesterol literally crap good joke cholesterol also now again that's outside of hormones but cholesterol also can be reabsorbed so if I have somebody who comes in with high cholesterol I'm looking at how often

they're having a bowel movement cuz that also will be reabsorbed the longer it sits there what say that one more time cholesterol levels can go up because it can that's how we get rid of cholesterol is through a bowel movement but the longer that the bowel the the stool sits within the digol cholesterol can get reabsorbed and D level up too that's crazy outside of how long it sits in the digestive tract does the term microbiome mean anything yes so again bacteria in the gut um we have good bacteria we have bad bacteria um so microbiome but then there's a subsection referred to in research as the estrobolome so that's because those bacteria can actually reactivate estrogen so it's reabsorbed and returned to circulation and so when this has something to do with it's called beta glucuronidase it's a enzyme that reactivates estrogen and so you can have too much activity of that enzyme making it so that too much estrogen is reabsorbed and that drives again either kind of things like estrogen dominance potentially they're looking at the roles it plays in endometriosis development pcus um uterine fibroids things like

that um so we want to make sure we have a healthy microbiome in addition to that we're actually eliminating regularly okay so how do we what are some tips like not too like like deep like you know what I mean like I mean things I know are like to be hydrated like I think that probably what is hydrated what do you think how many cups what are you thinking for hydration or how many liters um I'm bad at understanding liters I have like a Stanley that is like one of the big ones you know what I mean and I probably y okay which is how many liters so I would I drink a lot of water I know I'm eating it but I don't know what how many Stanley do you have a day one and a half to two Okay so I would say and again I'd have to go check again my ounces to liters but I think that you need to be somewhere around 2 to three oh did Bing yeah so again when we're talking about hydration yeah I think we have eight cups of in our mind but I think it's actually closer to the 11 cups for most women now again height and weight and activity yeah let's get our water let's all have a sip of water get it in my problem is and maybe this

is a side tent that we should not take is then I have to pee 9,000 which I already do oh penis so inconvenient so your body will adjust so yeah if you go from if you go from doing one cup to 11 cups yeah it's not going to go great for you but you know increasing it slowly over time okay yeah is the so would you even suggest that if you're like I'm going to cuz I think this is something we get caught up in is we're like we need to drink more water okay I need to drink three Stanley worth well right now I'm drinking half of my Stanley would you say yoyo yeah let's start with a full Stanley a day ab and like let's not overload your body to the point that cuz I feel like that could also cause problems if all a sudden you're peeing so much your body is like wo this is like a large amount of water that that I'm like not used to plus can't like water wreck your salt levels like too much water yeah so you're going to want to you want to increase slowly that's why I'm not drinking water don't want wreck my salt just kidding and again being careful too cuz I think it's pretty trendy in social media right now to use electrolytes um really we don't need

those unless you're sweating a bunch really now I'm guilty of put using electrolytes cuz again if you have one that tastes good um I like the lemony ones from Costco yeah oh they're so yummy it makes it easier to get the water in um I would say you know be careful with that and definitely don't be doing like they come in little packets or Scoops or whatever don't be doing that every day all day like one serving yeah even more so like so I work out yeah so it's like have it when you're working out or after you work out yeah okay yeah good so hydration so you you already knew that one okay so pooping we need to be hydrated got to be hydrated what are some other things so fiber I mean I think that's another one too and again just like the water not go 0 to 100 cuz that will probably make the constipation worse um so typically they suggest around 30 grams a day so starting with that trying to work towards it trying to basically what I do is when I send my patients home I'm like get a sense of where you're at whether it be protein water fiber and then take that and try and increase it from there a little bit each day and over the next month what are some easy ways to get fiber so again

depending on kind of what a person what their diet looks like I'll go about a different ways but if you have a smoothie in the morning throwing some flax seeds or chia seeds in it if okay but riddle me this yes tell me I heard someone be like you shouldn't just put flax seeds in there cuz they just run through you like you should ground them up ground ground flax seed see yes I mean you could you could put them in there on ground it's like corn it's useless yeah go right through you you wouldn't get the benefits it would still act as a fiber it like un ground but when you grind it then you would get the healthy fats out of it and the ligin which are good for estrogen levels and things like that so get your ground flag from coxco yeah they've got a good bag there too Nick grinds his own Nick myus in a in a now I will say if we're talking about optimal optimal that is the most optimal as far as not um the the fats will degrade or become rancid if they are ground too early or we're not taking care of them yeah Nick they need to be

in the fridge too to probably theity Nick has like muffins every week for our kids and he'll grind just the flax he needs for the muffins cuz he's like you lose all the nutrients it I'm like eating my seeds I'm like what are you talking about that's not doing anything for yeah all my rancid seeds moldan seeds yeah which and that's the real thing that can happen so yeah I mean ideally if a person can grind them and that's what I've had patients ask that and I'm like you know realistically if that's not something that you're going to do I'm worried more about consistency buy them ground throw them in the freezer throw them in the freezer but I think this is things people don't know is they're buying flax seeds from Costco pudding and their smoothie and they're like why can't I take a poop and it's like well we're not really we're we're there but not quite yes okay yeah so fiber so fi water um your microbiome so again like making sure there's enough healthy bacteria in there they regulate motility throughout the gut as [Music] well ever dreamt of waking up with

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needs to just take all the things just because the things can be healthy um let's look at your diet first and have a real conversation is is switching up your diet right now something that's realistic if it's not then we might look more heavily at supplements get you into a place cuz I think a lot of the time when women come in they're so they're so exhausted they're tired of feeling like crap and they just want to start feeling better but right now they don't feel motivated to say do all the cooking and the the prepping so we get them feeling better we might start more with supplements so that's where a probiotic might be a little bit more handy also depending on bowel symptoms that can be a little bit more handy to start with but outside of that fermented foods so sauerkraut uh kimchi uh even pickles although what I will say about pickles like when you look at the ingredients you want to make sure that they're actually pickled like with just salt like not no vinegar cuz that kills off the bacteria probably would have to look somewhere like well and fermented pickles are different yes right yes Nick bought fermented pickles from calories okay they were not my favorite thing but he did buy them buy them they

tasted fizzy yeah so it will be a different taste yeah I literally was like none of this he's like eat this cuz he was I'd been seen a naturopath and he's like here fermented foods and I was like what are you doing yeah we got warm up you not my fla me like I'm just trying to make you better and you're just like no I want my poop to be reabsorb so yeah um and then of course like yogurts whether now again I'll say Dairy um a lot of people have issues with dairy so I don't always just give just dairy yogurt as an option but you can get coconut yogurt um less than protein so usually I say if if you're having that as a snack to add some nuts and seeds to to increase the protein but yeah coconut yogurt can be nice too for for getting those uh healthy bacteria in place that was very helpful that was very helpful and very tangible okay now I want to swing back to we sort of talked a little bit about estrogen yeah what happens when our progesterone progesterone progesterone is off yeah so typically with that it's more of low levels that I see rather than high levels progesterone I don't often see

progesterone low on its own usually if progesterone is low I'm also seeing signs of estrogen dominance as well and that's because progesterone actually reduces the amount of estrogen receptors in the uterus so if progesterone's in a healthy place it helps to modulate estrogen stimulation right so if we get a drop in progesterone not only do we get low progesterone symptoms but we have estrogen thriving more than we might want okay so low progesterone that would be more specific to that could be constipation so that's something that can slow down motility if we don't have enough it could be a low mood so progesterone stimulates or increases Gaba activity in the brain so Gaba is a calming neurotransmitter um think about it like uh patients who have seizures are often put on a medication called Gabapentin to slow down activity in the brain so if you don't have enough Gaba or progesterone drops um we might see more anxiety um what else would I see with low progesterone longer periods so greater than 34 days heading towards 36 days spotting before the period 36 day period yeah or not period cycle than

gosh can happen to concern and it would be um sorry 36 Days Cycles um so longer Cycles um with L of blood or does it matter could go either way okay um I also will see often spotting and especially spotting before the period now I'd have to look into if they've done research to actually confirm this so what I'm about to say is what I see more clinically but when I see low levels of progesterone I often see spotting before the period and I'm not just talking about half a day I'm talking about like sometimes 2 3 4 days sometime times up to a week of spotting um and kind of what this is telling me is that you're not having a strong progesterone withdrawal to Onset a period perod so for example if you have high levels of progesterone or optimal levels of progesterone and it drops off that signal that's a strong signal to the body like okay we're doing this we're having a period but if we have low levels of progesterone and it drops off it's not as strong of a signal so I think it takes some body the body some time to realize like okay are we doing this what's happening and then

eventually realize okay I think progesterone's gone we're going to have a period now so that's where we see period still be like 5 to 7 days after the spotting yes yeah okay those are more of the progesterone the low progesterone type symptoms that I see so then circling all the way back to the beginning I like how you said when I was like how do we balance our hormones you're like it's more like how do we optimize our hormones because I think even the word balance like in my head I'm like all the time they must be the same and you're saying no no no there's actually a time for high and low okay yeah I agree like this so in just making sure that again you know when somebody comes in and they say they want to balance hormones or even if sometimes I'll use that term loosely in practice as well it just means that I'm wanting to make sure that estrogen is within a healthy range progesterone's within a healthy range so that they can do what they need to do when they need to do it so question are you seeing a lot of women um that don't have optimized hormones Yeah in our day and age right now yes and I think I mean I'd be a little bit biased because a huge part of my practi focus that way um so yes I do

um and I think what I find too is a lot's been normalized because it's common but it's not necessarily healthy or optimal tell us some of those things so yeah I mean the symptoms that we talked about with est Esten dominance and progesterone um it being on the Lower Side those would be things that I see but I think yeah even when it comes to cramping um and so that would be another thing I'd see with if there's higher levels of estrogen is is cramping and the higher levels of estrogen we have not necessarily you know exactly that it would be if you have higher levels of estrogen we're heading into like say endometriosis territory um the cramping becomes more severe um but yeah a lot of women have just normalized cramping that okay it's my period I'm going to have to take time off work I'm going to need to take all this Advil or Tylen or whichever and that's just that's just being a woman and I've actually had patients say that their family doctors have said that that's this is just being a woman and here's what I'll differentiate between a symptom and a sign a sign that you're about to get your period might be some mild discomfort might be feeling a little achy might be feeling like I'd rather just curl up at home and read a book rather than midm mon where we feel

a little bit more energized and ready to go out and do all the things um you know you might have some mild cramping but nothing that would keep you from going to work nothing that would require you know pain medication or anything like that those are signs that we're in a different part of the month symptoms are things that again it's taking Advil or Pharmaceuticals to manage it's things that um are keeping us from going to work or doing the things that we want to do making it so that we're we're snapping at our loved ones certainly feeling a little bit again maybe a little more emotional or a little bit more tired but not able to you know engage in our regular bonds with people in a in a healthy way that that's telling me that there's a little bit more going on okay that's so good cuz I think like you said we normalize or have started to normalize things that are not necessarily meant to be normal right and are not OP have to be a part of a healthy cycle yes exactly so when people are looking to optimize their hormones and they're listening this and they're like okay I think some things may be off here you know is it um

a process of like getting blood work done you know like what are ways to start looking at you know cuz we've listers all over the world but it's like where where do we go to even begin that conversation and what things are we maybe asking to look for so it's going to depend on the severity of symptoms I mean first and foremost i' would say if you're questioning at all it's always good to go bounce ideas off of a healthcare provider whether it be your family doctor whether you're working with a naturopathic doctor and in fact I would recommend having both on your Healthcare team um and if it requires as well also a gynecologist also an OB it's nice to have more people looking at your health more education everybody brings something different to the table and at the end of the day I I want my patients to feel like the decisions they're making are informed and the best for them and not just because that's the only advice they got how long on average is it taking to optimize them and it's probably very dependent but I'm like you know someone listening they're like oh my gosh like is this going to take you know like is it possible how you know almost like what's the scope like what's the work involved yeah so again

different if you have underlying conditions for sure um different due to your history and your lifestyle it can can happen as quickly as within that month it also is going to depend on what you're what you're willing to do I have some patients that are coming they're like yep like let's do all the things I'm changing my diet we'll do the supplements we'll throw everything at it and typically we'll see movement quicker other patients come in and you know we lay out okay this is everything that can be done and it's quite overwhelming and there's zero judgment in that we all have busy lives sometimes it's just not realistic to do all the things so then we look at okay let's just start with a couple of things and each month we'll build on it that's going to take a little bit longer um but it can happen quite quickly again if a person is willing to change diet and then add supplements in it as well to kind of push the needle quicker okay is there anything physically we can be doing during our cycle to help like I think about we obviously know okay like maybe during our cycle we need to be like eating this or we know that our estrogen is high is there anything we can be doing or not doing during our cycle to help our hormones yes so lots I mean if

we want to talk about diet um like a Mediterranean style diet is one of the best studied diets I think for all all um Health in general but hormones especially whether it be fertility pregnancy hormones just optimizing hormones a Mediterranean style diet um and this is because it's higher in the healthy fats fat is needed to make hormones so when I see somebody on a lowfat diet and I would say our generation is probably better with that um but a lowfat diet I often see lower production of all hormones um cholesterol is important for hormone production as well cholesterol is not just this bad thing that leads to cardiovascular issues it's actually needed to make hormones see my eggs are doing something good eggs are doing something good thank you very much back off exactly my egg consumption maybe not helping my acne but it's helping my hormones so yeah getting in the healthy fats they have lots of fiber lots of antioxidant Rich fruits and vegetables those antioxidants help keep inflammation at Bay which again things like endometriosis um even just you know

higher levels of estrogen and more cramping can be due to more inflammation in the body as well um so yes a Mediterranean style diet in fact one study I looked at showed there was a 40% 40 which is a pretty big number 40% reduction in estrogen in women that had adopted a Mediterranean style diet for 6 months wow so that's just changing your diet you know what I mean that's not the mediteranian diet's like not hard to follow it's enjoyable like I feel like it's like pretty decent right just a lot of Whole Foods it's just Whole Foods basically you know like basically less packaged foods lower amounts of sugar yeah um not a lot of trans fats not a lot of red meat like red meat once a week maybe o side tangent is sugar affecting our hormones absolutely go off so there's many for a there's many ways that Sugar can affect hormones one is that Sugar will disrupt the microbiome so it's food depending on what kind of foods you eat will depend on what kind of bacteria Thrive so if you're eating a lot of sugar those bacteria that use sugar for food are

going to be the ones that Thrive and they're not the same bacteria that have the health benefits that we want um two sugar causes a lot of inflammation so the more inflammation we have um think about it this way when we're shedding a uterine lining for our period it's a very inflammatory process it needs to be in order to get rid of the uterine lining um but if we already have a lot of inflammation going on the body then we go into this inflammatory process now our cramps are more severe maybe we get an acne flare because again this also see more bloating see more bloating interesting um yeah so those would be the main ways and again it depends kind of how much sugar you are you having which is like such a you Su you want sugar when you're on your period And so why now a theory why why that is is because as estrogen and progesterone drop so I talked about progesterone with Gaba but estrogen is actually important for serotonin and dopamine production okay so those are our our focus our happiness like the main target for anti-anxiety anti-depressant medications is an SSRI um so serotonin um so um as estrogen and

progesterone drop off you're coming into your period serotonin dopamine gab all drop off and the things that can increase it quickly sugar so We crave sugar We crave carbs to try and help ourselves feel a little bit better actually not like a stupid girl thing not a stupid thingys physically craving I'm supposed to have sugar right now but are there ways to have sugar in a health that also support our micro micro microbiome yeah absolutely so you know and again this is where I meet my patients where they're at if a person you know I have some patients where it's like okay dark chocolate they're having it they don't want to cut it out how can we do it in a more optimal way what I'll say is if you're going to have higher amounts of dark chocolate during this time and there's nothing wrong with dark chocolate but you know if there's a lot of sugar consumption as well what I'll say is just have a handful of almonds or cashews or some sort of healthy fat or protein with it to stabilize blood sugars during that time it's like the glucose goddess the glucose you know it's like you can eat anything but the order that you eat it is like really important and how it affects you exactly so you started hot with like people eating dark

chocolate I'm like oh friend people are not eating dark chocolate they are eating like mix flurries blard they're going to get their mini Donuts I'm like I thought she was going to be like you know someone wants to e that she's like you're starting with the healthiest treat I can imagine let's move over to McFlurry we are on very different levels I'm like eating trifle out of the like bucket okay so good we got to hit them all what I mean and again it would have to looking at a patient's diet there's ways that we can optimize that I don't often ever say you're not allowed to do this at all it's more of that how can we how can we do this in a more balanced way so if you're having buckets of ice cream before your period I've got questions about what you're doing earlier in the day like did you have breakfast how much protein did you have by the time you got to that ice cream was it that you had um a Tim's coffee and a muffin for lunch and that's that's basically all that's been eaten at that point in the day because you're really busy now again that doesn't mean I fully support women who are busy and having to adapt things and some days that's just is what it is but you know if our goal

is to optimize hormones and you know reduce those types of symptoms we might look at okay let's let's get some breakfast in there let's get a more solid luncher as well Cravings yeah okay so cuz now not only are you having you're trying to satisfy that craving but you're also satisfying the calorie deficit from the rest of the day so let's let's get you into a place where you've got the nutrients that you need and your body satisfied in that respect and then if you want something a little sweet maybe you'll just have the this the small M flurry the little treat one the little treat blizzard one now that's like this way yeah no but I think I think that's good and I know like for me a thing I've implemented is like when I want to treat I'm now like having a piece of dark chocolate right I'm not reaching necessarily for always but I just had to laugh but there's so many people listening who are like you know it's not the dark difference and there's nothing wrong with McFlurry like I will go have McFlurry like I also eat pizza I think that's also misconception about me in my career that I don't indge in these things I do but I

make sure that again ideally the rest of the day that I've gotten what I need in so that it's satisfying just that enjoyment piece and not also like the nutrition piece so I fully support balance balance is possible but I like that I think that's a good takeaway is are we like what what is this actually satisfying or what is this actually doing because if we're using it to indulge in a treat that's totally fine but if it's cuz we have haven't eaten all day and so now we're probably eating more of it and it's and I think the other thing is like we can sit here all day and be like everyone can do what they want but I'm like if someone's coming to a natural path because they're like I'm having problems it is your job to be like okay I am going to point out where I'm seeing maybe something we need to work right yeah exactly no I think that's totally fair okay I'm going to circle back all the way back now we were asking what things we can do to optimize our hormones and we' had gotten off on lots of tangent on diet Y what else diet um Okay so outside of that uh let's talk about stress yes that's stress please so when we're

stressed the adrenal glands release something called cortisol I think we know it as our stress hormone I tried to not do it into the mic soon as I hear like bre but there's lots we can do to work with it too so don't get too overwhelmed so the adal glands release cortisol reminding my body to breathe take it easy I'm breathing yeah release cortisol we stressed if we have too much cortisol for too long cortisol will uh suppress this is where this is why I brought in all the different types of hormones but it will suppress that gonadotropin releasing hormone in the hypothalamus which downregulates everything along the way brain in the brain in the brain so it it suppress the hormone in the brain that stops estrogen and progesterone reduces it um so again if you have a high stress job or I'll see patients where um they maybe went through a traumatic situation and cortisol levels have remained high now we might be skipping periods or again we start getting symptoms from suboptimal periods um or Cycles so um

this is where again taking a look at our stress levels and what we can do to work with them um I think on a recent podcast Dr Amy Morris was that that was yeah so I I I liked one piece that she said about um what did she say she tells her family that um if she doesn't take care of herself y all are going down yeah um that's the way we need to look at it it's not self-care is not selfish and it's not just for yourself it's for the community it's for so you can show up as a as a mom as a friend as a as a daughter as uh a cooworker whichever way you need to show up it makes it so that you can actually show up in the way that you need to show up um so whether that be for you journaling or yoga meditation simply working out um getting together with friends like whatever it is for you that you need to do to keep your stress levels in cheack counseling I'm a big fan of counseling family and friends are great but sometimes it's nice to have that third party that's completely unbiased to bounce ideas off of and help you look at something in a different way again family and friends they they know you well and I think they bring something to the table too but sometimes

what family and friends want for us isn't necessarily always what's best for us so it's nice to get that extra opinion too can you tell me what uh someone who has high cortisol what a period would look like for them and then also like what does it look like for them hormonally or like what are we seeing in their moods what are we seeing in I don't know yeah in other symptoms cuz I'm assuming like your chotoo goes high in stress yes I'm guessing your sex hormones right like even your sex drive is going down yeah Sex Drive is definitely down at that time the body is not thinking that this is a great time to engage in sex and also to have a child you're really stressed so it's going to down regul downregulate that and depending on how stress and how long your stress and how high the cortisol is you might stop having a period altogether wow so it actually call the female athletic Triad because often we see it with women who are competing or athletes at higher levels because they're competing and training so hard they might not be nourishing enough and

even if they're trying to it's really hard to maintain enough nourishment for that level of training in addition to because they're training so hard maybe not getting enough nourishment they're underweight all of this is very stressful to the body and so we'll often see that they miss their [Music] periods hey everybody it's Erica you guys know I love a quality handbag and I recently found a luxury resale company that I have to share with you working girls Boutique offers a stunning selection of Gently Loved luxury handbags and a safe reliable and secure way to purchase your dream bag they have a strong commitment to authenticity and choose carefully curated pieces in excellent condition which include Prada YSL Louis Vuitton and they have a stunning Chanel collection which is 100% on my dream list one thing I love about working girls Boutique is how seriously they take making sure each piece is authentic ensuring authenticity of luxury items is a serious business and working girls Boutique Prides themselves on thoroughly checking every item they

choose to the highest degree they even use AI technology so you can feel super secure about the bags you are investing in working girls Boutique also offers a flexible payment plan so you can secure your dream bag without breaking the bank plus you know they gave us an exclusive discount code for the her community which is amazing it's code her 50 to save $50 off your purchase if you're like me and constantly looking for that next dream bag to add to your closet you can find all the details on the newest designer editions on their Instagram at working girls Boutique and head to their website WG boutique.com to secure your dream bag don't forget to use the code her 50 for $50 off your purchase and 100% make sure to tag me cuz I want to see what bag you snagged so that's now again that's more of exercise we can have we can skip our periods just from high levels of stress as well so that would be one symptom is that you're just simply not getting a period anymore not the only thing like things like pcus we skip periods as well

but that's one thing it could be other symptoms yep go ahead do you think I just was curious about this do you think there are some women being diagnosed with PCOS when really it's stress or is there like I don't I'm going to be totally open I don't know a ton about PCOS right so I'm like could that be a misconception is that maybe someone actually has like really high cortisol yeah you know they're living up here and then they go in and someone says I think you have PCOS blah blah blah blah blah when really it's like if we could yeah mitigate the stress I don't know I would say it's more likely the other way I would say it's more likely that the doctor or whoever you're working with might say are you sure you're not just stressed and especially if they went through something that's stressed okay and this is what kind of perpetuates the the it's all in your head situation CU I've had lots of patients say that they've went to their doctor several times looking to understand their hormones cuz something's just not right or maybe they're trying to get pregnant now and now they're paying more attention they're like okay I'm having trouble getting pregnant My Cycles aren't regular some things up and yeah sometimes it gets played off as you sure it's not just stress you know you're

maybe they already did have a child they're a busy mom and you know um so yeah if if you do all the tests it very unlikely that you would get misdiagnosed with stress if it's PCS this is because PCS in order to be diagnosed you need to have two of three things you need to have polycystic so it's polycystic ovarian syndrome so again there's multiple cysts on the ovaries usually I think we're looking at over 12ish for it to be pcus or you have signs of hyperandrogenism which means higher levels of testosterone essentially so whether you do blood work or you're showing signs signs would be acne hair growth on the face chest back nipples like areas that we typically as women do not have as much hair growth um and then ovulation issues so you might not be ovulating might be skipping so if you were to do the blood work for that very unlikely that you would think that it was stress um but I can see that now women are going and they're being told they're stressed and it's like I think there's something else there's something else going on going on yeah

right so um if it is just stress though other things that we might see is so if there's High cortisol we'll see more um weight gain in the abdomen as opposed to other areas um with high cortisol or with adrenal function in general you can have um actual conditions associated with high and low cortisol like high cortisol is known as Cushings syndrome or Cushings Disease low would be Addison's what I'm talking about here is just suboptimal or um yes okay higher levels of cortisol I'm not talking into the realm of Cushings and I'm not talking as low as Addison just something that's maybe suboptimal okay um but yeah you would have the weight gain in the stomach you'd be really irritable very anxious um sometimes they'll find like especially in athletes they're not healing and recovering as quickly um because cortisol also plays a role in immune system modulation as well um so yeah those would be some of the things that I'd be seeing outside Cycles aside from yeah perhaps just even not having a period okay the other thing I want you to touch on CU you mentioned it in sort of our conversation but I think would be very helpful um anxiety and hormones and

the link between it can you just shed some light on all of that yeah I mean it's going to come back to the cortisol when we're anxious it's releasing cortisol as well um so this is kind of just just checking in with yourself to see how anxious am I I think this is where it gets It's Tricky as women as you know we we tend to take on and play a lot of different roles and I'll ask my patients or a lot of my patients I'm like what are your anxiety levels like what are your stress levels like and I'll see that in their intake they rated out as like a three out of 10 or four out of 10 but when I actually unpack it and I see that you know maybe they've got three kids and they're running them all to different sports and their husband works away two weeks on one week off kind of thing and they're you know doing all the meal cooking and they're doing maybe they've got a sick parent and they're running me through all this and I'm like that sounds like a lot and they'll say yeah but you know like I'm doing it like it's you know everybody's got what they need to do the kids are get where they need to go and you know I'm I'm good and I'm like but that's a lot on the body like even if like mentally we're able to prioritize and and accomplish these tasks the body is interpreting that in a different way and

that's telling a different story so while you feel like mentally stress is like a 3 out of 10 your body's telling me it's more of a 7 out of 10 and we need to work at how you're adapting with that and so you know other symptoms that can be made worse by stress as well the first one of the first things to go in the body or be utilized is magnesium when we're stressed so magnesium helps to keep things like cortisol adrenaline um glutamate which is a excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain it keeps it all at Bay while increasing serotonin and Gaba production so it helps the body say self-regulate when we're anxious but the longer we're anxious the more we're anxious the more magnesium we use up and unless we're repleting it in good levels or in sufficient levels will become deficient or have suboptimal levels which can lead to us being more susceptible to stress and becomes a bit of a vicious cycle okay so magnesium is also helpful for estrogen level modulation as well how heavy or how strong our cramps are so it it starts to affect other things with the cycle as well I was just taking it to sleep and sleep that's why I was taking it yeah

yeah well I think magnesium affects a lot of uh Transmissions ner transmitters you know things that happen in the body right brain yeah so yes good for sleep and we'll talk about sleep also affects hormones but for magnesium for sleep yeah because it increases serotonin and Gaba if you have a busy mind and if you're not sleeping due to anxiety it can be very helpful in addition to that when we look at muscle contraction calcium is the its role is muscle contraction and magnesium is the relaxation so if you have restless legs or have having trouble physically calming down magnesium also hits that so magnesium really nice for sleep tell us more about sleep I know we've touched on a little bit but I think that a lot of us probably hormones yes all either struggle with sleep whether it's like maybe we can touch on having trouble falling asleep having trouble staying asleep having trouble getting up being super tired y right and those all mean different things yeah so I'll start with what these things mean if you're having trouble falling asleep I'm thinking

about cortisol our cortisol levels too high at night I'm thinking about blood sugar regulation so if you're somebody that likes to have ice cream or rice cakes seem to be a popular snack late at night before bed but um more of carb heavy snacks before bed this spikes are blood sugar and then in the middle of the night blood sugar is going to drop off and when it drops off that's stressful to the body and it releases cortisol cortisol is also our wake hormone in addition to it being our stress hormone so now you're getting that spike in the middle of the night we're waking in the middle of the night and a Restless then now so that's kind of what I'm thinking about difficulty falling asleep difficulty staying asleep if you wake up super tired if you're one of those people where enough sleep is never enough sleep um I'm now thinking about low levels of cortisol so perhaps you went through a stressful period you were stressed for a very long time the thought is that perhaps um they'll call it like adrenal insufficiency um meaning that now you might be actually having lower levels of cortisol cuz the body was putting out such a high level for so long now it's trying to conserve now it's just low levels but there's not enough there to wake you up like you want to be in the

morning oh so and then when it comes to sleep so melatonin being our sleep hormone um it can actually if we don't have enough melatonin that can also downregulate the the neurotransmitter the the hormone in the brain that goes to the ovaries releas the hormone G&R um and so then that will downregulate estrogen and progesterone and throw off our Cycles as well one study showed that women and this is where it's unfortunate because it was just it was women who got less than eight hours of sleep which I think is a lot of us produced 20% less FSH which again is stimulating the follicle stimulating estrogen production right so that's just less than 8 hours now say like I said I think that's a lot of us so it doesn't mean that in order to be healthy we have to have more than 8 hours but for this is where I like to bring attention to it is that's the power of sleep and if you have the option to sleep more prioritize it right not not trying to be like it's an easy fix but it's like one of those things that it's like if you can this could really help in in like an e like I don't want to say easy way but like something

that's in your or could be in your control like I'm thinking like going and completely overhauling your pant in yourid is like w especially if you have a family but like maybe being like okay can I T on an extra hour in the morning and at night like you know go to bed an hour early wake up an hour later like if you're able to I get that probably a lot of people you're seeing are like moms who are like my kid is in my bed at 3:00 a.m. or like whatever but I'm like it feels like something that's like someone could try it like if they're sitting here listening right now like it's like I could try that I could try even just for right now adding an extra hour and maybe it's half an hour on each end of my like sleep cycle so I like that and that's the thing too is is it could be that that they just don't simply have time but I also have patients where it takes an hour or two to fall asleep and so then we'd look at okay how can we get you sleeping quicker I'm like that so how can you help me because I will lay down and I'll be like I'm exhausted I got five kids we own multiple businesses my life is crazy and I'll lay down and I'm likeing everything's going I mean I'm ADHD so there's that too my brain just like doesn't turn off very very well but

what would you say if you didn't know I was ADHD now that I or if you did know cuz maybe that plays into it plays into it but like how would you be like okay Erica like yeah we're going to help you sleep better so yes I'd be looking at a cortisol levels so if again I'm getting a sense that you got a busy life and cortisol levels might be higher so there's things that we can do to help reduce cortisol levels like obviously the self-care stuff this is where it gets into if somebody comes to me and again they're busy and they don't have time for that that's when we look at okay supplementally what could we do to kind of get you back into the swing of things um um I don't typically recommend people going to get supplements without working with somebody because it might not be indicated there's things that interact with each other especially if there's Med Pharmaceuticals but just to throw one out there in general like ashw Ganda is something that has been shown to help with cortisol levels um and there's many other kinds as well actually heard of that before and yeah I think most people have at this point um so there's there's other things that can be looked at if we need to but outside of you know using herbs or supplements magnesium is one of

them too that helps to balance cortisol um but coming back to if a person can have you know again a Whole Foods diet that's rich in things like magnesium to help balance cortisol levels making sure that your last meal of the day ideally is supper but if you have a little snack after that it's protein Rich to balance your blood sugar so that you're not spiking and dipping causing the release of cortisol at different times um as far as and know it kind it depends like sleep hygiene what does that look like is somebody on their phone up until whatever hours we know about the blue light and how that affects melatonin secretion and things like that so [Music]

really trying to listen to is even like my physical activity yes during my cycle because I'm like you know I like heard this thing we had Marie Barker on our uh podcast and she put together this amazing know your flow thing so I've been following it this cycle and it's like you know working out can put your body into like stress MH and if you're working out like and putting your body into like too high of stress During certain parts of your cycle like you're just like doing more harm than good yeah you're actually doing harm so do you ever like talk about any of that with your with your patients who are coming in so it's definitely not and again I I everybody has their own kind of way of approaching things this is just my Approach I probably wouldn't bring that up unless I felt it was affecting the cycle enough to make a difference um if I got the sense that they were overworking out and under nourishing then I'll have that conversation of hey during these times that we might want to um engage in more depending on what they're doing engage in more um going for walks or yoga or um even more

weightlifting versus like high intensity or doing your spin classes or something like that um if I don't feel like that is adding too much to the cycle or how what's being affected I usually won't won't get into it we'll optimize what I think it's kind of like for example with sugar if I don't think if they're having yeah a little bit of dark chocolate here or there or you know they like a little bit of sweetener in their coffee or something like that probably not going to talk about sugar but if it's something where they're having really sugary like pop everyday juice adding a bunch like the lattes with like EXT extra sugar like if they're doing a bunch of that every day now we'll probably talk about sugar so it kind of depends person to person on how much I think it's affecting things so I don't have like a yeah blanket statement like this is what you should be doing at these times in the cycle that makes sense um the other thing I'm curious on is I think a lot of us are experiencing um dip offs in the middle of the day you know like either feeling really lethargic um and or hitting like you know that 2 to 3 4:00 time period and just like energy dropping off the other

thing is is in saskatch when you don't deal with it but daylight savings just happened for us in Alberta and the rest of Canada and you know that really can affect you know some of those things too so I'm curious on strategies to help with just like tireness lethargy like you know during the day first Sometimes again depending on the person's overall picture that could indicate that you're low in cortisol we might need to work on that a little bit aside from low cortisol um in order to kind of prevent that dip I'm looking at okay what are you doing like dietarily up until that point in the day I find skipping breakfast is very common for a lot of women whether it's cuz they're busy or they're just not hungry or they just don't think it's important um so if we're skipping breakfast and the first meal is lunch and again maybe it's not a very protein Rich lunch you're going to drop off at that point in the day cuz we just haven't had enough nourishment number one and number two the only meal that you did have there wasn't a lot of protein to stabilize blood sugar so we had a spike and then a DI dip and you crashed um outside of that you know

sometimes we can have food sensitivities if if there's stuff going on with the gut as well and there's food sensitivities where when you're consuming certain foods or a certain amount of certain foods sometimes if it's something that you consumed like let's take Dairy for example it's a common one let's say that there was um I don't know some sort of like cereal with dairy milk for breakfast and then at lunch they they had a yogurt with oatmeal or um granola or whatever in it and that was now the second time they ate it sometimes I'll see that there's a bit of an energy crash just because now we've consumed higher levels of that food that they happen to be sensitive to or we find out later they're sensitive to and that um led to more inflammation and just kind of slowing down um the overall system because is that's what inflammation is doing is slowing us down essentially so when there's more and again inflammation is going to affect us in so many different ways but let's talk about it in the sense of like insulin and blood sugar levels so when we have more inflammation that's going to make our cells less um respon responsive to insulin in order to utilize glucose so higher levels of inflammation makes it

so that we need higher levels of insulin in order to actually drive glucose into the cell when we have higher levels of insulin we have um the ovaries when they're exposed to higher levels of insulin often output more testosterone when we have higher levels of testosterone that's when we see our hormonal acne that's when we tend to see that's kind of the character of PCOS that's when we see issues with ovulation fertility um you name it when it comes to um throwing Cycles off as far as insulin and testosterone so yes inflammation is important to keep in mind as far as whether it be food sensitivities sugar um yeah it can cause issues with the Cy inflammation what's basically causing aging it can it can speed up aging yes yeah my gosh how do I stop it so and that's the thing like Mediterranean diet is a very like's face just zoom we just need to slow okay question that just popped in like having a coffee when you have a cortisol you know like dip in the day is that helping or hindering so and what would help or hinder more or better oh yeah yeah if

you're having that coffee later in the day and it's affecting your sleep I would say now the cons are outweighing the pros if you're having coffee and I think what they're looking at now is the optimal time is somewhere around 10: or 11 in the morning I drink decaf in the morning my this is my husband again okay my husband like researches di in Nick is like my researcher Nick is like I'm like I'm tired in the afternoons and like 2 Days Later comes and he's like here's what I learned I listen to this this and this and so I drink decaf in the morning which I know is still like a little bit of caffeine but I drink my coffee I've even pushed it sometimes till like noon yeah right and I have found the dip is better like it's it's happening more i' feel like a reasonable time like in the evening like when I like need to be coming down so this is the one thing I'm doing yeah baby yeah so again it kind of depends when you're having it is it affecting your sleep um again I would take a step back and look at okay why our cortisol levels dropping before you know just kind of using something to make up for it but it coffee is fine could we be

swapping out in the afternoon for instead of coffee yeah so breakfast and lunch got to be there and like they don't need to be in huge quantities cuz I know some women struggle to eat a lot in the morning but just like some sort of protein Rich meal to start uh the day off with balancing your blood sugar um what else can we do midday uh water I know that sounds so trivial but water even a mild amount of dehydration has been shown to increase headaches reduce Focus um is this where we could have our electrolytes in the afternoon I wouldn't even say unless you're sweating a lot I wouldn't even say go there or if you have serially low blood pressure that maybe it would help to have a little bit of sodium to help bring it up but outside of that if you're not working out I would say just use a squeeze a lemon or something like that okay to in your water um but yeah increasing water making sure you're having adequate water certainly could do teas or things like that but I don't even mind later in the day it's just as long as it's not affecting your sleep that would be my big thing awesome well this has been such a helpful conversation like I feel like thank you for allowing us to

interject and bring it down to sort of our non scientific level but bringing the expertise behind it I think you gave us such good tips that we can walk away with and that our audience will really be able to learn from um we have a question that we ask our guest at the end of every episode and um it can be health related if you want to and it doesn't have to be at all um but we like to ask what's the best piece of advice you've ever been given or like to give yeah the best piece of advice that I've been given and I also like to give um and my mom actually said it and it's to learn to dance in the rain and that's I think that there's a lot of ups and downs in life and I find that often we keep waiting until you know you're you're done the work day or the weekend or well at once this month is done or you know whichever and we we life goes by and we don't enjoy those moments and I think that just learning to make the best of any situation and learn and grow and find the happiness is the key to an overall happy life I really like that I think that's even

good with what you're talking about like I think you're probably having a lot of people coming in with health stuff and they're waiting and they're waiting for this and they're waiting to feel better for that and there's time and place for that but there's also time to go it's okay to like enjoy life while we're working on these things as well like you can actually do both at the same time no this was really great I really appreciate you coming all sh yes where can everyone find you and four people that are Saskatoon local where can they work with you all of those good things so currently I'm working at Saskatoon naturopathic medicine um it's located in Stonebridge uh you can find the link to that on my Instagram so that's Dr Britney Pierce um yeah that's I guess the two would be where you would be able to find me amazing we'll put all of that in our show notes but definitely you have some really great information on your social page as well so if people looking to even connect there I think that's a really good spot to go thanks yeah so thank you so much thanks guys thank you everyone for joining us on this episode of the her podcast if you want to follow

along with us you can find us on Instagram and Tik Tok at it's. her. podcast we can't wait to see you there