Amie: Oh, so exciting to be having this chat with you. Look, I think before we dive into speaking about perimenopause specifically, and, you know, the nuts and bolts of supporting women with that, I would like to hear more about your book, because I think it really underpins your entire philosophy about this rite of passage for women, in a stage of life that I think previous generations have felt a shame about, shamed about, or it was one of those things that women didn’t talk about, and just suffered through. It was something that wasn’t celebrated. It certainly wasn’t something that really had any positive attributes applied to it either. And yet, the title of your book, “Dragon Time: Menopause as Mystery, Medicine and Power,” suggests the complete opposite, in terms of how that era or chapter is approached. So, I’d love to hear first your philosophy, your viewpoint, your passion around this, if you’d like to share.

Brenda: Well, like a lot of women, I entered into my mid forties completely unprepared for what was about to hit. And I kind of knew of menopause, but I thought because I was a naturopath and I was healthy, that I would just skip through it. I had no idea of the depth of transformation that occurs. I had no idea of the physical changes, and the reason for those physical changes, primally and biologically, and fundamentally. And I had a really difficult time. My main experience, really, at the end of my forties, being a fairly ambitious woman, and type A perhaps, was that everything that I’d achieved in my life felt empty, and I felt like a failure, really. Like, all those choices that I’d made, why did I choose all of that? I’ve ended up here. I’m supposed to be successful in my life at 50. I don’t feel successful at all. What went wrong? And the mood of, low mood I call it, don’t use the D word terribly much, the low mood that occurred impacted my hormones, my nervous system particularly. And so, when, through all of that emotional challenge, I ended up leaving my corporate job that I had, in a corporate health company, and was left kind of kicked out on my butt, thinking, now what do I do?

And the only thing really left for me to do was to go back to practice. I’d had a break from it, and I wasn’t really prepared for that either. So, I knew I had to niche. Everyone tells you, “you’ve gotta niche.” And I thought of a few different things that, none of which stuck. And then in the end, I thought menopause. It was 2018, and even back then, there wasn’t as much conversation around it as there is now. There’s a lot more. It’s fantastic how much is being spoken about. Much of it guided by vested interests, I would say. So, it’s been interesting to be the observer of that, from someone who sits on the fence of nature, and minimalist intervention, and all the rest of it.

And so, out of that time, out of that specialization, I decided to write my story. And I just went down some beautiful rabbit holes, that led me into the rites of passage of women, the seasons of women, that this is the autumn season for a woman. And what does that mean? And I met Jane Hardwicke Collings. Some of you will know her. I found the Wise Women’s Gathering. I found feminine presence techniques. I found yin yoga. It was just an awakening. It really was the start of my life again. And I was so passionate about it that I started to specialize in creating programs for women along the lines of the personal growth opportunities, and the reframing of perspective, because that’s gotta happen. So, I found my purpose, and I’m loving what I’m doing. And yeah, it’s been a really tough ride.

Amie: Mm. It sounds like it. Although, as you were speaking, it’s so interesting, as someone outside, like, hearing you go, “I was trying to find my niche,” and I’m like, it was right there in front of you. You were in it. You were in it. And it so often is the case, for us as clinicians, that when we reach somewhere that we feel unprepared for, under-resourced, like, there isn’t, what we expect to be available isn’t actually there, that we end up having to write the guidebook for ourselves. And it sounds very much like your book is a lived experience of what you went through, in many ways, and a roadmap for other women who have woken up and found themselves questioning their entire life…

Brenda: A hundred percent.

Amie: …and what’s next?

Brenda: Hundred percent. Yeah. It was, when I started, I was in the thick of it, and five, it’s probably five or six years now since I started writing it. And, you know, I was able to put in the post script. You know, “this is where I’m at now.” And it’s a happy story. It’s a really happy story.

Amie: Fantastic. And I’m sure a beacon of light for all women who are also finding themselves floundering in this stage of life, but I think, for all naturopaths too, who are gonna benefit from your particular lens and toolkit, that’s gonna be really beautiful too. And for anyone who’s curious about getting their hands on Brenda’s book, it is going to be out I think later this year, so…

Brenda: May.

Amie: May. Okay. That’s not later. That’s actually sooner than we thought. Fantastic. That’s really exciting. And we’ll certainly leave a link in the show notes for anyone who wants to connect with Brenda, and hear about the book as soon as it’s available to get their hands on. But I think that really provides the basis for which the conversation we’re about to have around perimenopause is not just an academic one. It’s not even just this is an area of your clinical expertise. This is something that you have effectively, you know, bush-bashed your way through, too…

Brenda: [inaudible 00:08:58]

Amie: …at the same time, on a physical level, sounds like on a spiritual level, and an emotional level. And, look, I’m sure we could probably talk for hours on everything that you’ve learnt, and the systems you ended up developing to support yourself and women who are going through the same thing. But I think where I’d like to start with our chat today is, I think, when it comes to women’s hormonal shifts, full stop, even if it’s puberty, even if it’s fertility issues, if it’s things like PMS, and certainly in the case of perimenopause and menopause, the conversation really sort of stops at the hormonal element, the symphony orchestra of the hormones, where things are shifting, where things are maybe not working that well. And that is obviously part of the conversation. But hormones are primarily a downstream response to upstream things. And although we also acknowledge that perimenopause and menopause is a natural rite of passage for women, biologically speaking, if we were to reduce this stage of life to simply a “hormonal problem” or a “hormonal shift,” we actually miss, I think, a large part of the picture that feeds into how we feel as we navigate those seasons of life. So, I would love to hear how you view it, and when you’re really helping to take stock for someone who’s maybe struggling with symptoms, what other elements of their life are you looking at, beyond just the hormonal dance?

Brenda: Well, I think us naturopaths, just to confirm what you’re saying, Amie, I think we understand that hormones are like the canary in the coal mine. They are a system or a function of the body that requires us to be in good general health. And so, not that we ignore the hormones, but they aren’t always the key to the picture, as you’ve alluded to. And there’s a lot more to consider. And I look at it in a few different ways. First of all, I try to understand what’s normal. That was the first thing for me to really get. What is normal for this rite of passage, for this puberty in reverse? Because we don’t go, oh, a teenager’s got acne, or mood, or wants to sleep all the time, or… We don’t kind of pathologize that quite as much as what we do with the other end of the spectrum, with perimenopause. And so, I think we don’t even understand what’s normal during this time. And so how can you work out what’s abnormal if you don’t even know what’s normal?

So, if you think about, we’re moving away from being a reproductive woman. So, that started at teens, at menarche, all the hormones of reproduction flooded in, and they changed us a lot. I mean, if you think about how you are at 8, and then how you are at 18, that’s extremely different. And similarly, with, say, who you are at 45 and then who you are at 55. You’re meant to be a very different person. And none of that really is anything we can do…there’s nothing we can do about that, because that’s all, it’s primal, it’s biologically-driven, it’s the survival of the species. Women are meant to stop reproducing at some point in their lives. And yes, there’s various research theories around why that is, the grandmother theory and so on, about raising human babies takes more than a mother and a father. It needs the grandparents. So, there are reasons for that. There’s only us and whales that actually stop menstruating throughout our lives.

And so, what I started to understand was, why is this happening? If it was an optimal situation, what is it that we would be stepping into at this stage of life? And I had very little information about what that next stage actually represented. If it’s not childhood innocence, and it’s not reproduction, then what is it? And what I discovered pretty quickly was that it’s really about taking responsibility for another level of the…another circle of responsibility. So, what I mean by that is, when we’re parents, we’re responsible for our family. So, one generation. And then when you step into your 50s, you’re really the grandparent, you’re responsible for another level, another generation, if you like. When you step into your 70s, 80s, you’re great grandmother, then you’re, it’s three. And it started to tie in for me to this understanding that tribal cultures have, particularly the Native Americans, that we are, us grownups, for want of a better word, us adults, especially the mature, responsible grownup ones, are taking care of the next seven generations.

So, what does that entail? Well, lots of things. And most of those, or if not all of those requirements, are hormonally-driven. So, and not just reproductive hormones. Obviously, it’s not estrogen and progesterone anymore. It can be FSH, LH. It can be neurotransmitters, GABA, dopamine, various other things in the brain, that change at this time. And so I started to see this real leadership role, this real, you know, if we were operating as an optimal culture, what would post-menopausal women be doing in the culture? And I suppose I do…I am impressed by Native American cultures. In some ways, that’s the ones that I know the most about. And I could see… But not just Native American, Indian cultures and Japanese cultures, there was this role for this post-menopausal woman, this grandmother. It wasn’t just looking after grandchildren either. There were community roles. And then I started to see all of these symptoms that we are experiencing as normal in the context of this new status that we have. So, things like sensitivity. Women complain all the time of hypersensitivity, whether it’s allergies, or pain, or emotional sensitivity, or, you know, up and down, those kinds of things. And I started to realize that estrogen, we know, is a kind of masking hormone, a protective hormone, but also, it puts a veil on us, really, this, you-need-to-take-care-of-children type of veil. And when that gets lifted, some, you know, we kind of awaken, in some ways, and start to see things a little bit differently.

So, this sensitivity, certainly, for me, it brought out more psychic ability, more intuitive ability, and I started to turn inward. So, all those things that were driving me from an external perspective, like attraction, doing stuff for male approval, it started to change. Or doing it for anyone’s approval. And, you know, if you look at the seasons, and you see what happens in nature in autumn, where the energy of the tree, for example, starts to come back down, it starts to withdraw, down towards the roots, you can see us, that happening in us as well. And, you know, for a while, it’s this beautiful, glorious color, as that energy retreats back towards the roots, for rejuvenation and the next cycle. So, sensitivity was a big one that I noticed. And I would, in clinic, I would try to discern what’s normal and what’s abnormal. Other things are, it’s normal to feel anxious. So, especially menopause, in the context of our Western culture, where we idolize youth, and unconsciously, or consciously, we know that we are stepping into aging. We’re stepping into, in many cases, feeling invisible, redundant. We’re worth less culturally, because we’re no longer reproductive. And so, stepping into that, and not maybe wanting to go there, you know, being still productive in our work lives or whatever, there’s this, “I don’t want to there. It’s too much for me to go there. I just wanna stay young. I wanna stay reproductive.” Like, “Give me the hormones to take. Let me have the plastic surgery.” Not to diminish any woman that chooses to do that, but it’s very culturally-driven, in a way, because there isn’t a lot of narrative around the great stuff that you’re stepping into. That’s starting to change, which I think is amazing.

So, that anxiety and overwhelm, and very much the depression, is also a symptom, a normal reaction to a woman in, potentially, an unhealthy culture. You know, we are misogynist. We are patriarchal. And, you know, if you’re young and beautiful and reproductive, you have a very clear role in that society. But if you’re aging and getting wrinkly and gray, and then that is very difficult territory for a lot of women. And so, what was very powerful for me was to really discern what’s normal and what’s abnormal. And then, of course, not to treat the normal, maybe to educate about that, and to work with the abnormal. So, too much sensitivity. Now, we know that as protective hormones, estrogen, you can get away with a lot in your forties. You can drink too much coffee and drink too much alcohol, and eat too much sugar, and work too hard, and you can kind of just keep going. You just keep going to the gym, and, you know, you diet every now and then, or you take some herbs or something, and you can push through it. But that changes. At 50, that changes. That ability to push through diminishes. And so, it is a call for us to take much better care of ourselves, to really work on bringing the coffee back to maybe one a day, or one twice a week. And sometimes that’s a really important thing in clinic, is to find out how many coffees are you having? I mean, my experience, so many hot flushes are dehydration.

Amie: Interesting.

Brenda: So, bringing back those fundamentals to a normal level, or allowing, helping a woman come off some of her crutches, is an important part of that clinical approach.

Amie: Yes.

Brenda: Along with lots of other things, of course.

Amie: Of course, yes. It is such a multifactorial approach, and of course, it’s, I’m sure it’s unique to each woman that you see, but I think every woman can relate to holding too much, doing too much, pushing herself too hard, and then finding perhaps those things that she got away with in the past, drinking coffee and going to bed late, really starts to catch up with her. So, I really like how you broke that down, in the sense that what is normal and what’s abnormal, and in some cases, there are quite, you know, obvious distinctions between what is potentially, we’ll call it pathological, in the sense that it is a symptom that’s causing distress and affecting quality of life. Obviously, through an evolutionary biology lens, menopause isn’t pathological at all.

But what I also took away from what you said is it’s very much a spectrum. So, a degree of increase in sensitivity, you know, that life force, rather than being externalized to, you know, attract reproduction, and to pour that life force into a new being, that’s external to you, it becomes redirected, internally. You know, so many things are happening, synaptic pruning. All sorts of shifts are occurring. But with those changes, again, the degree to which they’re impacting a woman negatively is where you might say this heightened sensitivity is helpful, or you’ve become so sensitive because maybe you have a nervous system that’s overloaded, we need to actually kind of re-center you, in some way. And just from hearing you speak, it sounds to me like clinically, you would mostly focus on the feedback that you’re getting from women, as far as symptoms go, the stage that they’re at, and how you would support them. I guess where I’m going with this is I have a question for you around what pathology markers, if any, you would bother using. Now, I have heard from, by my patients, for many a GP, there’s no point in testing hormones, because they change so much. And they’re not wrong. And also, there can sometimes be clinical value in assessing certain things. And you can tell a lot from very basic blood tests that even have nothing to do with hormones, just about someone’s adrenal status, or nervous system, and all of those things. And you can go from anywhere from the most basic bloods all the way through to fancy functional testing. We have other things in our toolkit as naturopaths, like iridology, or bioresonance, or muscle testing, so many different ways we can support patients, and really tune into what’s going on for them. I’d love to hear what you use out of that, what you focus on, how often you’d apply it, or how often you would simply go, “I don’t need to look at those things. I can already see what you need.”

Brenda: Well, we can speak for hours on this as well. And it’s evolved. Over the 35 years that I’ve been a naturopath, it’s evolved. Sometimes you select a certain test because you know the patient needs it. They need to see…they need to be shocked a little bit. They need a little bit of a wake-up call. I will do my live blood morphology, dried blood morphology, in clinic. And that’s an absolute game-changer for some people. When they see their blood up on that screen, and you tell them, “This is because your gut is not working properly,” it is super-motivating. So, sometimes I’ll choose to do testing for that reason. As we learned, the case history is the best thing. And I didn’t really get that, I don’t think. It took me years to get that, that gradually, you pick up things. But, back to your question, I love to see what blood sugars are doing, because I think lots and lots of symptoms from this menopausal stage of life occur because of our culture’s propensity to eat too many carbohydrates. And especially for women, because we’re just not inclined always to eat protein, and we’re certainly disinclined to eat fats. Now, the amount of fat that I now eat in my diet, 10 years into menopause, is, you would be shocked.

But the brain, I don’t know what synaptic pruning is. That sounds like a great thing, but certainly, working, you know, energy from ketones and from fats is where I think is the way to go, I think. I think a keto-ish kind of diet works a lot for not only gut health, but gut inflammation, systemic inflammation. So, I might be looking for inflammatory markers. Certainly the thyroid, in perimenopause, because it is so influenced by stress. And it’s a very stressful time. One of my mentors, Nancy, she says that menopause is an endocrine screw-up. And it kind of is. Even normal. Even normal, relatively healthy menopausal transition, there’s such a reworking of the endocrine system. And they’re all cousins, so that, you know, the thyroid and the adrenals and the pituitary and the ovaries and the blood sugar hormones and all that kind of thing are really all working together.

So, I very rarely do hormone testing, like estrogen, or… And I rarely give hormonal herbs. It’s interesting. It’s funny, but in the marketplace, there’s your estrogenic herbs. I might give sage for sweating. And I might, depending on what a client presents with, of course, the vegetarians might not be having enough cholesterol. And of course, all our hormones are made from cholesterol, and only certain amount of cholesterol’s made from the body. The rest we have to get from food. So, I might encourage them back to the butter and the cream and the eggs and so on. I feel that those nourishing foods are essential for a nervous system that’s balanced. Certainly, your herbs are a part of it. I feel like the dietary stuff is foundational, because anxiety and nervous system imbalance comes from not feeling safe, fundamentally, not being out of sleep, not being out of surrender, not being able to let go, not being out of trust, not being able to have faith in this difficult transitional time, leads to this lack of safety, that really upsets the nervous system. But then so does sugar, or imbalanced sugars. Unbalanced sugars? So does caffeine. So does chocolate. So does nutritional deficiency.

So, a herb is a great support. I mean, we all love Withania, ashwagandha, of course, and various others. I like to really narrow it down, so that I can pick one or two herbs for a person. And then I might bring in another herb with a tea. I might bring in another herb through culinary uses, like a pesto, or just eating it in the diet regularly. Garlic, we can do that. I love garlic. So, I’ve made a garlic mayonnaise, and I’m eating lots of garlic, just because of its blood action, actually.

So, I’m just tuning in as to whether I’ve answered your question, and maybe the questions of the audience. I’m thinking, you know, how do we know what’s going on for the person, so that we can help them the best? And I love the pathology tests. I think a lot of women will come, having seen multiple practitioners, and I think it’s honoring of them to request a copy of those blood tests, and to look at them, and to get your book out of naturopathic viewpoints on blood tests, and speak to them about their gallbladder or their liver or their pancreas, and try and work out what’s going on, and get them involved in the process. Sorry, I’m getting excited here. I’m very Italian with my hands. I do a lot of live blood. I often find, nowadays, that it’s telling me stuff I already know as well. And iridology.

I am shocked at how much information I get from looking at the genetics. So, you know, if you look at the genetics, and even just the color and the fiber structure… I had a lady recently, she had been a nurse her whole life, and that’s a very physical job. To get through a whole life of nursing, you have to be strong. And then she now lives out on a property, and she’s a resilient constitution, or a silk constitution, if you learned that in… I learned it twice. First of all, it was silk. The second time around, it was the resilient constitution. And you know that she’s going to have issues with silica, and calcium, and structural nutrients, and that she’s gonna be stubborn, and strong, and that she won’t wanna rest, and that she will want to, her treatment will want to involve physical activity. And it’s the physical activity often that gives her the most…or lack of it, not being able to do that, that’s giving her the most distress.

And so, it’s amazing, just seeing that in the iris, asking a few questions, to be able to tailor not just the diet, not just the herb, not just the tissue salt or the Bach flower essence or the bush flower essence, or even the homeopathic, which I like to do as well. But…I don’t know. Something about reassuring the woman, reassuring she’s not only in the right place and that you’re able to help her and giving her hope, but that her life means something, that her personality is important, that I’m not gonna tell her to do something. I always ask people, do you drink herbal teas? And if they say no, I don’t give them a herbal tea to drink, because it… I wouldn’t drink it. So, I’m also looking, these days, for specific treatments. I’m looking for a specific homeopathic. This lady had suppressed anger, so I gave her some Staphysagria. She had… I think I gave her Withania. I think I gave her Withania. Just Withania, by itself. And I’m trying to match the herb, more and more often, the whole herb, with the whole being. And my gosh, it makes clinic super fun.

Amie: I bet it does. And so interesting each day, because every person is unique, aren’t they? Well, I guess that leads me to my next question, actually. And knowing that it depends on the woman who walks in the door, as to how you might support her, but I would love to talk herbs, and nutrients, specifically for stress, sleep, mood, and of course the HPA axis, because the adrenals become such an important part of the endocrine picture, really, as the ovaries go into retirement. So, in terms of, let’s start with, say, stress, sleep, and mood, because they’re all interrelated. Like, nutrient-wise, what do you most often find yourself reaching for there?

Brenda: Well, there are the obvious ones, magnesium, and perhaps some potassium for the nerves, magnesium for the muscles. And herbs that supply those nutrients are also very good. Sometimes I’ll look up one of my resources, which is, you know, which herbs contain the minerals that I’m after. But I do find that a lot of women this age group, this age range, are already on those things. And either they’re buying maybe junk supplements, which is a thing. And I like to take them off and put them on something that I feel is a better quality, a blended thing, which gives me a little bit of reassurance. So, these days I’m not so much into giving B vitamins, but sometimes they’re needed. And your B5 and your B6, for adrenal health and so on. Sometimes they need something to take the edge off. So, the Nervine is pretty much universal, so… And sometimes the Nervine isn’t…you know, we think of Nervines as maybe chamomile and valerian, and passionflower is a big one, certainly those, but sometimes a Nervine is celery, to help remove the acidic waste that’s irritating the nervous system. So, we do have to think a little bit laterally. I find the iridology helps me with that.

There’s some great research on some of these herbs. You know more about the, I think, kava, and some of these other beautiful herbs. I’m not really one to prescribe single amino acids anymore. I don’t typically do that. Sometimes I’ll get a person to eat pâté, because it’s got the vitamin A and the vitamin D, or I might give cod liver oil, because the A and the D are such important cofactors in so many of these processes in the body. But I’m also looking behind the neuroendocrine level. So, I like to find out, as we are taught, the “never well since” question. When did the symptoms start? And yes, there may be an assault right now on the nervous system, on the endocrine system, but when did it start? What was going on? And that’ll lead you into more insight into what’s going on for a woman in her world. And we know that midlife women are dealing a lot with elderly parents. They might be dealing with rat-bag teenagers. Or even good teenagers. They might be separating, divorcing, recommitting to someone. There’s a lot going on at that time. And if a parent dies, I find, I see a lot of people who are, their parents are close to the end of their life, or have just died for some reason. I don’t know if it’s…all of us naturopaths out there seeing menopausal women, whether it’s a trigger for clients to come in at that time, but I find that grief, often, the thing behind the neuroendocrine dysfunction. And so I might speak to that. Or I might give something, like ignatia, or a Bach flower, or something like that. Maybe not even tell them that I’m doing that. I might pop it in their herbal mix or something.

The other thing I find is a lot of women who come in who are in their mid-sixties, or even their seventies, and they think they’re in menopause. I’d be interested to hear from the listeners whether you see people like that as well. And they’re quite shocked when I tell them we can’t blame the hormones anymore. We can’t blame estrogen or progesterone anymore. That’s kind of, that ship has sailed, and there’s something else going on, and something in the context of maybe retiring, or feeling like they don’t enjoy their job anymore. This happens frequently. Women who are needing to keep working for the money, but don’t really enjoy what they’re doing anymore, and yet they have this internal, normal change at midlife, where we want something more meaningful. We want to do something more meaningful with our lives. You want to make a difference. We wanna finally have the courage to go and do that thing that we’ve been putting off since we have had kids, or whatever.

And so, if I had a remedy for courage, gosh, I’d probably inject it into most of my clients. But that’s a tricky one. I think calming down the nervous system is really great for that, but I think we also have to teach them how to do that for themselves, because one of the things about menopause is that you’re kind of now the grownup. The Native Americans are famous, at least in my world, for saying that you’re not a grownup until 51.

Amie: Interesting.

Brenda: And by that, that means that you have to take responsibility for everything now. The things you did do, the things you didn’t do, the choices you made, the choices you’re still making. I think being growing up and taking responsibility for your choices is kind of hand-in-hand. And sometimes we have to have those conversations with people. It’s like, you can’t blame that person anymore. And so, it’s working through, with our remedies, some of the things that are taking away their serenity, that are taking away their peace, and training them, with breath work, with yoga, with… Sometimes I have to train, or have to tell women that it’s time to give up trying to be the size they were when they were 25. We have to have a conversation about being a queen and not a princess. And so, those conversations are really important too, and I try to give somebody a remedy that supports that growing-up transition, that taking responsibility, to take some of the fear away. And Nervines are great for that.

Amie: Well, I think there’s obviously so many things. There’s psychosocial elements, there’s physical elements, and there’s this intersection where everything really crashes into each other. I’m just thinking of a client of mine who is in that stage too. And what she’s dealing with is the kids have finally grown up, and don’t need to be bothered at this stage. And for her, clearly, mothering was one of her greatest joys and vocations. And being confronted with that chapter being over all of a sudden, the kids being independent, out in the world, family Christmases look different. And then what’s next is really tricky. But I think what I’m hearing you say is, if you can support those physical elements, and ensure sleep is optimized, mood is stabilized, energy is also supported, nutrition, blood sugar sensitivity, all of those types of things, you remove some of the more distressing physical elements of that transition, which frees up mental real estate to figure out what’s next, and really look at that. And it is really, I think, a tricky generation too, because you’ve got kids leaving, they might be having their own kids, and you’re stepping into a grandmother stage. You’ve also probably got elderly parents, or parents that are certainly becoming more vulnerable. And there’s just an awful lot going on. And I think, too, as you mentioned, you’re kind of over halfway through your working life, and you probably made choices based on things that were right for your kids, or maybe that felt right to your princess brain, as opposed to a fully autonomous adult brain. And I think when you realize the runway in front of you is shorter than the runway behind you, the stakes feel so much higher.

Brenda: They do.

Amie: And there are certain things that I think make that more challenging. Often, not always, but often, women don’t have as much energy. There might be things counting against them, but at the same time, they have this wealth of experience and a lifetime of learnings, which allow them to make better decisions much more quickly. And in a way, although I fully agree, supporting menopause, distressing menopause symptoms, and alleviating them as much as possible, is an important element of caring for someone in menopause or perimenopause, equally so, that psychosocial, cultural, societal element can’t be neglected. And maybe not every naturopath has the skills or the training to do that. This might be something you have a psychologist on the team, or a coach, like a midlife coach, or whatever it is. But I think we can’t really neglect that, and underestimate the impact of thoughts, worries, future-proofing behavior can have on the physical being in and of itself. So, I think that’s a really powerful concept to consider.

And look, like you’ve said, we’ve got incredible herbs, sometimes really gentle Nervines, whether it’s herbs that are providing the minerals are enough, or maybe something a little stronger. I personally am a massive fan of kava, although it is a heavy-hitter, as far as anxiolytics go. And I think, for me, I don’t necessarily use it as much in perimenopause, but I just wanna share where I do see it indicated is in women who hold a lot of muscular tension, and maybe have posture issues because of stress, because it is such an amazing neuromuscular relaxant, and it enhances focus and concentration. It’s, like, the only herb that has a calming effect that doesn’t actually also take the edge off cognitively. And I think, especially if you’re a woman in that stage of life, maybe you are in a job because that’s the career you’ve sat in whilst you were doing your thing, and you might wanna study to get out of it, or you might need to be able to cognitively keep up, to keep advancing in your career or take a lateral step, whatever that might be. I think that’s a really powerful thing. And I also just wanna mention saffron. I’m having a love affair with saffron at the moment, by the way, which is also a beautiful one to use culinarily too.

Brenda: Yes, I just made paella recently. It was full of saffron. Was great.

Amie: Fantastic. I really like your approach, actually, you know, not necessarily giving a herbal tincture with a bunch of things or a bunch of supplements, but maybe focusing on herbal medicine plus a herbal tea, if they’re into that, and a culinary herb. But regardless, saffron is…the way it reduces brain inflammation globally, which allows natural neurochemistry to function as it’s meant to, is such a lovely, I don’t wanna call it a panacea in any way, but it is such a lovely umbrella effect, that allows the brain to just do what it’s meant to do. And we know brain inflammation interferes with sleep. We know brain inflammation interferes with neurochemistry, whether it’s manufacturing receptor sensitivity, clearance, responsiveness. And, given the impact of hormonal shifts on sleep or anxiety around these midlife changes have on sleep, we know sleep deprivation or interruption will lead to increased brain inflammation the next day, which affects cognitive function, and mood, and all of those things. So I personally do really love saffron, and kava, where it’s indicated.

The other thing is, when we’re looking at minerals, magnesium has become such a hero in this space. I think people forget that it actually partners with calcium in sleep, you know, one helping people fall asleep quicker, one helping people stay asleep in a deeper, more refreshing sleep. I think for some women who are mindful of their bones, or maybe have had a DEXA scan that’s not good, or there’s a family history of osteopenia, they might already have accounted for that. Or, they might have been to a GP who has just given them the standard calcium spiel, which, of course, doesn’t necessarily include other bone minerals.

Brenda: No. Or vitamins.

Amie: But certain… Or vitamins, or any of those other bits and pieces. But certainly, I think we’re so lucky to have so many tools like this, that are nutrient-based. We have bush flowers, homeopathics, herbs. But I think what I’m taking away from our conversation more is the lifestyle elements, the mindfulness elements, and really getting to the root of that transition, and making it empowering, and actually having a new vision for your life. And essentially, what you’re saying is culturally, we don’t have that, nor do we have cultural rights around moving into adolescence, which I also think’s incredibly problematic for our youth.

Brenda: Absolutely.

Amie: But as you say, we live in, the culture that you and I are in, at least, is ageist and misogynistic, and adolescence, in some ways, gives women an external source of power, at quite a young age, and at an age that I think our brains don’t really fully understand. And then it’s only when we get older that we start to realize that. And of course, youth is wasted on the young, as they say.

Brenda: Absolutely.

Amie: And we have to reconcile that, and certainly start to develop in other areas if we haven’t already. So, I think this has been such a profound chat, and honestly, we could keep talking for hours about this. But my biggest takeaway here is really shifting how we view and honor and respect that stage, and really crafting a vision for ourselves, and where we wanna redirect our vital force, our life-creating energy, as it returns inwards and becomes our own again, and not sort of belonging to other people, necessarily. And so, I personally am really looking forward to your book coming out, because I think it’s gonna be a huge permission slip and a guidebook for women who are in this stage of what now, who am I, where is my value, what is my purpose, where should I be focusing my life force? So, yeah, Brenda, just wanna thank you so much for, yeah, all of your beautiful pearls of wisdom here today. And if there is anything else you wanna share with women as we wrap up here, I’d love to hear it.

Brenda: Well, I will say one more thing. And you mentioned the reduction in energy. And that is both normal, at that stage of life, and pathological. So, the one beautiful thing about that is, if it’s normal, you can teach the woman that it’s normal, and then you can help treat the pathology, of course, as well. But the beautiful thing is that the body is giving to us what we need in order to become this wiser, wilder woman. So, that includes less energy. Less energy for BS, less energy for giving away freely to anyone who wants it, less energy for doing things that we don’t, our heart and soul aren’t in. And so, it excites me to understand that we can use the body as guidance towards empowerment, empowering ourselves as older women, and the difference, in that case, the difference that older women could potentially make to our entire community. So…

Amie: I love that.

Brenda: Yeah, let’s keep the narrative going. Let’s keep the podcast going, Amie.

Amie: Yes, yes. Oh, that was just a fantastic note to end on. Thank you. And I think, truly, it is about discernment. It’s about starting to redirect your life force to what matters most, that will offer the most fulfillment and nourishment, and not frivolously wasting it on everywhere that demands it and calls for it.

Brenda: Exactly.

Amie: I’m here for that. Absolutely. It’s a shame that, I guess, when we’re in our cycling years, so much of that just gets fritted away, but of course, biologically, that is appropriate, isn’t it, at that stage of life? But certainly, the book that you’re about to publish and share with the world sounds like an incredible guidebook for all of us that are in this chapter of life, where there’s a redirection of chi, and focus, and purpose, and life purpose too. So, Brenda, thank you so much for your time today, and taking us through your incredible insights. And to our beautiful audience, thank you so much for joining us today. You can find all of our show notes and other podcasts on the Australian Designs for Health website. And I’m Amie Skelton, and this is “Wellness by Designs.”