More Than Hot Flashes: What a Doctor Wants You to Know About Hormonal Impact on Gut and Brain Health | Dr. Laura DeCesaris (Part 2)

In today’s episode, Laurie is joined by Dr. Laura DeCesaris, a functional medicine practitioner who specializes in women’s health and wellness. She teaches women in perimenopause and menopause about their bodies and brains, so they can make better decisions for their health and leverage their hormones to live their best life.

This episode is part two of our conversation. In this second part of the conversation, Dr. Laura and I shift the primary focus away from hormones – although they still come up – to gut health and why Dr. Laura says that gut health is of utmost importance to our overall health and well-being. We’re also discussing brain health and why it’s so important for midlife women, the benefits of biohacking, and more. You’ll want to stay to the end, when Dr. Laura shares the top 3 things midlife women should prioritize to feel and show us as their best self.

If you’re serious about making midlife your best life from a health and wellness perspective, you’ll get so much out of this conversation. And just like last week’s episode, this is an episode you’ll want to download and listen to again before your next doctor’s appointment.

LINKS + MENTIONS:

Episode 70 with Dr. Laura DeCesaris

FREEBIE: Discover the Top 10 Techniques Used by Busy, High-Performing Women Around the World for Optimal Health, Hormone Harmony and Longevity

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Hormone panel, Lipids panel, CBC panel, Metabolic panel, Fasting Insulin, Vitamin D, Thyroid panel

Dr. Mary Claire Haver

Cynthia Thurlow, NP

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01:
Welcome back to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Renoldson. In today's episode, I'm once again joined by Dr. Laura DeCesares, a functional medicine practitioner who specializes in women's health and wellness. She teaches women in perimenopause and menopause about their bodies and their brains so they can make better decisions about their health care. This episode is part two of our conversation. If you haven't already listened to last week's episode, I'd suggest you pause this episode, go back and listen to last week's episode with Dr. Laura, where we talk about all things hormones. There's a clickable link in the show notes. In this second part of the conversation, Dr. Laura and I shift our primary focus away from hormones, although they still come up. But in this episode, we're talking more about gut health and why Dr. Laura says that gut health is of the utmost importance to our overall health and well-being. We're also discussing brain health and why it's so important for midlife women. We talk a little bit about the benefits of biohacking and more. You want to stay to the end when Dr. Laura shares the top three things midlife women should prioritize to feel and show up as their best self. If you're serious about making midlife your best life from a health and wellness perspective, you'll get so much out of this conversation. And just like last week's episode, this is an episode you'll want to download and listen to again before your next doctor's appointment. Let's get back to the conversation.

Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. This is the podcast for the midlife woman who's starting to ask herself big life questions like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work? Each week, we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school. And we're figuring out, finally, what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life.

We are back. Laura, thank you so much. That last episode was just chock full of information. So I am excited to move to the second part of our conversation. Let's pick up with gut health. You mentioned that gut health is so important and we talk so much about hormones and estrogen and oftentimes we don't talk about gut health. So why is gut health so important?

SPEAKER_00: From a big picture, gut health is, it's really just the foundation of so many different aspects of health and well-being, right? Our gut contains a large part of our immune system. There's a whole part of our gut microbiome called the estrabalone that deals with estrogen metabolism. The gut is where many of our brain neurotransmitters, things like dopamine and serotonin that impact our mood are made. It's really, yeah, right? It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01: That's not made in our head, like in our brain?

SPEAKER_00: I think it's like 70% is made in the gut, maybe more. I'll have to double check the exact percentage. No, no. Yeah, that's a lot. I had no idea. Yeah, there's a whole axis. It's called the gut-brain axis. They're in constant communication with each other. So where you have a gut problem, you also have a brain problem. So a lot of the times when people are experiencing symptoms like anxiety, brain fog, depression, it's actually not in their head, it's actually in their gut. Once we fix up their gut health and get them a nice healthy gut microbiome, all of those mental health symptoms actually reduce and go away. So a lot of the times it's, again, it's the value of taking that step back and looking at the body as a whole versus just where the symptoms are showing up. Really, when you think about it, the gut is kind of the first place that your gut and your skin things from the outside, that's where our protective places are to keep what's inside our bodies inside and keep dangerous things outside. When we eat, when we drink water, when we have these things, there's sometimes not so great things in our food and in our water too, and it's the gut's job to keep the bad things in the tube so we can eliminate them and bring the good nutrition from our food across the gut border and send it out to cells to be made into energy. So really if the gut's not in great shape, if it's inflamed and there's some not so great bugs in there and not enough happy healthy bugs, it can affect our hormones, our brain health, our mood, our emotions, our body weight. So really for me, gut health is kind of the seat of optimal health, which is why in the last episode you asked, you know, what testing do people do every year? I say good blood panel and gut test every year. Stay on top of those two things.

SPEAKER_01: And that, I guess that underscores even more the importance of nutrition, right? If, if we aren't taking in good amounts of protein, good fats, kind of limiting the carbohydrates and I don't want to limit anything, but if we're using your ideal plate, eating formula, then we should be able to keep our blood sugar balanced, but it all goes back to what we're eating. Is that too simplistic?

SPEAKER_00: I don't think so. I think it's really important. And on top of that, you know, the reason that I harp so much on people looking at their gut and making sure it's in good health, because imagine this, if your gut's not in great health and maybe, you know, you're not digesting food properly and your gut lining is all inflamed and irritated, you could be eating a great diet, but not absorbing the nutrition from your food because there's other issues going on. And I think a lot of times women have that experience and they're like, I eat so clean and I feel terrible and everything gives me gas and I'm tired all the time and there's just no one ever sits them down and says, hey, sometimes like we have to fix the foundation up so that this amazing nutrition you're pouring into your body, you can actually utilize it, right? You can actually digest it, bring it across the gut lining and send it out to your cells to be made into energy. because sometimes one of those two issues is preventing that. Either the nutrients can't get across the gut border because it's all inflamed, or they're having trouble getting it out to the cells for energy. So digestion and gut health then I think just becomes very central to everything else in health, which is why I always say, you know, back to what we talked about in the first episode. Hormone replacement therapy supplements, they can be great, but if you're not doing the lifestyle to go along with it, if you're not doing the gut health and eating good food and colonizing the gut with happy things to let it grow and thrive, you're only going to get so much benefits from those other things. The two need to really work in tandem.

SPEAKER_01: So what lifestyle changes then should midlife women be focused on if they really want to thrive in midlife and beyond? Right. I mean, we are we are now setting up a foundation not just for the period of life that we're going through, but, you know, we want to be able to bend over and pick things up and not, you know, maybe have a fall and not break a bone. So we are really trying to build a lifestyle for longevity. So what kind of lifestyle changes should we be focused on?

SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad you brought out that last part about taking a fall and not breaking a bone, because especially for postmenopausal women, if they fall and they break a hip, it's like a really high percentage leads to death in under a year. It's like a really big issue that's not talked about a lot. And I don't say that to scare people. Yeah. But you need to understand that Exercise is important for a lot of other things besides weight loss and functional training, meaning. The movements that I need to do every day, balance and coordination, strength training to stress the joints and the muscles to have that strong foundation, even if you don't love it. Think about it as something that you have to do to set yourself up for success long-term, right? You can find a way, maybe it's certain machines at the gym, maybe it's working with a trainer. You can figure out a way that makes it work well for you, but it's essential for you to reduce that risk of falls and those other things later in life.

SPEAKER_01: Is that something we should do every day?

SPEAKER_00: So I think true resistance training, if you can do it at least twice a week, that's great. Optimal is probably closer to three, maybe four. But I think if you can do it at least twice a week and a good dedicated effort of pushing yourself and not being scared of the machines or the weights, I think that's better than not doing it at all.

SPEAKER_01: So we want to eat well, take in some good nutrition so that we can keep our blood sugar balanced, so that we can create good energy. We've got the proteins coming in. We are doing some functional training. We're being smart about moving our body.

SPEAKER_00: The next one I would say is learn how to strategically slow down. And I say that because I meet a lot of midlife women who, if I told them to slow down, they'd probably throw something at me, which I get it.

SPEAKER_01: I like living a very… I get it.

SPEAKER_00: I also like to live a fast-paced, very full life. If someone tells me to slow down, I just don't appreciate that and probably never will. That's just not how the women in my family are wired. but you can strategically slow down at times when you need it. And one of these, I think, especially going back to our conversation around gut health, even maybe more important than the food you're eating is how you're setting yourself up to eat and digest that food. meaning how many of us are guilty of chugging a smoothie on the way to the gym, of eating in our car, of like scarfing down food without even thinking about it. We're not really giving ourselves a chance to digest our food. So when we eat in a stressed state, when we're multitasking, we're like, slamming down a sandwich while we're working on our computer, our brain never signals the gut to start making digestive enzymes and break down that food. So I think one of the best things women can do is take the time to actually have the meal. Step away from the computer, step away from the distractions, take a minute or two, slow down, take a couple of big, deep breaths, smell your food, you know, be grateful for it, That little bit of slowing down just for a couple of moments sends your nervous system into a state called parasympathetic activation, which is what is required for digestive enzymes to be produced for us to be able to start being able to actually digest our food. Eating in a stressed state all the time is a guarantee for bloating, for digestive discomfort, for just not feeling your best, because we don't ever get the signal to make the enzymes to break down the food. So starting to create that little bit of time and space instead of rushing while eating, I think is really important. And I get it, that is difficult, especially if you have kids, you're commuting to work, all these other things. Like I get that I'm asking for a lot. But I'm also talking like two or three minutes before, you know, which I think we can we can try and carve out if it's going to be the best for the long run. Like I sometimes will have women coming to me and they're like, we need to do food sensitivity testing. I react to everything. And I'm like. Let's try this other thing first. And literally all we do for a week is slow down, chew our food. I have might have them do a little bit of like lemon juice and water before a meal. And all of a sudden they're not bloated anymore. They're not reacting to the food because it was never the foods. It was that they never made what they needed to, to break the food down in the first place. And that can feel like you're reacting to everything. So strategically slowing down. The second instance where I think strategically slowing down is very important has to do with our nighttime routines, which I want you to think about this from a brain centric standpoint. So a lot of us, when it's time to unwind at the end of the night, what do we do? We sit in front of the TV, maybe we're scrolling on our phone in bed.

SPEAKER_01: And like, it feels relaxing to us.

SPEAKER_00: This feels super relaxing. But here's the brain constantly scanning for more information and sometimes getting a bath in alcohol. And it's like got no chance to unwind, to create melatonin and all these sleepy hormones and to like start relaxing and decompressing. So then what happens is either We have trouble falling asleep, or we have trouble staying asleep, or we slept all night, but we wake up and we're like, gosh, I'm still tired. I did not feel like I rested at all. Because the brain never rested, and the liver never rested either, especially if we're doing wine before bed, right? So they had to work all night instead of getting the rest that they need to show up at our best the next day. So creating an evening ritual that ideally doesn't have alcohol, but also I mean, even if it's at least 30 minutes, like at the minimum, like give me 30 minutes before bed where screens are away, we don't have the TV on, quiet space, maybe like some low lighting, like salt lamp action, something that's just like very low stimulating. Maybe you stick a sleep mask on and you listen to a little meditation or Just do some breathing exercises, but give the body a chance to come down and do what it's supposed to do to let you drift off to sleep a little bit more easily. Give yourself a chance for success before immediately trying to resort to like sleep medication and sleep supplements. A lot of the times when it comes to sleep, which is an issue for a lot of midlife women, these things that we do in the daytime are actually really important for sleeping. the eating hygiene, that winding down routine, watching the screen time. So there are lots of things that you can do that are free, really, to help address some of these symptoms and to help set yourself up for success day in and day out at any stage of life, but especially as midlife woman.

SPEAKER_01: I want to go to the brain, but before we do that, I want to just ask one last question about the gut. So you talked about the enzymes that are produced to break down the food. When we eat in that kind of frenetic eating, maybe we're not giving our bodies the opportunity to function in the way that they're supposed to. What about intermittent fasting, and then on the flip side of that, someone who is snacking all day long?

SPEAKER_00: So intermittent fasting actually for women in perimenopause and menopause becomes a little bit easier than it was when you had a very consistent cycle.

SPEAKER_01: I have a question for you. When was the last time you spent a day focused completely on yourself? Away from the daily grind, the constant emails and text messages, the never-ending question of what is for dinner? Well, if a day sounds good to you, what about an entire weekend away? And before you start thinking that sounds a little too indulgent, let me remind you that you can't take care of everyone else in your life if you don't take care of yourself first. I am thrilled to personally invite you to join me at the next Best Life Retreat in world-famous Sun Valley, Idaho. With more than 15 hours of group coaching to figure out what you actually want in life, how you define success, and help you lay the groundwork for you to create a life that not only makes you happy, but also makes you feel personally fulfilled. There will be incredible group activities like happy hour paint and sips, Morning walks, a sunrise hike, your choice of spa appointments at an award-winning spa. All of this wrapped up in luxury accommodations, gourmet meals, premium drinks, and the best gift bag you have ever seen. I'm telling you, this will be one of the very best weekends of your entire life. To keep the retreat intimate, there are only 10 spots available and when they're gone, they're gone. So go right now, click the link in the show notes and get yourself on the priority list so that you'll be the first to know when we open up registration. I cannot wait to see you in Sun Valley.

SPEAKER_00: We know that fasting for women who are in their most fertile years, who are regularly menstruating, it can actually be stressful to their hormones then, whereas at menopause and beyond, you don't have those hormonal fluctuations quite so much. So it actually becomes easier. In perimenopause, I think it depends on what stage of hormonal transition you are at. But for women in particular, you know, something called circadian fasting, which is basically you eat when it's light out. You have like a, you know, 12-13 hour fasting window every day, you eat the rest of the time versus like late night snacking, that sort of stuff. That has a lot of benefits. You don't have to be doing this more intense, you know, eat all your galleries in one meal sort of thing to get the benefits. It's more just can I get at least 12 to 13 hours of not eating. just like seven to seven, six to six. That's pretty doable for most people, unless you're a snacker, in which case then it can be challenging at first. But there can be a lot of benefits there for that blood sugar and insulin sensitivity and just for like overall mood and digestion as well. So it's a great tool to use for sure. Your other question besides fasting was snacking all of the time. So in my mind, there is a generation of women who at one point in time, maybe like 20 years ago, were told the best way to eat was small meals like six times a day or something like that. And I think it did a lot of women because that's really rough on your system. So we we have these little like street sweepers in the gut called the MMCs or the migrating motor complexes. And their job is basically to go through when we're not eating in between meals and clear out all the excess garbage that came from food passing through. When we're constantly eating and snacking, they never really get sent out. And so we don't really have that kind of action there. And over time, this can kind of lead to bloating, changes in bowel movements, inflammation in the gut. So actually, if we can get a good three to four hours between a meal and a snack, that's probably ideal for the activity of those MMCs. And if you're like, I would really struggle to go four hours without eating, that should be a little like yellow caution sign that something might be up with your blood sugar, because that should be very simple for a woman of any age to go three to four hours without getting hangry, getting irritable, getting tired. That's a sign that body is not doing a great job of utilizing energy for like sustained release for you. So that should be a little flag that it might be time to check into some of those blood sugar markers and work on your metabolic health a little bit.

SPEAKER_01: Thank you for explaining all that. So we're going to go from the gut to the brain. The thing that I actually thought really drove the bus, but it sounds like the gut is, is definitely at least co-piloting. Okay. So brain health. Why is it so important for midlife women in particular? I mean, obviously it's important for everyone, but why midlife women?

SPEAKER_00: Their brain and gut are definitely co-pilots, for sure. They're both really important. I think the brain is starting to receive some more attention, but we have to think about, I think a lot of people don't think about it in terms of all of the things that it does. Like we think about our brain in terms of our mental capacity for productivity and those sorts of things. Are you smart? Right, exactly. But we have these little glands in the brain that control all of our endocrine organs, which is your hormone-producing organs. So if we don't get signals from brain to ovaries, we don't ovulate. That's how birth control works, right? If we don't get signals from brain to thyroid, we don't make enough thyroid hormone. So brain health is a really important component of hormones in general. We already talked about brain communicating with gut and how important that is. We have brain and the stress response. It's called the HPA, hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, which is basically how we respond to stress. It starts in the brain. And so while I think it's great that people are paying attention to adrenal health, maybe you've seen TikToks and videos about cortisol supplements and adrenal cocktails, and it's a piece of the puzzle, but the brain piece is even more important. Because the adrenals don't suddenly stop working. It's that the brain stops signaling to them. And if we're not looking at what's happening to the brain, we miss a huge piece of it. So taking care of our brain, to me, is very foundational at this stage of life because as we're having those hormonal transitions we talked about, I mentioned in the last episode, the brain's trying really hard to keep up with what's happening. It's like trying to figure out why things are all over the place. So it is also changing, right? The brain is also flooded with estrogen and progesterone receptors. Actually, a study just came out, today's June 25th, a study just came out like last week that was actually looking at estrogen receptors in the brain and showing- I was going to ask you about that. Yeah, it was showing for the first time. Yeah, for the first time, the why behind the cognitive decline, we see postmenopause and what's happening with those estrogen receptors. So it's a really important piece of the puzzle. And I think anyone who's had a family member that's dealt with dementia or Alzheimer's or cognitive decline, it's like heartbreaking to watch somebody go through that. And the more proactive we can be about optimizing our brain health, and heck, that might even be for some women, like, I wanna look at bioidentical estrogen therapy for my brain, even more so than hot flashes and other things. Understanding options that are out there to keep our cognitive health good as long as possible and making good lifestyle decisions, like reducing alcohol and eating anti-inflammatory diets and keeping our blood sugar regulated, All of these things help our brain work better, longer, which is something that I think is really, really important to reduce the risk of those diseases later in life.

SPEAKER_01: Can you talk just briefly about the implications, the practical implications of Dr. Lisa Moscone's recent report? As I understand it, for the first time ever, they have taken pictures of a live brain in menopause. I'm going to completely butcher this, but the ability to absorb estrogen or use it is very high in menopause, and so we should be giving it more? Maybe I've got that backwards.

SPEAKER_00: It's okay. So what they did was they looked at scans of the brain in both healthy midlife women as well as women that were going through like the menopausal transition. I'm pretty sure that's what it was. I'll have to double check on what it is. But basically what they saw was it let them kind of take a look at the estrogen receptor expression throughout the brain. So we could actually see like where were things, areas lighting up in these midlife transitional phases. And what they found was in healthy midlife women, they had a much higher density of estrogen receptors versus women in menopause. So, which makes sense, basically. It definitively proved that estrogen activity in the brain goes down after menopause. So, Basically, what it looked at then was, I don't think that study specifically looked at the impacts of estrogen therapy on itself. I'm sure that will be another study, but basically it said, hey, replacing estrogen in the body might be an avenue for that neurological aging that we can impact it positively because here's what we're seeing happening in the brain at these times.

SPEAKER_01: And, and that just segues very beautifully between talking about the relationship between hormones and cognitive function in midlife and beyond, right? I mean, it is.

SPEAKER_00: And it showed us that midlife is midlife is like, it's a really important window of opportunity for looking at some of these things. So I think that's a big question that researchers have been looking into more recently is what is the ideal window for these hormone therapies? Is it once a woman's in menopause? Is it after menopause? That study I mentioned in the last episode that was very poorly designed, that actually was looking at women who were like 10, 12 years out of menopause. So it didn't even really apply to midlife women in the sense that we're talking about it. But studies like this recent one showed us that that perimenopause midlife window is actually probably an ideal window to look at these therapies versus waiting until you're a few years out of menopause and experiencing symptoms. It might have more protective benefits if we start it in kind of that time period leading up to the official menopause stop date.

SPEAKER_01: And great that we're finally having we're finally conducting these studies, right, that that this is something women's health is something that we're finally studying. I want to be mindful of your time because I know that you have been so gracious. I've got two more questions. If you had to choose, and I think we've talked about a lot of them, but are there three things that midlife women should prioritize to feel and show up as their best?

SPEAKER_00: Number one, I want you to assess your relationship with stress. I'm not going to sit here and say, just relax, don't stress out much, because that's never helped any woman ever. But I do want you to do the uncomfortable work of looking at your relationship with stress. By that, I mean, are you someone who is defined by stress? Anytime someone asks you how you are, I'm so busy, I'm so stressed out. Like, are you identifying yourself? Are you finding your worthiness by how busy and how much stress you're putting on yourself? And look, these are hard questions to look in the mirror and ask ourselves. This is not the fun work. It is much easier to focus on a diet and exercise. I get it. But I promise if you do that difficult work of being like, well, yeah, what is my relationship with stress? It's this bad thing, but I also define myself by it. That doesn't seem very good. If we can instead shift it as being like, I'm experiencing a lot of stress right now. What can I learn from this? What do I need to say no to? What do I need to delegate? Where can I ask for help? Such a hard question to ask, right? Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01: I'd rather study a stool sample and look at my gut health and ask for help.

SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing, as women, we thrive in communities. We thrive by helping each other. And I would guess that any of you listening, if one of your close friends, if your sister called you asking for help with something, it would make you feel so good to help them. And so even if you have to look at it as, hey, by not asking for help, by not doing this, I'm robbing someone else of the chance to feel good. Do it that way. But I think at this stage of life, women, they try and do everything and they try and do it alone. And that's just not going to cut it. So again, looking at this relationship with stress, with what we're doing all of the time, I think comes first and foremost. And just releasing some of those societal expectations of having to be perfect, look perfect, do perfect. The easier things, if I had to pick two other things besides that to prioritize, just two, which is so difficult, I would choose from the nutritional standpoint, I would be increasing my protein and the variety of brightly colored fruits and veggies I was eating. I would be doing those things. I wouldn't necessarily care about counting calories or dieting, but I would make sure I had more protein and I would get some variety in my fiber sources in the form of brightly colored fruits and veggies. Simple as that. The third one, which I'm really torn because I want to say strength training, but then the other half of me wants to say sleep hygiene. I might have to have a tie for third between the strength training, which we've talked about a couple of times, but really prioritizing learning how to sleep, which I know sounds so silly, but your circadian rhythm and the things that you can do every day for free to sleep better will make your life so much easier. And this looks like waking up and going outside and like getting some sun in your eyes first thing in the morning. This looks like Moving your body if you have a desk job, even if it's just for five minutes to walk around the block during the day. This looks like not eating late at night, having that little wind down routine. Things that are just the smallest shifts, but have a huge impact on your sleep quality. I think if you can do those things. That's where everybody should start before you get all caught up in like fancy supplements and things like that.

SPEAKER_01: Although sometimes it's just easier to go to the fancy supplements. Yes, of course it is. We can do this, women. We can do this.

SPEAKER_00: We can do hard things. Why would anyone use a synthetic hormone?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely. I know that you've put together a free guide for our listeners, which I think is called Discover the Top 10 Techniques Used by Busy, High-Performing Women Around the World for Optimal Health. hormone, harmony, and longevity. So thank you so much for making that resource available to all of us. Of course, we will add a clickable link to that in the show notes. For our listeners who want to learn more about working with you, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_00: Sure. So you can find me on my website, which is drlauradecessorous.com. Or social media, I'm mostly on Instagram or LinkedIn under my name, Dr. Laura DeCesaris. Sometimes I'm on Facebook, but not always. If you send me a message on one or the other too, I'm much more likely to see it and follow up with you.

SPEAKER_01: Perfect. We will drop some clickable links to those places in the show notes. We end every episode with the same two questions. So question one, if you could go back to your 20-year-old self, knowing all of the things that you know, having all of the experiences that you've had, learned the life lessons that you've learned up until this point, what advice would you give to her?

SPEAKER_00: Poor 20-year-old me. I would tell her, I would tell her to stop putting so much pressure on herself, to do everything, to be everything, to be perfect. I don't think there's anything wrong with having a drive to achieve, but when I think back to younger me, I let that derail my mood and my well-being more often than not. So I would tell her, literally, I would make her sit down and just like take a break. Be like, just sit down. You're putting so much pressure on yourself about things that in five years from now aren't going to matter, let alone in 10 and 15 years. So be in the moment more and just enjoy being young, is probably what I would tell her.

SPEAKER_01: Those would have been great lessons to learn earlier, wouldn't they? Right. High achieving women, let's just go, go, go. But yes, so much pressure. Question number two. Normally, I would ask you what you've loved most about being a midlife woman, but you're not quite there yet. So and perimidlife isn't really a thing. So how about this? What do you love most about being a woman?

SPEAKER_00: I'll amend that and say a woman in my 30s because I think as women something happens when women are like afraid to turn 30, like they're getting older. I've loved my 30s so much more than my 20s. I just think as a woman, I just think as we age, and I said this earlier, that aging is a privilege. I think your confidence just increases with each year that goes by. You're less tolerant of part of my language, the bullshit of what other people think. Being a woman is freaking cool. And especially when you take the time to I know we focus on a lot on like what goes wrong with hormones, but I think if you focus on understanding how your body works as a woman and how much societal conditioning we've had to fight against that just to operate and like you start to release that and understand how to exist in a way that honors your physiology as a woman, life just becomes a lot more simple and fun and less stressful. And I'm seeing this in many of my girlfriends who are all in their late 30s, their mid, late 40s. It's just like unapologetically showing up as themselves in all areas, in their career, as a partner, as a mother, and making choices to not have to sacrifice one of those things for another. Meaning if they want the career and the kids, they will find a way to do that. And they will not settle for something less in any area of life. And I think right now that's just something that's really cool about being a woman. It's like some sort of shift is happening with that. I'll be curious to see how it shows up in younger generations too coming forward.

SPEAKER_01: That is a beautiful place to stop. Thank you so much for spending time with us on these last couple of episodes. I know the listeners are going to love it. The information has been incredible and it's been lovely to see you again, Laura. Thank you so much. This was so fun.

Thank you so much for listening to the School of Midlife podcast. It means so much to have you here each week. If you enjoyed this episode, could you do me the biggest favor and help us spread the word to other midlife women? There are a couple of easy ways for you to do that. First, and most importantly, if you're not already following the show, would you please subscribe? That helps you because you'll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. Second, if you'd be so kind to leave us a five-star rating, that would be absolutely incredible. And finally, I personally read each and every one of your reviews. So if you'd take a minute and say some nice things about the podcast, well, that's just good karma. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you right back here next week when The School of Midlife is back in session. Until then, take good care.