Unlock Natural Relief for Menopause with Ayurveda, Plants + Alternative Modalities with Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz
Show Snapshot:
Hot flashes, mood swings, restless sleep... sound familiar? Join us as we explore natural solutions and plant-based wellness with renowned menopause expert Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz, author of "The Menopause Bootcamp." Discover how Ayurveda, yoga, meditation, and even herbal teas can work hand-in-hand with traditional medicine to help you manage symptoms, boost overall health, and reclaim your well-being naturally. Dr. Gilberg-Lenz calls Ayurveda the "original lifestyle medicine" - tune in to unlock its power for a more empowered menopause journey.
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Dr. Gilberg-Lenz’s Book:
Menopause Bootcamp: Optimize Your Health, Empower Your Self, and Flourish as You Age
Quotable:
Ayurveda is really considered by many to be the original lifestyle medicine because it looks at what are considered the pillars of health and addresses them from both a macro perspective—from community, environment, season, season of life, season of the year, to the micro—the actual individual. It is not a one size fits all approach.
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty 0:03
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. I'm your host, Katie Fogarty. Beauties, if you are tuning into this show, there is a good chance that you are in the thick of perimenopause or are firmly in the menopause-and-beyond camp. And if that's you, you are in a very good club. In fact, you are in a gigantic club. One might even say a massive club. Every year across the globe, 25 million women enter menopause. I'm not even going to attempt to do the math. You get the picture—there are a lot of us. Despite the fact that so many women are in menopause, too many women struggle to find information on how to navigate this natural phase of life. Here at A Certain Age, we've done 40-plus shows on menopause. And we are exploring this today from a fresh angle, focusing on how Ayurvedic healing principles, nutrition choices, and alternative modalities can help us manage symptoms. And we are exploring this with a total pro. Our guest today is a menopause education and advocacy OG. She is a double board-certified practitioner of obstetrics and gynecology and integrative medicine. She is the Senior Medical Advisor to Kindra, a menopause care company. She is the healthcare correspondent for The Drew Barrymore Show, and she is the author of one of the bibles of menopause care, The Menopause Bootcamp. She is Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz, and I am so delighted she is with us today. Welcome, Suzanne.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 1:34
My gosh, I'm blushing.
Katie Fogarty 1:37
I'm excited. I had been following you on social media for ages. We've had the pleasure of meeting very quickly in person at The Swell menopause, New Pause menopause symposium last October during, you know, international menopause month. I am so thrilled to connect with you for the show and to just, you know, get into all the things with you.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 1:59
Me too.
Katie Fogarty 1:59
So thank you for being here. So my first question—it's a biggie. You know, menopause is inevitable, but suffering doesn't have to be, right? You know, you are an expert in traditional medicine and the benefits of HRT. But you also believe, I know from following you, that there's a happy medium between traditional medicine and alternative therapies like Ayurvedic healing practices, herbal remedies, diet. I think that many menopausal women don't know about Ayurvedic healing and how it can help manage symptoms of menopause. And I would love for you to do some stage setting and let us know, you know, what is Ayurveda and what is the link between Ayurveda and menopause?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 2:42
Oh, yeah, I mean, and thanks for giving me the platform to talk about it because Ayurveda is not as well known in the West as Chinese medicine is. They grew up around the same time in India, instead of China, about five, six thousand years ago. So it is the indigenous medical paradigm for that region. And it's really considered by many to be sort of the original lifestyle medicine, because it looks at what are considered the pillars of health and addresses them both from a macro perspective in terms of everything from community, environment, season, season of life, season of the year, to the micro, the actual individual. It's an individualized approach. It is not a one-size-fits-all approach. So conventional Western medicine, which, you know, is—look, I've been working in, I'm a physician for—I graduated medical school, I don't know, a million years ago, so I've been practicing 24 years. So I love Western medicine, I appreciate it, I'm a surgeon, you know, it's a miracle. But it is very much problem-solution, problem-solution, right? In general. And what I love about Ayurveda is that we have a much bigger picture and we're also applying lots of tools to the individual at that present moment. And I know that sounds really wild and overwhelming.
Katie Fogarty 4:19
No, it sounds intriguing.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 4:20
It is intriguing. I think most people don't realize Ayurveda has seeped into a lot of Western med spas, spas in general, beauty care, without people realizing it. So anybody who bought ashwagandha in the last year, that's an Indian herb—that is one of the most important Ayurvedic herbs. If you've had—there's certain—a lot of spas are doing a lot of spa treatments. But yoga—yoga is a branch of Ayurveda. Meditation is a branch of Ayurveda. So these things that we're doing to destress and to be in our bodies in a specific, more healthful way are things that have been borrowed from Ayurveda. And, you know, Ayurveda itself is a complete system. It's very complex. I think for people who want to understand more about it, I talk about it in the book, and there's obviously much better ways to learn about it. But I think it's the idea again of how we are connecting with our own selves at that moment. And then using the tools available to us in our specific environments or communities is very, very, very important.
Katie Fogarty 5:29
I love this notion of moment, Suzanne, too. Because I—you know, this show is about midlife, I am 54, my guests are firmly in midlife, my audience is there too. And I think that one of the things that happens when we get to this life is we realize that we're not the same person we were yesterday.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 5:46
Yeah.
Katie Fogarty 5:46
And we're not going to be the same person tomorrow, right?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 5:49
Yeah.
Katie Fogarty 5:49
Like, there—we exist on a sort of a continuum that sort of moves along. And, and to have medicine that focuses on, or a healing modality that focuses on exactly where you are today, instead of putting this like big blanket umbrella—like you're a woman, like this must apply to you all. You know, women go through menopause at different times and different ages and physical stages. So to—
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 6:11
And they're entering into menopause in a different state, right. Everybody isn't coming into menopause in the same exact health state or mindspace or anything else. So, you know, I don't want to make it too complicated. But to me, I agree with you. That is one of the beautiful—and beauties—of this particular perspective. And that is, taking what's around you and actually kind of just being more in reality, to be perfectly honest. Because the only thing that—I wouldn't say I don't like, but I think one of the things we have to be careful with about the conversation that we're having about hormone therapy, which as you know, I'm a big advocate for, is—again, if every—if the tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right. So I just want people to have the widest toolkit possible, and the most, the most opportunities available to them. And a lot of these things are things that we can do on our own. The other really, really important principle in Ayurveda is the notion that we always are going to address the health of the mind and the health of the gut. No matter what you come in with, let's say you come in and you just want to be maintaining the healthy life that you already have, maintaining the wonderful health that you have, we're going to address your gut and we're going to address your mind. That's the way I was trained. If you come in with a particular medical issue or a diagnosis, we're going to address the gut and we're going to address the mind. Which is really, really interesting, I think, given the fact that now the microbiome and gut health and how gut health has such an incredibly important impact on essentially every single part of our body, our minds and our health—like that's now the rage, right? Well, I mean, in Ayurveda they were talking about that 6,000 years ago, without the tools of modern science. It's pretty fascinating.
Katie Fogarty 8:06
It's totally fascinating.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 8:09
I came to it, honestly, out of just like curiosity. I was doing yoga, I started meditating, a teacher of mine, in an offhand but not offhand way, said, you know, Ayurveda—I think you should check it out, basically. And I was very—I was a new doctor, I just, you know, finished residency, I was in my first practice, just trying to, you know, figure it out, get my feet wet, had two little kids, you know, you can imagine, I was like a stressed-out maniac. And she mentioned this to me, and I was off to the races. And it was so interesting. And so I just was really studying it for my own personal interest. And then I just started seeing like how huge this impact was having on me and on my patients. Because it started getting out there like, hey, this doctor is open-minded. She's, you know, she's curious, she's not going to judge you about being a vegan or about doing acupuncture—and this is, you know, a while ago, right? Like, everybody wasn't doing this.
Katie Fogarty 9:07
I love that, I love that curiosity was your guide too because, you know.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 9:11
Always.
Katie Fogarty 9:12
You know, curiosity brings us to so many new cool spaces and opens doors. And, you know, I know from reading your book, I'm so glad that you brought up the gut because I know that from reading your book that you say your gut is calling a lot of our health care shots, which I think is something that makes so much sense, but we don't always, you know, in sort of a Western civilization always appreciate that. So maybe it's just kind of as a—to sort of expand this—what is the gut microbiome, like, menopause connection?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 9:41
Well, that's an amazing question that we don't totally understand. There is something called estrobolome that we do understand, that we—that there is a major influence. And it's bidirectional or multidirectional, between our hormonal status and our gut microflora. So just to, you know, like, stop for a moment and explain what that is, I think a lot of your listeners probably have been reading about this. But the microbiome is just sort of the microscopic organisms that are living in various ecosystems in your body. Our bodies are literally an ecosystem. And, you know, there's probably more bacterial cells than like cells that originate from you in your body. Like we are symbiotic with bacteria. That's, that's how—that's part of how we all survive on the planet, it's pretty amazing. But there's different bacterial populations that live in your mouth, in your nasal cavity, on your skin superficially, in the vaginal canal, in your gut. And the gut, in particular, is the site of probably the largest amount of bacteria, but also the origin of a lot of our neurotransmitters, a lot of our immune system, and hormones. And so these—these are all just chemical messengers. They're ways of our body talking to itself and directing traffic, right, making things happen. So hormones influence the gut microbiome, and vice versa. You know, when I wrote the book, I reached out to some of the preeminent scientists in the field. And this doctor, Dr. Emeran Mayer was at UCLA and we had an amazing conversation. And I, you know, we talked about this, and he was like, yes, yes, yes. And I said, so how does it work? He's like, we don't know.
Katie Fogarty 11:36
I like that he was honest.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 11:38
Yeah, so it's in development. I mean, there's obvious—and I think, again, when we remind ourselves to pay attention to our body and to listen to our body, and that our body is talking to us, and we—we know how we feel. That's really, really powerful stuff. One of the things that is going on in the menopause niche community—it's not such a niche, but in the community—is this idea of women, and humans who are going through this experience, taking charge of the experience and not allowing themselves to be dismissed any longer. And it's really the same thing as gut instinct in a way, right?
Katie Fogarty 12:20
Yes.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 12:21
If you—like so, I don't think there's a person that I have talked to, and my personal experience as well, who hasn't had changes in their digestion around the transitional times, the perimenopause itself, with your cycle, and certainly once you get through menopause. Like, it's not just the weight gain thing, which is like a whole other conversation. But people's digestion shifts and changes. And that is a direct result, probably at least in part, of the shift in the bacteria that are living in our gut. And for sure, the hormones have something to do with that. It's just not 100% clear what that is.
Katie Fogarty 12:58
Dr. Suzanne, we're heading into a quick break, but when we pick this back up, I want to talk about—what do you recommend feeding this ecosystem, you know, in our gut? How do we use food and nutrition? What kind of dietary choices can we make that can help us improve our gut microbiome?
Katie Fogarty 13:15
[AD BREAK]
Katie Fogarty 13:16
We're back from the break. When we headed into it, we talked about the sort of beautiful imagery that you use that our bodies are like our own ecosystem, right. And I love this notion that we are like our own world in some way.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 13:28
Yeah.
Katie Fogarty 13:28
You talked about some of the science is still unclear about the link between how, you know, what we're putting into our gut microbiome and the menopause connection. But, you know, I think there is more clarity around things, like you said, neurotransmitters. I had the pleasure of having Dr. Annie Fenn on the show, who wrote the book The Brain Health Kitchen, and talked about the importance of eating in a way that fuels our gut microbiome, and, you know, and prevents things like, you know, oxidative molecules from moving from our gut microbiome and breaking the sort of the brain-blood barrier. From your expertise in menopause, it's in women's health, what do you see as nutritional choices that help us fuel better health during this phase of life?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 14:15
I mean, it's really all the same things that everybody talks about. But I think when we're filtering it through this lens, we understand it a little bit differently. So the thing is, we really have to understand what—what we want to be growing in there and what they want to eat, right?
Katie Fogarty 14:37
They're not always the same thing, I guess? I don't know.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 14:39
Well, I mean, yeah, yeah. Because, okay, so for instance, if people have noticed that there's like—now there's this new thing, people are talking about prebiotics, and then there's probiotics. Okay, so probiotics are actually the—they are the microbes, they are the bacteria. So you can buy high-quality probiotics over the counter. I think a lot of people know like, hey, if you're taking antibiotics, you may want to consider taking probiotics because the antibiotics are going to kill not just the bacteria that you don't want, but bacteria that you do want. Or when you talk about like vaginal health, genitourinary syndrome of menopause, actually, there are some beneficial bacteria, namely specific species of lactobacillus, that shift and change as our estrogen levels decline. So the estrogen levels decline, the pH changes in the vagina and the urinary tract, and so consequently, what lives there is different. And so there are really robust studies showing that putting the bacteria that you want back in that region—it can be very, very helpful. But those guys also got to eat. So that's what prebiotics are. Prebiotics are what the bacteria that we want to live need to live. So things like—this is where fermented foods, fiber, are really, really important. It's not just for the things that you might think like—I think when people think of fiber, they think of like pushing, you know, the poop out, essentially, and cleaning the gut out, which is partly true, but it's also feeding the good bacteria that are helping your gut to continue to function well, right. And if your gut is functioning well, your gut is able to absorb the nutrients that you need, like the vitamin D that you took, and put it into the cells for cellular work, like the magnesium, like the B complex, like all that, you know, all that stuff.
Katie Fogarty 16:12
Yeah, all that good stuff.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 16:14
Yeah, I think that the fiber prebiotic thing is really, really important. And it becomes more important as we're aging. You know, from the Ayurvedic perspective, it's a much more complex situation, because as I mentioned, it would also be partly related to the—what your individual constitution is coming into this, and then it's affected by the change of life that we are expecting, that we're undergoing, which changes our constitutions in some ways.
Katie Fogarty 16:52
If somebody wanted to analyze their own unique situation, you know, how do you recommend that they go about doing that? Because I hear what you're saying, right—like, yeah, there's not a one-size-fits-all solution for most things. So would they work with an Ayurvedic practitioner?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 17:09
Yep, they could work with an Ayurvedic practitioner. If they want to find somebody legit, because training in this country is different and a little bit all over the place—it's tightening up a little bit, it's not licensed in this country like Chinese medicine is—but the National Ayurvedic Medical Association, NAMA, is a great place to go to find like really legit practitioners and leaders in the field. And there are online quizzes, but I would go to bigger places like National Ayurvedic Medical Association, or Chopra.
Katie Fogarty 17:43
Great, this is a great tip. I'm also going to just add the tip of buying your book because you cover a lot of this material.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 17:50
I do.
Katie Fogarty 17:50
You know, The Menopause Bootcamp is definitely something that people should check out. So, you know, because it's interesting, because you definitely—you take this, this ancient practice of medicine and lifestyle, and we've covered it a little bit on the show. I had the great pleasure of having Raina Kumra come on the show, who is the founder of the company Spicewell, which is a series of sort of optimized spices that—it's like, it's a pepper and salt that has 30 different kinds of dried spices in it and it's based on her, you know, Ayurvedic household that she grew up in, and it's just kind of a cool thing. So we've covered this a little bit, but we haven't talked about it in relation to menopause, which is something that all of my listeners are either have experienced or will experience. And I want to ask you specifically about kind of menopause's buzziest, most talked-about symptom, which is hot flashes, right. And I sometimes joke, they have an excellent PR agent, because they are synonymous with menopause. I know there are many, many other symptoms, and we've covered them on the show, but are there plant-based choices that listeners who are struggling with hot flashes can consider making?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 18:59
Yeah, definitely, definitely. So here's the thing. You know, I'm—because I come from a conventional background, I really do believe in, you know, using evidence-based approaches as much as possible. It's a lot harder to do that when you're talking about the more natural, holistic solutions. I do want to point out, though, that probably 30% of pharmaceuticals come from the plant world. Like, where do you guys think the medicine comes from? I mean, indigenous people, humans have always made medicine out of what's available.
Katie Fogarty 19:30
Right.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 19:30
Do people actually think that pharmaceutical companies dropped off out of the sky and just started making medicine? No.
Katie Fogarty 19:36
Well look at penicillin, right? Isn't penicillin is a great example of that?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 19:41
Yes.
Katie Fogarty 19:41
I mean, it was based on a mold.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 19:44
It's a mold, right.
Katie Fogarty 19:44
Which—it wasn't invented, it was, you know.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 19:46
But, you know, aspirin is from willow bark, right. So this is something that people borrowed from indigenous culture. It's just—it's how we—so I just want people to understand like, when some of my colleagues out there get a little heated about snake oil, and holistic, and buzzwords and charlatans, and I'm not saying that none of that's going on, but also they are failing to really understand the history of medicine and science. So I just wanted to bring that little point in, and it's something to think about. So there—when you look at studies into plant-based solutions, they are never going to be as robust as pharma. They just—they don't have the power, they don't have the money. They don't have the—and when I mean power, they don't have the scientific power, because they're not usually looking at thousands of people, they're looking maybe at hundreds of people.
Katie Fogarty 20:33
And also there aren't studies because people don't—you can't patent broccoli, right, you know?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 20:37
Well right. I mean, broccoli, like a whole food, yes, it's going to be hard. Because, I mean, there are studies on some of these things, but they're looking at them—they're either purifying or amplifying one little portion of the broccoli, the sulforaphanes. Or they are like observational studies, like the person who ate broccoli, this happened and the person who didn't, that happened. So those quality—the quality of those studies is different. They're not as good. But there are some really—there's some good supportive data, specifically with hot flashes for black cohosh, and no, it is not going to kill your liver. The problem—the quote issues—with liver toxicity were related to other things. Those were case reports and I think that they've been misrepresented by some people. So I think that the data on black cohosh is quite good.
Katie Fogarty 21:23
How do you—and how do you consume black cohosh? I've never even heard of it, is it a tea?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 21:27
Here's the thing with these solutions, I am super picky because I want people to not just like go to the market and randomly get random black cohosh. First of all, anytime you're buying one of these products, I think you should make sure—look at the bottle or if you're buying online, make sure they are third-party tested. In other words, another organization has tested to make sure that what you think you're buying is in there and it's not adulterated, contaminated, or anything else. That's super important. With black cohosh, the brand that I really like the best is called Remifemin. And it's a German company, and they've done lots of studies on this and the directions will be on the bottle. Okay, so it'll tell you what to do. You're basically taking it twice a day. And studies have shown that people notice about a 50% reduction in their hot flashes, which can be really, really significant for people. So that's probably my favorite. There are a lot of the soy isoflavones. So basically, the plant-based estrogen mimickers. Red clover is one of them. Consuming soy specifically is not it, right. Like again, you've got to be amplifying the effect. So you need to be actually getting it encapsulated or something like that. Those aren't—I don't find them to be as effective to be perfectly honest. And I mean for hot flashes those are kind of my favorite. Pycnogenol, which is French marine pine bark, also has some really robust data. A lot of these plants do more than one thing, but specifically for hot flashes these are things that I like.
Katie Fogarty 23:05
These are great tips. And I also appreciate your talking about third-party testing and making sure that you know that you're buying a product that is being, you know, reinforced by somebody else's perspective. And that tip was actually shared earlier on the show by Dr. Melina Jampolis, the author of the book Spice Up, Live Long. And when she talked about supplements, too, she also echoed that and she said, make sure you're buying products that have third-party testing. So thank you for reinforcing that. Yeah, so Dr. Suzanne another enormous, you know, challenge with menopause is interrupted sleep. I myself never had hot flashes. I don't know how I got so lucky. I used to—I joke sometimes I had toxic rage instead. So like I had my own, like volcanic things happening. But sleep is something that I haven't...I don't know a single woman who doesn't have sleep issues. This is a big menopause symptom. And we all know that it is foundational to feeling like yourself, feeling good, keeping the train on the tracks, you know, keeping the like, the mood swings at bay. You know, night sweats, hormonal fluctuations, hot flashes, do a number on our sleep, you know. Are there specific food choices, beyond what you just shared that we can be making to bolster better sleep? I think we all know that, to avoid caffeine and alcohol before bed. But are there food choices throughout our day that contribute to sleep that you have any kind of data or studies to share?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 24:25
It is so hard. This is—I think this is actually the—for me as a physician, this is the hallmark. People coming in with disturbed sleep. Some of which, by the way, are like our stealthy hot flashes. Like people may not even realize they're getting warm, or they may have a version of it that is like heart palpitations and they're just waking up and they're not feeling that part of it, but that part woke them up. So I will say that for people that are suffering with sleep interruption, and that's pretty much everybody, and as you know, it's generally not falling asleep, it's staying asleep.
Katie Fogarty 24:59
Yes. Or it's both. I have both sometimes. I'm gonna go, I'm going to go with both.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 25:05
Falling asleep is weirdly easier to deal with because there are things you can do in terms of your sleep hygiene and relaxation right beforehand.
Katie Fogarty 25:13
Yes.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 25:14
But, you know, and there's a lot of mood and anxiety stuff that can play into that as well, including the waking up. Because if you wake up and you can't get back to sleep, because you start going through your to-do list and getting nervous and jacked up about everything in your life, like that's going to contribute. So the—I think what I'm trying to say is it's generally multifactorial, and it is one of the hardest things to, to deal with, to be perfectly honest. So usually I will look at hot flash management, even if people don't think they're having hot flashes, because they might, as I said, you know, have something that they're not totally connecting that way. And the nighttime routine is a really big deal. You mentioned like obviously caffeine, in the—even the later half of the day, and alcohol. Any alcohol at all, honestly, like, I'm not here to be a party pooper. I had two glasses of wine at dinner last night with my best friend, we were celebrating our birthday.
Katie Fogarty 26:04
Aw, nice. Happy Birthday.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 26:07
Thank you. I really don't drink very much. I really don't drink anymore, because it just is such a disaster that it's just not really worth it.
Katie Fogarty 26:13
Well, you're not a party pooper, you're not the only one. I've heard that from multiple doctors on the show.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 26:17
It's just not fun, it's not fun anymore.
Katie Fogarty 26:18
Right.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 26:21
But the sleep is rough, man. I will say sleep hygiene is a big thing. And I think we all know what it is and most of us are not doing it. And so that is everything from really, those screens need to be off an hour before. And some people even advocate for like, no blue light in the evening. I think that's pretty extreme, I'm not sure how we're doing that. But that's a big one. You know, morning—things in your morning routine is going to impact your nighttime. So getting up fairly consistently, getting some sunlight, even if it's just, you know, in a window because it's winter, or if you're in an area where it's dark a lot like getting those lights, getting your vitamin D in, getting movement and exercise in on a daily basis earlier in the day. And, you know, not eating for two to four hours before bedtime, because I think that there's some indication that we probably have some normal blood sugar fluctuations, but they might start to disturb us more in the middle of the night.
Katie Fogarty 27:18
These are such great tips, these are such great tips. And, you know, you're right, we know them, but we don't always put them into practice. So this is such an excellent reminder, we need to remind ourselves about what we need to be doing. So I thank you for that. Quick question, you know, I was talking about my volcanic fury, my toxic rage, which I am going to share did, you know subside, because I think it was kind of like a perimenopause thing when I was really like all over the map. And once I was firmly, firmly in menopause, some of that just, you know, kind of fixed itself. But I also did stuff like sleep hygiene, you know, I'm trying to be good about reading before bed, blue light blocking glasses, having a bit more routine, and I do think that helped. But what are your other recommendations, besides, you know, just getting into bed early and screens that could help manage—I know that's sleep related, but to manage menopause and mood? Because that is really a challenge for women. And I truly believe that women don't talk about it as much as they talk about things like, you know, painful sex and, you know, that feels so intimate, but you're more willing to say I've got dry vagina, than you're willing to say like I've got toxic rage and was like, so inappropriately angry at my children.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 28:22
Yeah, yeah.
Katie Fogarty 28:23
So, help us out here because, you know, people have these mood swings.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 28:27
Absolutely.
Katie Fogarty 28:28
What can we be doing?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 28:28
And we're starting to really see more of a conversation in general about mental health, which is fantastic. But also there's a really—a really large amount of data accumulating around midlife mood changes and how impactful they are. And I—we see them often starting, as you mentioned in perimenopause with our hormone fluctuations. I think when we're menstruating, if we're menstruating, and we kind of can predict, you know what symptoms we're having at different parts of the cycle, it's a lot more manageable. When things start to get much more unpredictable, like maybe you didn't have any mood swings in terms of PMS, or maybe you had two or three days before your period. Now, it's the entire second half of your cycle, or you're skipping cycles, and it's going on for three weeks. You know, this is—
Katie Fogarty 29:18
It's like an eternity.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 29:19
Yeah. And you don't know when it's going to end because you don't know when the period's coming, you don't know what's going on. You don't know if it is your hormones, if it is your life. And then on top of it, might I add, that your life is changing. People at midlife are tired, they're exhausted, they're under pressure, they have a lot of responsibilities. And they're also maybe a little bit exhausted by being a female-bodied human on this planet and just dealing with the bullshit, sorry, that we deal with for decades and decades.
Katie Fogarty 29:49
Yes, of course.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 29:50
You start kind of getting fed up and then add to it that you're not sleeping. So, you know—
Katie Fogarty 29:54
And a pandemic, don't forget the pandemic.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 29:56
Oh my god.
Katie Fogarty 29:56
That was in there during like, you know, there was a lot, there's been a lot going on over the last few years and a lot of it's not good.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 30:03
Yeah, and there's always a lot going on.
Katie Fogarty 30:05
Right.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 30:05
So I think sometimes we start to—our resilience starts to deteriorate, to be honest. And some of it's hormonal, and some of it is not. But I will say that this is another area where like lifestyle medicine can really, really shine. So again, creating some kind of a self-care routine, whether that's meditation, journaling, some kind of morning, or at some point during the day, taking some time for yourself. We're all very busy, but we have choices that we can make. You know, we can make a choice to devote five minutes to ourselves for quiet breathing. I'm a surgeon with a full-time practice and multiple careers, and was a single mom for, you know, a while. Like, I'm not trying to shame anybody, but I'm just saying, like, if I could give myself two minutes, I'm pretty sure you can.
Katie Fogarty 31:03
Yes.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 31:03
So some of it is also just stopping and making the conscious choice. So I really am a big fan of some kind of meditative practice. It has been shown repeatedly to decrease blood pressure, increase oxygen flow, and really have a big impact on our nervous system and neurotransmitters. It's just—it's—it's free, it's available, there's a million YouTube videos on breathing, on meditation, on whatever. I think starting your day or ending your day, or both, are going to have a massive impact. Okay, this is not going to take away your financial stress, your children driving you nuts, your boss being toxic, but it's going to ground you again. We're getting back into it—into that present moment, because that's honestly the only thing you really have.
Katie Fogarty 31:49
I love this message so much. Because, you know, I think that—I don't want to make too many gendered assumptions, but like women are often just giving, giving, giving to other people and they don't prioritize themselves. And so the more that the medical community gets behind this message of like, meditation, yoga, these sort of lifestyle choices, as being medically sound and smart tools to add to your toolkit, I think women give themselves permission to do these things, then, because it's not—
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 32:20
There's reams of data on this. There really is.
Katie Fogarty 32:23
Right. I love that you're sharing this message.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 32:25
I'm—I'm happy to share the message because I feel evangelical about it. I mean, the other thing that I really want people to know is that everything does not have to be expensive and out of reach. Like there's—a lot of this stuff that you can—is free and available on the internet, you know. So and you don't—you don't do yoga, or it's expensive, you can't, but you can stretch. You can—you can, you know, you can make a foam roller out of—you can make a roller out of a blanket and stretch at the end of the day.
Katie Fogarty 32:52
There's so much for yoga also on YouTube too. I mean, there's just wonderful free yoga. I love that.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 32:57
YouTube is magic.
Katie Fogarty 33:00
It is magic. There's tons of great stuff. But don't get your medical advice there necessarily. You can get your yoga from there.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 33:05
No, no.
Katie Fogarty 33:06
All right, Dr. Suzanne, I've got one last question before we move into our speed round. I really want to cover this. Because, you know, we're moving into Heart Health Month when this is coming out. I follow you on social media, I've seen that one of your favorite herbs is mint, and I think of mint as helping with anxiety and sleep and being a tea, but you also share that there's some indication that it might be cardio protective, which I thought was really fascinating. You know, I know that cardiac health for women is impacted by menopause, we need to be doing a lot of things to take care of our cardiac health and, you know, maybe working with a doctor of that specialty is one. But what are other Ayurvedic principles that we should be incorporating to better care for our heart health?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 33:47
Oh my gosh, I mean, well again, the Ayurvedic perspective on that is a little complex. But in general, what I will say is a lot—and I know you've had other authors on, but one of the beautiful things about Ayurveda is the use of household spices and herbs, in cooking and in food, and how they interact together. So a lot of the cooking herbs that we use have antioxidant properties. And so those are going to have direct and indirect impact on heart health. So we know that pretty much all of the big ones, you know, whether it's diabetes, heart disease, cancer, autoimmune disorders, all have at some—part of the pathology is inflammation. Again, this is accepted scientifically in conventional science as well. And so a multi-layered approach of bringing antioxidants into our daily practices in our diet is going to benefit blood flow essentially, right? So we don't always understand when we're looking at a whole herb—it's not always clear what part is doing what, but mint does this and actually marjoram, thyme, oregano, basil, they all have similar properties that are also, by the way, a lot of antibacterial impact. So it's not exactly clear what that—what part might be impacting what. But these are all things you can easily bring into your lifestyle. And they're also like, relaxing. The other thing about it, and it's a subtle but profound impact, is the idea of us interacting with the environment, with the planet, with nature, reminds us that we are not separate from nature, we are part of nature. And that's sort of a holistic principle, which I think is both spiritually and mentally and psychologically—it's—it's kind of for me, it's very relieving. It's very grounding, it connects you. I mean, when we were talking about the mental health aspect, which has a big impact on our heart health. You know, we know that loneliness has been shown to be more dangerous to our health than smoking cigarettes. So taking time for ourself is really important. But taking the time to connect is really important.
Katie Fogarty 35:59
I love that.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 36:00
And if we're connecting with something bigger than ourselves and we're connecting with other human beings, it's not selfish, it is health promoting.
Katie Fogarty 36:08
Totally. So make a phenomenal, gigantic salad and sprinkle your basil over it and have it with a friend.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 36:15
Exactly, and invite a friend over.
Katie Fogarty 36:17
And enjoy it with a friend or enjoy a walk. I love that so much. All right, this has been so fun. I could talk to you forever, but we are moving into our speed round.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 36:25
Okay.
Katie Fogarty 36:25
This is just one- to two-word answers to end. So let's do this thing. I could talk about this menopause topic again and again:
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 36:34
Oh, plant medicine.
Katie Fogarty 36:36
We're in the cold winter months. What is a menopause-friendly tea to add to our routine?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 36:42
Oh, ginger and turmeric.
Katie Fogarty 36:45
Yum. All right, this menopause-friendly food is always in my grocery cart.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 36:51
Um, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts.
Katie Fogarty 36:55
Nice. I stock my pantry with this superhero spice:
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 37:00
Pepper.
Katie Fogarty 37:01
You've written an incredibly comprehensive and well-regarded book on menopause, The Menopause Bootcamp. What is another book, podcast, or resource you think our listeners should check out?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 37:12
Oh my god, but I have too many. I have too many. All of my friends' books, all of my friends' books. Sorry, I can't.
Katie Fogarty 37:20
Okay, I get it. I get—there's too many, there's so many good ones.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 37:23
There's too many.
Katie Fogarty 37:23
There are too many. Exactly. All right. I've got a bunch like—
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 37:27
I mean Kelly Casperson's work, Mary Claire Haver's work, Vonda Wright's work, Sharon Malone's work, Rachel Rubin's work, Heather Hirsch's work, Corinne Menn doesn't have a book, she should.
Katie Fogarty 37:39
I've had every one of those women on the show except for Dr.—was it Hirsch that you said? I need to—I gotta get her on my list.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 37:47
Yeah.
Katie Fogarty 37:47
Okay. All right, how about this one. This might be a little bit easier. Even doctors need to work on their wellbeing—this lifestyle choice or hack helps me fuel inner peace:
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 37:58
Oh, protecting my sleep.
Katie Fogarty 37:59
Ooh. Love it. I love it. It's so important. Okay, finally your one-word answer to complete this sentence, as I age I feel:
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 38:08
More me.
Katie Fogarty 38:09
Nice. Nice, nice, nice. This was so fun.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 38:13
Yes!
Katie Fogarty 38:13
I'm so glad we got to connect. I so appreciate your time, I know you're so busy. I loved hearing all your information. I'm super inspired to dive even deeper and incorporate a lot of your practices. But before we say goodbye, how can our listeners keep following you and your work?
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz 38:29
Oh my goodness. I mean, I'm most active on Instagram, but the best thing to do is go to my website and then you'll just find like absolutely everything. I do my bootcamp, my certification, all my socials. So that's thedoctorsuzanne.com with no punctuation.
Katie Fogarty 38:43
Phenomenal. That's going into my show notes. This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. Before I say goodbye, a quick favor. Last time I checked we were three—just three—reviews away from reaching 200 Apple podcast reviews. Did you learn something on today's show? Do you feel smarter, more informed, more supported? If so, please take five minutes to write a short review over on Apple podcasts. Every review helps other women find the show. Special thanks to Michael Mancini who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then, age boldly, beauties!