The Ultimate Guide to Menopause: How to Boost Your Metabolism, Build Muscle, & Balance Your Hormones

26:39So, Dr. Sims, you just explained the scientific, physiological, neurological, biological breakdown of what's actually happening. I would love to have you explain what that means about what we see in our bodies, what's happening to our stomachs and our waist and our arms being flat. Why do we gain weight or typically gain weight in certain areas? Why are certain parts of our body, and I know it has to do with every little aspect of what you just taught us, but why is it hanging out in our arms and our bellies? Those become the big fat storage areas. So when we're talking about it hanging out in our belly, it's not necessarily fat under the skin, which is subcutaneous fat.

27:28We start to see a minnow potter coming out. That's because it's that visceral fat, that dangerous fat that gets packed in around the organs, which pushes everything out. So we see like an increase in our belly fat, but it's not the easy to move under the skin type fat. It's deep fat. When we look at what we can do to modify that, of course, I'm going to have to say exercise. There's different intensities that will create a feedback mechanism to the liver or get signals to the liver, not to store it, but we'll get to that soon. Okay. Why does it come back here? Because this is another really...

28:06Back here, you're doing your... What's this thing called? The tricep. Thank you. Yeah. So when we are looking at that, that's a major fat storage area that's specific to XX. So when we're looking at... XX meaning women. Meaning women. Why do women store fat in our triceps? I call them my meat wings. Yeah. But like what, why? Why? Part of it is thermoregulation because we see that you have a different type of fat, what some people say metabolically active brown fat that increases heat production. So we have a little bit of that already. and there's a signal that we need to put more fat there to keep us warm.

28:42Gotcha. So we start to put it under our shoulder blades and our triceps, and we get that big minnow pot. We see a shrinking of our hips and thighs because it's not necessarily fat going away, it's muscle loss. So people are like, oh, I don't have any hips and thighs. What happened to my butt? It isn't because you've lost fat and put it somewhere else. It's because you've lost muscle, but the fat is still there. Wow. All right. That was incredible. And very enlightening. But don't be afraid. Okay. Well, I'm actually in awe that as this is happening, we're still going through life. We're still showing up for our jobs.

29:22We're still taking care of people. We're still trying to sleep through the night. And the message that I'm so excited about that you're going to teach us now is what can you actually do now that this is happening? to take better care of yourself and work with the body that you have instead of wishing you were in a different chapter of your life. Correct. Because you can thrive. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it doesn't require pharmaceutical intervention per se. Okay. So let's talk about the one thing that makes a huge difference in menopause. What is it? Taking control of your body through strength training.

30:06So I'll say there are a lot of tools on the table. Okay. And we've heard a lot of conversation about menopause hormone therapy. And I will say that that is a very useful tool, but it is not the be all end all because when you are using it, it just slows the rate of change. It doesn't stop it. What does that mean? So let's say you're on a hormone replacement therapy and which, you know, like you, I believe it's an incredibly powerful tool that every woman should at least have discussed with her by a medical professional so that she understands what's available, what's not, the risks, the benefits.

30:41But what do you mean by the fact that if you take hormone replacement therapy, it doesn't, like, what did you just say? It slows the rate of change, but it does not stop it. So what I mean by that is we're, our bodies, when it produces our own estrogen and progesterone, different levels and different pulses, so the response is completely different. When we start losing it, we're also having a change in perimenopause of our receptors. So we're down regulating receptors in certain parts, upregulating others. So then when you have a continuous dose of your menopause hormone therapy, it has a different response in the body.

31:19Even if it's called bioidentical, micronized, gets in, it's very bioavailable, there's still a different response. And the amount of hormones coming in is not the same as reproductive years or the same as an oral contraceptive pill. Those are much higher doses than when we're talking about menopause hormone therapy. So menopause hormone therapy, which I'm calling it, it's not hormone replacement therapy because I'm specific to menopause. Wait, what's the difference between HRT and MHT? So if we're talking about hormone replacement therapy, that's hormones that can be used at any time of life. So that even includes thyroid.

31:54Oh, so I'm using the incorrect term. So I'm basically walking around wearing an estrogen patch saying I'm on hormone replacement therapy and I'm actually on menopause hormone therapy. Okay, got it. It's a contention point in a lot of the research because people are like, oh, everyone says HRT. I'm like, but I'm not talking about younger women who need thyroid hormone or women who have had breast cancer and need certain different types of hormones. So HRT is like the umbrella. Got it. And then the subset that we're talking about That is the menopause hormone therapy. Got it. Thank you for that.

32:29And it is a therapy. So when we're looking at it, because its effects are different, you're still going to have changes in the body, an increase in fat mass, a decrease in lean mass, a slower rate of a decrease in your bone mass. But you have to put in the work to maintain and to build your lean mass and to build your bone, just the same as older men have to. because men age in that linear fashion. And as they start to get older, they had to focus on building mass, lean mass and bone. So for women, even if you get put on menopause hormone therapy, you still have to put in the work. It's not the be all end all.

33:08If I go on this, then I just have to do my Pilates. No, you go on it. It's a tool in the toolbox. There's still other lifestyle changes that you need to add in order to thrive. So let's take menopause hormone therapy off the table. Great. Are there things that you can do that stimulate the production of estrogen or progesterone naturally? No. So what we want to look at is how can we apply an external stress to the body that's going to create adaptive changes or changes the way the hormones used to encourage our body to make? Oh, okay. So hold on a second. Your body is going through this natural process and that there are things that you can do through exercise or intentional stress that creates a response in your muscles, in your gut, everything that you do.

33:59that changes your body and the receptors for hormones and that has important and unique benefits outside of menopause, like hormone therapy, that you should be doing to help your body actually adapt to this phase of life. Is that, am I getting this correctly? Absolutely. That's a completely new idea for me. So, I mean, there is a subset of women that can't use their hormone therapy, don't want to go on it. So when we're looking at, like I described, all the things that happen, right? So let's look at muscle because it's really important. We know that that's one of the most important things we want to hold on to.

34:41So when I say estrogen is responsible for muscle contraction, strength, how fast it is and how powerful it is and your lean mass development. Well, if we look at strength training and strength training is a central nervous system response, if we do it right. Okay. What does that mean? Strength training. So in other words, lifting weights. Lifting weights. Is a central nervous system response? Yeah. What is that? So when we first start lifting a load, our nerves respond. Our brain is like, oh my gosh, there's this load. What am I going to do? How do I recruit all these muscle fibers to create a contraction so that I can lift this load?

35:19So when we're looking at what's happening and we're losing estrogen that's responsible for how strong everything is, If we go into lifting heavier loads, power-based training, we're stimulating from the brain and the nerves to now say, oh my gosh, here's this heavy load. I need to coordinate really quickly. How do I do that? So then the body's like, okay, wait a second. We need more acetylcholine. Where's estrogen? Estrogen's not there. Okay, well, we'll pull acetylcholine and formulate more and stick it in those vesicles and those holding patterns. It's almost like, I'm sorry, I'm like this metaphor, but I'm just trying to track so desperately because I think I'm starting to get this.

35:59It's almost like when the star player on a team gets injured and they're out of the game. And now because that player's not there, the coach is like, let's look at the bench. Yep. And so by strength training and putting your body in an intentional, like stressed out space, it's going to go and do what it normally does. And normally it would be like, estrogen, where are you at? We got groceries to carry. We got a dumbbell to lift. We got something we need to do. Estrogen's not there. You're literally rewiring your body to work with what you have in it. Yes. Oh my God. Really? Yes. And so that's why this works.

36:36Yes. And it also like I talk about like the brain effects as well. So if you are creating a new pathway or a stronger pathway to be able to lift that load, it improves the neuroplasticity of the brain. So what I mean by that is the body or the brain's ability to change what it's doing and change how it's used to doing things. Yes. Which improves cognition. Yes. So when we're talking about strength training as being one of the most important things that a woman midlife onwards could do, it's not for aesthetics. It's for building strength from a central nervous system so that you can have the ability to walk down the street and slip on the snow and not fall over.

37:15Well, it's actually, you're blowing my mind, Dr. Sims, because what you're actually also saying is that the reason why strength training is so important, yes, for all those things, but it's also important because you're now no longer the victim of time and aging. Right. And you're no longer the victim of a very natural process that was perfect when women lived to the age of 50 or 55 and then were out of here. Or if they were older, then the animal would come and eat them because it couldn't get away. They weren't strong or fast enough. But what you're actually saying is that through strength training and some other things that you're going to recommend, you can intentionally make your body, brain, and entire functioning adapt.

38:04Yes. So that you can thrive without the estrogen and progesterone that you used to need. You're basically rewiring your body. Right. So this is what I mean. That's freaking cool. It's great. I never thought about it that way. So when I see women who start lifting at the late parts of perimenopause into postmenopause, often they find that they're stronger and they have better body composition over the course of five years than they did when they were in their early 30s. because it's such a strong, powerful impetus for building that and creating extra feedback from your skeletal muscle to circulating fat and where your body puts fat, not to store it.

38:48I want to highlight what you just said because I think it's really important for you to hear as you're listening. And I think it's very important as you think about who you're going to be sending all of this research that Dr. Sims is sharing with you. And we're about to go step by step by step into what you recommend exactly that we do in terms of the exercise routine. But you just said that our bodies, even at the age of 50 or 60 as we're going through menopause, there's a much stronger response to this kind of exercise than even when you had all the estrogen and progesterone when you were in your 30s.

39:26And so it's not too late. Don't sit there and be like, well, I never exercised, I've never been to the gym. No, you're actually saying the research shows the opposite. Right. It's never too late to start and you can always become stronger and build muscle. And we see a whole body of research on this. Dr. Sims, I have so many more questions, but I want to hit the pause button real quick and let's take a quick break so we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors. And I also want to ask you directly, share this with women in your life. everything that Dr. Sims is saying is blowing my mind and changing the way that I am going to start living my life starting tomorrow.

40:03And this research is so important and so are the medical facts and the women that you care about deserve to hear this. So please share it and don't go anywhere because Dr. Sims and I are going to be waiting for you after this short break. Stay with me.

40:24welcome back it's your buddy mel robbins and today you and i have the honor of getting to learn from the extraordinary dr stacy sims and we're learning about the specific things that women need to do to understand their health and to take control of their bodies and their strength and the potential of their life. So Dr. Sims, if you were to really dumb this down for me and I were to get like, all right, Dr. Sims says that at a, this is the minimum that I need to do to be able to take advantage of this extraordinary thing that my body can do to adapt and change how it functions, how my brain works, how my muscle, all of it through this type of exercise.

41:07What am I doing in a week exactly. Okay. I'm going to bring it back a step though. Okay, cool. So if we start talking about strength training and people who've never been in it before, there's where you start and then there's the ideal. Got it. Let's go with where do you start? So we want to move people to the ideal, which I'll explain after where do we start. Beautiful. When we start, we want people just to move against the load. So that means maybe body weight to start or maybe light dumbbells to start, but you're adding load to a specific movement. So it could be squats, could be pushups, could be overhead, press, whatever it is.

41:46But we want it to be relatively functional and it doesn't have to take a lot of time. So we can think 10 minutes, three times a week. Great. 10 minutes, three times a week? That's all to start. To start. Because then you are getting some of that neural adaptation that I was talking about. The nerves are coming, you're getting stronger, you're learning how to move. Your body's like, okay, this is new. I want to embrace this. Yes, you're going to have some muscle soreness. That's good because that means your body's adapting. And then we're going to work to the ideal and that's going to take time because this is what we're doing for the rest of our lives.

42:22It's not a training block for bikini season. Got it. Well, and I will, you have so many incredible resources and we will link to online resources and lots of different things that you can check out after you've listened to this in the show notes. But let's go to what would be the ideal program that Dr. Stacey Sims is telling me. Okay, Mel Robbins, girl, it's time. Let's go. Okay. So we've worked through, you know how to move well, you're comfortable lifting weights. So the ideal would be three times a week, total body heavy lifting. Okay. So this could be Monday, you're going to the gym and you have a squat focus.

43:02So what I mean by that is you might start with three by five at 80%. I can see your face. I'll explain it. We have three by five at 80 % and then two by three at 85%. What does that mean? So that means that when you go and you get a barbell, you put some weight on and it's at 80 % of the most that you can lift. So it changes day to day depending on how you feel. I like women to use what we call rating a perceived exertion. So that means how do I feel on a scale of one to 10? Okay. And when I'm lifting this weight, I want to feel an eight. Oh, I love an eight. An eight on a scale of one to 10. So that's around 80%.

43:43Okay. You're going to lift that particular weight five reps. And then you're going to - That's it? That's the first set. Okay. But five reps is good. It's good. Full motion, heavy load, five reps. And we're going to do it on the three minute. So you're going to have three minutes where you are going to do five repetitions of that 80%. And then you're going to sit down, you're going to rest the rest of the three minutes. Very important because we are working nervous system. We're not working metabolic stuff. We want the nerves to then go, okay, I can do this again. So then you're going to do the exact same thing, another five reps at 80%, wait the rest of the three minutes.

44:22Then you're going to add a little bit more weight. So you're about almost a nine for your last two sets. So then you're going to go and you go three reps only at 80%. In that three minute, you rest the rest of three minutes. I'm liking this. And then you do another three at that 85 % and rest the rest of three minutes. So if you think about it, it's 15 minutes of heavy squat work, right? If that's all you have time to do in the gym that day, good, out of there. If you have a little bit more time and you want to add to it, well, then we can look at a second set of complementary work. So this might be what we call Bulgarian split squats, where you have one foot on the bench and the other one in front of you, and you have two weights in your hand, and you're doing kind of lunges where your front leg is going up and down.

45:15Yeah, I hate these. Yeah. I don't do these because I hate these, but now I'm going to be doing these. Yeah, you're going to do this. Because I only have to do five. Right. And then I rest. And then you rest. And then I add a little more. Yep. And then I rest. Yep. And then I'm done. Exactly. So that would be Monday. Okay. And then Wednesday, we do a push pull. So you're like bench press, overhead press, same thing. We're done. And then we do five. Yep. That's it. Yep. And then Thursday, same thing, but we're looking at like deadlifts and hip thrust. So we're working all the gluten posterior chain.

45:47And we're going to link to resources that you can check out. And of course, Next Level has all kinds of photos. And this is like a manual that can walk you through it, this amazing bestselling book. For a postmenopausal woman who's walking into a gym today, what would you say the top three things are she should do? Ignore the cardio machines, ignore the classes, and we want to go to where the strength training is. And we look at it as, Let's have some fun here. Okay. So it could be dumbbells. It could be the barbell. It could be the sled. I love the sled because it's fun. It's a total body effort where you put some weight on, you push it, and then you can pull it and push it and pull it.

46:28Completely gasses you. So total body strength. Lots of fun little things you could do, but really try to get out of the mindset that women deserve to be in the elliptical, cardio, treadmill area and not in the weight room because that's not true. So you mentioned cardio. Are we not doing cardio? I hate cardio. So if you're saying I'm not doing cardio, I'm glad. But are we supposed to do cardio? A little bit, yeah. And what does a little bit mean? Like what are we doing that actually helps us activate and change our body? Yeah. Okay. So when we're looking at cardio, it's all about the intensity.

47:04And this is for women? Perimenopause onwards. Okay. So when estrogen starts to drop, progesterone starts to drop, this is the protocol from Dr. Sims. What is it? So we want to either do true high intensity interval training or sprint interval training. Which one's easier? They're both relatively difficult. It's just sprint interval is much shorter. Okay. I'll take that one. I'm in. I'm in coach. Okay. I'm sorry. I just like, I'm just being honest here. Like I want to be successful. So I'd like to know what could I get the biggest bang for my buck? And if I'm not in a class where somebody's screaming at me and I don't feel publicly humiliated if I drop out, I need something that's shorter.

47:49So what is actually sprint interval training? So sprint interval training is a subset of high-intensity interval training. And I'll explain that one after sprint interval training. So if we look at sprint interval training, it is as hard as you can possibly go for 30 seconds or less, ideally 30 seconds, but some people make 20. And then you have a full minute and a half to two minutes recovery between. And when you go to do this, the recovery is essential because you want to be able to go do that 30 seconds just as hard, if not harder. Okay. And it could be a finisher. We call it a finisher. So maybe you've just done your hip thrusts and deadlifts, and then you go to the assault bike, or maybe you go to battle ropes and you go as hard as you can for 30 seconds.

48:33Okay. And then you recover, you do that again, recover, and then see, can you hit that same intensity on the third one? If you cannot, then you don't do it. Oh, I love that. So it's all about the intensity and the quality. The one overarching theme when we get to peri and postmenopause, it's not about volume. It's about the quality of the work that you are doing. So you go in, you make it work for you. It's purposeful. You know that you're going to do squats, you make it work for you. You know that you're going to do sprint interval training, make it a finisher, or maybe you're doing it first thing in the morning when you get up in your house and maybe you're running or maybe you have an elliptical, maybe you're doing kettlebell swings, but you make it work for you because it's about the quality, not the quantity.

49:16And here's what I love about what you're teaching us and about all your research is that I think one of the things at least that happened for me and that a lot of my friends and I are complaining about to each other is that if all the things that you used to do are no longer working and you feel discouraged already, I have been telling myself this lie that's actually not true based on the research that means I've got to do a lot more. Oh, yeah. And then I feel even more discouraged because I already have no time and I'm already feeling like I'm not at home in my body. And so the idea based on this research and the results that you're getting and the science that you've just explained is that I could be actually more efficient and more effective in less time by understanding my body and what it needs at this moment in my life.

50:07That's exciting. Yeah. And it's kind of a mind shift for a lot of women who are so used to the idea that we have to go to the gym or we have to go out and smash ourselves for an hour or more. We're not going to get any results. And you feel guilty because you only have 20 minutes. And I'd rather do nothing than 20 minutes. Actually, no, 20 minutes is way better because if you're focused and you're doing the right intensities in 20 minutes, that goes so much further for everything that you want than an hour and a half as a slog. And I also just want to say that, you know, one of my friends was like, weightlifting, but I don't want to bulk up.

50:44And I'm like, do you know how long you need to spend in a gym to bulk up? And how much food you need to eat? That is not happening by accident. So I think that that's one of those concerns that's actually not real. It takes a lot of abundance to build muscle. And that's a misconception that if I eat a lot, then I'm going to get fat. If you are strength training, you're going to build muscle. But in order to really bulk up like a lot of the Olympians that you see or the professional CrossFitters, that's their job. Their job to eat and to lift. For the normal woman who's doing three times a week strength training, they're not going to get bulky.

51:20They'll get, I hate the word toned, but that tends to be their rhetoric in a lot of the fitness industry. What word do you like instead? Muscle definition, strength. Yeah, I like that too. Strength. You get stronger. You get stronger. Yeah. Tighter. Stronger. I like tighter. Better posture. Yes. Better stress resilience. Yeah. All of those things. And I'd like the lumps and the bumps around my bra straps to go away. That would be awesome. Yeah. Okay, cool. Let's switch gears and talk about nutrition. What are the most common mistakes that women make when it comes to nutrition during peri and menopause?

51:54I will first want to do high intensity interval. Oh, you know, I skipped it on purpose because I was hoping we were just going to skip that. Yes. Uh-huh. I was. Yes. Okay. We can do high intensity. I need to do it because I need to define it for you, the listener. Okay. Because we hear and see so much marketing that's being pushed out by different fitness groups and classes and stuff that is geared for the 40 plus woman. But I see and I'm notorious for calling them out. So I will not be afraid to call them out. We look at Orange Theory. We look at F45. Their marketing is to the subset of women that are afraid because their body comp is changing in a way that they can't control or think they can't control.

52:35And the messaging is you just got to come and you got to smash yourself with these intervals. But what happens in those types of classes... And this is for 40 and 50. Like go if you're 20 or 30, but if you're 40 or 50... If you're in your late 30s, early 40s, you are in perimenopause onwards, not appropriate. Why is it not appropriate? Because you don't get into true high intensity. So when we look at what is true high-intensity interval training, it's what we call polarized training, where you go hard in the interval, and you have adequate time to recover to be able to go hard again. Oh, this is what you just taught us, which is that 30-second thing, and then I'm sitting on the bench breathing.

53:14Yeah. Yes, okay. But with high-intensity, not sprint intervals, sprint intervals is 30 seconds or less, high-intensity interval training, the interval is a bit longer. It could be one to four minutes, and then you have variable recovery. This is more of a metabolic stress, but it's not something that is going to smash you for 45 to 50 minutes because we can't ideally hold the proper intensity that long. So with these classes, women are being put in moderate intensity. And the problem with moderate intensity is it's too easy to be hard to invoke change that we want. Got it. Okay. And it's too hard to be easy to allow our bodies to recover.

53:50So women go to these classes, they feel like they've had a good workout because they're completely smashed, but then they are in a point where they're tired but wired, they can't sleep well, they're not losing belly fat, they're getting injured because they are staying in an intensity that doesn't do much for them. And if you're doing exercise that is not effective, you're probably also just jacking your cortisol. Right. And since estrogen and progesterone, they've gone and they're not there to help break it down, that's why you're going to feel like you're so stressed. I'm getting this. What are the biggest mistakes that women who are peri or postmenopausal are making with nutrition?

54:34I'll give you a case scenario that I see all the time. Great. Okay. So a woman comes in, she's in her mid-40s, she's doing all the things, she is putting body fat on, even though she's exercising, she thinks she's eating a clean diet. And you talk and find out that she's really worried about putting on more weight, so she's cut her calories and increased her training. So when I look, I'm like, well, we need to drop the training and increase the food. And automatically get the eyeball of what? What's going on? You want me to drop my training and increase my food? It's going to make me fat. No. Because when we're looking at nutrition, we are under the idea that if we eat more, that we put on fat.

55:19But for the most part, women who are stressed out and really super busy don't eat enough. We also have this fear of carbohydrate. Women need more carbohydrate. When we're perimenopause into postmenopause and we have issues with insulin and insulin sensitivity, the type of carbohydrate we eat becomes important. Like what? What do we need to eat? So we want to look at more fruit and veg and whole grains. Not only does that help with insulin, but it also helps with our gut microbiome, right? Because we want to feed our little gut bugs to be really crazily diverse, right? So if we are being very restrictive, reducing the amount of carbohydrate that we're having, we often restrict fruit and veg, and that is the food for our gut.

56:02Is the rule of thumb that you should be trying to eat like your ideal body weight and protein also count for women and menopause and very menopause? We try to get women to have about one gram per pound of body weight. And the reason for that is... What you are now or what you want to be? What you are currently. Okay. And then as your weight comes down, your protein increase comes down. But ideally, if we all... I don't think I could get 150 grams of protein in. You could. Really? Yeah. How the hell, how am I going to do that? Like, I don't want to eat 15 eggs. No, you don't have to. And I get that a lot.

56:41So it's like, we're not looking at all animal products and we're not looking at 15 cans of beans. What we're looking at is a wide variety of things. So say you have a salad for lunch. It's not just salad with side of chicken. We're looking at mixed greens. We're looking at putting in some green peas, some nuts, some seeds, maybe some black beans. a little bit of cheese, like feta cheese, a little bit of chicken. And then you're looking at a plate that has around 30 to 40 grams of protein from all different types of sources. So if we do that a few times a day, you're getting up to 120. And then if you're like your protein coffee, there's your 150.

57:22The protein coffee, which I'm going to explain real quick, is something I learned from you. you literally take protein powder and put it in your milk of choice, stir it up, and then put in your espresso. You throw it in the fridge at night. Yep. And then you wake up in the morning, you got an iced freaking protein coffee that tastes like a smoothie and it has 30 grams of protein in it. Take that puppy on a walk, drive with it to the gym, have it in the car as you're driving the kids to school. Like that is the most genius tip in the world. So easy and so yummy. I love that. How do stress and poor sleep make menopause symptoms like hot flashes and brain fog worse?

58:00When we think about sleep, no one actually understands why we need to sleep. Because if you think about it from a logical standpoint to like be knocked out and unconscious in an area where you could be attacked doesn't make sense. But for some reason, every mammal needs sleep for regeneration purposes, brain transmissions and synapses and everything, right? So when we get into perimenopause, because we are so stressed from a nervous system standpoint, because again, we're having all these changes in our hormones and we're sympathetically driven, then we can't get into our deep reparative sleep because we can't actually access parasympathetic responses very well.

58:38So I say that there are these primary four buckets that we look at. Okay. First one is mindfulness and sleep. Then we have physical activity, nutrition, and community. So if we are looking at all the things that we're talking about today, I want you, the listener, to think about one of those four buckets. Say them again. So we have mindfulness and sleep. They go hand in hand. Physical activity, nutrition, and community, or the social part. Okay. So I want you, the listener, to pick one of those things to work on over the next two to three weeks. And that's the only thing you have to focus on because making change is huge.

59:16Now, if I want to focus on mindfulness and sleep, what does the research say that I need to do? And does the drop in estrogen and progesterone, is that impacting my sleep? Absolutely. Okay, so what do I do? So what do you do? So when we're talking about mindfulness and sleep, the mindfulness is to increase parasympathetic drive. So I, as a scientist and as someone who's been entrenched in the medical, right, and so very westernized, I still tell people there's been a lot of recent research on cognitive behavior therapy and how much more powerful that is than even using menopause hormone therapy or other supplements for helping with sleep.

1:00:01So mindfulness is part of that CBT. It's not the full, but that's one piece that everyone can action. I find first thing in the morning when no one else is up, that's where I can have my piece. If I don't have that, then the rest of my day is off kilter. so it's something that you can practice on putting in does it mean you have to get up at 4 30 in the morning no because i want you to spend time sleeping if you can't find it but maybe it's you dropped your kids off and now you're sitting in the car before you get into traffic take this five to ten minutes with the windows up and just have that peace dr sims what um strategies do recommend that are proven by your research to help manage increased anxiety and mood swings that women experience during menopause?

1:00:51This is where we can look at some of the supplements that are out there. So we look at L-theanine. L-theanine is a non-protein amino acid that is used by the brain for parasympathetic activation. We can also look at apigenin, which is a key component of chamomile tea that relaxes you that you can get as a supplement. Those two together really do help invoke more parasympathetic and reduces anxiety. I often recommend using it before sleep because then it does help with that parasympathetic. The other thing is creatine. So creatine, primarily creatine monohydrate. We look at CreaPure because then we know that it's pure creatine.

1:01:32If it saturates the brain, we see that there's research to show women who are using three to five grams of creatine can get out of a depressive and anxious episode a lot faster than women who are just using an SSRI. So if we're looking at anxiety meds and how they affect anxiety and depression, I'm not saying get off them, but I'm saying that you can complement it with creatine, or if you're someone who has not gone on them and you're having all these mood swings, to use creatine because it is something that significantly helps with the moderation of brain metabolism, which we need to help with our moods.

1:02:10In your research, have you found a connection between the strength training? I mean, we've kind of talked about that grocery example of even holding the bags of groceries stimulates a nerve response, stimulates this kind of stress response where you're actually training your body to get stronger under a stressful situation, which is basically what you're also doing when you lift weights, right? You're like putting yourself into a stressful body state, which then builds strength. Is there a connection between doing that and lowering anxiety or mood swings or even your stress response? Absolutely.

1:02:46We see a lot of the psychological research that's showing if we're doing strength training and we're modulating brain synapse, we're improving our ability to be stress resilient, and that feeds forward to reducing anxiety and depression. There's a really cool study that just came out on boys and girls in puberty who have a really high anxiety and depressive level, strength training three times a week, and their moods and ability to cope completely change over the course of 12 weeks. Wow. So it's a very powerful tool and it's not a pharmaceutical, which is why I think people don't look at it that way.

1:03:26But exercise, because our body is made to move and adapt, it creates such a positive stress and a positive health outcome that people are like, why were we not doing this before? it's because a lot of people don't understand they'll give the generalized instruction of just exercise but when we get down to the nuts and bolts of what is it how do we do it why is it for me we see all these physiological and biological changes that occur that then improve our health outcomes it's incredible what makes so much sense i mean you'd said earlier that it's really training your nervous system. And so it would make sense that if you do strength training and you're developing strength in a stressful situation, that you are naturally going to be better at handling stressful situations in life.

1:04:20Yes. Yeah. It's about building stress resilience. What is it possible to feel in terms of the changes of what your life can feel like if you really implement some of these changes, you implement the strength training, you implement some of the sprint training, you really pay attention to diet and sleep and that 10-minute rule and some of the other things that you've talked about. What is it possible to feel? Empowered. Because when you have the education and you put the steps into play, then you understand what's happening to your body and you can adapt and change and modify things to counter what's happening.

1:04:58Because I think we've gotten to this point with our generation who's been fit and told we can do whatever we want and we can achieve whatever we want and then boom, our bodies aren't playing ball, right? And now that we're talking about it and we're being educated about what's happening, we can take the reins again and we can be very individualistic to what's happening to me and my body. How can I take control of it and what do I need to do to create the adaptation that I need to improve myself and my symptoms. And there's the generalization of all the guidelines I've given. But if you're someone who's like, well, sprint interval, it doesn't work for me, but high intensity gives me my old feeling of runner's high and it's improving all these things that I'm finding, then go for it.

1:05:44Strength training, a lot of women don't love it, but you can learn to love it. I didn't love it. Now I love it because I find a sense of elation more than smashing. Because again, it's central nervous system. So when you get out, you feel like, yeah, I feel strong and powerful. I don't feel completely smashed from being in the gym. So there's lots of different things that you can do with the tools in the toolbox to then take and say, I own you, menopause. You don't own me. I, you blew my mind today. Like I am going to look at the rest of my life completely differently. Fantastic. I look at what is possible in my body completely differently.

1:06:24I am about to open up my contacts and share this conversation with probably 75 women because I have a totally different understanding of what is possible, of what is happening, of the tools, whether it's menopause, hormone therapy, but more importantly, how you've just educated and empowered me to think about the intelligent and amazing design of my body to be able to adapt, thrive, and win at this next chapter. And so I just am so grateful. What are your parting words? Not to be afraid, because I've had younger women in their 30s say, I'm so afraid. With all this conversation around menopause, I'm so afraid.

1:07:15It's like, well, don't be afraid because it happens to everyone who's had a menstrual cycle in their life. It's coming. It's coming. But having the knowledge and the tools, it's not something to be afraid of. It's something to know that it's there. It's part of a life. There are other cultures where there is no word for hot flush. There is no real word for menopause. It is just something that happens. and our culture has made it such a negative thing, right? I want us to all change that rhetoric and conversation. Women don't die at 40. Research doesn't stop for women at 40. We have another 40 years.

1:07:52Let's not be afraid of it. Let's really figure out what's going on so that we have those tools to be empowered, to be able to make the changes we need. Because again, we're not an algorithm. We don't age the same as men. That's why up to this point, no one's had these conversations. But now that we're having these conversations, we know what to do. So I want women to go away not being afraid. I want you as a listener to take one of these things and implement over the next couple of weeks and then slowly build from there. Because it's such an amazing, powerful tool to have, to have that education and to be able to invoke change to improve how you're feeling in the moment and also how you're feeling 5, 10, 15 years down the line.

1:08:33Well, Dr. Stacey Sims, I'm trying the three days a week of the 20-minute strength training. I am going to be using the programs that we link to. I cannot thank you enough for hopping on a plane and flying here all the way from New Zealand. and this is one of those conversations that I believe is going to change the trajectory of millions of people's lives and I personally feel incredibly empowered about this next chapter of my life because I understand what's happening and I actually am excited to try these tools. So thank you, thank you, thank you. You're welcome, I'm excited. Me too. And I'm also excited for you and I wanna thank you for being here, for listening to this, for sharing this with all of the women in your life.

1:09:22I mean, this blew my mind. I'm sure it blew your mind. The research is incredible. Dr. Sims is incredible, and you're incredible too. And one more thing, in case no one else tells you, I just want to tell you that I love you. And I love you because you're taking time, and you don't have a lot of time, to learn about your health. You're taking time to empower yourself. I think that is the coolest thing in the world. And because you actually listened to this, I have zero doubt that you have the ability to create a better life. And now you have a roadmap to go do it using science. So use it and share it.

1:09:56All right. I will see you in a few days. I'll be waiting in the very next episode to welcome you in the moment you play. I'll see you there.

1:10:06She's a renowned researcher and has directed research programs at Stanford, Auckland University of Technology, and the University of Wacato. Did I say it right? I said it right. Okay. I could barely, I literally picked up the 120 and went like, and my arms like this, like I had to use this hand to get it up. Okay. We're ready. Okay. Here we go. Please help me welcome Dr. Stacey Sims to the Mel Robbins podcast. And the stuff that you actually need to be doing, wait, and the stuff you actually need to, need to do isn't work. Okay. Because it doesn't work for the female. Okay. So hold on a second.

1:10:41Uh, let's see. Where did it go? Okay, 107 research studies, right? Great, well, everyone. We're out to you higher. Great job, everybody. That's a wrap.

1:10:56Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know, what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist. And this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Sirius XM Podcasts.

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