Women in the Arena
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Women in the Arena
You're Not Losing it, You're In Menopause with Emma Seville
When menopause hits, it can feel like you're losing your mind. The symptoms—from anxiety and brain fog to crawly skin sensations and sleep disturbances—often arrive without warning and can disrupt every aspect of life. But as UK menopause expert Emma Seville explains, these experiences aren't signs of weakness; they're natural biological responses to changing hormone levels that affect 51% of the world's population.
Our conversation peels back the layers of shame and confusion surrounding this life transition, offering a refreshingly honest look at what happens during perimenopause and menopause. Emma walks us through the science of how declining progesterone affects GABA levels in the brain, triggering anxiety, while fluctuating estrogen creates the perfect storm for mood swings. She explains why these hormonal shifts impact everything from sleep quality to muscle mass, brain function to gut health.
What makes this discussion truly valuable are the practical, accessible solutions Emma shares. Morning sunlight exposure for better sleep. Strength training to counter muscle loss. Walking with female friends to naturally lower cortisol levels. The beauty of these approaches? Most cost nothing and require minimal time investment, yet deliver significant benefits for managing symptoms and protecting long-term health.
We also tackle the workplace challenges menopausal women face. While some UK companies have implemented formal menopause policies, many women worldwide struggle silently, often contemplating leaving careers they've built over decades. Emma offers strategies for having these difficult conversations with employers and colleagues, emphasizing that education and openness benefit everyone.
Whether you're currently experiencing symptoms, approaching this life stage, or simply want to better understand what the women in your life might be going through, this episode provides a roadmap for navigating menopause with greater ease and confidence. Ready to transform this challenging transition into an opportunity for growth? Listen now and discover how to reclaim your power during menopause.
https://www.yourmenopausetoolkit.com/
https://substack.com/@emmaseville?r=1phz4j&utm_medium=ios
https://www.instagram.com/yourmenopausetoolkit/profilecard/?igsh=MTZzZHo4c3duMTJrZg%3D%3D
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me again this week. This week, my guest is joining me from the UK. My guest this week is a Burrell-educated menopause expert. That's right, we're going to talk about menopause and she is going to talk to us about tools and practical solutions to help women live a long life, from now into ripe old age, for us to be happier, healthier and live more energetic and empower strong lives. It is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you Emma. Emma, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
Emma :Oh hello, audra. It's lovely to be here and thank you for inviting me. It's so exciting.
Audra :It's lovely to be here and thank you for inviting me. It's so exciting. Well, I'm so excited for you to be here because I actually started following you on social media because you were talking about menopause in such a way that was approachable, it wasn't scary, it didn't have anything that made me feel embarrassed or that I should be hiding these things that I was feeling. And I immediately reached out to you and said, emma, I want to talk about these symptoms that I'm feeling and that other women are feeling, because I don't want to feel alone and I don't want other women to feel alone, so would you be on my show? And that's how we met. So that's why we're here.
Emma :Yeah, absolutely, and I'm really flattered that you felt so happy and secure with me and, to you know, be so vulnerable with me as to share your experience, and I really hope it helps loads of other women.
Audra :So before we jump into that, Emma, first tell everybody what do you do, what is the name of your organization and what do you do.
Emma :I focus on peri to post-menopause that time, you know, with all the symptoms, and I work with a very holistic point of view. I have nothing against HRT whatsoever, but I specialize in helping women with all the other things that go alongside HRT. Or, if you can't take HRT, help you, you know, navigate your way through it. Hrt help you, you know, navigate your way through it. So, everything from movement, nutrition, you know mental health to a certain degree. You know all the tools that can help us with sleep and lifestyle. So, yeah, I coach women one-to-one and I work within companies doing training for women as well. Yeah, so I just want to empower as many women as possible and I think we all deserve to know as much as possible about what's going on in our bodies and brains at this time.
Audra :Because it's really confusing. It changes, at least for me. It has changed from day to day, from month to month, and I'm really glad that you mentioned that you work with companies, because the thing about menopause with, just like any other hormone, I can't turn it off when I go to work. I would love to be able to turn it off when I go to work, but it still follows me there. So I think that it's really interesting that you get to work with companies, which is something that the UK is definitely ahead of us with the corporations that are in the US. Tell us a little bit before we start jumping into the nitty gritty of what we experience and the symptoms and whatnot. Tell us what you do with corporations there in the UK and the work that you do to help corporations understand what their female employees are experiencing and what they can do to help them.
Emma :Yeah, so I'm really committed to helping women themselves understand what is going on.
Emma :So I have a series of four hour long um online I can't think of the word brain fog presentations that offer to you know as many people as companies want to fit on a Zoom or a Teams meeting with a Q&A after every one, and you know people send me questions and all the rest of it, and I also offer an hour long piece of work, which is basically everything that revolves around.
Emma :You know the workplace, so the men that are working there can also take part in that and learn a little bit more about what's going on for women at this time, hopefully become a bit more empathetic and knowledgeable, so you know they aren't freaked out by any symptoms or feel the need to ridicule or you know horrible things happen in the workspace and women feel very disempowered and vulnerable, and education can really help with all that as well. So, yeah, it's hugely important. It shouldn't be a mystery and it you know it happens to 51% of the population of the world human population, some animals. It's not a mystery, it's just something that happens and everyone should grow up understanding it.
Audra :Yeah, it's not like we signed up for this. It's not like yes, please, please, make us feel like we're losing our minds. I didn't ask for this. This just is happening to me, and when you and I had met, you had mentioned something that I'd never heard of, and it blew my mind that there are some corporations out there that have policies on menopause. What is that? What is a menopause policy?
Emma :Well, it's basically whatever that company wants to make it into. What is that? What is a menopause policy? It depends on the size of the company. It depends on a lot of things.
Emma :Some companies take it wholeheartedly and have a place for women to go to somebody, to talk to somebody that's been trained, who can help them in management or HR or on other companies. Just tick a little box and you know I don't know what they do, but the more more you do, the better. Obviously because women leave their jobs. Women can't cope and they feel so useless that they leave in their droves or they feel like they want to leave, they take sick days and that's all that talent, all that lifetime of work is going down the drain. So it's in companies' favor to look after their workforce as they would with anything else.
Emma :I don't know how the mental health policies are. Time of work is going down the drain, so it's in companies' favor to look after their workforce as they would with anything else. I don't know how the mental health policies are in the US, but there's so much more talk about mental health and well-being and it should be the same in the menopause space, because it's just ridiculous not to support women at this time and you need a little bit of extra support. You need a little bit of a break, you need the odd day to work from home and some flexible time. And there's no loss for a company in that. It's just that the workplace has been made and designed around men who have a wife at home making the dinner. That's the truth of the matter. The working day and women are cyclical beings and we cycle not only through puberty and menopause time, but every month in between that as well, and that needs to be taken into consideration. It's a no-brainer, it's not a radical thought, it's just obvious when you think about it.
Audra :Well, sometimes when it's obvious, it isn't necessarily obvious to everybody. As far as mental health is concerned, in the US it certainly has become a more mainstream conversation and those policies are getting better, but we still don't have great policies around maternity leave, so we're still trying to overcome that hurdle. So having policies around menopause is definitely a bridge too far yet, but hopefully we'll get there, which is one of the reasons why we wanted to have this conversation. So let's dive into this menopause conversation and the myriad of experiences and the different symptoms that women can experience and they can have, and it's different for everyone. There's a spectrum of different kinds of symptoms that you can have and you may not have them all at once. They might have ranges and you might have mild ones, medium ones and everything in between, and I have been very transparent with everybody.
Audra :I am smack dab in the middle of menopause. I take HRT because nothing else worked for me. I tried everything else and in my case, my symptoms were very severe, very, very, very severe, and I told Emma before we got on that I would share my symptoms. And my symptoms got extremely significant this past spring that they started to affect my mental health so badly that my anxiety was extremely high and I started to have suicidal ideology because it was just so overwhelming. I felt like I was losing my mind. I knew it was menopausal. It still made me feel crazy.
Audra :I almost took leave of absence from my job. Exactly what we were explaining. I almost had my husband take a leave of absence from my job Exactly what we were explaining. I almost had my husband take a leave of absence from his job because I didn't trust myself being at home. Luckily, hrt worked, luckily and my hormones are balanced out and I feel great. But it was a rough road and nobody nobody could relate to me because it's a spectrum, like I explained to you. It's a spectrum and what I was feeling not everybody was experiencing was feeling. So that's why I met Emma is because she was talking about this and making it normal, is because she was talking about this and making it normal and I wanted it to make it normal for all of you. So, emma, I want you to speak to everybody and make everybody else feel normal about their symptoms.
Emma :Yeah Well, there's so many symptoms.
Emma :There's everything from. Everyone knows about hot flushes and night sweats. Often the doctors only agree with women about being in perimenopause if they have hot flushes, but many women never have hot flushes, but they may have really bad anxiety. The fact is, you go into perimenopause as your progesterone levels lower, so progesterone is one of the hormones. It's produced by your ovaries. As your ovaries stop producing eggs, your progesterone gets very low. It gets low, low, low. That affects your GABA levels in your brain, which is the calming neurochemical. So it's not difficult to see that anxiety can be one of the biggest things, and at that time your estrogen is actually really high. It might even go shooting up to levels that are higher than they've ever been before.
Emma :You're not low in estrogen then, although it can plummet down again. It's varying every day all the time, which is where we get mood swings. Your periods can be ridiculously heavy. Your libido can just fall off. You just don't. It's gone. Where's it gone? And then later on, a few years later, your estrogen gets lower, as well as your progesterone, and that's when you get low. You feel really low. So you're not just anxious, you can be feeling very low as well.
Emma :And if you're in a stressful job and you've got to show up every day feeling like that, that's hardcore, that's impossible. To show up every day feeling like that, that's hardcore, that's impossible. You can't carry on like that. And I think it's the perfect storm. If you're taking a lot on your shoulders, you know you need, you need a. You need less on your shoulders, basically.
Emma :So the symptoms are really far ranging. With low oestrogen, there's loads of funny things like itchy skin, itchy ears. You might really ache. A lot of the symptoms can be signs of underlying problems that you've always had, and it's a really good opportunity to fix those problems. This is where someone like me comes in, because the HRT will help immeasurably for loads of women and that's fantastic. But you're not getting the amount of estrogen you are automatically making in your 30s and 20s and 30s, so you're not going to feel like you did. Then, in all likelihood, you'll feel a lot better and you'll be able to get through this time, but any symptoms should really be seen as an opportunity. Um, and yeah, there's just so many of them. There's something like 34 37 symptoms, I think, recorded, but some of them might be things that are already going on, which are exacerbated by lower estrogen, because you have estrogen receptors all over your body, basically, and the things to look out for are your brain health, bone health, muscle.
Emma :You know there's a lot you can do and you're you need to change things up. You need to really double down on your nutrition, hydration, the way you move, your exercise, your stretching, your sleep hygiene, your lifestyle choices Just all of that stuff does make a huge difference and it is really important because, going forward into the rest of your life and as you're elderly, you want to be able to get out of your chair. You don't want to lose your balance, you don't want to break your bones very easily. All the things you do now will really set you up for a really brilliant old age. I'm really passionate about it and they're all really doable. All the things you do, you know you don't have to pay a lot of money to be able to do them. You can do this stuff.
Audra :Well, what I noticed, one of my weird symptoms. Now most of my severe stuff is gone. Most of it is gone, thank goodness. Like I can think, I still have a little bit of brain fog, but I don't know if that's. I don't know if that's me, because I have a stressful job and you know. That's just. I have a lot of stuff going on in my head, but one of the new weird things is, every once in a while, I have this weird crawly skin feeling. Every once in a while I'm like weird crawly skin feeling. Every once in a while I'm like it feels like a bug. It's not a bug, it's my skin. Yeah, which is really interesting. I'm like what is that? But I looked it up. Sure enough, it's menopause. I'm like that's interesting. But I started to do exactly what you have said is I'm very careful with my nutrition.
Audra :I'm cutting out as much sugar as I possibly can. Brilliant, can I eat fruit? Obviously I try to cut out as much processed bread as I can, because that's not good for me either, because that also turns into sugar. Eat as much fresh vegetables as I can. I don't eat a whole lot of red meat. Try to eat as much lean protein as I can. I already drink a bunch of water. I live in Arizona. You can't survive without it. I've cut out as much caffeine as I possibly can and I weight train as much as possible. Yeah, this is all stuff that I do. The one thing that I have not been able to lick is sleeping.
Emma :I don't know why, but sleeping is not my friend, okay so maybe you're missing a little bit of the sleep hygiene recipe for perfect sleep, so I'd say morning light. So when you wake up and you make your first drink of the day, do you ever go outside with it and sit outside?
Audra :I don't. I usually get out of bed, um, the first thing I do is look at my phone and see what what's happening. Have I been? Have I been emailed overnight? Is there something? Is there something on fire? Basically, yeah, I, I check my meetings for the day. I get up and get I do drink a glass of water. The first thing I do in the morning is I drink a glass of water, but no, I don't typically go outside, right it's. I usually open the door to let the dogs out, but no, I don't go outside okay.
Emma :So from now on, I want you to put off looking at your phone because you're not being paid yet, right? You're not, are you? No, not yet. Technically no, and nobody is going to be on fire and if they were, you wouldn't be able to fix it via your phone. So you're going to put your phone and you're going to go outside with your dogs and you're going to watch them gambling about and they're going to make you laugh and you're going to get five to ten minutes of that beautiful Arizona light in your eyes and you're not going to feel cold like you would where I was, where I am, and you're going to do that every single morning and then at night, when you let the dogs out for their last wee wee, you're going to go out with them again and you're going to get that lovely evening light in your eyes and that will set your melatonin. And you're not going to look at your phone or a screen for the last two hours before you go to bed. You're not going to have caffeine after midday. You're going to make sure you're hydrated. You say you're already really good at that and just see how those three things do for you. So you don't start that craziness until you've done your morning light. Also, have some protein before 10am because that helps keep your cortisol levels happy, because you go into a little bit of a panic.
Emma :We're not little men, we're women. We've got a whole lot more going on than them and we need to treat ourselves differently. Our bodies are different. But yeah, sleep is gold. Sleep is so valuable. Sleep is much more important than any meeting you're ever going to. You know, that is that is for sure. Don't organize any meetings until that. Until after that time, give yourself a half an hour to check your phone before you start your meetings, but make sure you give yourself that first hour in the morning. You know it's so important and it's so nice after a little while.
Emma :I have guinea pigs. My daughter has guinea pigs as pets and they're the cutest things. But they, they're waiting by their door at 7 30 in the morning. They're looking out of their little window waiting for me to appear with their breakfast, and I can see through my front door. There's a little window and then I can see them there. So I'm like I'm where I'm coming, and then I go out and I just stand there and I just look at the view and I. It's so nice, just gets a morning light and if you have a drink in the morning, take your water out with you and sip it and don't look at a screen, and that is really good. It just sets the melatonin for 16 hours later. It's just like much more of a natural existence. Let me know how you get on?
Audra :Yeah, I will do that. And I ask that question specifically because I'm not the only one that does this. I have lots of company, I have lots of my audience that has the same existence that I do, that we're go, go, go, go go, and we can't help it. We reach for that phone and we're just gone on, on, on, on on, and I have lots of company that we can't sleep. So I ask that question on purpose, because we need help. We need help sleeping. Yeah, because we can't sleep.
Emma :And there's so much pressure. There's so much pressure to be that busy Like society really praises the busyness, doesn't it? But actually if you're not, well, nothing's going to fall down. Set up, you know, I think women need to start reclaiming it, but it's like, no, I'm not available. Then, if you are really confident when you say that I'm not available until this time in the morning, I'll be like, oh okay, no one's gonna go. What do you? What do you mean? And if they ask you what you mean, just spell it out and give them what for and tell them what you mean. I, I mean, I'm not sleeping, and if I don't sleep for a long time I'm not going to be alive. So if you want me to work for you, you need to let me sleep, and to sleep I need morning light and I need evening, and I'm not looking at my phone and I'm not looking at the screen and I'm not available for you. You know no more.
Audra :So I'm going to tackle another one. Yeah, how about the brain fog, the brain, the brain fog and the word searching, which is, which is just another part of the brain fog, which is what I do the word searching, because the word is there, I just can't pull it out of my brain.
Emma :Do that a lot yeah, I, I get it. We do that, I, I get it too. And 80 of women experience some brain fog in perimenopause most nearly all of them. Once they've gone through menopause, it goes away, so it's not forever. I feel like most women think this is just the rest of their lives. It's not. It's just your brain getting used to the lower estrogen levels.
Emma :Sleep is really, really useful to get rid of brain fog. A good night's sleep rests your brain. Your glymphatic system works, which is sort of your brain cleaning system. You have to have enough sleep for that to function, and stress is not good for it either. I'm afraid meditation is so good for your brain health and will lower your cortisol levels and let your brain work it with ease. You know, because it feels like you're just like I can't get my words out and it's horrific.
Emma :The more you, more you worry about it, the stress probably makes it worse, as well as with hot flushes. Hot flushes, um. But yeah, make sure you're hydrated, make sure you're not hungry. Your brain needs food and good fats, omega-3s, avocado, extra virgin olive oil. Feed yourself super nutrient-rich food and just really nourish your brain, because your brain is where we're happy. If you want to feel happy, you have to have a happy brain. You have to have a well-fed, welllooked after, hydrated, rested brain.
Emma :Um, but I think also, just be honest, if I get brain fog, I got brain fog in my biggest you know work gig. Yet I got a terrible dose of brain fog and I just was like, hands up, got brain fog. If you want to, you know, just because men don't get brain fog, it's like I've got brain fog. I'm a woman, I'm 54, I've got brain fog. What do you want to do about it? Own it, own it and just. You know, everyone knows you're a super intelligent human being and you're, you know, flying high. You didn't get to where you were because, you don't know, you just got brain fog. It'll come to you in a minute. Also, when you're, you know, flying high. You didn't get to where you were because you don't know, you just got brain fog. It'll come to you in a minute Also when you relax and you stop trying to find the word, that's when the word pings out. When you're trying to grab it, it doesn't come to you, does it? It's like.
Audra :No, the harder I try, the worse it gets.
Emma :Yeah the far away. It's like a little bird flying away in your brain. Exactly, yeah, I mean, I think it happens to us all. I mean I've seen men do it, it's not just women, it happens to us all. It used to happen to me when I was a little girl as well. It probably happens in puberty a bit, but it does happen to us all. Little girl as well. It probably happens in puberty a bit, but it does happen to us all.
Emma :Yet once we're perimenopausal, it happens more often and it gives us a little panic, but it's not so bad. It's not the end of the world. What's the end of the world is feeling ashamed about it, and that's what needs to change, because there should not be shame around, any symptom of, like you said. We don't ask for it and you know, even if we did, it's a part of being a child, you know a woman, isn't it? And that's a wonderful thing to be, and you shouldn't, you know, and you shouldn't. You know there's so much of being a woman is is ladled with shame and that's just horrible, so sad.
Audra :But yeah, if you own it, and I think nobody really minds well walk us through how to have these conversations with our employers, especially our male employers. I will tell you that I'm very fortunate that I work with a couple of men, that I have been very transparent with them and said look, this is the issue that I'm having. I didn't ask for it. I certainly wouldn't sign up for this if I didn't have to have it. But the more I fight this and the more I resist this, I have found the worse it gets that I'm not going through this, the more it exasperates my symptoms because it is raising my cortisol levels, because I'm raising my stress, and it just makes this worse. It's just awful. So I've been able to be really transparent with them and talk to them about it and they're like whatever, they don't care. I'm very fortunate and I've been able to have that conversation with them. I don't know that everybody is comfortable having that, so I would really love if you could help the listeners get comfortable with having those types of conversations.
Emma :Yeah. So the discussion with your managers, your workforce it's really difficult. It's really different for everybody because obviously everyone has a different relationship with their managers, different jobs. What do you do if you work in a shop and you're there and you're left on your own and you've got to deal with customers? It's very, very different for everybody. But I'd say it would be a really good idea, if you find it really hard to talk about because of all the shame which isn't your fault, just to start maybe talking to a partner in a really honest way and being really vulnerable.
Emma :I think we feel like men can't cope with kind of the facts of it all and they don't want to know and they won't like you know, fancy us or they won't like us anymore. But actually they're pretty simple creatures most of the time and if you're just honest with them and vulnerable, they probably appreciate that, because they don't really understand what's going on. They've never been taught about it, have they? And that's the same as you were with your boss you were so vulnerable and honest. They're just appreciative of that. Then they know where they are, what's going on. So I think, copy you, just come out and say it. If you can be brave, use a bit of the rage. I feel like the, the menopause rage, the lower oestrogen that makes us, can make us feel really empowered because we lose the fluffiness that we've had all our life of people pleasing and trying to be, you know the, the loveliest person in the world all the time you're like you know what. I can't be bothered anymore. So just tell them like it is if you can. And if you can't quite do that, then practice, practice telling your friends, ask them what they're going through. Once you open the conversation up, everyone has something to say and everyone's bursting to talk about it.
Emma :I know it must be really difficult for a lot of women. We were brought up not to talk about our periods in front of our fathers, not to mention it. I was told never to mention it to your father kind of thing. I thought what Thankfully. I feel like that's changing. I really hope that's changing.
Emma :But yeah, it's like initial. As soon as it starts happening we're told to be quiet and fit in and not cause a problem. But you can't hide it, can you? You just can't hide it anymore and it's very empowering to talk about it. It's empowering every time you make yourself vulnerable. That's really empowering for you. Like you know, you can um and people aren't gonna just push you away. And if anyone does talk to you, talk down to you, then you go up to your boss a level higher and you write them a letter, you explain it, you send them an email. So this has just happened to me and hopefully you have good hr or you have somebody you can talk to. Um, yeah, and I I just worry about all the women that don't have any support and, you know, have to struggle through to pay the rent or whatever, and don't you know?
Emma :Obviously it's much harder in the states, isn't it to pay the rent or whatever? And don't you know? Obviously it's much harder in the states, isn't it to pay for things for some women. Oh, it's just, it's not good enough. Is it revolution?
Audra :yeah, yeah, there's, we're, trust me, we are trying, we are trying, we're, we are. We are trying to normalize this, which is why this conversation needed to happen, because I wanted to have this out in the open, because this shouldn't be something that we whisper about or not talk about, or feel ashamed about or hide or anything like that, because, like I said, this is not something that we choose. This is something that is natural. It is something that is normal for every single woman on the planet. It just happens. It's part of being a woman. You will go through menopause yeah, just is and it's and, like I mentioned, that, for me, the more I try to fight it, the more stress my body gets, the more the the symptoms start to escalate, and I don't want to do that. So I just try to go and roll with it and just, and much to my surprise, the men that I work with are like thank you for telling me Not a big deal, whatever, and for them, they were just like OK, it's not whatever.
Audra :And I think most men are like cool, whatever, I don't care.
Emma :Well, hopefully they're like tell me what you need. The other.
Audra :Some of them have been like that. Good, some of them have been like that. They've been like do you need some extra support? You know what is it. Do you need me to to jump in? I'm like, no, don't jump in, just give me a second and I'll come up with the answer. Just give me a second and I'll come up with the answer. I just need a second to get the words out of my mouth because they just I get stressed when I can't find it, when I can't find the word, when I can't get it out of my head and out my mouth. And the more I get stressed, the more you look at me, the worse it gets. So give me a minute, let me get take a breath, and I'll get the word out my mouth. Just that's brilliant human space.
Emma :Yeah, that's brilliant. And what I think it's really, really important, the men understand that this is going to be different for every single woman. Every single woman has a different experience, a different mixture of symptoms, a different, you know pattern in it. It changes throughout your perimenopause, so much it's not like you just have perimenopause, but also there's some really good stuff that comes out of the end of it. You know, it's not all bad, um, oh no, yeah.
Emma :Yeah, I think there's a lot of doom and gloom and you know, I don't know that it's a tricky time. It's a lot of doom and gloom and you know, I don't know it's a tricky time. It's a new time because this is the first time we've talked about it. We've all been talking about it in any space, especially, you know, online. There's so many people talking about it and there's people shouting you must fast, you must do keto, you must do that, you must do that. And it's like, be careful of from you know who you take your information from, because it really is a lot of it is about stress and a lot of it is about, you know, really managing stress and learning to find the ways that lower stress and actually not eating is really stressful for your body, so it's probably not a good time to do that, um, but yeah, there's a lot, there's so much. It's, it's a lot for everybody.
Emma :Um, and I just want it to be, oh gosh, just want somebody in every company, every company, to get someone in every year like me to talk to them to say this is what you can. These are the hormones involved, these are the symptoms that might happen. This is what the nutrition will help. This is the stress management that will help. This is what will help you going forward into old age to keep well. And then you know, you've got all those. Women know how to keep themselves healthy and stay at work and they feel empowered by that knowledge and they can talk to each other. They could have a Q&A with me every month or someone like me. You know, bring in the, bring in the knowledge. It's difficult because you I think most companies pay men in suits to come in and talk about various things. I mean, I've never worked for a big company, but I'm guessing there's quite frequent, quite dull conversations. Not, I was like well, you do have women working for you. You might not know this stuff.
Audra :Yes, we have a little bit more to go with that. So what we're left with is women having to advocate for themselves Until we get corporations to recognize that women are different than men. We have to really be there for ourselves and for each other, and you have created some tools to help us do that. I know that to be healthy for today, through peri and post-menopause and beyond, so we don't have brittle bones and that we can still be active through our 80s and and you know, lord willing through our 90s, what does this checklist help us do?
Emma :so I, I, my company, my, so my business is called your Menopause Toolkit, so it's basically everything. It's about nutrition, stress management, sleep hygiene, movement, good movement that helps your balance, your bone health, your muscles. You know, we really should be trying actively to build muscle at this time because we are losing muscle every year, naturally, and so you have to. You really do have to. I don't know whose podcast it was, but I listened to another podcast the other day with a doctor on it and she said it's movement should be as much of a habit as brushing your teeth. Like strength training at this time is the best movement and I know you're doing it. I love it. It's also really calming.
Emma :It might feel really strange to go into a gym and go into that men's bit and start lifting weights, but you know what? Where I go, it's pretty old-fashioned but it's full of women and they're like every week there's another woman in there lifting, dead lifting, and it's brilliant. Their faces light up. It's so fun. It's really empowering, like mentally good for you as well as being physically good for you. Um, you really need to double down on your nutrition and make sure you know that you're eating healthily um, lots more protein than you were before, probably because nearly everyone's not eating enough protein. Um, and then, like we talked about the sleep hygiene, there's a bit more to that. Yeah, there's just lifestyle choices.
Emma :Alcohol is a bit of an elephant in the room. I don't know how it is in the States, but in the UK it's a really big part of our society and culture to drink alcohol as a way of winding down, as a way of ending the difficult day. It's a way of sort of treating yourself almost, but actually it's the enemy of sleep, it's the enemy of your cortisol levels. It's just not your friend at this time. So less and less alcohol is a really good idea. I hate to be the bearer of that news because, you know, we all probably grew up at a time when, hey, that was equated to fun and it still lights up that part of our brain and it feels like it's fun, but it's not really fun. And then you talked about-.
Audra :Culture is the same here. The culture is the same here In the US, as it is in the us, as it is in the uk it's. You know. People want to wind down with glass of wine, beer, some sort of drink yeah whatnot. Um, so it's the same, but it's yeah, but I I agree. I know that it makes my hot flashes so much worse, so I become just a occasional wine drinker, occasional Every once in a while.
Emma :Yeah, that's brilliant. I think that's really good. I've actually stopped drinking because I have a slightly low thyroid, my thyroid's struggling a little bit, so I've given up gluten and alcohol at the same time. And nobody loved nice bread and a glass of wine more, but I feel so much better for it. And I actually write on Substack and I wrote a little bit about that and it's nice to see people's comments on it because there's a lot of people doing the same at this age because they realize it just doesn't work for them anymore and the hangovers feel worse even from a couple of glasses of wine.
Emma :You feel rubbish the next day. It affects your mood, it affects anxiety. So, sadly, froggy, yeah. And then going forward for your brain health, your bone health affects everything, affects your gut lining. Your gut line is also affected by less oestrogen. So your gut health is paramount importance, as is your liver, for getting rid of higher oestrogen levels when it spikes. And it's all that. You're, all, every part of you is linked together.
Emma :Um, and there's, there's a lot to it, but none of it's difficult to do. It's a lot of, it's a mindset kind of the way we talk to ourselves. You know if you keep saying, oh, I really want to drink, I love a drink, oh, but drinks are so nice. It's going to be ever such a lot harder to stop drinking than if you're saying to yourself I don don't need alcohol, I'm going to do a meditation, oh, I love meditating, oh, I can't wait to meditate. That makes it easier to do the right thing. You have to change your inner voice and if it's too difficult, get some help because there's lots of people offering. You know NLP? Do you know that in the states? Neurolinguistic programming I have heard of that. Yes, yeah, I've heard of that. Really good way of changing your inner, inner voice and the way you talk to yourself and the things you believe you need. And no, it's, it's, it's all hard because it's all linked to dopamine. It's all linked to the happy chemicals which we can run low on.
Emma :Also, sunlight gives you serotonin boost. So get outside as much as possible. I'd say go for walks with friends. Walking with other women four women really reduces their cortisol levels. That doesn't happen for men. How magic is that? So when we have a good chat with another woman, like we are now, it's good for our cortisol levels. You always feel better, don't you, if you have a nice chat with a like-minded woman and you can be honest and vulnerable, and it's the best medicine. So yeah, walking outside in nature in daylight, walking outside in nature in daylight, that's a really good, simple, simple simple thing and this is fantastic.
Audra :And everything you just said is easy and free. Yeah, free, none of it is. You have to go buy a bunch of supplements or you have to do anything special. Like I said, I tried the natural supplements. They didn't work for me because my symptoms were so severe. I had to do something. I would have loved to do something natural. I couldn't because they were so awful. But try the natural first. Try what Emma's saying first and see if it works. What a remarkable thing if going for a walk and being in nature and serotonin, if that will help reduce your symptoms. What an incredible thing if this will help ease how you're feeling or, if nothing else, it makes you feel not alone in your symptoms. If nothing else, at least you can have these conversations with others that are going through things that are similar to you.
Emma :Yeah, absolutely, and know that it will pass, it's not going to be forever, it's going to get better. And and the days you know different times of the month, you know when you're still having periods, you're you might experience much worse pms. I think you call it, we call it pmt here. Um, I I think, yeah, things like that. It's like, oh, I'm gonna get a period. I know that. It's like, oh, I'm going to get a period. I know that I feel rubbish. Just double down on everything. Really, look after yourself. And you will want sugar and you will want all the stuff. You can make some really nice sugar-free cakey stuff that will give you that comfort food feeling with sweet potatoes and some cocoa powder and some dates or maple syrup. Maple syrup's probably cheaper where you are. You know there are options. I know I've personally been not able to afford maple syrup, so I'm aware of my privilege now that I can. And I know some people in the States live so far away from a shop that would sell anything healthy.
Audra :They don't really have a choice but to buy awful food, and that's just heartbreaking, isn it yeah, it is, and trust me, the maple syrup syrup, the real maple syrup, isn't that much cheaper here. So it's not. It's not. It's little bottles. Little bottles are are just as expensive as they probably are in the uk. So no, they're not.
Emma :They're not cheap here either oh, I guess it's got a long way to come from Vermont.
Audra :Yeah, the good stuff is worth it. It is definitely worth it than the fake stuff, I assure you.
Emma :Yeah, yeah, watch out. Another good tip actually is read the ingredients. Read the ingredients list on anything you buy, and if you can't pronounce it or you don't know what it is, it's not food and don't eat it. That's very simple. Try and make your own food. Eat more simple food. Eat vegetables, fiber for your gut. You know it's kind of going back in time. Food it's just real food rather than processed.
Emma :And xenoestrogens are hormone disruptors in things like plug-in air fresheners, the things we put on our skin, makeup, candles, all the horrible in-car air fresheners. Avoid all that stuff because they mess with your hormones and make everything worse. There's an app actually called Yucca. I don't know. I guess apps are everywhere, aren't they? Would it be? Apps are everywhere, yeah, and that tells you what the toxic load of different things is. So you scan. Oh yeah, I think you scan the thing. I've not used it yet, but you scan it and I'm actually going to use it with my daughter because she's a teenager and she wants to use all the rubbish, so I thought maybe that will scare her to not using it.
Emma :Um, it tells you how clean things are and how or how dirty they are and how bad they are, because we'll have to check that out. Yeah, it'll be really interesting being kind of told things good for us and they're not. It's, it's, you know, dodgy. So take responsibility for your health and your well-being and don't let anyone tell you otherwise at work or anywhere else, really, without getting sacked.
Audra :Yeah, exactly, you had said something that I think is very true that menopause even though there's a lot of of things that happen that are out of our control, the one good thing that is totally in my control that has come out of being in menopause is that I've taken better care of myself. Being in menopause because I've had no other choice. For the first time since I have become a mother, I have become a priority because I've had no other choice. This whole menopause thing happened to also coincide the necessity have now aligned that I've taken more sensitive to everything that I eat now. Things that I used to be able to eat I can no longer eat.
Audra :I cannot eat processed like normal off-the-shelf peanut butter anymore. It rips apart my stomach. I can eat raw, natural peanut butter. We have a store here called Trader Joe's. I don't know if you have it in the UK, but they have this, they have natural nut butter, so I can eat that. But you know the regular national brands of peanut butter that I know you guys have them in in the uk. They're all over the world. Can't eat it. No, makes me ill, makes me very ill. So now I have to pay attention to things that are overly processed, I cannot eat it. It makes me so ill because of because of menopause, I can't eat, I cannot comfortably eat processed food anymore.
Emma :No, well, that's like less against wise. You know it, sure is it, sure is the disguise, but it is a blessing in disguise, I think. Yeah, it is linked to your gut. It's linked to your gut, so your gut lining becomes thinner and more permeable and that can lead to all kinds of trouble. So you have to double down on your gut health. Um, oh, bless you. Yeah, I think the same is happening to me. Actually, much more sensitive gut and, like, like I said, I can't have gluten anymore. It's just a terrible thing. Just dream about quesadillas, I know.
Audra :So if anybody else is starting to notice a sensitivity to certain foods that you used to be able to eat with no problem especially us Americans that we were raised on peanut butter and it's pretty much in everything that we were raised on peanut butter and it's pretty much on in everything that we eat, if you can't digest the things that you used to be able to digest, maybe it's because you're in menopause. Who knows?
Emma :it's low oxygen and yeah, yeah, I mean as organic as possible. Lower the toxic load as much as you can afford to by the best you can afford.
Audra :Yes, that's exactly what I've been doing and it has made a difference. It has definitely made a difference. This is not easy, but we're all in this together, as long as we keep having these conversations and we keep making this accessible, making this normal, and that we don't make this a big deal Meaning what we're going through is a big deal, but not making it a big deal to talk to each other about it and to talk about others about it, and letting everybody know that this is a normal thing and we'll get through this and it's we'll do this together. That is why I appreciate the work that you do.
Emma :Oh, thank you, Audra. It's been really good to be able to talk to you again and open up about all these things.
Audra :Absolutely and before I. I'm so appreciative because you made me feel normal during a time that I was not feeling normal, I was feeling completely out of control and because of the work that you do and the post that you were putting out there, I felt like I was in good company and it got me through a period of time where it was really rough and I knew I just had to hang on until I could balance out my hormones and that I could feel like a whole person again. And it was because you made me feel seen, Even though you didn't know me I hadn't reached out to you yet you made me feel like you knew what I was going through. So I appreciate that.
Emma :Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate you, thank you.
Audra :So, before I let you go, I want to make sure that everybody knows where they can contact you, where they can reach out to you If they have questions, if they want to know more about your program, where can they reach out to you? So?
Emma :my is your menopause toolkit. My name is emma seville, as in seville, the city in spain, um, and I'm on instagram your your menopause toolkit, and I'm on linkedin, and, yeah, there's. There's links to all that on my instagram, um, and I have a sub stack page where I write a weekly piece about some kind of aspects of menopause, with, hopefully, some help in it, and that's free. You can subscribe and get it in your email folder every Sunday morning, uk time. So I'm not sure when that is for you I don't know which day you're in Audra, um, yeah, which day?
Audra :it is monday morning here.
Emma :So we, I believe we are like nine hours behind you okay, so you'd get out on a saturday night, I think, or in the middle of the night? Um, yeah, and that's free. So please sign up for that. Yeah, I'd love to see if you send me a message on my Instagram. I'd love to chat to anybody with any questions or thoughts, and I offer a free call, actually a free hours consultation with me, where we can run through all your symptoms and I'll give you some help with your worst one, and then we talk about ways you could maybe work with me if you'd like to. So, yeah, lots of ways to get in touch and I'd love to hear from anybody.
Audra :Thank you, I will make sure that all of those links in order to get in contact with Emma are all in the show notes. I highly recommend that you reach out to Emma if you're experiencing any symptoms or just want to talk to her because you're having questions or concerns or anything. She's highly accessible, obviously, because she answered me and I was a complete stranger and she didn't think I was a weirdo. So I highly encourage you to do that, emma, one more time before I let you go. This is a favorite part of my show where I get to turn over the microphone to you, where you get to have an intimate moment directly with the audience, so you can leave them a lasting thought, to give them some encouragement to go throughout their day. So the mic is yours.
Emma :What should I say? I want all the women out there going through perimenopause or who have reached menopause and still having a few symptoms. I want you to know as much as possible about what is going on in your brain and body, to feel as empowered as possible, to never feel any sense of shame about all this. It's perfectly normal. It's perfectly natural and you're all superheroes and you deserve the best Women rock. That's my final word.
Audra :I mean, that's a perfect word, emma. Once again, thank you so much for spending this morning with me and being willing to be transparent and vulnerable and talk about a topic that we should be able to talk about openly anyway, and I can't thank you enough for being so willing to do it. So thank you for joining me.
Emma :Oh, thank you for having me. It's been absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much, Audra.
Audra :Thank you, and I want to thank all of you for listening and we'll see you again next time.
