How Changes in Hormones Make You Vulnerable to Anxiety, Depression & PTSD with Megan Bliss | Ep. 53

Hi, I'm Dr. Nicole Kane and welcome to the get yout Life Back podcast. In this episode, you are going to learn how your hormones may be impacting your mental health. Maybe you've had your hormones tested and you have a suspicion that there are hormonal impacts on your mental emotional wellness. But you've tested your hormones and your doctors keep telling you that everything is normal. But what they aren't talking with you about is something called phasic vulnerability. And today I am with Megan Bliss and she is an expert at helping you to regain hormonal balance, enjoy optimal energy and a vibrant appearance with balanced moods. Megan is fun and she's quirky and you are going to get a lot out of this conversation. So let's dive into the recording. Everybody. I'm so happy that you're here. I am with the beautiful and brilliant Megan. Megan, thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you for having me, Dr. Kane. I appreciate it so much, you guys.

I want to just tell you a little bit about this incredible human and then I want to kind of jump in on the fun ways that we can connect with other like minded soul sisters and talk about how we met. But first I gotta brag on this girl. And so Megan is an expert at helping women regain hormonal balance, which we all need. And she helps you enjoy optimal energy of vibrant appearance and balanced mood. So it's kind of like the whole triad that we need. And you're going to want to check out. She has a group called Handle youe Hormones. And if you're interested in being in this group, you want to get on the early interest list because spots fill up quickly. The group is in April. Of course, the year that this is being recorded is 2022. So if you're catching this recording later, then just check out her Instagram. She's constantly in there putting up great content that's fun, engaging, quirky, but brilliantly jam packed with content. So be sure to check her out on Instagram @MeganBaliSSNP. So, Megan, babe, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. I swear we jive so well and I'm just excited to chat with you.

So we met through our mutual friends, Joy and Travis Houston.

Yes. Yes. They're great. They're great. They connected us and I see why. I totally see why.

I love that. So with your passion, if you were to think about the work that you did with Joy and what sets your soul on fire and what you feel like you're here to do. What does that look like?

I feel like it is helping women feel better about themselves when they get lost, you know, and they just do not feel good. Whether it's just feeling sucked into this deep, dark hole of a lack of self confidence, feeling like they've lost their identity. They feel like they are foreign in their body, their body is betraying them, and they just can't seem to figure out how to get a hold on what is going on. And so I feel like that is my passion, is really helping women navigate how to kind of crawl out of that deep, dark hole of feeling like they've lost themselves.

I so, so appreciate and resonate with that is, it's like you said, like, we can feel like our bodies are betraying us and we feel powerless. Especially in the examples where a person will go to their doctor and they'll check their hormones. They'll just do in the moment, snapshot blood test and tell you that it's fine and everything is normal.

And that is one of my least favorite phrases to have women here is everything is normal when they feel like is wrong.

And it can be so demoralizing and so discouraging and we can't escape it. And then we have this culture in this society that's like, oh, are you PMSing or. Oh, it's just postpartum hormones. It's fine, whatever it is. It's like a conversation that's so marginalized. Like, oh, you're just being moody because you're on your period.

Right. It's like, it's, it's, it's. Yeah, it's a total culture of that's supposed to be normal. Sure, it's. It's common, but that's not supposed to be normal. That's not supposed to be how we're. How we should feel. We shouldn't feel like that on a regular basis. We shouldn't feel like we can't crawl out of bed or that we snap at our kids or our significant others or our friends, you know, or we don't want to leave our homes. We. We need to be able to thrive in the worlds we live in.

Yeah. And you're kind of. You're trying to break the stigma, it sounds like, for normal. And you're taking the period off of the end of that sentence and saying, well, maybe it's normal for people who don't have this kind of education and these resources, but it doesn't have to be normal for you. And there are things that we can do about it. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's what I like to say to women. Sure, it's common, but it does not have to be your life for the next 30 plus years. It does not have to be your life. You can actually thrive in your life and you do not have to live in this hole of suck for years to come.

I feel like we all have our stories that get us to this place where we have a passion for helping people in the unique way that we do. And I was just curious what. What got you to this place where you're offering this incredible and unique service to people?

It was. I was there. I was there. I have. I have three beautiful girls. And after. Well, I was in grad school after my first one, and I think I was just in that chaos of going through schooling and everything, and I just didn't realize how terrible I felt. And then I had baby number two and my husband was in grad school, and then I was launching my professional life, and I was stressed to the max and weight was going up and I was breastfeeding, and all of my other friends who were breastfeeding, their weight was going down. And I was like, huh, this is not making sense in my brain because I feel like I'm eating good, I am exercising. Why is everybody else having good success and I'm not? You know? And so it just wasn't making sense in my brain. I was stressed. It just wasn't feeling good to me. And so me being stuck in that. That feeling of chaos, and then I was also trying to navigate a new profession and as a nurse practitioner and trying to identify myself. And that's when I was like. And having women come to me being like, I need help too. And I was like, okay, not only do they need help, I need to help myself. And that is when I was like, I've got to figure out what I need to do, not only to help myself, but to help these women that are coming to me. So that is. And that was. That was about seven years ago when I was like, I have got to figure out a process that is going to help us all out, because I do not feel good. And I want to feel so much better, and I do not want to live the next how many decades feeling this way.

I love how you found freedom in your stuckness. You know, you're. You're kind of talking about, like, crawling our way out, and sometimes it can be like that. I've seen this meme many, many times where it's like, expectations of healing is like, A straight line going up. But in my experience, and it sounds like a little bit of your experiences, it can be a process of crawling out where the drawing may be more correctly. Like a squiggly, chaotic.

Right.

Goes up and down and up and down. So you were. You're able to bring to the conversation the experience of. I get it, I've been there, I've felt completely depleted, I felt overwhelmed, I felt stressed out, I felt like my body wasn't doing what it was supposed to be doing. I'm doing air quotes. And you figured out a solution for yourself and for the people around you that you're noticing that are coming to you with the same kinds of questions.

Right, right. And that's where I try and explain to the women that I work with is not everybody's pathway is exactly the same. And that's where you have to definitely take into consideration everybody's story. And everybody's what? Everybody's story is telling you and telling them and then build a plan and move and you can't. Nobody fits a specific mold. And sometimes we try and fit ourselves into a specific box and we don't fit into a box all the time. So that's where I try and tell. And I think that's kind of empowering too, because sometimes it gets frustrating when we feel so different from everybody around us. But then it can also be empowering when we figure out what works for us individually too.

I love that you said that. I think about a client's coming to mind and she was expressing frustration recently about why can't I just be normal like everyone else? Why do I have to work so hard to not have panic attacks and to not feel depressed? And so what I love Megan that you're talking about is removing normal from the conversation and looking at how our story can impact our health and looking at how we can individualize not only expectations of what we want and what we're pursuing, but also treatment in order to get there. So you're really taking people out of the box and helping us to look at individuals as individuals.

Yeah, yeah. And I feel like that is because then giving ourselves that unique identity, I feel like just gives us so much power too in being a human being and being our own unique self. And then it can empower us to be so much better in our own lives.

So, yes, I do want to mention you have a consultation practice. And so you do work with limited and limited individuals. Do one on one work. And so if, if you guys are listening and you're thinking like, wow, I really love that individual approach. Then, you know, you could definitely check out Megan's Instagram and apply to become one of her consultees. And so I have put together some statistics, and what I really want to emphasize before we kind of dive into, like, the good stuff stuff of, okay, what's going on with hormones and what can we do about it, is I want to make sure that listeners that you understand that this conversation is both relevant for men and women, and this podcast and Megan's practice is really focused on women, but the conversation is relevant for both. And the reason for that is because both men and women have hormone receptors for estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. In fact, we have estrogen receptors all over our bodies, like our brain, lungs, bones, joints. Your liver has estrogen receptors, your gastrointestinal tract, your skin, of course, women's ovaries. And so if you have bones, you have estrogen receptors. And that includes men and women. And so when it comes to mental health, I have some research pulled up, and I just want to kind of show the importance of this conversation and show the relevance behind it and really just nail it in that this is research based that Megan and I are talking about. And even though your doctor may not be talking with you about it, there are practitioners, there are researchers that are finding these things that Megan and I are talking about to be true. And so if we can start with estrogen, for example, and depression, women are twice as likely to have an anxiety disorder as men, and depressed women tend to have less estradiol. We see that women are especially susceptible to depressive episodes during sex hormone changes. And so, for example, the luteal phase in pregnancy, in postpartum and menopause, depression levels rise, and then anxiety. So if you deal with anxiety, even if you have a normal blood test, it could be an imbalance. I'm focusing on estrogen, but the rest play a role too. But we also see that lower levels of estrogen are associated with a higher fear response. We have an enhanced acoustic startle reflex, which can go down, or as your estrogen goes down, that startle reflex can go up. Which, if you've ever been just, like, sitting and somebody says, hey, and you jump out of your shoes, that's a startle reflex. Right. We also see that estrogen impacts post traumatic stress symptoms. And we know that people who have PTSD are less able to extinguish a fear response. And so we find that imbalances in the rise and fall of estrogens can increase your likelihood of developing PTSD or trauma. And we also see that the biggest thing is the change in estrogen levels. And so they call this phasic vulnerability, where when the estrogen levels are changing or going from one phase to the other, follicular, luteal, ovulatory, as those levels are changing, you may be much more vulnerable to anxiety or depression or effects of trauma. And so I really wanted to emphasize that because, again, if you've gone to the doctor and you've had blood tests and they tell you it's normal, they may not be taking into consideration the actual most important thing, which is the change, the phasic vulnerability. And again, this is relevant for men and women. And so as you're listening to this, just remember that, like this, the statistics show that what you feel is valid and real and that there's data that's emerging that maybe you haven't heard about, and that Megan and I have got your back. And so we're gonna. We're going to shift the conversation over to the gloriousness of Megan. But was there anything you wanted to add to that? I kind of saw you nodding as I was sharing the status statistics. You're like, yeah, right, yeah.

So, I mean, as you're sharing this, I'm thinking, like, I don't know how many women have come to me and they have gone to their, you know, regular family care practitioner or something, and they've asked, they've struggled with some mental health symptoms or something, and they have beg to have their hormones evaluated. And their practitioner has said to them, oh, do you have regular cycles? And they will say, well, yes. And their practitioner will say, then your hormones are fine.

Yeah.

And it's like, well, as you said, those fluctuations can be what is causing. And then there can be the imbalances. So you can still have regular cycles and have imbalances. You can have. You. You can still have hormonal optimization that needs to happen. And that's one thing that I love to help out with. So. So, yes, that's where I was nodding. I'm like, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Why is it that doctors, clinicians, practitioners are so reluctant to look at hormone levels? Because as you're saying that, I have countless numbers of people calling me and they're like, I feel like my hormones are completely whacked out and no one will test them for me. I was just curious, like, do you have any hypotheses? What is this?

I do. I think it's scared. I think they're scared. And I think it's Almost this somebody told me when I was training, you know, like, it's, it's a. It's kind of passed down, you know, in an educational system. And so I just. It, it needs to be broken. It's a cycle that needs to be broken. And so I'm hoping that it will get there. I'm hoping it'll get there. But I think it's fear of hormones from the, you know, the Women's Health Initiative that hopefully that will get debunked at some point. And then I also think it's just from, from training and, and that, that myth of if you have regular cycles, then your hormones are fine. And I think that line has been passed down in training of practitioners over and over and over again. And that just sticks. And so I think that's a lot.

Of it that makes so much sense. And so if you're listening to this and if you've gone to your doctor and they're like, your periods are fine, your cycles are fine, we don't need to test your hormones, then it's okay to find a different doctor. You know, it's okay because maybe that's. They've taken you as far as they can go and that maybe now it's time for the next step. Maybe it's time to find a nurse practitioner like Megan or somebody that can stand in your corner and help you do the digging. And of course, we don't want to hold a hammer and say, like, this is the hormone hammer. We're just going to find it because maybe you'll. It'll turn out that it's something else. Maybe it's your thyroid, maybe it's trauma, whatever it is. But you are worth pursuing answers.

And if you have it on your heart that it's worth investigating, let's investigate it.

Let's investigate it. So we're making a, we're making a case here that hormones can affect anxiety and depression. And so I was hoping that you could talk a little bit more about that.

Yeah, yeah. So I see it a lot in especially that the estrogen progesterone balance, that's in there, progesterone attaches to the GABA receptors, which also common anxiety medications attach to, like Xanax, attaches to the GABA receptors, progesterone attaches to that, too. So when you do not have adequate balance of progesterone in that progesterone, estrogen balance in there, you can have heightened anxiety. Then as you were saying, with the depression, the estrogen balance, or lack of estrogen It's a huge, huge, huge issue with estrogen. And then I also see a lot of postpartum issues there. I have a lot of women who go into their providers for postpartum depression, and they just don't feel right about being put on medications for postpartum depression. And they're like, I just really feel like my hormones have something to do with it. And it makes sense to them because they're having a huge hormonal fluctuation at that point, and their providers kind of dismiss them and say, here's a medication, you know, and so that's the estrogen fluctuation. There can be the estrogen progesterone fluctuation. There can be a huge, huge, huge issue with postpartum depression. And everybody's a little bit different. It can be the drop in progesterone, it can be the drop in estrogen, but then there's also testosterone in there too, that can be a big culprit in depression. When testosterone gets too low, women can get very, very depressed and not feel good as well. So there are so many factors when it comes to mental health and our are hormonal imbalances, but they are definitely worth investigating for sure.

A lot of the people listening to this conversation struggle with anxiety in particular. And that's my story too, is my main thing was anxiety and panic. And the anxiety and panic was so severe for me at this, I call it like at the epic tale of woe during this period of my life that I wasn't able to sleep and I wasn't able to eat and I felt sick all the time and I lost so much weight that I stopped having my period. And it was just then, of course, you have all of these other things that can occur as a result of your hormones being completely out of balance. And so I was kind of curious if you have somebody coming in to see you who is dealing with anxiety, and there's clearly a hormonal component, and maybe we don't know if it's the chicken or the egg, but how might you approach that?

I would definitely go, I get a timeline. You know, when did this start? And I go back to preconception. We start preconception and we get a full timeline of what has happened in their life, whether stress, trauma, like you talked about. Trauma can have a huge impact on not only hormones, but health in general. It can catapult a lot of health disparities, but so timeline within their whole lifespan, illnesses. And then I like to do a thorough blood work and I had a very good friend of mine who had a similar situation as you who would. She ended up in the emergency room with severe panic attacks and she got dismissed and sent home with medications. And it turned out that she had thyroid issues and it was very traumatizing for her. And it took months and months and months of advocating for herself to be able to get some answers finally. But I like to do a very, very thorough blood work, hormone workup, along with getting into some counseling right from the get go to, as well as looking at nutritional difficulties, deficiencies. Because you never know if, if just working on some nutritional deficiencies can open up the receptor sites for certain hormonal receptor sites. So that's kind of my. In a brief nutshell of how I like to approach things, I like that.

You'Re kind of taking a mind, body, spirit approach. You're looking at conception, preconception, and I love that, by the way. And we could probably do a whole conversation about that, like inherited trauma and oh my gosh, all of that beautiful stuff. So you're looking at their biography and their story and then you're looking at blood work. You're actually doing the testing to see what's happening here. And now what might be out of balance. It could be something missed like thyroid. And unfortunately, that thyroid story that you shared happens all too commonly. A good friend of mine had that same thing is she was, she was going into a thyroid toxic storm and it was, it was really scary and touch and go there for a minute and they just told her it was anxiety and gave her a benzo. So you'll do basic blood work and anything in addition that you have seen as relevant from your detailed case. And then, you know, there's all sorts of other stuff that you're doing, but like really, you're doing a deep dive. You're not just kind of like treating people like, okay, you're anxious, how many days a week. All right, let me listen to your heart and lungs and send you on your way. You're actually trying, right? Yeah. You're like getting to the root cause and understanding them as a unique person.

Right, right. Because if you don't figure out what is causing that and you're just masking it with a medication, like, you're not, you're just gonna be on a medication the rest of your life and there's not going to be any, you're not going to develop any coping mechanisms. You're not going to figure out what is actually causing that. Because if it just came out of the blue, you know. So what was yours? Tell me the story with yours. What did you figure out, if you don't mind me asking? Probing.

I love probing. This is good. You're like getting into the real stuff. I love it, babe. It was having really poor boundaries.

I teach boundaries. Yes. I love boundaries.

What is that? What is that? What are boundaries? What is saying no? So my story is. I was opposite of what Greg McNown in Essentialism teaches. He teaches about. You love that book.

I do.

Oh, my God, it's so good. So, listeners, if you haven't. This is. This is a pitch for his book. Like, you need to listen to it, buy it, read it, whatever you do. Essentialism by Greg McNown. And he teaches about how in American culture, especially, we are doers of all and masters of none. And he teaches about figuring out what your soul on fire zone of genius, passion, excitement, thing for you is to say yes to that and no to the things that could get away. I was doing the opposite. I was starting a private practice at that time. I was treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, primarily using integrative methods. And I was teaching. I redesigned the behavioral health curriculum at the medical school that I graduated from. I was running clinical rotations and mentoring and doing all of the things. And I was just getting more and more frenzied. And then I was having trouble sleeping. And then sleep is sacred for me. And when that went away, I spiraled. So I tried. I tried acupuncture. I tried herbalism, homeopathy. I had someone pour ayurvedic oil on my third eye. I tried hypnosis, massage, like, all of the things I tried. I ran labs and I did functional medicine tests, stool test, urine tests, organic acid test. I did all of the things. But what changed my story was the choices that I was making and my mindset around those choices. Because I had put myself into such a hedonic treadmill that I couldn't stop. And I was. My body was trying to help me. It was putting me in fight flight freeze, because we have to be in fight flight freeze to do all of the things. And it just turned into a crisis where if our bodies whisper and if we don't listen, they're going to yell out of mercy. They're going to yell. And so mine were screaming and I was screaming back. And I ended up selling off my part of my business and I stopped teaching and I moved to Michigan for half the year and just like, dug in the dirt, gardened, grew snapdragons, and just Rested and found myself, got myself back.

Oh, that's amazing. No is a complete sentence. Did you know that?

Oh, that's beautiful. No.

Did you know there's a book called Boundaries? Have you read that one?

I recommend that book to people.

All I do, all the time. That's one of my favorite books to recommend to women is Boundaries. Women have a really hard time putting boundaries on things. And stress is one of the most common causes of hormonal imbalances.

Stress. Did you hear that? Let's emphasize that listeners. Stress is one of the most common causes of hormonal imbalances, and that is.

Something that we have control over.

Ooh, that's really good. Ok, so we have a listener, let's say theoretically, who is, like, raising the hand. All right, Megan's calling me out. Nicole is calling me out. I'm stressed. I get it. But I can't. I don't want to say no to teaching. I don't want to say no to going to football practice. I don't want to say no. I don't want to put boundaries up because then I feel like a bad mom or a bad. Right.

The guilt.

The guilt. The guilt can be huge. So what do you do? What does that person do?

You learn how you. And that's by reading these books. You learn how to not feel that guilt associated with it. And sometimes it takes somebody else telling you not to have the guilt, you know, because sometimes I need somebody else to tell me it's okay if you don't cook dinner every night of the week. You know, you're not a bad mom if you. Or have hellofresh delivered or you're not a bad mom if your husband cooks. You know, and sometimes that is hard for women to. Sometimes we have this ideal in our brains that we have created this story we have created in our minds, and that just catapults everything.

Yeah, it's. It's not being in full integrity. And integrity is like balance and wholeness and being in line as mind, body, spirit. And so if there's this part of you that realistically can do A, but there's this other part of you that expects B, you're not being in full integrity with yourself. And then that dissonance can create more stress and can create suffering. So our body tells us with symptoms, and then we go to our GP who's like, ah, symptoms bad. I want to make you not suffer. And so then they suppress it.

Right. And I remember being one of those gps who was like, okay, yeah, symptom Suppression, you know, what medication can I pull from my Rolodex of medications to pacify this patient and suppress that symptom, you know, and just make them happy so that I can do my job? You know, and that. And that did not bring me any professional satisfaction. You know, I was not truly helping them. And it. It was so hard. It was so hard for. And. And then they would come back and they were still not feeling any better.

So, like, whack a mole. So if you guys haven't heard of the game Whack a Mole, like, I'm a product of the 80s and 90s, and we had, before Jackie G's, we had showbiz, and showbiz had whack a mole. And so this, like, mole pops up out of a hole and you whack it, which is, like, very violent, but I liked it. Whack it and then it'll pop up somewhere else, and you whack it and it pops up somewhere else, and you just keep whacking this mole. And if your body is doing a good job, it will keep giving you symptoms because the symptoms have a purpose.

Yes.

And the problem is when you whack that mole and he doesn't come back, then you've got. You've killed them all. Right. And so it's like when we try. So it's pcos, for example, polycystic ovarian syndrome. If we just simply put somebody on birth control and we just override their hormonal processes, then oftentimes we'll see that the symptoms will migrate to another system where maybe now they have fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue or migraines or depression, but your periods are fine or not at all. And so oftentimes when we as physicians who are well intended and trying to release suffering, the problem is that because the symptoms are gone doesn't mean the suffering causing the symptoms is gone.

Exactly, exactly. And then you'll have women, and then another medication adds on to that, and then another medication adds on once it migrates to another symptom. And then before you know it, you're on five to 10 medications. And where do you go from there?

Yeah. Pharmaceutical industry is making lots of money. Yeah.

It's so sad. It's so sad. So it really takes just getting down to the root of the issue. And why not do that from the beginning?

It'll save you time and money and it'll feel so much better. Oh, yes, I have a question about progesterone. Yes. So I have a friend and this friend is stressed and so she's badass type A, works really hard. She is a top performer in her industry, in her field and she's amazing. But a trade off is that she doesn't sleep. If we kind of look at story, that's part of the work you do is you look at story. She has a lot of attachment, complex trauma, family trauma. And so we have this kind of foundation that her nervous system is dealing with. But then we're in this job where she's just kicking ass and taking names and all sorts of stuff. And so she can't sleep. And so she's been trying to self medicate, trying to figure out what to do because she lives in a state where they don't do any of that, they're scared, like you said. And she found that if she took progesterone that it was like life changing. Like she slept for the first time but then after a week that effect went away and the sleep went away. So she's trying to take more and more and more. But it's just like the gas running out of a car, driving up a hill. And I was wondering if you had any insight into that. It's like maybe something will work for a minute and then it just goes away.

Yeah. So what can happen is there's that they term it a pregnenolone steal. Have you heard that term?

Yes, it's been a while. This is great. Tell me more.

So what happens is when the cortisol's up, when life is stressed, that cortisol's up and it will basically shunt all of the hormonal production to the cortisol and it will steal it away from the other great hormone producing. Because when you are in stress mode, fight or flight, you do not need to produce offspring, essentially. And so, so yeah, it's just going to shunt everything to the cortisol to as a preservation thing. And progesterone is so sleep promoting. So sleep promoting. So yeah, it's going to work for a little bit. But her receptor sites, that cortisol is probably just squatting on the receptor sites and not letting that progesterone get in there and do what it's supposed to do. And so she's going to need more of that. And it's just clouding things up. That high cortisol is probably just clouding things up and not letting what little progesterone she is making or the what she's trying to take get in there and do its job.

That is brilliant. So she needs to go see you. So I'll send this conversation to her and she's going to come see you. Because I imagine that a lot of women have felt similarly where, especially as we're getting a little bit older and maybe our estrogen and progesterone production is going down and then we try something, we get this honeymoon phase. But because it's palliative. Right. You're just giving her more progesterone instead of figuring out why her body isn't either making or responding to it. She's just going to end up again playing that game of whack a mole. So I think that the pregnenolin steel, that brings me back. That's so, so good. So I was kind of curious. So we've talked about a couple of things. One is we've talked about that mind, body, spirit link, looking at the root cause. We've talked about hormones and how they can affect our mental health or anxiety or depression. We dove into sleep, we touched on estrogen, you mentioned testosterone. We've talked about progesterone, we did a little toe dip of thyroid, talked about that. What other hormone imbalances can intensify your stress or overwhelm? Anything else that you wanted to mention?

Oh, I mean there's so many that can affect things. Yes, thyroid. But I deal a lot with the adrenal glands and the cortisol imbalances there. And it can be that you don't make enough cortisol, that you are absolutely depleted. A lot of times that happens when you have been stressed for long periods of times and then your adrenal glands are burned out and saying I am done. And they go kaput and just turn off production. And that can be really, really difficult to come back from. So I help with that a lot, that kind of burnout coming back. But yes, thyroid is something that I love to help out with too. And kind of that autoimmune component in there too, the Hashimoto's and inflammation, all of that.

I love cortisol. I think a lot of people can benefit from learning more about it. And so can you teach us just a little bit about cortisol and what it does and how it relates to stress?

Yeah, yeah. So cortisol is one of our stress hormones. Fight or flight. Think about predators coming at us. A bear is coming at us and it's, it's supposed to spike if a bear is coming at you. And it. But obviously we do not, we do not live in primitive times anymore. So we don't usually have to worry about a bear coming at us, however.

Usually.

Usually. But a lot of times our body doesn't know that it's not a bear coming at us. But we have lived in bear coming at us chaos. And whether that's the TV news, we are just constantly going running kids to and fro or working constantly, you know, taking on way too many projects. And so that's kind of of bear coming at us mode for far too long. And so our cortisol is spiked in that fight or flight mode. And so it's supposed to follow a natural curve. And cortisol is good. We need cortisol. We need it to be at a good spiked level in the morning and then slowly taper throughout the day and then be lower in the evening so that we can go to sleep. However, some people have none in the morning and it's hard to get out of bed and then spike in the evening and it's really hard to wind down and go to sleep. And then they feel wired but exhausted. So we've got to kind of retrain that and get that circadian rhythm rebalanced and get people feeling a little bit more in rhythm. And I know after working night shifts for 10 years, because I worked night shift shifts for 10 years that took a while to rebalance those cortisol levels. And I've worked with a lot of people who've worked night shifts and you see their cortisol levels and it is basically flatlined, which is not conducive for a great environment hormonally. So, yeah, it can get really interesting.

What is your favorite way to test cortisol? Because you're kind of pointing out something that I wanted to make sure our listeners heard is that it changes throughout the day and night. And so just doing one blood test one time isn't going to give you the data that you need. So what is your favorite strategy?

I like to do an at home saliva test is what I like to do. It's convenient. You don't have to go anywhere. I send a kit to your house and you do it at home. We do it several times throughout the day. That way we get a nice good curve and we can see how things are looking. And it's at home. So there's not that. That white coat factor of having to go to a lab and be poked. So it's just a spit test. So it doesn't spike your cortisol from being poked. So that's one reason why I like saliva testing.

Yeah, because otherwise you're going to get a false elevation because you're exactly like a bear is biting me.

Right.

This blood draw is happening. Yeah, Yeah. I really like. There's a test that I run often is it's a Dutch test, and I love the Dutch test because it looks at hormones. It looks at estrogen and progesterone and testosterone and the metabolites and the cortisol, melatonin. And I think that's a nice test. And similarly, you could do it at home. So it's a kit. You send it, do it at home. I think that's awesome. There's really great ways. So just another tip for our listeners is there are great ways to restore health to the adrenal glands. And I love to use botanical medicine for that. And the thing with herbs is it really should be individualized because each herb has its own kind of zone of genius, its own affinity. And so examples of herbs is ashwagandha. Ashwagandha is an amazing herb and it's also called methania. And it kind of smells a little bit like horse's urine, which is weird, but we'll go with it.

I have horses, so you know, it's near and dear.

You do. This is good. This is great. So ashwagandha is a wonderful plant. And it can be dosed at nighttime. It can be a little bit relaxing and sedating, and it builds up the adrenal gland health over time. Some women I found. And it can also boost our androgens or testosterone. And so if you have low testosterone, it could be a great compliment for that. But if you get acne from it, then you know that it could be ashwagandha. And maybe it's not the right plant for you. Another favorite plant just kind of like tips, like cool naturopathic tips is rhodiola.

Yep.

I love rhodiola, especially with what we are going through right now in 2022 is is Rhodiola used to be used for altitude sickness?

Oh, I didn't know that one.

It was so good. It's so good. So it can help protect us from the effects of hypoxia. So low oxygen. And if you happen to get an illness where oxygen is hard to come by, rhodiola can be useful. Build your adrenal glands is wonderful. And then there are stimulating adaptogens like panax, ginseng, eleutherococcus. So, you know, really figuring out with the appropriate root cause, testing what can be good for you. And maybe a standard PCP will want to give you pharmaceutical cortisol.

Yes.

But there are really great alternative options.

That you can don't have the long term effects like cortisone does. You know, hydrocortisone does.

Yeah. So it's just so cool. Oh my gosh, this has been so fun. What else can you think of before we finish up? Anything else?

Oh, I think this has been so good. I have loved chatting with you. I love finding the balance between what makes people feel good plus what works for them in their lives. I think that is a big thing is it's just because it works for one person doesn't mean it's going to always work for another person. Like you were saying with if it causes acne. You know, ashwagandha causes acne in one person doesn't mean you have to stay on it. I know sometimes people are pushed to stay with something. So everything needs to be individualized. So that's one thing that I am huge on. I'm sure you feel the same exact way and it just. Everything just needs to be personalized and.

You do some one on one. And so just to make sure y' all know how to get in touch with Megan is a couple of things. One is she has a group program Handle youe Hormones is going to be launching in April. So get on that early interest list right away because spots are going to fill up and so make sure you check that out to get to that and everything else that she's doing. Find her on Instagram. Megan Bliss NP I also wanted to mention that you do have a monthly group that you are able to focus in on. It's called the Core four of Hormone Balance where you talk about nutrition, exercise, mindset and stress reduction. Which I needed by the way back in the epic tale of Meltdown of Nicole. So if anyone listening to this, if you're stressed and if you have hormones, this is the group for you. And of course Megan Bliss, M E G A N B L I S S N P on Instagram and you can see all of her cool stuff. And Megan, I can't wait to do this again sometime. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me. This is wonderful.

All right, see you later.

Yeah.

Oh, all right. Are you here, honey?

Yes.

That was so fun.

That was great. Thank you. Thank you. I hope I covered everything you felt like you needed.

Oh, it was so good. It was so you such a way with words and describing things and I really feel like. Yeah.

Oh, you're great. You are wonderful. I love it. And I Loved your stats. I was like, man, I should have come with more stats.

Stats. I was trying to think of something valuable to bring to the table, and I've written them out. I loved that.

I love that.

Throw in a little stats. Joy talks about, like, people who make decisions in different ways, and some of them are people who are like, I like those two. They're fun. Bye. And then other people are like, I really need to methodically figure this out. I want you to prove it to me, and I want to know all the stats, and I want to know what I'm getting. And they're going to, like, think about it.

So we blend you. We blended there.

We did that.

And the fun, right?

All of it. Every single thing. We're like, bam, we nailed it.

I like it.

I want to take a picture for social media.

Yes.

Let me put you on top of me in this little vertical, and I'm gonna adjust the camera and I'm gonna take a picture. All right, are you ready? 1, 2, 3. Love it. This picture is funny.

At least it's not a screenshot of me. Usually the screenshots of me are like pulling some funky face or something.

I love. I know. You're like, yeah, yeah. That's the story of my life. So are you always in Utah, or is there any chance you're going to be jettison yourself down to this part of the country?

You know, that's. That's. That's a dream board, is to have a. A place to take my horses to. Somewhere warm to ride in the winter.

Yes. Oh, that would be wonderful. They would be happy.

They would. Because we're breaking ice so that they can have water right now is so. It's been so cold. So cold this winter.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Oh, I love that you ride. That's so cool. You should do some posts with, like, your horses.

I know, I know. I need to. I need. I. I need to do more horse pictures, but that takes work. Horses don't cooperate for pictures.

They have such, like, fun little personalities, and they're just like, I do what I want. Clearly know what you want. And they're like, like, not gonna do that. I love that. I have. I have a little dog here.

I know. I seen it.

I was gonna.

I was like, I'm not gonna comment right now, but, oh, so cute. Mine are outside. I'm like, watching them out my window. I'm like, don't you dare go in the road, puppy.

I told Shiva before I talked to you. It's like, all right. I'm gonna be getting on a podcast. If you bark, you have to go in the crate. And so. Right. He's like, okay.

That'S funny.

So good. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. You're so fun.

So we'll do. We'll do an Instagram live, and we could, like.

Yes, let's do it.

Do something like that. Haley controls my entire life, so I'll tell her I want to see you again. We'll do it.

I need. I need a Haley in my life.

Everybody needs a Haley. Oh, my God. She keeps me sane.

You're gonna have to teach me how to get a Haley in your life.

Done. Done. I got you. We'll find you a Haley.

Oh, that's great. That is great. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

My pleasure. See you later.

See you. Bye.

Bye. Bye.