Is CBD the Answer? How Women Use CBD to Manage Menopause

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function. And I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine. And I've had more than my fair share since perimenopause all the way through postmenopause. My secret weapon was Blue Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25mg of CBD and 25mg CBN for deep restorative sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-the-counter solutions, whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health, and liver health. Neither one of those did I want to be problematic for me. So this option is recommended by healthcare providers worldwide and backed by thousands of happy customers, many of whom come from our Flipping 50 community. There is zero THC, so it's non-habit-forming. It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night. Curious about when or how women use CBD to their best advantage? I've been using CBD off and on for about 6 years. I originally began after being gifted some products and then loved so much that I shared with my mom for her lower back. I've used rubs and lotions for recovering from training rides and runs during triathlon training. Most recently, you'll hear me describe the Rim to River to Rim hike that we did in September of 2023. And actually, we're opening it up to you, whether you are a fitness pro or a go, just a woman who wants a little challenge in 2024. We're doing a group retreat. So stay tuned for that. But imagine, you know, about a 17, 18-mile hike. Doable. It's a hike. I didn't say a run, but the last 9 miles are up. It's very different than mountain hiking. And so I found myself needing a little bit of support recovering, and the CBD rub was just the thing. I think there are now several indications as well as formats for use of CBD that may make your head spin if you're new to it. So this episode is designed to help clarify as well as to know what's the difference between all the products that you see available just about everywhere now. What's quality? What's not really supportive at all? What's dangerous? But there is so much more than this. This episode. My guest is a goldmine, and this is his first visit. He will be back. I will find him and bring him back. He was that good. I told you not long ago was one of my favorite episodes in a 10-year history hosting two, not one, but two podcasts. And currently we're doing 2 episodes each, which— with each of these podcasts. So to have another really epic guest, one who kind of unpacks a topic that I think we have a lot of questions about but also relates to us in a way that you'll hear him describe us better, I think, than some of us describe us. So tune in, get to know your hormones better in the next 40-45 minutes. I promise I promise you, you will know them better than you know them right now. I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50, where I address your top struggles and concerns. But most of all, this is really about empowering you, giving you better choices, and helping you expect and demand better products and services for you as you age. Those that are made based on science on you, women just like you, not mice, not men, not young men or women, not even younger you. I share what to eat, how to move, and how to change your mindset so you can have the energy and vitality that you want, need, and deserve in this second and better half. My guest today is Dr. Eric Dorniger. He's a registered naturopathic doctor and licensed acupuncturist, graduated from Bastyr University, the leading accredited university for science-based natural medicine. Prior to medical school, he received his BA in kinesiology from the University of Colorado. Boulder in 1997. During this time, he also finished his EMT— that's emergency medical technician— training and volunteering at Porter Care Hospice in Denver. This dual exposure of medical perspectives laid down the roots for Dr. Dorniger's integrated approach to diagnosis, treatment, and healing. In addition to private practice, Dr. Dorniger teaches functional medicine for Apex Energetics. I can't wait to dive into this, and I again want to remind you, come to the show notes today because there will be a code for you to take 20% off of your Blue Sky CBD should you be a convert or be ready to try. We talk about so many modalities, so many reasons why you may want to, but also the difference between this or a high quality versus something you want to avoid. Let's dive in. Dr. Eric Dorniger, thank you so much for being here. First of all, I want to ask you right away before we dive into— there are going to be tons of questions coming from our listeners, some of whom have used CBD, some of you have never used CBD, but You have this very unique background. Everybody just heard it. So first of all, as a kinesiologist, fellow kinesiologist, welcome. And the EMT and the hospice time was very interesting to me. How do you think that combination gave you a unique perspective in understanding the needs of and treating patients?

Yeah, it's a great question. And I actually, my, my original journey to healthcare was the party captain. At University of Colorado Boulder. And when that— I started out my health career as the party captain at University of Colorado Boulder.

And could you describe the job description for that?

Yeah, the job description is lots of debauchery, minimal classes, um, a lost soul who doesn't know their sense of purpose in life, and then has their own personal near-fatal healthcare experience. And is grateful for emergency medicine, but soon realizes the job of the ER is to make sure you don't die today, and they're incredible at that, but then they discharge you back to your chronic issues and there's no one there to pick up the pieces. So I was sharing my vision of healthcare, which is really working on why you have, not what you have, And, you know, fibromyalgia. Yeah, you have fibromyalgia. Yeah, I looked that up. Algia means pain and myofibrils mean muscle fibers. So I told you my muscles hurt and you told me my muscles hurt. You have irritable bowel syndrome. Yeah, I just told you I have gas and bloating and my bowels are irritable. So we want to understand why you have. And when I was sharing my vision for switching healthcare from what you have to why you have, so you can truly drill down and get to the underlying causes of a migraine headache or dysmenorrhea diarrhea or crash libido or exercise intolerance or poor night's sleep. A platonic girlfriend of mine said, that's called naturopathic medicine. And my grades suffered from, you know, my first couple years of school. And I said, all right, I found my life purpose. I want to become a naturopathic doctor. And University of Colorado Bachelor's of Kinesiology, which is now called Integrated Physiology, was the quickest way to get my pre-med and then I needed to spruce up my resume. And someone told me, "Hospice looks really good." And my hair is raising as I tell you this story. And I said, "Okay, let me go spruce up that resume." And I had one of the most profound experiences in volunteering through PortaCare Hospice in Denver. And so during the day, I was holding people's hands and helping with dying with dignity. And then during the night, I was making sure people weren't dying from emergencies while riding on the ambulance. And I saw two extraordinary parts of conventional model. And what we do in our clinic is we take the best and flush the rest. So there's incredible stuff like emergency medicine and so on and so forth. And then there's things like lipophilic statins, things like Lipitor, literally drive type 2 diabetes in women. In the Women's Health Initiative study, 153,000 women who are on statins had a higher incidence of type 2 relative to non-statin women. And statins also drive mild cognitive impairment conversion to dementia. What that means is people who are not on statins who could not find their keys didn't go to full-blown dementia as quick as people who were on lipophilic statins. So we're constantly evaluating, taking the best of women's health and flushing the rest. And that's really how I got into more complex mystery illness, people suffering with migraines of 9 years, they've been to 17 doctors, they did a brain MRI, it's not a tumor. Well, what is it then? So helping people, women in particular, who have more on their plate, an American woman has more on their plate than any human being on this entire globe. And they're constantly dealing— if you're a mom, I'm gonna be a great mom today, but now work is suffering, or my aging parents aren't getting taken care of, or, you know, the budget's not done, kids aren't getting to practice. Then you go and be a good professional, and then you feel like you're sucking it up as a mom. It's an impossible task. So our clinic's approach is to drill down on your underlying physiological causes, get you feeling as robust and gregarious as possible so you can be the superwoman that we expect as a society. That really ultimately doesn't exist, but let's see if we can have the best run possible at being able to balance the wild expectations you have on your life.

Wow. Okay, so I already have a whole host of mic drop notes made over here, so this is gonna be really good. I only have you for 30 minutes, I said. I could have lied, maybe, so we'll see where this goes. But why women specifically?

Yeah, so early in my healthcare career, we started doing something called an anti-inflammatory gut cleanse. We called it the Gut Reboot. And we would do this for everybody because food is always part of the story. And Americans aren't getting much older, you're getting more inflamed. And one of the big problems with menopause is when you drop out your estrogen and your progesterone— yes, vaginal moisture, yes, night sweats, yes, hot flashes— but those are profound anti-inflammatory, immune-modulating, anabolic hormones. So, they put out inflammation fires while they balance your immune system while they rejuvenate, resuscitate, regenerate tissue. And estrogen helps bind serotonin in the brain. Progesterone helps bind GABA in the brain. Serotonin is enthusiasm. GABA is feeling cool, calm, and collected. So if you have a harsh estrogen-progesterone dropout, now you're also flirting with depression, you're flirting with anxiety, and you tag it right on to a midlife crisis rather than saying, wow, maybe I need to get my estrogen levels checked, maybe I need to get my progesterone checked, maybe I need to understand alternative anti-inflammatories. And we were We connected through Blue Sky CBD, who I do research and development for, and I took that job because I didn't know my butt from my elbow on what's cannabis, what's full hemp extract, what's cannabidiol isolate. And when I studied all of those nutrients, it was the cannabidiol, the pure isolate, that had the most peer-reviewed literature around inflammation. And what CBD does is it enhances the 5-HT1 receptor, which enhances serotonin binding in your brain— enthusiasm. It enhances the GABA-A receptor for feeling cool, calm, and collected. And it enhances the dopamine 2 receptor for ambition and drive, feelings of self-worth, hopefulness, courage, decisiveness, part of our libido, and the ability to finish tasks. So what I learned pretty quickly is cannabidiol is Pure CBD isolate, not full spectrum, it's not published in literature, is an uplifting productivity anti-inflammatory molecule that can be used by the perimenopausal postmenopausal population to smooth over menopause.

Wow, definitely mic drop. Why? Okay, I'm 59. Why am I just hearing about this? And, and I'm, I'm in health, I'm in wellness, I talk to a lot of professionals. Why, why have not— why have I not heard about this? Not specifically in this way, talking to women's needs in midlife and menopause. I mean, overall CBD, but I would have to say conversations I've had before about CBD and products and how they can help has been more of an overall Arking, here's how, you know, you use our products. You know, it wasn't really how— here's how we solve your problem.

Yeah, yeah. And I asked myself the same question because I've been in healthcare. I volunteered for hospice about 29, 30 years ago, private practice for 20 years, and I'm 50, and I didn't understand CBD like a patient would come in the morning and say, this totally helped my knee pain. And I would say, what was it, how much? And they would say, oh, my neighbor just makes it in his bathtub. And, you know, and that's a little bit of an exaggeration. It was like a neighbor homemade. So I couldn't get dosage, I couldn't get milligrams, I couldn't get concentration, I couldn't get application. And my goal is, when you see something cool happen in healthcare once, you want to do it 10 times, then you want to do it 100 times, then you want to try and publish on it so you can literally have it become healthcare policy. And the only people really doing that is lame drugs and then a handful of miracle drugs. So we were in this place and it was really a divine intervention moment where I got asked to take this job because I was already dealing with, okay, why did it work for her and not work for him? And then I had a patient who was very sensitive to THC and She did full hemp extract, which per the 2018 Farm Bill means 0.3% THC or less, right? Some of our teens are smoking 92% THC and getting schizoaffective disorder. They are not smoking the weed we had in college. And off 0.3%, she was brushing her horse and hallucinating. And that's not good. That's a big animal. So, um, So pure cannabidiol is THC-free and allows us to use cannabidiol as the antidote for marijuana toxicity. CBD is literally— if your teenager comes home too high, you give them 30, 60, 120 milligrams of CBD and it kicks THC off the CB1 receptor and brings them down so they don't go into psychotic break. So I was dealing with all of these things and I was like, I just don't know what's going on. And you know, our spouses love it when we take on more projects that you don't get paid for. And, um, and I told my— and, and that's my, my love language is, is getting dramatic healthcare results for the patient. Not like, I'm a little better, like, I'm back to CrossFit. You know, we're going surfing this, this summer, Costa Rica. That's what we want to hear. I'm able to take care of my aging parents and, you know, my niece had a child that she can't totally support and I can step in on that. That's what we want the power and chi and amplitude of energy to have. So, I said, "Honey," to my wife, "I'm so sorry, but I'm taking this job because a little bit of embarrassment that I don't know the deal yet with these molecules." And, I put 90 hours into researching all the peer-reviewed literature on cannabidiol, cannabidiol THC, full hemp extract. And the majority of solid studies, whether it's on anxiety or multiple sclerosis spasticity or cigarette addiction or depression or acne or cancer pain, is on cannabidiol isolate. And, and so yeah, last thing I'll say about that was, so I was all in, I was, I was blown away. And, and then like any nutraceutical, whether it's fish oil or CBD, etc., Greg Carpenter, who started Blue Sky, we went out to dinner and I just like boiler room grilled him. Show me the third-party certificate of analysis. Show me the independent company verifying this product for purity and potency. Purity is there's no pollutants or contaminants, and potency in the nutraceutical industry is it should be within 10% over or under the milligram stated. So our 30-milligram Sky Gel is 27 to 33 milligrams. It's got to be in there, or a third party says nope. And, and that's a— that, that's an accountability. The other thing I wanted is zero THC. I don't like getting high. I like getting uplifted. I like feeling locked in and productive. I like my shoulder joint to feel less achy. And that's what pure cannabidiol does. And then we deal with a lot of autoimmunity, particularly in women. Autoimmunity in women is 3 times to male. Women have 3 times the autoimmunity as men do. Hashimoto's autoimmune thyroid is about 9 to 10 times female to male. And we think a big part of that is testosterone is an annoying cheat code. Testosterone is a really potent immune-modulating anti-inflammatory, so it can kind of keep the immune system a little better at attacking itself. So we wanted this, this pure product, but I didn't want full-spectrum hemp because hemp is not immune-neutral. Cannabidiol, fish oil, vitamin D, vitamin K2, probiotics, short-chain fatty acids in the gut— those are things that regardless of which way your immune system's spinning and swinging out of control, it comes back into balance. And so we wanted something that was third-party tested, THC-free, immune-neutral, anti-inflammatory. And then because we don't sponsor Michael Jordan or anything like that, the cost per milligram of CBD from Blue Sky is, is cost-effective enough where I could push the dosages that you're seeing in the studies.

Cool. Okay, so for— tell me this. So somebody is thinking, okay, they're hearing, um, THC-free, not full-spectrum hemp, and they're going to their local Sprouts, and on the shelf there's, there's lotions, you know, there's all kinds of choices, there's balms or salves. How do they know what they're looking at? Are they looking at just marketing, like people knowing people are buying CBD, we should create a product because they're— we're going to get a piece of the pie?

Yes. And what I want to say super cleanly for your audience is, doesn't mean someone might not have a good effect or experience with that product. What I'm saying is the published research is not on hemp. And there's a really neat researcher, his name is Ethan Russo. He's a phytocannabinoid researcher, just plant cannabinoids. So he just doesn't study just CBD but CBN and CBG and THC and all these things. And he wrote in a paragraph of one paper, this suggests you may need the entourage effect, which means you might need multiple cannabinoids to get a desired effect. It was a thought. Like you have on the toilet or in the shower. It was a thought. And the marketing of people who do full spectrum said you need the entourage effect. And as I was going through those 90 hours of literature combing, it was anxiety, 300 milligrams of cannabidiol, most multiple sclerosis spasticity, 300 milligrams of cannabidiol. And on essential frontline workers, statistically significant reduction in and anxiety, depression, burnout, and emotional exhaustion. 300 milligrams of cannabidiol isolate. So I said, okay, this is again where people can take a little snippet of something and have an agenda of selling you something. And it is more cost-effective to make full-spectrum products. It is, uh, more costly to make a CBD isolate. And, and the other thing on that is, is it's, you know, 0.3% THC. It's really minimal for someone who went to college in the '90s, but some people can literally get stoned off 0.3% THC. And the thing you have to watch out for in THC, particularly in postmenopausal females, can happen a lot because the GABA drops from the low progesterone. THC can drive anxiety. It can drive obsessive-compulsive. It can drive bipolar, schizoaffective disorder, and schizophrenia, especially when it's concentrated. So if you, if you smoke some weed off the hills of China from 200 years ago, that's a high CBD, low THC product. Then Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre said, let's breed down the CBD, get up the THC, and let's get couch lock. Right? And, and that's because CBD helps kick THC off the CB1 receptor, the part that makes you feel kind of, kind of high and expansive but also paranoid and freaked. So, so we have people who are like, I used to smoke weed and it was nice for my period or for my IBS or whatever once in a while, and now I just feel anxious off it. Yeah, you've lost your GABA, your progesterone's down, maybe you have apnea, maybe your blood sugar's off, so on and so forth. And then you're, you're taking something with too much THC. So we wanted that out. And then our firewomen, policewomen, women in government who, you know, maybe can't have THC, we wanted a zero THC final batch tested product because essential frontline workers, paramedics, police officers, these people need a chill pill that doesn't come with the addiction of a benzodiazepine. That doesn't come with the long-term side effects of benzodiazepine. And we found that in Cannabidiol.

So cool. This is just amazing. Okay, so you mentioned 300, right?

Yeah.

How often? How long does that last?

Yeah, that's a great question. So we tell people is everyone should start at 30 milligrams. And the Sky Gel, you can get the, um, The, the Sky Gel is 30 milligrams of cannabidiol, and the, the Sleep Gel samples and the, and the, the Blue Sky Original is the pure CBD. The Sleep Gel is CBD with CBN, and you can get a sample pack of that for like $6 on bluesky-cbd.com. And what we tell people is, what I do is, is I get some of the samples and I'll have patients chew up 2 of those if they have anxiety, pain, fatigue, achiness. And if you don't feel a difference in 5-10 minutes, then chew up another 2. And so you're going 60 to 120 milligrams. Endogenous cannabinoids, self-made cannabinoids, are made from eating healthy fats and moving our bodies. And when we eat healthy fats and move our bodies, we keep making them. But maybe we've had a really tough 10 years of work and raising kids and so on and so forth. We're not working out as much. We're not eating our avocados and our wild salmon and our macadamia oil and our fish oil, so on and so forth. Cannabidiol raises your endogenous cannabinoids. So sometimes we'll have people do 60 milligrams twice a day, start feeling better. Now they can move their body again. Their achy knee is cooperating. They get back to the gym, and then they'll make more on their own. But sometimes you have to replete the reservoirs of your body's anti-inflammatory endogenous cannabinoids. So if someone's dealing with really strong stuff like multiple sclerosis and they try and go to bed at night and their calves are cramping up on them and they're feeling spasticity, that's where we're getting to the 150-300 milligrams a day. So from a wellness and low anxiety and, and some achy joints, you know, somewhere in the 60 to 120 milligrams, from I have freakazoid anxiety and I— and it's corrupting my life, I have really intense Parkinson's, MS, inflammation, we're going up to 300.

Very cool. Okay, so What about any negative interactions? Somebody's already—

I always appreciate when people say, ask that question, and if they don't, I say there's one major interaction with cannabidiol, and that is the original blood thinners, and that's Coumadin, warfarin, heparin. You don't see those around anymore because Eliquis, Pradaxa, Xarelto, the new generation anticoagulants, um, are, are, are finally getting used by cardiologists. People with an artificial heart valve will still be on Coumadin because the research shows that still the old one's still a little bit of better fit. If you're on Coumadin, warfarin, or heparin, it takes the same clearance pathways in the liver as CBD does. So in theory, taking CBD, you could increase that level of blood thinner. The good news is your doctor's running INRs every 2 weeks to look at your blood consistency. And if you want to be on CBD, just do it with your, with your doctor. And if your INRs, meaning go up, that means you're, uh, uh, it's taking longer to make a clot. You just bring down the blood thinner, which is great because you need less blood thinner to have the same, uh, thickness of blood.

Very cool. Okay, so of course our audience is, you know, about 45 to 70, right there in majority of them are females. There are some males here who love their females also listening, and we're welcoming them too.

Yeah.

How do you see CBD as, you know, a supplement that works for adults? I mean, what are the key places? Obviously we all deal with some level of inflammation, but what else beyond that?

Yeah, so again, when you look at what pathways in the body CBD hits, it's very similar to a runner's high. So, the way you feel kind of blissed out after a great workout, 5-HT1 for enhanced serotonin, D2 receptor for that enhanced dopamine, GABA receptor up, but then they also recycle your endogenous cannabinoids. And, endogenous cannabinoids are like your— are like nature's Advil. They're going to allow you to recover from workouts better. But when I used to work at the retirement community, I worked at a Fraser Meadows retirement community, independent living with assisted living in the memory care if you needed it. It's kind of like the Cadillac facility, that in Balfour.

Yep, used to have a friend there. Yep.

Yeah, right. And you know, if you have enough money and it's, it's, it's a wonderful community, but What did they love for sleep? Their favorite sleep drug was Tylenol PM or Advil PM. And what are those? Anti-inflammatories. So, what's happening to a lot of us is all the oxidative stress and inflammation that builds up in your body throughout the day is messing with your ability for melatonin release. So, there's something called the pro-opiomelanocortin pathway, blah, blah, blah, and that needs to get released from cortisol-reducing and darkness. So, it's not just darkness, it's also cortisol comes down. And then, boom, you fire out melatonin and then a huge burst of restorative beauty sleep growth hormones get released. That's why we feel old. We feel our skin. We feel our muscles when we get multiple poor nights of sleep. So, for those scenarios, I'll do a little bit of the Blue Sky Original during the day, maybe a 30 to 60 milligram gel or one dropper full of the tincture. And I'll tell your, your, your listeners, if the, the gels work for you, the tincture is much more cost-effective because it's, it's costly to encapsulate stuff. So if you do really well in the gels, try the tincture from a price point. Always trying to think about most cost-effective way to do things, but we don't we want to dose to the point of getting an effect. So, I'll do the Originals during the day to kind of maintain inflammation and have an uplifted mood. And then, 1 to 2 Blue Sky Sleep Gels at night to be that last reduction of inflammatory cytokines. And the CBN in there is meant to get those beauty sleep hormones out. Totally fine to combine with 3 to 20 milligrams of melatonin. 3 milligrams of melatonin is an average dose. Cancer prevention, post-breast cancer dosing, 10 to 20 milligrams of melatonin. If you get hungover, you can back up a little bit on the melatonin, but you don't have to be concerned if you're already using melatonin, you want to add 1 or 2 Blue Sky Sleep gels.

What about migraines?

Oh, I'm so glad you asked that. So migraines are cytokine storms. Migraine, cyto means cell and kinesis means movement. So this is the movement of inflammatory white blood cells into a tissue space or your brain. So when we're dealing with migraines, we've— knock on wood, we've never had a headache we haven't helped at Roots Branches. That's my clinic, drdoerninger.com, and it's dedicated to solving and resolving mystery illness. But we say, look with your doctor or yourself for underlying causes of inflammation. Are you a thin, lanky body type who's skipping meals? Did no one screen you for sleep apnea? Are you eating inflammatory foods? Are your vitamin D levels and in the toilet? Are you eating tons of inflammatory seed oil, soy and canola and safflower and sunflower, not eating your omega-3 wild salmon and fish oil and macadamia and olive oils? You got to think about all those things. But, at the end of the day, one of my providers at Roots and Branches, she historically has had headaches and she's found the underlying causes of her headaches. But, when she gets back into those underlying causes, maybe she eats one of her inflammatory foods in a birthday cake, she gets a raging migraine. And the Blue Sky Original is incredible for headaches because all of your headache drugs, Imitrex, etc., are serotonin agonists. They enhance serotonin, they push on that 5-HT serotonin pathway. But the Max Relief works even better for her. And the Max Relief is the same amount of CBD with 50% CBG added. And CBG is, is our most potent anti-inflammatory. So the Max Relief is migraine sufferers, really bad rheumatoid arthritis, fibro, psoriatic arthritis, those kind of really achy breaky scenarios. I highly recommend trying the Max Relief, but then also the, the Blue Sky Deep Relief or Max Relief balm. The Deep Relief is, is just concentrated CBD with wintergreen, and the Max Relief is CBD-CBG, and they have samples that look like an enlarged lip balm for I think $20. And I do orally and then spot rub if your wrist hurts, if your neck hurts on those, on those areas. If I'm going like, if there's some deep powder and I'm gonna hit some moguls and some micro cliffs, you know, I don't do the big ones anymore, but the 5-10 foot jumps, I literally will rub the Max Relief on my knees before I I hit the slopes, you know. So yeah, so those are some tricks to, to stay in the game.

So good. Oh, you know what, I was going to ask you something. Oh well, format or platform, if you will. So I mean, you have bath bombs, right, and pills. So how do you know which to do when? How do you choose it? Is that personal preference, or is it— you, you actually have this here. I would recommend this in this situation?

Yeah, so I'll start by saying like I am a spoiled brat. I— my mom died a little young, um, but I had like the best mom ever. And like she's one of the reasons I want to serve, uh, women, women's health, and improved health care for women. It's, you know, and, and part of me is the older I get realizes how much she did for everybody. And then like my uncle would get credit for like coming over and fixing an alarm clock. She took my grandmother to like 3 freaking doctor's appointments, had her over for dinner twice, and didn't even get a hug. It's like, and, and our women in our society, they're so overloaded. It's like, hey, give another thing for her to do. And I always joke, but I'm serious, like 75% of aging parents are getting taken care of by by adult daughters. You know, the son shows up for the holidays and all of a sudden he's the hero again. I'm like, this is so stupid. And, and for those women, a lot of times when their progesterone drops, their GABA drops. Don't forget that. And when they drop their GABA, they go GABA-seeking. And one thing that can give you GABA is a glass of red wine. And I've seen women who've never drank much alcohol go through menopause and now they're chasing a glass of red wine like a moth finds a flame. It is uncanny. And all of a sudden, they're doing trips to Napa with the girlfriends and so on and so forth. Then go have fun, but at the end of the day, we got to make sure that they have their GABA. So, you can work with your doc for some bioidentical progesterone maybe, but that's a bath bomb situation. Right there. Thinking about that glass of red, let's put a bath bomb in, right? The other one is women who are still hitting it hard. They're still— they want to take the CrossFit as long as they can. I roll jiu-jitsu. There's a couple of killer women on the mat who are turning 50 like me, and we're all just trying to say, how do we stay injury-free? And my role for jiu-jitsu is not to get a black belt. It's keep going and don't get injured. Keep going and don't get injured. So for that, that's more where we're keeping our, our balms, right? Your gym bag. If you have arthritis, anything. But if you're CrossFit, yoga, if you're, if you're still trying to play some indoor soccer, if you had the best day cross-country skiing but your joints are sore, you're gonna keep at least one of those lip balms in your gym bag and your ski bag, so on and so forth. And, and the local topical is super helpful., right? Figure out, am I loading that hip joint wrong or whatever, but the topicals really allow you to go, "Okay, I can ski again tomorrow. I don't have to sit in the hot tub and drink too much. I'll be actually out on the slopes having a good time." And then, the original oral SkyGels is mood stuff. So, if you're having anxiety, if you're tending to be obsessive-compulsive, if you're tending to be flat and depressed, if your mood is just kind of swinging, always check that blood sugar, make sure you're, you're eating well. But, but that's the original. And then the Max Relief is when that pain gets amplified, and the sleep gels are 1 to 2 gels to just turn off that brain and get a good restorative quality sleep.

So good. This was gold, literally gold. So I will have to tell you, um, early September, and I've got some samples, so I had the, the stick and, uh We did a rim-to-river-to-rim hike at the Grand Canyon and had trained for it, so I was ready. But it was hot, you know, and, and that's 9 miles finishing up, up, you know, it's not like mountain hiking where you get to come down, even though I know eccentric training is not a lot easier on you. But yeah, boy, did I use that stuff, and it really paid off. So I think me responding and rebounding a little bit faster, feeling a little bit better compared to others in our party was legit.

So yeah, just that little opening to say, all right, let's do it again. I've heard that hike is, is a bucket list. I haven't done that yet.

So I heard it's a beautiful way to, to not be there and stand at the edge and look over, but to really be in it is, is majestic. Yeah, the light was surreal. Yeah, so this has been so good. So, Eric, before I let you go, I'm going to ask you one question. This is the total out of the blue and unfair, but knowing who you're talking to— women in midlife juggling all the things— you've described us, I think, better than we describe ourselves. So thank you for that. Is there a question I should have asked you that I haven't yet?

You know, I, I think What I would say to both men and women, but, but women in particular, is we need to support you at feeling empowered about graceful, graceful, healthy aging. And Americans mistake inflammation for aging all the time. They say we're getting older. No, you're getting more inflamed. And when you go through menopause, you drop out two miracle anti-inflammatory hormones, estrogen and progesterone. And those hormones are like lids on jars of inflammatory cytokines. And when those lids come off, if you're not paying attention, pop goes the weasel and out comes interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor. These cytokines that burn down the bones, do osteopenia, osteoporosis, and age the brain. So we want to empower everybody, but women in particular, because a harsh menopause can really be the pop the can of worms to a journey of inflammation. We want to empower them to put brain mass in the bank, lean muscle mass in the bank, and clean arteries in the bank. And managing your inflammation and supporting your mood and supporting your body's capacity to keep moving and, and, and dump that stress cup every day. On a run or with some weights or in a yoga class, some Pilates, hanging out with some, some friends and playing volleyball, pickleball, whatever your jam is. We have to support women to take charge of brain, lean muscle, and clean arteries. And CBD can be a great complement to managing mood, inflammation, and pain.

That was beautiful. I'm so glad I asked that question. All right, everybody, I, I— you may have questions that I didn't ask, but I think we got a lot of answers. I know I got far more than I bargained for, so I am so glad that we had this epic discussion Eric, thank you so much for being here.

It's my absolute pleasure.

And ladies, if you still have a lingering question you want to ask it, or you want to come over to the show notes, and I think you are going to want to because we've got some copious notes here and questions and places where you can find— here are the questions we talked about if you want to get back to one specific. And there is a 20% off place where you can click. You're going to want to try it. I know it. If you're thinking about one of the 3 Flipping 50 retreats in 2024, I will train you so you're ready, but you still may want it. So there's that. Show notes will be at flipping50.com/how-women-use-cbd. And what are you waiting for? Let's start flipping 50 today.