Reverse Menopause Symptoms with These Science-Backed Hacks w/ Zora Benhamou

Can you reverse menopause? People are going on menopause. Can you reverse it?

If you're talking about reversing the symptoms, yes. If you're talking about delaying menopause, yes. In terms of reversing, like if you already post menopause, technically, can you rejuvenate yourself back to ovulation or getting your periods back? Well, yes, you can get your periods back through hrt, but it's a fake bleed, it's not a real bleed, and you're ovulating.

Welcome to the Dr. Joy Kong podcast. This is where I have a chance to share with you some of the latest developments in the space of holistic health, longevity and wellness. I have always honored intellectual curiosity and scientific rigor combined with real world practicality. My goal is that what you learn here will help you live longer and live better. Hope you enjoy the journey with me. Hello, everybody. Welcome Back to the Dr. Joy Kong podcast. You know, I'm here to help you live a longer and happier life. So we're all here wanting to really live exuberantly. And today we have a very interesting subject on menopause. So I have an expert with me. Zora. So nice to see you, Zora.

Nice to see you too. I'm really excited about this conversation.

Yeah. So Zora Benamou is a gerontologist and she studies aging and she's very passionate about challenging stereotypes regarding menopause and stigma and all the different ageist stereotypes. And she hosts the Hack My Age podcast and focusing on empowering women navigating the menopausal transition through biohacking techniques and information from forward thinking experts. So I cannot wait to dive into menopause, you know, topic, right. Half the world are women and if you're lucky, you're going to live into your menopausal age. And we've all heard about the challenges, hot flashes and the mood swings and, or aches and pains. Right. People start to experience more. Well, you studied aging at usc and then you also studied under various, you know, incredible experts. So what, what, what do you think are the myths surrounding menopause?

Oh, where should I start? The list. The list is long. But, you know, I, I talk to a lot of women around the world about menopause. I do these one minute reels and post them on Instagram. And, and I, I have to say, very often I get, when I say, hey, I'd like to talk to you about menopause, can you answer five questions? Many women who are maybe in their 60s would say, oh, I Didn't do menopause, or I, I, I don't, I don't have menopause. And I said, well, do you still have a period? And they said, no, you're in menopause. And so some women, when they decide when they menopause, they think it's just this suffering or these, they, they associate it with that. But in talk, in fact, when we talk about menopause, it's this. The perimenopause, the postmenopause is sort of this umbrella term. But some women say, I didn't do it. Yes, you did. Other women would say, oh, I'm too young for menopause. And they're. How old are you? Oh, 48. Well, Sal, it's about perimenopause, more or less, but they're not even thinking it because they think menopause is for old women or it's after 50. I won't even think about that. It's some, in some cultures, it's a negative word where that means when I ask somebody on the street, can I talk to you about menopause? They look at me like, no. And how rude of you, because you just called me old. And it's, it's a stigma. And in different cultures have different attitudes towards menopause and that word and the whole process.

Is there any country that's really welcoming and positive?

Oh, positive. I'd say Thailand was probably my most positive experience, and women were very open to talking to me. I usually get a lot of rejection when I pull out a camera and say, hey, can I film this? But in Thailand, it was, oh, sure, no problem. And they will talk about their libido and their vagina and their sex life.

Really?

Yes. I was not expecting that. That was lovely. Very open. They were very, very open to that. And in menopause, again, for, for them is just a stage of life. And, and I see differences in terms of socioeconomic levels. So if somebody's a fruit vendor in Vietnam and I asked about menopause, she's like, why would you even want to talk to me about that? Suffering? Pain. No, I've been suffering for a long time. I'm just trying to get food on the table for my family. I got bigger fish to fry. Like, it's not a. Like they have so many other things to worry about. It doesn't seem to be the first thing.

Talk to me about something important.

Yes, exactly. And then different cultures have different treatments. But, but yeah, they, they would, they wouldn't. Yeah, they wouldn't be. They would be more open to it. I have to say, I thought Asia would, in general, would be harder to get people to talk, but it found it to be a lot easier.

Hmm. Very interesting. Yeah. So a lot of people do suffer through menopause, Right? So what do you think is the percentage of women who actually have a hard time during menopause?

When you talk about hard time, what does that mean? Because there's a spectrum. There's about 20% of the women who say, I don't feel anything. It's a breeze, whatever. And then there's about 20, 25% who say, I feel everything under the. And then there's Everyone else is kind of in between. So we all will fall somewhere in the spectrum. But we're only really looking at three or four symptoms that we know about. Well, maybe your period. Stop. Maybe you have a hot flash or a mood swing, maybe sleep disruption. That's all people are thinking about. When in fact, there are documented 103 different symptoms of menopause. So we're not thinking about joint pain or associating that with the loss of our hormones. We're not thinking about phantom smells where we smell smoke, but no one else does to the loss of our hormones. So there's a lot of things that we don't feel in terms of osteoporosis. We don't feel our bones getting brittle or our hearts building up plaque. But these are signs and symptoms of menopause, and it's due to the loss of our hormones, not only, but they do play quite a big role. So when people say, I didn't do menopause or I'm not in menopause, or. Yeah, they are. They are. And. And so you need to be aware of some of these things, because if your sleep disruption or your. Your depression or anxiety has. Has something to do with your hormones and it behooves us to look at them, may balance them out somehow. At least try this before you get onto an SSRI or antidepressant. Maybe you don't need them. Maybe you do. I don't know. But it shouldn't be the first call to action when a woman comes in your office who. With anxiety or depress or stress, and she's in this menopausal age, it's. It's unfortunate, but most doctors are not trained in menopause and how to treat a woman through this stage of life. But that's just the way, way, way it happens.

So what happens to the body during menopause? Ooh.

What doesn't there is. So the simple explanation is, is really we, we've been producing estrogen and testosterone and progesterone. These are three main sex hormones that, that we generally speak about, but there's so many more. We talk about insulin or talk about so many other thyroid hormones, but when we talk say sex hormones, we're talking about those and that decline or they fluctuate before they get to menopause. And maybe we'll talk about perimenopause and menopause. So people understand the different stages because menopause literally is a one day event and that's when you've had 12 consecutive months of without your period. So if you've had six months without a period, then you get it again. Well, you got to start the clock again until you get to your meno birth date, which is I think a ridiculous thing. But okay, we have a date and it's only one day. So anything after that is called post menopause. But again, very often we say menopause. But technically it's post menopause. And then there's early postmenopause and then late postmenopause. So but up until that menno birth date, we have perimenopause, which on average is between five and seven years. Some women have 10, some have 15. I've seen women who are in their, you know, who've had it for, for decades. So it's, it's on average, let's call it five to seven. And this is when your hormones start to fluctuate and this is where you start to maybe notice some disruptions in sleep, notice your wonky periods where you, you used to be a 28 day girl and now you're 25 or, or more or less. Maybe you skip a period and that's the, the fluctuations of estrogen and progesterone and maybe testosterone. Testosterone tends to take a dive a little bit later for some women, sometimes earlier. But what women don't realize is around the age of 35, your mid-30s, is when we start to lose progesterone. And progesterone is our calming hormone, it's our relaxing hormone, and it actually takes a deep dive. It's not like estrogen, where it does gradually decline. Sometimes it feels like you're falling off a cliff. But for most women it's a longer period of decline, whereas progesterone can literally fall off a cliff. And this is where you start to see the sleep disruption, maybe a little bit anxiety when you never had it before or more if you had it before, and then you may have some mood swings. And this is. Your, that chill pill is kind of gone, and that's in your mid-30s. Like, I was not thinking about menopause in my mid-30s. I didn't even know what perimenopause was when I was going through perimenopause. But this is something important for the younger listeners to, to understand because this is when you may go into a doctor's office and say, I can't sleep and I'm, I'm stressed out and I may be getting a little depressed. And that's when you get your sleep medication and your antidepressants, when maybe your doctor should be looking at your hormones, testing them and seeing if it is a progesterone deficienc. And just topping up with a little bit of progesterone is, is quite a simple, simple thing to do. So, so that's the decline that happens in our mid-30s. So, so we gotta think about perimenopause in our mid to late 30s, definitely in your 40s. And we have early perimenopause, mid perimenopause and late perimenopause. So there are different stages. And so, and, and it is. You'll see the difference. They're diff. People have different symptoms. Not everybody's the same. We're all having. We can have some similarities, but it is a different. Some people will feel more symptoms than others. Sometimes they'll be stronger than others. Some, A lot of women do not have hot flashes at all, but they may have the joint pain or they may have the mood swings or sleep disruptions.

So these hormone declines mostly because ovarian function declining.

Yeah, ovarian function is declining. And that's a natural process. That's what happens. However, there's some interesting research that's coming out that's showing even after menopause, our ovaries are still functioning and they do have an important role. And, and they're trying to figure out what is it that's, that's, that's really triggering this and what's, what we can do to delay the ovarian decline. And as far as we know now, we, we, we can extend the life of our ovaries, which is great. We can do things to help that along because there are most people, not everyone would agree that we want to have ovaries, have a good life. Right. Keep living as, as long as they possibly can, and eventually they'll kind of put her out. But it doesn't mean, just because you can't make babies anymore, that we're useless. So we, we are finding out more and more things. So I think it's, it's important to delay ovarian aging if we can. And there's some people who can rejuvenate that after a while through some biohacking techniques. But, but it is, it is one of these things yet. So it's, it's the decline. The ovaries aren't, aren't producing estrogen, progesterone as much anymore. The adrenals start to take over, but they're already taxed by the time you're in your 50s. Like, we've had a lot going on, and they have to deal with making cortisol and all these other hormones, so, so they're getting an added stress on it. And that's why we need to really take care of ourselves in this stage of life. And I know it's, it's really hard for some women, but the more you pay attention to your body and try to give it some love and treat it well, the better off you'll have through this menopause transition, but also to protect your future self.

Yeah. Wow. So let's say people start to notice problems with hot flashes and, and, you know, moose wings. And what are some of the hacks that you can suggest to them? Are there easy fixes or does it take a very involved effort?

I know you like the easy fix, right? I do. The easy fix. There's a little bit of a caveat, but I think in my community, what I'm seeing the most, the most effective treatments for hot flashes and in night sweats and mood swings or this depression, all these many, many of these common symptoms is hormone therapy. And we're talking about bioidentical hormone therapy, which is different than the old school hormone therapy, which is. Was synthetic. And so when we will bring this on board, it's quite immediate. It can, it can be two days, two weeks, maybe two months max. But you should be feeling something for sure within those first two months. And if it's not, then you certainly need to talk to your doctor because there's different formulas for different women. But with the caveat to that is, is I'm a firm believer. And we need to keep this terrain that we're living in healthy so that we can detoxify these hormones. Whether they're your own hormones endogenously or whether you bring them out exogenously and take them, your body, your liver still needs to do the work to Convert estrogen and detoxify this from the body. So if you're not doing that, and that means you're, you're not exercising and sweating, you're not pooing every day, you're, you're drinking alcohol a little bit too much, then you're not giving your body the chance to detoxify these hormones. And I think that's a really, really important thing we need to do. So it's not like, woohoo, take these hormones and then forget about it. Same thing for our bones. We. I didn't talk about your bones. Start to become more brittle. Osteoporosis. The risk of osteoporosis increases with the loss of estrogen. So we don't feel our bones getting brittle. But it's happening. So we can't just, oh, let's just take estrogen because it's quote unquote protective or lowers our risk of a fracture later on. We still need to do the impact exercises, we still need to eat the protein, we still need to get our sleep and our stress managed as well. So it's not a one size, it's like a fix, fix all everything or magic bullet. It sounds like a magic bullet and it can be for a lot of women who are really suffering. And it's like, how do I ask a, a woman who's going through menopause with all these symptoms to go to the gym and start eating healthy and when they're not getting good sleep, when they're having 10 hot flashes a day, so having the hormones on board, they're more likely to go and do those healthy habits. And, and that's, that's where I think the magic quite happens. But that's probably the biggest hack that we have in the menopause is to.

Get on bioidentical hormones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It could be a game changer.

Can be a great game changer. Yeah.

So definitely we talk about estrogen, progesterone. What do you think of testosterone?

Oh, testosterone. I think definitely women have got to look into this and talk to their doctor about it. And I, I believe not every woman needs testosterone. You, you just test. I'm a biohacker. I love to test, measure and assess. Like, do we need these? Do we not need these? And even if you're on hormones, go and test your hormones when you have your formula or if you're just starting out because we don't know. You absorbing this, not absorbing this. Maybe you know, you will know through symptom relief. But are you taking too Much are you taking too little? You still want your bones protected, you still want to be, you know, having all the benefits, at least what the research shows. And you want them at certain levels. You want them to be detoxifying from the body as well. So there's all this testing, I think that needs to be done. And so that's why I'm a firm believer in understanding where your hormones are, knowing your numbers and, and not just take something go, woo, you know, we're, we're done. Like, no, we need to do a little bit more work. And people say, oh, when you're aging, oh, slow down and take it easy. I'm like, no, I'm sorry, we need to work harder. Building muscle isn't as easy as it used to be when we were younger. So we have to work harder. I wish I could take it easy, but I gotta go faster and work harder and, and doesn't mean I don't have times of, of recovery and relaxation and all that. But I, I, I, you're concerned about your future self, then we need to do certain things today because Alzheimer's and dementia and osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease doesn't happen when you're 70. It all accumulates when you're much younger, 10, 20, some people would say 30 years before.

And this is where I, I think I want to mention some hacks that, you know, a particular easy hack is peptides. I think that's why it's gotten so popular because everything you mentioned, right, muscle building, losing fat, repairing faster sleep, better, better cognition, I mean it, all these aspects will have peptides. That's, you know, can accelerate it for you. So I think it'd be really nice to just add it on.

Yes, peptides are great actually another great hack for depending on your symptom. You know, because menopause is such a general word, we have to think about, well, what is it? So for hot flashes, number one, like research has proven great hrt, but if you're concerned about the weight, right, and you can't get it off, and you're doing all the hard work and nothing's happening and your hormones are balanced, well, then maybe the GLP1s might be an option for you then if you're concerned about joint pain or your gut issues, your gut, BPC157 is a wonderful thing for the gut and for the joints as well. Or TB 500, like all these, these crazy peptides that we have available to us and again, don't do by yourself, please don't Go on onto online website and start ordering peptides and injecting yourself. And not all of them are injectables. There's some supplements and there's some sublingual, there's a lot of other things that, that we can use. Epitalon is another great one for sleep and it's just a sublingual and that if you just don't want to go to hormone route, we do have alternatives. But I would love to hear from your practice. Your, Are you, you're offering peptides, right?

Yeah, we use a lot of peptides. So besides stem cells, which is the big gun for repair and regeneration, you want to kind of target, you know, specific regions of the body. If you know, if you want sexual function.

Right.

There are ones that PT141 can enhance your sexual function. If you want skin regeneration, GHK Copper is fantastic. And, and you know, brain regeneration. We have a whole range of peptides for anxiety, depression, ADHD and cognition. So and if you want to, you know, fight potential for autoimmune issues or even fight, you know, protect you Against Cancer, T Alpha 1 Epitalon, those are great. So there are just, it gives you so much more as far as tools to help to help navigate and protect different areas of the body.

Can I ask you about the ghkcu? Because my girls in my community have, are loving GHKCU now. I take it as a topical. I think it's great. I used it for scars, I use it for my face. But there's some of them who love the injectables and they say their skin is, is so much better. Their hair is growing. What are you prescribing? Injectable or topical? And what do you say?

We have both actually in my cream, the Char Omni cream. We have GHK cotton copper in it, but we have, we have actually Exosome product with GHK copper that people can, can use topically. We also have injectable. So the injectable, I mean GHK copper is great for wound healing, for lungs, so for different internal organs and for the brain. So it's not just for, for skin. I've tried a little bit injectable. I probably should do more.

What do you think is the best for the hair? Hair?

I think topical is great as a topical serum. I, I, I think what we have with different peptides and, and different herbs and different, well also has a stem cell component, the Char Omni. We've seen really, really good results with hair growth.

Yeah.

Even though it's a cream that make for face. But we're going to create a hair formula using some of these incredible ingredients. But even as a face cream, we've had people putting on their hair and seeing really good results.

Do they see any results with their eyebrows?

You know, I haven't had people try that yet.

There's a couple girls who say that their GHKCU cream is making their eyebrows thicker and fuller.

Wow. Okay. All right.

I don't see that with me. But you know, I'm getting.

No, eyebrows are a big thing. I, I haven't paid much attention to my eyebrows.

Yeah.

But anyhow, so coming back to the menopause, can you reverse menopause? I mean, is it, is there a possibility? If people are going on menopause, can you reverse it?

I wish we could menopause. So menopause is just. If you're talking about reversing the symptoms, yes. If you're talking about delaying menopause. Yes. In terms of reversing, like if you already post menopause, technically, can you rejuvenate yourself back to ovulation or getting your periods back? Well, yes, you can get your periods back, but through hrt. But it's a fake bleed, it's not a real bleeding. You're not ovulating. But there are, there's somebody I interviewed and who does ovarian rejuvenation and he says he's got 60 year olds who are trying to get pregnant and they are actually getting a period back. And I don't think that they're ovulating. But, but there's certainly people trying to do this. Not that you, everyone should have a baby or want a baby or their 60s, but. Okay. He has this one client who wants to reverse menopause and I think eventually we may even get there. But we, we, we don't. Yeah. So do we. And do we really want to. Right. It's, it's the, the, the signs and the symptoms. Yes. We want to reverse osteoporosis. We want to reverse heart disease. We want to reverse. And we can. Diabetes, we can like all these things. It's the, it's, it's, it's. When it's, it's very much due to the loss of our hormones. And the thing is, is if we want to lower the risk of osteoporosis and, and, and having a fall and a fracture, which is, is the big deal, or having a heart attack due to heart disease, it's better to start hormone therapy early, the research shows. And Everybody seem as much as they disagree on menopause and, and techniques. Most people are agreeing that if you're going to get on hrt, it's better to do it earlier before your menopause if you can and not, not later, because by then your bones have already become brittle, your heart has already the, the buildup. And so there are some risks, but of taking hrt? Not that I think everyone is Most, most women are a candidate. It's just how you do it and getting a menopause specialist to get you through because standard this, the, the guidelines, let's say of most menopause societies around the world would say don't give hormone therapy to women who's 10 years or age 60, which I think is, is I've been taught through the Institute of bioidentical medicine and Dr. David Rosensweet and his whole program there that no, it's not true. You can get a woman who's 10 years post menopause or 60 years old on hormone therapy. They, he believes that it's very beneficial. But you have to take a different approach. You have to do it differently. And this is why every woman who gets hormone therapy needs to have the guidance of a qualified doctor. And, and just, just taking hormones like that, I think is, is wrong. Just like peptides, you don't want to take it like that. You want guidance and you want to make sure you find the right formula for you and then you do it the right way to, to increase the, the benefits and lower the risks.

Yeah, and, and talking about rejuvenating the ovaries, it reminds me of a study I saw using stem cell therapy on perimenopausal rats. So this is really fascinating, right? These, these rats are going on menopause and they give them young rats stem cells and look at what happens to the ovaries. They actually showed that the ovary size increased, the number of follicles increased, their estrogen level went up and their FSH LH went down, which is a good, you know, the right trend. And they have more pregnancies. So it's pretty remarkable that the stem cells were rejuvenated, rejuvenating the ovaries.

And this is a perimenopause menopausal rats.

Yeah.

So interesting. Definitely this is the, the delaying of menopause, meaning you can rejuvenate this. And this is, this is, this is, this is stem cell at its best. Because you're getting, like you said, you've been just a great conversation about stem cells and they're new, they're young. And it does remind me a little bit about those, that research that, that's done with the rats were. I can't remember the actual terminology where they were putting young rat blood into an old rat.

Oh, parabiosis, yeah. Is this kind of like plasma exchange?

Plasma exchange, yeah. And they were seeing the older rats getting younger. It's in. Incredible. So why, why not? You know, so it, it does, it makes sense now. Will it become Stanford practice? As to be seen.

Yeah. Well, it certainly gives people hope. So that's, that's, that's nice that we have a way of making it healthier, making all the organs, including ovaries, and talking about what people experience and need to watch for during menopause. Are there. I know some people, like you mentioned, didn't even have symptoms. They said, I did fine. You know, I don't have any problems. But when people are in menopause or during the transition, even if they're asymptomatic, they still need to be cautious about certain things. Right? Are they?

Yeah. Silent, silent killers. This is what I'm most worried about, the asymptomatic woman, because she probably won't go to our doctor to have just a checkup, just to check your bones, just to check your heart, just to check your cardiovascular markers, your thyroid, these things. And you may be surprised when you get. You fall and you fracture a bone. And this is, this is why I want women to always be testing, measuring and assessing. It's great to test when you're at your best or when you're feeling really great, or if you think everything's fine. And I don't want to scare people, say, oh, you know, you're going to go and find something. It's more about just knowing where you're at. So that if you, I would definitely, if you're in your 20s and 30s, measure your hormones. Like, what's normal for you, because by the time you get to perimenopause or menopause, maybe certain number of hours, estradiol is, whether it's very high or very low is normal for you when you're feeling your best. Like, especially when you're trying to figure out hormone therapy, like all women, some women just need a tiny dose, and some women need mega dose. And, and it'll be a little bit more clear if you knew where your hormones at when you're young and everything is, is. So just knowing where you're at when you're feeling good is important. But I do worry about the woman who's everything's fine, great. And, and you may be surprised when you get your first dexa scan at 65 and you're in heavy osteoporosis. And there are things that you, not that you can't reverse it, but just so much harder. You're going to be careful of those osteoporotic bones. And we're supposed to put impact, but not too much, lift heavy weight, but not too much because don't want to. It's, it's, there's a. You just have to be a bit more cautious when in fact, if you knew ahead of time that you are going, the bones are getting more brittle, then you can still do lots of impact and build strength and, and all that where you, you can reverse this. And it's so fun to reverse a disease. Like to see those numbers, those charts. And then you feel, you feel really good. So that's the silent killer or a heart attack or a stroke. Others we tend to think that, that strokes or heart attacks happen to older men and that's absolutely wrong. Women, it's the number one killer for both men and women all across the globe. This is, this is something that women definitely need to be concerned about. We're so worried about breast cancer, but like, wait a second, what about, what about heart disease? We're not paying attention. And women have different signs and symptoms of a heart attack than men. Some of them are the same, but we'll have other ones. And that's why women very often get turned back at the hospital when they're saying, I've got, you know, certain, certain I'm feeling lightheaded or dizzy, a little bit nauseous. And some of these are, are not the typical heart attack signs that, that a man would have. And then she gets sent home and has a, has a heart attack or a stroke. It's, it's, we need to, I think, get better with that and be a bit more concerned in, in, in about our heart and our heart health.

And how do you suggest people go about it to improve their heart health?

Oh, there's a, there's a lot of things. So what's good for the heart is good for the brain. So let's keep that in mind too. If you're concerned about dementia and Alzheimer's. I'm a big fan of exercise and movement. Whatever, whatever you can do. Just get started. It's such a magic bullet for so many things. Not everything, but for many, many things. And I, I remember going to the Buck Institute of Aging. And there was a lecture on dementia. No Alzheimer's. And somebody in the audience asked like, what's the, what's the number one thing we can do? Like we can, I know we need to do a lot, but if there's one thing we should do to lower our risk of Alzheimer's, what should it be? And the lecturer said exercise. We need to exercise. And of course we know that's good for our heart as well. And so this is going to bring more blood flow, this is going to bring more nutrients to the body. It's going to, we're going to have a healthier body weight. And, and I think exerc is probably the one, one of the biggest things. But diet, you know, skin, here we go into a diet. But diet is important. I'm diet agnostic, so figure out what works for you. I think we're all very different and I've lived around the world, traveling the world, I think seen people thriving on all kinds of diets. But the diet's really important. And I think that the stress component is a key to cardiovascular health. That I didn't realize until I took, took the, my master's in gerontology. And I remember this distinctively, this course on the mind body connection. I thought that was woo. This is usc, a research based university. So when I saw that in the curriculum and I was like mind body, I guess it's a thing. And so it was a wonder. It was my favorite class because we had a psychologist and then we had the physiologist and they explained what was going on in the brain and what was how the body was reacting. And I do remember the professor who was talking about arthroscolotic buildup and, and I said okay, wait a second, let, and, and, and you know, trying to make the connection with cortisol and stress. And I said well if somebody was exercising like perfectly, they ate the perfect diet and they're doing all these right things. However, if they're really highly stressed is, is how big of an impact is that going to make on, on their heart health? And they said it trumps everything. Professor said look, this is, it doesn't, I mean it matters what you eat and your exercise. He goes but this is such an important piece. You will still get plaque buildup even with the perfect diet and exercise. You just need to get that stress component under control. And that blew my mind. So I think managing the stress, it's the piece at least. The women in my community, we talk, I try to, when I use health coaching Women, this and I talk about it. It's the one that we're most resistant to. Much happier. Like we can figure out diet and exercise, sleep even. But the stress thing, like, we, we don't want, it's, it's hard to work on that. It is really, really hard. And I, but it is the one that, that makes the biggest impact. So I think it's worth paying attention.

To, I guess, because it involves mindset, right? You have to change your mindset and change maybe how you go about your life. You know, as far as what, what you emphasize in your routine.

If you're used to doing certain things or running on adrenaline or just that's the way you're it. It's hard to change habits and routine and, and the mindset, like you said, is, is, is, is important. So I think it's, it's all, it's just hard work.

What has been the most helpful for you to manage your stress?

For me, breath work. I think I, I was blown away. I learned breath work techniques from the Oxygen Advantage because I had a client. I was teaching really basic, like, I hardly knew anything about breath work. I just picked up some techniques and she improved so fast with the little that I gave her. I was, I was blown away. I said, okay, wait, we have a really powerful tool here. I just want to understand the mechanism of action and like, why this is happening. So I took that course because it was very scientific and explained what was happening and I, I was blown away. It wasn't because I wanted to be a breathwork teacher or anything, but I thought, well, these will be great tools for myself and I can, you know, if I can share with the community, great. But it is such a powerful thing. It's free. And if we can just harness the breath and understand it and control it and use it to our advantage. And I, I, the way what I teach is functional breathing. It's how you breathe the other 23 hours outside of your yoga, pranayama type breath work. Like, how do we breathe throughout the day? And how we breathe throughout the day is how we breathe throughout the night. And I'm even teaching how you breathe during exercise to enhance your performance. But also keep working on controlling the breath so that we get into this. We oxygenate our blood when our blood is more oxygenated, right. We bring more, more blood flow, more nutrients to the cells and to the tissues. And of course, a lot of things, things function better, but you'll feel better and, and it's so powerful that literally in less than a Minute, you can just feel the calm. If you were to measure it through an aura ring or blood pressure cough, you see your blood pressure going down, you see the heart rate coming down, you see your temperature go up because you're getting more blood flow. It's. It's really cool to measure these things with some of these little gadgets and devices that we have, because you not only feel it, but you see it, and it's literally less than a minute.

You talked about functional breathing, you know, of actually doing, going about your days and breathing, like, what. How do you breathe?

So if there's anything anyone remembers from this podcast interview is to please breathe through your nose. Okay? We are a society that breathes too much through the mouth. Our mouth is made for talking and eating and maybe a few other things, but generally we want to keep everything. The nose. It's an incredible filtration system that we have that our mouth doesn't have. And so our nose is made for breathing. We have little hairs to filter it. We have the temperature control. We have a cooling system. We have mucosa layers. We. This is part of our defense system. So imagine if you were to walk through a crowd, if your mouth is open. Well, you're more likely to get some bacteria or virus or something in there. Nose is much harder to get into. So it's, it's a real cool defense system, but it is also bringing in more nitric oxide, which we know is better for our blood vessels to open up and get more blood flow. We. So we want to breathe through our nose as much as we can. And I'm not saying mouth breathing and Wim Hof and all that's bad. It's, it's, it's for a purpose. There's many different types of breath work and for a different purpose. But for the functional breathers and us, we want to breathe through the nose, and we also want to breathe low and light. We don't want. We normally have 12 breaths per minute, and that's a normal breath. If you're in a panic, of course, it's what, 17 to 20, 25, depends how much of a panic you're in. And we want to lower the breath to about six breaths per minute. And that's when some of the magic happens when we, when we are able to breathe light and low and we don't need these big inhales and exhales, whether it's through your nose or not. Not. We don't need that. We, we. What we're trying to do. So hemoglobin which carries 98% of our oxygen, is. Is held. Holds on to oxygen really tight when we're breathing through our mouth, right? We, when we're in panic, it holds onto it. But when we're relaxed and we breathe slowly and we start to build up carbon dioxide in the blood and we get that. And we know when we get that little signal in our head going, yeah, I think I'd like to take a nice big inhale. That's when the magic happens. And that's when hemoglobin releases oxygen into the bloodstream. And I had a visual of this when I was getting a PRP injection. And I mentioned to you before that I had these injections, you take out your blood and you spit in a centrifuge. But I remember one time, and I've done PRP many times. One time the doctor said, hey, sore. Oh my God, come and see this. And I was, what? What is it? And this is right when I was doing my. My breath work training. So I was doing a lot of breath work for the last couple of weeks. And he said, look at all the bubbles. And I was like, what does that mean? Because oxygen. And he goes, this is the best time to inject. I've never seen your blood so oxygenated. And I said, I wonder if that's because of the breath work. I will never know. But to me, I think that if it's true, then that was a pretty cool visual to see the oxygen in the blood being released. So I think it's a very powerful tool. And there are many benefits that happen when you breathe functionally and when you can, you're more relaxed, you're more calm, and you're more at ease. Less cortisol, less stress, less inflammation. And it's something that we can do anytime we need it, but we need to practice it it on a daily basis as much as we can. It doesn't mean you carve out 10 minutes to do breath work. No, it means you practice the breath work techniques while you're driving, while you're standing in line at the market, while you're sitting in the doctor's office instead of picking up your phone. Let's go. Okay. How can we keep our breath low and light? And that means inhaling for, let's say, four seconds and then exhaling for six. It doesn't matter if it's 4, 6 or 5, 10 or 2 6. It just matters that the exhale is a little bit longer than the inhale. That's where some of the Magic happens. That's when the parasympathetic, that rest and digest, that relaxation system is most activated. So we want to keep it a little bit longer. So that's in a nutshell, I guess. Thank you.

Thank you for that tip. Yeah. Yeah. If managing stress is going to make the most difference, then. And if breathing is the cheapest and the most effective tool, it sounds like, then definitely practice that breathing.

And you can go on to YouTube. You find YouTube videos, you can find apps. All of this is free. You just type it in and you'll get, you'll get. Just get started. I need anything, really.

Yeah. Awesome. So let's say a woman is in their 30s, early 40s, is facing menopause at some point. What's your suggestion to them? So they can actually maximize the chance of them having a really smooth one.

A smooth one. And also delay if you can, if you, if you're interested in delaying, and then protect your future self. So the number one thing is to, is to get educated. And, and the problem with that is that when you start to educate yourself and go, you listen to podcasts or read a book or talk to people or doctors, your friends, you're going to find a lot of conflicting information. Unfortunately, that's the way it is. And this is, this is where the. But the more you read, the more you dig them. And it's okay to hear conflicting sides. It'll help guide you to figure out what's right for you. Is HRT right for you? Is it not? You'll. You'll get a sense of what it is. But certainly one of the myths that has to be debunked is that HRT and estrogen causes cancer. It doesn't. Like that came from the Women's health study from 2003, and that's been debunked. And, okay, now we have the FDA turning over the black box warning. So we need to understand that, okay, hormones, we have our natural hormones. We have to understand them, and we have to understand that we're losing them. No matter how healthy we are, it will eventually go through menopause, and that's okay. So we just want to be able to make this transit smooth. And you'll find out through reading and educating yourself, and there's plenty of information out there. Then the second thing to do is if you are feeling some of these symptoms, is to find a menopause doctor, find a doctor who's trained in menopause. And there are many ways to do this. And I have in my website, too I can help you. It's a guide like how to find your menopause doctor no matter where you are in the world and usually talking to some of your friends. If you have a friend who is getting treated for menopause and she's happy with a doctor, well, what a great referral. But that doesn't happen too much because we're, there are very few menopause trained doctors, but we can find them. And you don't need to see somebody in person to get help with menopause. You can do this through telemedicine. There's, there's online. The only thing is, if you needed help with hormones, then you need to have a doctor in your state or in your country to make a prescription. But there are many things that, that a menopause doctor would do other than HRT to help guide you through this transition. So know that there are solutions. Know that you do not need to suffer. Menopause is inevitable. We're able to get there, but, but we don't need to suffer anymore. And we thought we had to white knuckle our way through it and we don't. And then of course, there's so many other solutions. Again, if HRT is not your thing, like everything that you're doing and you, your clinic is helping menopause, like it is going to help joint pain, it can help you sleep, can help you build muscle, it can help you lose weight, it can help you with any symptom you have. It's, there are tools out there and, and it's just this whole world out there. Just don't give up. And there's, there's solutions and if you help, I'll help you with that and.

Definitely take care of your menopause. I remember my mom was having all these moose wings and all these, these tough times and she was like, I'm menopausing. But she was like, she said it for 10 years. It was terrible for us. So, I mean, you are not just impacting your own health, right? Is your husband, your, your, you know, your, your friends and your children. I mean, all these are really important. So take care of it. And, and thank you, Zora, for sharing your wisdom. And yeah, there's so many facets about this, this, but we can take charge. We can do a lot to make our life easier and happier and for everybody else too.

And don't take anything less than 100% symptom relief. Some women will be like, oh, 50% better. 60, like, that's okay. I can deal with hot no, you can. You can feel 100% better. Just don't. Don't take less than 100%.

Wonderful. I love hearing that. That. Okay. All right. Thank you, Zara. And how do people learn more from you?

So the easiest thing is go to hackmyage.com, that's my website. And all my social media is hack my age, if you can remember. If you can't remember hack my age, then Zora the Explorer, you'll find me on in line as well.

Right, because you travel a lot and you said you interviewed people from how many countries about menopause?

Oh, I haven't. Gosh. I should calculate the number of countries, but I've had done over 300 interviews. I've recorded. Of course, I've spoken to many other women who've rejected me, but definitely I should tally how many. How many countries? But I'm guessing probably maybe 35, 40, something like that.

And you have those interviews on. Where do people find those interviews?

On Instagram and Facebook and. And. And YouTube. YouTube. They're all.

And TikTok.

Yeah, they're all there.

Yeah. Wonderful. Zora the explorer. Yes.

Thank you.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Zora. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you for your work and thank.

You for your spirit. Oh, I had such a good time. Thanks so much.

Thank you for listening to this episode. Hope you enjoy the content, and if so, please rate and follow this podcast. To reach me, you can contact Uplift Longevity center, that is Uplift with a Y. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel, Joy Kong MD. See you next time.