Why Your Hormones Feel “Off” in Midlife with Sarah Kleiner

What is one misconception about light and health that you wish that more people understood?

I think that's a really big one, that people don't see the value in going outside in the morning because they can just turn on a bunch of bright overhead lights indoors. And so I really love to debunk that and explain the nuance and the neurochemistry behind it. And I think people really, they resonate with that information. It makes a lot of sense to them.

Sarah Kleiner, welcome to Rooted in Wellness.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you today.

Me, too. You are someone that I refer to quite often with my rooted community, because I pray that the future of medicine at every single hospital there will be an expert in circadian rhythm and quantum biology. And. And that's how I found you. And I was so excited to just learn all about your work, but we're going to dive into all of that. As I was saying before we started recording is this podcast is really about ancient wisdom in our modern world, how we can all become more rooted. And I feel like this is rooted not only in our health and our happiness, but I believe this inner wisdom that we all have to heal. So to kick things off, I'd love to know some rituals. You're so great at sharing so many of them online. What are rituals that help you feel rooted in yourself and who you are?

I would definitely say my time in the morning is super sacred. Even with kids, it can be a little more challenging, especially since my toddler has decided we're just going to get up at 5am now. But I still find a way to go outside and just connect and really stay connected with the light in the morning. I think it's so important, and there's something really spiritual about it. I did so many years of yoga and meditation and, you know, trying to spiritually seek, and I feel like so much of it was just really in connecting with those light and dark cycles. So much of what I was really looking for, that kind of coming home feeling. And so I think that's very basic and free and something everyone can do.

Yeah, we'll dive into all the details behind that. I'd love to know, based on your own healing journey, are there things that happen in your life that cause you to feel uprooted and do you catch those things when they happen?

Oh, all the time. I mean, life.

Yeah.

Yeah, life. You know, like I said, my toddler is going through. He just turned three, some sort of a strange sleep regression. And it is really challenging right now, you know, bringing me to tears some days. And it's like, okay, well, and this isn't going to take me down, but it is an opportunity to look around and say, all right, this. There's some. There's something here for me. And I think the more we can do that, it keeps us out of the victim mindset, but it allows us to stay open to learn more. And we may not. We may not always learn something, but, yeah, there's. There's always opportunities in everything to learn.

Absolutely. Yeah. I love starting with these two questions, mostly for everyone who's listening, is to understand that every expert that sits in that seat, they list off things that support them that are free. And most of those rituals are actually very different. And the intention is to really support our listeners with customizing the things that feel good for them. And on the flip side, to recognize that, you know, we, even as practitioners are living life and we go through these seasons of challenges and hardship and sleep regression during time change is actually a really big thing. But it's praying it's a season that. That moves quickly for you. Yeah. All right, we're gonna move through a quick round of rapid fire questions. Whatever comes to mind, list it off, and then we're gonna dive into the deep stuff. So tell me, what is one misconception about light and health that you wish that more people understood that you can

hack it with indoor lights? I think that's a really big one. That people don't see the value in going outside in the morning. Cause they can just turn on a bunch of bright overhead lights indoors and love to debunk that and explain the nuance and the neurochemistry behind it. And I think people really, they resonate with that information. It makes a lot of sense to them.

I love that. And would you say, is there a morning habit, just a rapid fire outside of getting outside? Is there something else that really impacts our circadian rhythm?

Eating is very important. You know, that is the zeitgebers, which are secondary timekeepers would be food. And then socialization, temperature. So, you know, you could dip your face in a bowl of cold ice water if you're into that sort of thing. Or just step outside if you live in a chilly place. But yeah, those things are important too, to really reinforce that time clock.

Beautiful. What's one common behavior that quietly disrupts our hormones and our metabolism?

Scrolling on your phone at night when it's late? Huge disruptor that. A lot of people do it.

All right, what About a food or nutrient that you lean on to support leptin signaling and hormone balance.

Definitely protein, definitely good bioavailable protein is really important for leptin. And enough carbs. That's something that I've really had to come to terms with is, ladies, we gotta have enough carbs or we're gonna put ourselves into a low leptin situation. So. And fat's important too, but you know, just not going straight to take all the carbs out because you think it's going to help the body needs safety signals as well.

Amen to carbs and eating in the morning. We'll dive into that. Yeah. Two more. The most common or I would say the most surprising symptom that really improved when you aligned your circadian rhythm.

Being hungry in the morning. You know, I was never hungry in the morning and I kind of, it was like a thing. I'm going to wait until 11 to eat or one to eat. I'm intermittent fasting and I thought it was good. And then when I actually tried to eat in the morning, I felt like nauseous, like I can't do this. And so getting the sunlight signaling consistent was the thing that helped to turn my appetite back on again, which was surprising.

Love it. What's one sign that a woman's body is asking for circadian support that most people overlook?

I would definitely say just feeling wired, but tired. Appetite dysregulation, not having really just intuitive like contact with our basic needs. I think that's a really big one, is just feeling out of touch with your body's own signals.

I think that society and social media, especially right now, has really disrupted a woman's ability and man's ability to really connect with their body's signals and what it means and especially around fasting in this craze right now in Ayurveda, we talk about the concept of eating for fuel, which means eating breakfast. We break our fast to give us fuel. And we live in a society where women especially have these like, they wear it as an accolade or badge of honor, making it till noon or 2 o' clock to not eat. So this takes us right into what I wanted to get into, which is the foundations. We're going to talk about leptin and talk about the fact that it's not just our hunger hormone. It's like this hormonal CEO in our body. And when I educate my clients, I really tell them that it's your body's ability to dictate whether or not you're going to use energy, burn energy, store energy. Whether your thyroid should speed up, whether your reproductive system should turn on or go quiet. And I feel like this is a really big missing piece. As we get into, you know, promotion of hormone replacement therapy, we're not talking about the foundations. You cannot recommend one without the other. So let's dive into this. When we talk about leptin, what are we really trying to, to say at a biological level? What are we talking about?

I think it's safety. I think it's a safety signal at the core. And if the body doesn't really. I mean, you explained it beautifully. I'm like, amazing. If you, if your body doesn't know how much stored energy it has on it at a particular time, what do you think it's going to do? Right? It's like trying to run a business without taking count of your inventory, without knowing how much money you have in the bank. Like, you literally can't run your business. And so your body, if it doesn't know what it's working with, it's going to misfire and not be able to really operate as it should.

How does it operate then? As this master regulator? I don't think people think about leptin as a regulator for their metabolism, for their hunger. I don't think a lot of doctors talk about it. When it comes to thyroid function, which is being diagnosed, thyroid imbalances are being diagnosed. So much reproductive hormones and issues like, like that. How is it our master regulator?

It gives instructions to the brain. So every night when we're sleeping, leptin is meant to doctor the brain and give a report and say again, this is how much stored energy we have available. So tomorrow, sex hormones, it's safe enough to make a baby thyroid. It's safe enough for you to have adequate energy expenditure to, like you said, speed up or slow down because we've got this much on board, it talks to the gut, there's leptin receptors in the gut. There's leptin receptors on our bones, on our heart. We have leptin receptors all over our entire body. And so I always say our master hormones are cortisol, melatonin and leptin. And those three really work together. When melatonin is close to peaking, leptin should also be at that place where it's about to dock. And then when cortisol is starting to rise, leptin should be at its lowest. And that's why we are meant to be hungry in the morning because of this cascade of these Master hormones. And they all regulate the downstream hormones as well.

Would you agree in your community? I don't think I've heard anyone say that cortisol, melatonin and leptin are the master hormones. In fact, I think the opposite is happening. We demonize these three in social media. Right. We don't, we don't think about nourishing them.

Yeah, well, anytime you mention melatonin, people automatically think you're talking about supplements. They don't realize we make melatonin during the day in response to near infrared light, which is abundant in sunlight, and then at night from the pineal gland, that's the 5% is made there. I think they just think you're talking about supplements and cortisol is bad. You know, we don't talk about the fact that cortisol has a rhythm. There's so many people on social media that say, oh, your cortisol is high. Well, if it's in the morning, it should be a little bit high because your body is getting ready, it's mobilizing, starting the processes for the day and the in the evening and afternoon. Yeah, if it's high, then that's problematic. But there's not a lot of nuance. And then no one really talks about leptin. There's not really a lot of nuance with these hormones. They're just kind of ancillary. And everyone's very obsessed with progesterone and estrogen and testosterone. Not that those aren't important, but those are downstream of these master hormones.

Right. So if we're not mastering these hormones, really the other hormones, trying to optimize those, it's kind of like a band aid solution without getting to the foundation. Right. And I know that understanding this was actually a big part of your healing journey. So can you kind of maybe just take us through the background of what led you to discovering how morning light exposure was associated with your healing?

Yeah, it's funny, you know, 2019, I kind of hit a rock bottom place with my health. I was really, really struggling with a lot of gut issues. And I had a friend of mine who is functional medicine doctor and she said, try the Carnivore diet. I think it's really going to be helpful for you. And oh, by the way, go outside in the morning and start, look, you know, look at some of this light stuff. I think it's going to help you. And I just said, I'm going to just do the food, the light. Why would I go outside in the morning? That's stupid. And that was really more so the answer for me than Carnivore, because your gut also runs on a circadian clock and your gut health largely depends on circadian rhythm, which we can talk about later. But I started my kind of health journey, more health journey and sharing things online in 2019 with the Carnivore Diet. And then I decided in 2020 I wanted to have another baby, which is something that, you know, I had always wanted to do. But I have a daughter who's 18, she'll be 18 next month with non verbal autism. And that's really how I got into alternative health, because the rug was pulled out from underneath us and she regressed from us trusting the medical system almost 17 years ago. And so that's when I started questioning everything and going down these different health rabbit holes for her. But for myself, it wasn't really like deep, deep, deep. Until 2019, I was doing this diet and then I decided I want to get pregnant. And I'm on this healthy, healthy diet, you know, and everyone says the best diet. And so great, everyone's talking about it. There's even a fertility doctor that talks about it, which, by the way, now he's eating carbs, which is interesting. Just came out and it's caused a big uproar. Really, really nice guy, by the way. Really nice guy. But you know, the diet. I was having miscarriages, I was having recurrent pregnancy loss. And I was told, well, this is, you know, semi normal for your age, because I was in my 40s, early 40s, but I kind of didn't really just buy that whole thing. And then I decided I would do IVF because I started getting really desperate for this baby. I really wanted this baby. Went through two rounds of IVF and they failed. Very expensive, very invasive, highly, do not recommend. Both failed. And at that time, I was introduced to Dr. Cruz, was said, hey, do you want to have him on your podcast? I was like, yeah, sure, why not? And I only talked to the man the one time, so I didn't become a, like, disciple. I just talked to him one time and then I kind of took the ball and ran with it from there. But one of the things he told me on that episode is that I needed to understand leptin and I needed to understand sunlight and how those things really integrated and worked together. And that was going to be the key to my fertility journey. And at that point after, you know, the IVF and the miscarriages, I was like, what do I have to lose by this going outside in the morning thing that someone already told me to do a couple years ago. And I just thought that was dumb advice, but now, okay, I'm gonna try it. So I did. I started this morning routine going outside, which eventually led me to actually being hungry in the morning, eating in the morning. I started blocking the blue light. At night, I got some blue blockers and immediately started feeling more energy, better sleep. I switched my diet to include seasonal carbohydrates, stopped the carb restriction, stopped the keto, stopped all the fasting and all the things I was doing that I thought were helpful for my fertility, but were not. And not only did I lose 30 pounds by doing that, because I thought I'm going to add carbs in and I'm just going to gain more weight. And I'm already struggling with my weight, lost 30 pounds and then got pregnant with my son that January. And this really. I didn't even really start the stuff until the fall. And so it worked really quickly and I felt amazing. And I went on, got pregnant with my son who just turned three. So it really did change my life. Along the way, I did a lot of study. I. I went to the Applied Quantum Biology Institute, did level one and two certification with them. I've sat for board exams with the Quantum Biology Collective and the American Naturopathic Medical Board. So I've really gone to continue to educate myself on this. And I've written tons of articles and I'm always looking deeper at this topic. I love it, it's so fun. And I've been integrating it with clients as well since I started integrating it with myself. I said, let me just. I have all these women on Carnivore who I'm coaching and they're a mess. So I brought them with me and they were improving as well. So it became kind of more of my work to really talk about this and help. Now I have male participants in my community as well. It's not just women, but it is mostly women. But I was really just seeing across the board changes. Women who were trying to get pregnant were getting pregnant. Women in perimenopause and menopause who had been stuck with weight loss and having sleep issues were now sleeping through the night and losing weight. And so across the board, I was seeing improvements for everyone. And so, yeah, it just became, I'm no longer going to talk about Carnivore. Actually, I'm not even going to really recommend it anymore. I'm going to talk about this. And that's what I've really done for the last few years. And it's been, it's a lot of fun. It really is.

What a journey. And congratulations on your son. It's funny looking back at our path and how it's paved for us in many ways. When I was sharing about my story, I didn't share with you that when I went back to the ashram, I also, prior to, was on the Atkins diet, Hausa free, carb free. All fun free. And then I went back to the ashram and it was a vegetarian diet, starting more carbs, seasonal carbs from the earth than I had in like honestly two years. The weight melted off my body. We're also getting up with the sun every single day, going to bed consistently every single night. And this is really what's led me to my work today. It's understanding that the body does have the capacity to heal itself. And we're not talking about this. And I think it's these stories like you and I are sharing that there was no doctor at the time or science doing data that was published in a scientific study for people to see. And yet here we are sharing our story that is creating impact. And for our listeners, you know, for people who go on a carnivore diet or a very highly restrictive diet, that's exactly what it is. It'll work until it doesn't. I think we're sick and tired of that system and it's time to really step into optimal health for life. That becomes you. There's a very big difference. And I think that morning sunlight is something that we've forgotten because of how accuse our body. It's a signal for our body to actually turn on. So let's shift gears and really start to, to talk about the hormonal shifts that happen. What happens to hormonal balance when circadian rhythms are disrupted by screens by artificial light, by these irregular sleep wake patterns? I know that for a lot of our listeners, you know, sleep, perhaps it's isn't optimized, hormones are not optimized. And we might roll our eyes still at this like blue light blocking situation. Can you dive into that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's funny, there's, there's a lot of people online that you'll see like, oh, someone with the glasses on. You automatically don't want to trust them. That's kind of the mainstream rebuttal at this moment is like, oh, she's wearing the glasses. And there are some pretty shady people that do their reels with blue blockers on that. I'M like, oh, you know, I wish you wouldn't do that. But they are legitimately very helpful. Because when you understand, like you said, this hormonal cascade that happens because of light in the morning, we want blue light from the sun to turn on the brain. Essentially this master clock in the brain that talks to every single cell and every single organ system in your body. I mentioned the gut earlier, and I had horrible gut issues. And guess what? Carnivore didn't fix all of them. They got them quiet for a while. But then towards the end of Carnivore, all these gut issues were coming back. I was getting eczema again. I'm like, what the heck? I'm not even eating anything to aggravate my body. But the clock was off. And I see that with so many people. So in the morning, the blue light from sunrise, that's when blue light comes on. We get a little bit at daybreak, but the big blue bluer light comes on, tells the brain, oh, look, it's. It's, you know, sun's coming up, let's turn on all these functions in the brain. We get cortisol that starts rising gently, appropriately, not a crazy harsh rise like a lot of people in the modern life have. And then we get UVA light, where we have this system called the Palm C system activated, where there's serotonin production, dopamine production, these POM C neurons, which also create a peptide called Alpha msh, which is an appetite regulator. You get enough lux to signal the metabolism to turn on and the gut to turn on. So that's enough brightness, which you really have a hard time getting that indoors because the lux usually maxes out at about 300, even with those really, really bright overhead lights outdoors. Even on a cloudy rainy day, it's like 10,000 lux. And so all these processes start in the morning. And like I mentioned, every single cell, every single organ system in your body has a clock in front of it. And it's coordinated with this suprachiasmatic nucleus, which is this clock in your brain. So the morning is crucial for whatever you're trying to fix. Everyone's like, well, I have autoimmune. Will this work? Well, it will help. You know, I have this condition. Is this going to help? It's going to help. I'm trying to lose weight. Is it going to help? Yes. So, yes, the answer is yes, do go outside. And then at night, we don't want that cortisol pathway kicked off again. But that's what we're doing when we've got our phones in our faces and overhead lights and TVs, they're kicking off that sex steroid hormone pathway once again in the morning. That blue light again, it signals mitochondria to start making pregnenolone which is again gone down that cortisol pathway, especially if there's right amount of blue light. And then also the sex steroid hormone pathway where we start making our sex steroid hormones. So if we're doing that at night as well, guess what? We're going to kick this whole pathway off again and we're going to have dysregulated hormones. And so that's one thing a lot of people are doing that they just, they're like, why would I put my, you know, why would I wear these stupid blue blockers? So simple.

It's so simple. Dysregulated hormones leads to a dysregulated system. A dysregulated gut leads to dysregulated hormones. And I think that a lot of people, they're not kind of recognizing the interconnectedness of everything. And this is the result of modern day medicine where we simply approach healing in this symptomatic approach. We go after the thyroid, we go after the hormones, we go after the deficiency instead of the body as a system. And there's enough studies out right now to show the impact of blue light exposure. Right? So 60 minutes, 90 minutes I think at night suppresses melatonin production that's connected to your leptin, to your insulin first thing in the morning. And if you're thinking about it from that scope, I'm hoping listeners are having like an aha moment, like oh, okay, I get the priority of this. Now let's maybe give some tangible tips because like you, my kiddos are now up at 5 or 5:30 with the time change. It is pitch black outside. You know, I had a beautiful ritual in the summer, just all of us going and sitting outside looking up at the sun. But now it's pitch black. What are you doing at your house first thing in the morning this time of year?

You know, I don't know if it's feasible for everyone, but I really just still try to take it slow. And my house is very circadian fit because my son who's three is not going to wear blue blockers. My non speaking autistic daughter is not going to wear blue blockers. And so I really have my house set up with circadian friendly low lux blue light blocking lights. And we keep it pretty Dark in the morning still. So my son now I'm like, yeah, you want to get up? You're going to come and just lay on the couch with me. I'll do, I do hydrogen. I'm obsessed with hydrogen. So I'll inhale some hydrogen and just like let him lay with me. You know, we've started because it's fall and everything's blooming. He'll do a little nebulizer, so I'll do saline and nebulizer to kind of open up the sinuses because he'll deal with a little congestion and we just lay there and cuddle. And then he'll say, he'll say, mommy, sun's coming up, sun's waking. Or he'll say, sun's waking up. Now I'm like, okay, because I've been telling him like, don't come out of your room until the sun wakes up. He's like, okay. Then he always, you know, his kids. So then we will go outside together. We'll take the dog outside, walk around. It has been really cold here, so we'll wrap up in blankets and a lot of times we'll take the breakfast out on the patio and eat out there. But I mean, I try to not stress out either. If he's up and, you know, he doesn't necessarily want to lay around, I'll let him sit on the floor and play with toys. But we don't turn on screens, we don't turn on lights. We just keep it low key. You know, sometimes I can meditate a little bit while I'm holding him. I try to keep the morning as low key and quiet as I possibly can.

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You know, I try not to do a lot of light boxes and things like that because they're mostly blue light. There's no red and infrared, there's no uv. So you're just going to get this massive cortisol spike without all the other things that I talked about with a natural amount of serotonin, dopamine, appetite regulation, the balancing effect that really preconditions the mitochondria for the day with the red and infrared that's available when you go outside. But I know it's hard because sometimes the people, you know, sun doesn't come up until late. So, you know, I'm experimenting. I've have a company that sent me a circadian friendly lightbox that's got more of the different wavelengths in there. I haven't tried it yet. I won't be using that. I'm still going to get natural light first. But I have my people in those northern places still try to keep the morning low key and, you know, get outside when the light is available and maybe supplement a little bit with something like red light therapy. I mean, if I lived in a northern dark place, I would definitely, definitely have a nice red light therapy panel to augment that.

Can you go back to hydrogen for a second and hover on that?

Yeah.

How are you using hydrogen? And you mentioned inhaling it, but what about hydrogen water? Is this part of your protocol that you recommend?

Well, it's something that I've done with my family. My daughter, you know, when she. I guess it was after my son was born. And she's always kind of struggled a little bit with pants pandas, which there's not clear roadmap to help these kids. And when my son was born, her behaviors and grand mal seizures and all these things, these horrible health issues popped up and it was really terrifying. And we were actually told to institutionalize her. And she was accepted into an institution called Kennedy Krieger, which is supposed to be one of the best of the best. And they were going to take her for six months. And, you know, I had been researching hydrogen and its ability when inhaled, to cross the blood brain barrier. And I knew what was happening with her was brain inflammation. I just knew it at my core. And so I said, what do I have to lose? I'm going to buy this hydrogen generator. And I put her on it and I had her start inhaling the hydrogen gas. And within a week, all the violent behaviors stopped. And it was like they call. We had been trying to get her into that institution because we just were honestly feeling unsafe at home, like, because she was so violent. And it was just a really dark, scary time for us. And, you know, we had been trying to get her in there because we knew it was the best of the best. There's a lot of horror stories about these places you send your kids, and it's just bad. And so we had bought got the hydrogen that Monday. They called us that Friday and said, all right, we'll take her. You're clear to send her. You Know, she's got to stay six months, but we're ready for her. And I was like, she hasn't had any behaviors since we start, you know, since we started. And I told my husband, I was like, I'm. I don't think we should send her. I don't. I didn't want to send her to begin with. I mean, you never want to send your child away, but when your safety is at risk and the baby's safety, it's like, what do we do? And so that's how we got into hydrogen in January of 2024. It essentially helped us so that we didn't have to send her away to an institution. And we've continued to use it since then. It's helped me tremendously with metabolism, energy. It's a selective antioxidant. So it goes right to the mitochondria. And it essentially gets. Gets rid of the bad guys. It doesn't get rid of the good guys, because we need some signaling molecules in the mitochondria called reactive oxygen species. Not all of them are bad, but what it does is gets selectively gets rid of the ones that we don't need and can increase your cellular hydration. There's about 2,000 studies on molecular hydrogen. It's fairly new. I think it's just started to be therapeutic as of, like, 2007. So it's fairly new. And, yeah, for us, it's. It's really been huge. And we drink the water as well. But I saw the biggest benefits for my daughter with inhaling the gas straight into her nose.

Thank you for sharing that story. My God, I'm tearing up over here. I think that just comes up. The power of you as a woman, but also as a mother and love and taking charge that way. It must have been incredibly challenging, but, like, look at the wins that you have on this end. It's so powerful. Gosh, these are the stories that we need to get out into the world. So I hope people share this with those in need.

Yeah, I want to eventually one day make. I always talk with my friend who owns the hydrogen company I work with. Like, I. One day I want to have a nonprofit for the kids like her, you know, because the generators are pricey and these families are desperate, and it's like they're kind of at the end of the road. And so I. At some point, I just keep putting it out there that that's going to be a thing that we do.

Oh, God, I pray that. And so many other modalities that could Be supportive for people. Just the impact of living in today's modern world and thinking about our kids, you know, the fact that they're suffering at such an earlier age and getting diagnosed with things at such an earlier age, going through puberty at an earlier age, and we don't think about this leptin like connection for them, but this shows up during purity puberty, sorry, this shows up during their reproductive years. This shows up later on in life for us in perimenopause and menopause. So can you maybe share, share some insight on how this could be showing up differently for our children and during puberty?

I mean, our children, young girls as young as 8 now, are being diagnosed with PCOS. It's, it's crazy. Yeah, it's really crazy to me. And sleep apnea and I mean just the circadian disruption in kids these days is really bad. And one thing I learned from a good friend of mine, Tristan is his name, Tristan Scott, he just came on my podcast and said that the retina of the child essentially lets in about 50% more blue light than that of an adult. And so their brains and their eyes are that much more susceptible to damage and to dysregulation from these screens. And we're giving the screens to the kids as little as, you know, I see like 15 month old babies. You kind of scroll through Instagram or whatever app you're on and you'll see babies, parents trying to take the tablet away from the baby and the baby being addicted. And it's pretty shocking to see these children with the, you know, that's one thing with my son, I'm like, you know, he just turned three. I still am trying to keep him off the screens as much as possible because I just see how negative it is for kids.

Absolutely, yeah. And it's funny, you know, I think as women, as parents, we never want to judge parents who are using screens because they feel that we need them. I understand that, but I think it's again, conversations like this in the awareness and the studies that are coming out showing the link to the exposure from blue light and that's how that's dysregulating children at such a young age and the impact of that as they age and that disruption that is going to come with it. So, yeah, to anyone who may have rolled their eyes or judged with the blue light blocking glasses, there's so many things out there and you know, to your point about when things catch on as a trend, I really hope that we can cut through the noise you're such, you're my resource page for my clients. I send everyone to you to really understand what products are legit. I know that you've done your research instead of just trusting some pop up that comes onto their phone so that we can really get ahead on this and prevent what's happening. And if we flash forward, then let's think now to perimenopause. For a lot of the people that I work with, what they describe, myself included in some ways, was like, you know, we wake up one day and then all of a sudden these symptoms were just amplified. And you know, going through IVF in your 40s and thinking about how that rhythm could have been impacted, how that could have impacted your fertility and your ovulation and stuff like that. But it really begs the, the question, you know, are we becoming that much more sensitive? Chances are we're probably not just suddenly dysregulated. This is the result of habits over time that have reduced that circadian amplitude, making us so much more sensitive. And yeah, it's like, you know, we went from, for me, I'll speak for myself, I had like a series of COVID turning 40 mold exposure, then perimenopause. But I could see this kind of constant decline. My system didn't recover and regenerate and I wasn't doing anything necessarily to support it with that. But can you share a little bit about the lens that you're experiencing with your community and these sudden symptoms we're demonizing now perimenopause, when it could really be an opportunity for us to celebrate transition?

Yeah, I mean that's. Perimenopause is your bad habits begin to catch up with you rapidly. That's, that's how I see it. Things you were able to get away with, now you really can't. And I've experienced that myself even since finding this work because I love what I do and I can sometimes overdo it. I can sometimes get too involved. And yeah, if I overdo it and if clients overdo it, pushing the stress too hard, then you're going to start having perimenopause symptoms a lot of women, and that it's going to look a little different for, for everyone. But you know, the biggest thing that I see is a stress resilience and the body's ability to repair and regenerate lessens the immune system. Everything is just really kind of downgrades itself if you don't do the basic things to support the system. And on the flip side of that, what I See is that when women do begin to just integrate these really simple things that they start to see better blood sugar regulation, better sleep, more resilience to stress, more energy. The things that they thought, oh, this is perimenopause, start to kind of reverse. And so, and that's, I think every woman, whether or not she wants to take hrt, it needs to be a research, informed decision because I have seen women that take HRT and it's life changing and helpful. And then I've seen the opposite, that they take it and it's complete disaster and they can't tolerate it. And so it doesn't matter which, which road you want to go on, you still want to do all of this stuff because you're going to give yourself the best chance possible to go through this transition.

I'm working with a handful of people where they decided to start hrt. They're working with doctors who aren't necessarily on the functional side, but really understand now the power of hormone replacement therapy. And they're certainly not addressing the personalization aspect of it. And so the feedback from these women is that their highs are really, really high, but their lows are very low day to day, not knowing what to expect and like it really, in my mind, I see this as an opportunity to just double down on optimizing your body's rhythm. And this is part of ancient wisdom, like ancient wisdom knew before science we could prove anything, that every part of your system had a rhythm that it needed to adhere to and that when that rhythm was off, you would feel symptoms, you would feel fatigue, your digestion would become sluggish. And it's such a crucial part of healing.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the digestion is huge because we've got, like I said, the gut going on, this whole circadian rhythm. And as the day goes on, you make less stomach acid, you have less enzymatic function. And so you literally, if you're eating after bed, if you're eating too close to bed, your body can't go into repair mode. And then the materials needed to digest the food are not as readily available as they would have been in the daytime when the sun is up. And so I know a lot of people say, oh, it's diet culture to say don't eat after dark, this, that or the other. And you can eat whenever you want. As long as you're in a calorie deficit, it's fine. I'm like, sure, you can lose weight, you know, and eat at 9 o' clock at night, but is that Optimal. How's that going to feel? Is it going to cause a gut issue? Because you can only fight biology so much before you get a reminder that that's what you're doing.

Is fighting biology something I was thinking, how cool would this be? So if we had the privilege as women to, in our perimenopause years, to go and live somewhere for 30 days and 30 days together, we were living in alignment with nature. We were optimizing our circadian rhythm. I'm curious if we were to track our ovulation cycles or, you know, our fertility, even to see what shifts could possibly happen when women were living together in community with that timeline optimization. And those are the kind of studies

I want to see.

Just saying.

I would love to see that. Yeah, I would love to see that. Yeah.

All right. You. You teach something that, you know, resonates with so many of us, which is the basics, as we keep alluding to, they're not always glamorous. We are talking about morning sunlight. We're talking about how this could impact our entire body. But for listeners who just like, let's just say they're really, really new to this, what would you say is the simplest place to start with supporting your body's circadian health?

So I have an app that I actually developed. It's called my Circadian app. And that app's going to let you know your location, what time sunrise is, UVA rise, if there's any uv, which is where we make vitamin D, sunset and nightfall. And so I think just understanding those times for you, because most people don't even have any idea what time this stuff happens, you know, and start to just at those times of day, at sunrise, go outside for a couple minutes. Then at UVA rise, which is that next really important morning window where we get all this neurotransmitter and hormone support. Go outside for a few minutes, and then when the. Look, your notification pops up on the app and says, nightfall is here. And there's even a little reminder in the app that says, put on your blue blockers, then put on the blue blockers. And very, very simple things you can do is and is just start those things. Very, very simple. Yeah.

And what about for a woman? Let's just say they're living in cities. Maybe they work indoors all day. Maybe they're caring for. For children who can't really practice this. What are your tips for them?

Yeah, bring the kids with you. I mean, just do your best and know that it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. The sunrise window is like 45 minutes long, usually sometimes longer in the winter, Uva in the morning, another hour long time. And just try to get out there a little bit during that time. And you can augment and supplement with things like red light therapy. That's going to be really helpful. But if you have kids, my biggest tip is to involve them as much as possible and make it fun. Like you've said a couple of times, don't make it a chore and don't make it a big stressful thing, but make it fun. And I think that, you know, my son, he's got all his toys out on the patio, so he looks forward to going out there and getting those specific toys in the morning when we're having our morning time and going outside. So finding little ways to do that. And if you work a lot of places will let you take a smoke break. And so I always say, I just started smoking. No, you don't do that. But you legally can get smoke breaks, right? And so take a light break, go outside, take a little light break. And don't ever let perfect be the enemy of good. Just aim to be consistent and that's going to go a long way.

Oh, yeah, it's power of ritual. That's such a good, good point. A ritual that we had when my kids were younger. You can do this as an adult too. We were living in a condo, but even the colder months go and just open a window, stick your head out, and if you've got little ones, make it a practice every day. This is how we turned it from a habit into a ritual. Every morning, my kids would go, we'd open up a window, we'd say good morning to the trees, good morning to the sun, good morning to the sky, to the birds. And it really gets them curious about what is moving and how the energy is outside first thing in the day. And that doesn't have to stop when the kids grow up. Whether it's getting outside, I think we've all you can just think about. Putting your feet onto the ground in nature always feels really therapeutic. Most people take an exhale at that moment, but if that's not available, then just get your head outside, take some deep breaths, reset. Yeah, let's, let's transition into the nutrition aspect of this and circadian signaling. You and I both shared that, you know, feeling that shift. I went from. I remember a time in my life in my early 30s, where if I was hungry in the morning, I was pissed and I would just go for coffee and Then another coffee and, like, really try not to eat. And then after, like, you going through miscarriages and tuning into my body and understanding Ayurveda, I would go back to understanding, oh, my body's telling me that it's hungry right now. Exactly. You talked about eating food at light. Obviously, we know the increase of sleep disorders that can happen with this increase in leptin resistance and weight gain and stuff like that, and poor sleep if we're eating before bed. But what about the signaling first thing in the morning?

Yeah, I mean, that's so important for Leptin. Protein is a super strong signal for leptin. If you look at the data and the literature on leptin and nutrition, it's very clear that for a clear leptin signal, you need bioavailable protein. You've got to have that protein signaling in order for leptin to kind of say, oh, okay, you know, we're, we're going to fire up here. And carbs actually bring leptin up. They help to raise leptin. So a lot of women who've been in this chronic deprived, low carb fasting mindset for a while, they do need to bring a little carbs in there to bring leptin up. That's was my experience as well, because when you're in a low leptin state, you're typically going to be in a low thyroid state and a low hormone state as well. Mm.

Can you, you know, tell us one or two of your favorite breakfasts? I'm curious, do you use protein powder therapeutically?

I personally don't. I just have always felt hungry after I have protein powder. And so I just keep it really simple. I'm like a very boring person. I will eat breakfast. Sausages, leftover dinner, fish, salmon, avocado. Just something super simple in the morning. And yeah, I just keep it as easy as possible. Something I can throw into the oven for a few minutes while I'm outside and take it back outside with me and eat it.

Yeah, I love it. Eggs and avocado. It's pretty big staple in our house. And I always like to remind people when we think about protein powders and the obsession over protein today, the ridiculous products that are coming out around like, protein water and the protein bars with like. Yeah, it's like, come. And our body does not need that. And it's ultra processed. But relying on those things for emergencies or if you really are someone who's transitioning into this, maybe it's an opportunity for you to experiment Having a scoop of protein until you start to adjust to being able to eat breakfast. And are you eating within 30, 60, 90 minutes of waking?

Well, I try to have people eat after they've done a little bit to clear melatonin. And so I just did a post on this. That's one thing that people don't realize is when you wake up, you're still a little bit insulin resistant because you've still got circulating melatonin. And so you really need to clear that out a little bit. And light, sunlight is going to be the biggest, strongest signal for you to clear that out. Some people are going to be waking up in the dark, so I still had them go outside, get a little cold. Grounding is a secondary circadian signaler as well. Dr. Laura Conover is a doctor that's done a lot of interesting research on grounding and has shown that grounding can also be a circadian signaler. And so I'll say go do a little grounding, move around outside, get a little, you know, cold, and then eat just kind of once you start to feel a little more alert. And with it, then I would eat and that's going to look a little different for everybody. I typically like to make sure people have eaten before UVA rise has happened. That's a pretty good rule of thumb there. So, and that gives everyone enough leeway so they're not waiting until 10, 11 o' clock in the morning and they're getting in, in that morning window.

I love it. So eat before UVA rise. That's a good, easy, tangible tip, as you kind of, you know, call it healing your metabolism. Did you notice then the way that you would crave food over time also shifted? Like even today, I tell my clients my biggest meal of the day is probably, is probably lunch and it feels really good. And then when I eat dinner, I actually downsize my serving to using a bowl. I don't use a plate for dinner. I downsize to a bowl. And it's something you get used to. I recognize that my body does not need so much fuel at the end of the day. And you're really just truly retraining your metabolism, which is super powerful.

Yeah.

Now where this could kind of go haywire or feel even extra challenging for a lot of people. Something that I think you and I should discuss is nervous system regulation. So when I was having my, my miscarriages and my health was at its worst and my heart palpitations were at its worst, I was like a high performer addicted to hypervigilance. Every single day, working out like a fiend. If your nervous system is locked in the sympathetic mode, that leptin signal never really reaches the brain, does it? We're stuck in the survival mode. So can you share a little bit about that for people who right now, I think this year, for so many people, has been a year of stress. And a question that I typically like to put onto my audience is I ask them, you know, out of a scale of 1 to 10, what number of stress do you typically feel? And they'll answer, usually I get, like, between a five to a seven. And then I add an additional layer of if I were to step into your body, would it feel like a 5 or 7 to me, or would it feel like a 9 or a 10? Because I think that we've adapted to living with higher levels of stress than we've ever lived with before.

Yeah.

So we might not be thinking about our hunger signaling and stuff like that from that viewpoint. So can you share, how does chronic stress or sympathetic dominance really blunt leptin signaling and hormone regulation?

I mean, it keeps you in a low leptin state. Right. So the body kind of just is stuck in this danger mode, and that is impacting mitochondria and energy production in the body as well. And then that ability of leptin to dock to the brain is also blunted as well, because there's typically some inflammation going along with that as well. And there's a lot of scientific literature on sympathetic dominance and nervous system dysregulation and a low leptin state. And that can happen with elevated leptin as well. I mean, it absolutely can. But I see it more often with my women who, you know, I can kind of spot it when they get into my group because they have a hundred questions. They want to do everything perfectly. They want to track everything. And I'm like, I'm gonna have to stop you, because you're going to take what you're already doing in your regular life, which is micromanage, stress out, and, like, freak out over every little detail. And you're going to do this with light and your nutrition. And then you're going to say, it doesn't work because you're bringing that same energy into this. And it will be helpful for you to do these things. But we have to take a step back a little bit and go to the really simple, basic, easy things first before we track, weigh, and measure every little single thing that you eat. And I know people, they're like, I have a goal I have things I need to do and this bar I've set for myself. And it's this process of just saying, let's go back to light and dark, let's go back to intuition. Because when you are able to reconnect with intuition, which starts, in my opinion, with those light and dark cycles, you start to open up a channel so that you're more connected with internal wisdom. You naturally start to push things away that are no longer for you. You're naturally able to say no to more things and people and stuff that's just not in alignment with you. And so instead of creating this really super complicated plan, I like people to, again, let's go back to basics and get you out of this really, really stressed out state. And no more restricting, no more fasting, no more eating. You know, like, let's just cut that for a little bit. Eat when the sun's up.

God, especially this time of year. I shared with my community yesterday, like this whole new year, new you. January 1st is one of my greatest pet peeves ever. Just understanding how the body actually works. And if we're going to look at healing in a different way, one of the questions I caught a long time ago, you probably do it pretty regularly actually, for the people who find you and they start to tune into circadian alignment and healing and restoring their metabolism. And they say, but Sarah, nothing's working. It still doesn't work yet. I haven't lost the weight. I don't feel any different. Can you just shed light on how you answer that so beautifully?

You know, I just try to remind them because I had that actually yesterday is, it was a very extensive morning routine. And what do you think about this? And I was like, well, how do you feel? Well, I'm not really feeling better yet, so I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. And I said, well, we have to also look at how long were you in a different routine and in a different state and a different, you know, manifestation of health. We can't just turn this around in three days. You know, we can start to feel improvement. She's like, well, I, I do have a little more energy. I do feel a little bit more calm, but I'm not losing weight yet. And you know, I was like, look, we have to, we have to be, look at where did you come from and envision where we're going. Embody that, think about it, be there, be that person. But let's also take a step back and be patient, give it some time as well.

Tune into the subtle symptoms that you just mentioned. Are you sleeping a little bit better? Is your mood a little bit better? Is the quality of your digestion just a little bit better? I think if we were to kind of pull back to where that comes from. It comes from society's training on the quick fix. Everyone wants the quick fix. Everyone wants the red pill and coming to terms with the fact that. That it doesn't exist and you're finally ready to break up with that system. It's like, oh, okay. I really just need to take the time to tune into what my body is trying to tell me. Yeah, that's tough. It's not easy.

It's not easy. Yeah, yeah.

So for women who may, you know, maybe they were hardcore dieters for, for most of their life, that might feel a little bit numb or exhausted. It feels like it's really, really hard. How do you guide them to really connecting with their hunger and those cues?

That's where I have my membership group, where we have Zoom meetings. I've got a wonderful coach. Her name's Becky and she's been in my group. She's been with me since 2019. We met each other doing the Carnivore diet together and we were like Carnivore diet buddies and got into nutrition through that and just kind of stuck with each other. She followed me into circadian biology and all the things, so she's been by my side. And we have these Zoom meetings where we just really talk to the women and a safe place for them to come inside my group. But we're not going to judge them. You know, I had a gal last week who had been in a very restrictive Carnivore diet program and paid a lot of money to be there as well. And she wanted to get pregnant. You know, she's like, well, I haven't lost my period and, you know, I've stopped losing weight and now they're doing a one meal a day challenge for two months. And I just feel like a failure because I can't keep up with it. And I'm like, look, can you eat a baked potato? You know, just let me hold your hand a little bit and assure you that the, you know, sometimes you just have to talk with people and make them feel safe and make them feel heard and, and understood and validate the fact that they've been kind of in this culty sort of a thing and maybe they've paid a lot of money to do it, but it's not working. And so we're going to help you this way. And that's the best we can really do is just try. You know what we, what Becky and I try to do is meet people in that kind and supportive, non judgmental way. Hey, we were there too at one point. This is kind of easy steps that we need to do. You know, it's not just eat a potato, but that is part of it.

Yeah.

Boy, that root vegetable, oh my goodness, it's so grounding. It's so, you know, so helpful for you to get re regulated. But yeah, we just really try to support people in that way and be encouraging and educate them as well.

Oh, that is so beautiful. Because I can really empathize with that. For the conversations that I have with my clients. It's reminding them your metabolism isn't broken, it's your rhythm that's broken. It's your belief system about how this needs to look versus how it actually is. And I think you and I can attest just from our own healing journeys that when we fix the rhythm, hormones recalibrate, metabolism recalibrates, energy and mood recalibrate. And this is why I'm so passionate about this. Because I notice when I drift back into this western mentality of looking towards biohacking and fixing and keeping up with trends and hardcore protocols and omad for a day and three day water fast and I'm like no fasting. Exactly. Yeah. Don't do that by the way. Don't do that.

It's not.

Yeah, it's not necessary. Especially if you're going through this season right now. So I want everyone to go to your website. You've got an incredible leptin quiz, is that correct?

Yeah.

You've got a wealth of resources that are there. If someone who's listening just feels overwhelmed then I think that your site like for so many of my clients, it's a really great place to start. I think you've given a lot of tangible tips today. I think everyone, I hope everyone is ordering blue light blocking glasses. Are you affiliated with a specific company that you love?

I have a few. Raw Optics is one I really like. My code there is Sarah with an H. Those are my, probably my favorite. They're super comfortable. But if you can't afford, you know those, you don't want to break the bank because they are a little bit more of a high end brand. Then you can go to Amazon and get a brand called Spectra479. They're not the cutest thing in the world, but they work. So I always tell people if you're Skeptical about the blue blockers. Just buy the cheap ones on Amazon. It's called Spectra 479. And I have not had anyone tell me yet that they didn't help. I just haven't once, like, oh, my gosh, now I'm actually tired. Wow, this is crazy.

And normalize it in your house. And if your kids have to use screens, like a lot of our kids now, they're getting homework on their own laptops that come from schools. It's ridiculous. I'm so against it. But get those glasses on them. Normalize it in your household.

Yeah.

As we wrap things up, I'm curious, what does root healing look like in your practice now? You know, I'm sure you're approached by so many brands who are running blood labs and stool tests and cortisol tests and hair samples. What does root class healing look like for you and your practice?

I'm always looking at the mitochondria and how well that works. And, yeah, there's companies out there that, that now have mitochondria testing, but I don't even want people to do that because a lot of times we can make big improvements without running a lot of testing. And I think that that's really empowering for people that they don't need to go get a bunch of labs. They don't. You can. You know, I have. I have a coach that reads labs if people want to do that. But it's never really the first thing that I have people to do because we're going to probably do the same thing anyway. Like I was saying, I have autoimmune. Is this going to. Yes. I want to lose weight. Is this going to. Yes, we're going to do. We're going to do a lot of the same things, regardless of the presentation of what might be on those labs. And they are going to shift regardless. So I don't usually start people out with tons and tons of testing unless they are just data people and they want to do that. And I almost never have people do the functional testing either because I've personally not had good experiences with that. And I've had clients that have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on these stool tests and functional tests, and they have no actual data on what to do. It's like, oh, now I have a bunch of problems. I'm really messed up. I'm really dysfunctional. Look at this. Look how bad this is. Okay, well, what was the solution? Well, fifteen hundred dollars a month worth of supplements.

Like, yeah, I just.

But that's not what I'm going to have you to do.

I was approached by a brand. I won't say who they are. I tried things out. They came back to me with a $3,000 protocol. And my frustration was, if this is what we're calling healing today, we're just fueling the fire of deficiency and what it means. And I think for some people, understanding your biology is just data. It's another data point that might fuel creating positive changes in your life. So more power to that. But I think that, again, if we're looking at our ancestors, there's ways to understand the body. Tuning into your hunger cues, how you're sleeping, quality of digestion, your system that will tell you the same answers anyway. And I think you and I are really great investigators. Right. When we really investigate with our clients, we can guide them to answering the questions on what they need most. So that's a good way to wrap that up. All right, so your website is Sarah kleinerwellness. Com. Go check out that quiz. You can find you on Instagram. We're going to link everything out below. In closing, I would love to know, what are you excited about? What's one modern science aspect that's really exciting you the most right now?

Hmm. I like where quantum biology is going. I like that there's more exploration of. And I know you've had Dr. Katherine Clinton on and some other people that are experts in that field, but I love looking at water. I love looking at how that behaves in the body. And it's empowering to step out of the biochemical lens. You know, we just talked about all this testing and the numbers, and when you understand the body through this lens of coherence and through water and quantum biology, that's kind of like ancillary, you know? And I love that there's a lot of research going to these sorts of things, and curious to see how that's going to play out.

I'm doing my master's in quantum healing right now, and I feel like I'm intentionally unlearning so much of what I've learned as a practitioner, especially living in Los Angeles, where we have access to everything. It's really fun to be in this space. But again, I guess it's the inspiration of this podcast to really go back to the foundations. Resilience and coherence, I think, are the name of the game in the future. At least I pray that they are.

Yeah, I hope so, too.

All right, Sarah, if you could leave our listeners with just one takeaway. What would it be? Go outside in the morning I love it. Tune in your biology's always trying to bring you home Sunrise and sunset I think are the best Reset. Thank you so much for being on the show. I can't wait to meet you in person one day.

Yay. Thank you. It's great to be here and chat.

Thank you.