You know when it’s coming don’t you? That time of the month, when people start to tiptoe around you and discretion is definitely the better part of valour amongst your loved ones. Woe betide the fool that dares to suggest you’re a little hormonal – especially if it’s a man! Yep, I’m talking about PMS, premenstrual syndrome, which is the focus of this month’s episode 

PMS can make life miserable, and it can affect different women in different ways, because the symptoms can include irritability, low mood, sheer rage, headaches, bloating, back pain, sore breasts, skin breakouts, anxiety, IBS and poor sleep. We women really lucked out, didn’t we?

 This episode explores:

-       What PMS is and why it happens

-       What’s going on with your cycle

-       The role of progesterone in PMS

-       PMS or PMDD?

-       Factors that influence hormone balance

-       The role of nutrition in managing PMS

-       Specific foods to focus on, and what to avoid

It’s time to stop putting up and shutting up! This is your opportunity to make a material difference to something that might have been affecting you for years. 

If you enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Do you ever wonder what you came upstairs for, forget where you’ve parked the car or find yourself grappling for the right word that just won’t come? These are all common concerns for women in midlife because brain fog is one of the classic symptoms of perimenopause and menopause.

In my latest Best Bit to celebrate half a million downloads for The Happy Menopause podcast, I’m focusing on brain fog because all that hormonal turmoil plays havoc with the oestrogen receptors in your brain. 

The resulting forgetfulness, poor concentration and focus, plus a general sense of your brain not firing on all cylinders can be incredibly disconcerting. I’ve come across many women in my nutrition clinic who were genuinely worried about early onset Alzheimer’s when it was actually all about the hormones. 

 So I’m diving back to Season 2, where we get to the bottom of brain fog with the delightful Dr Sabina Brennan. She’s a chartered health psychologist, neuroscientist and host of the Super Brain podcast, so brains are very much her business! Her book Beating Brain Fog is a wonderful read, with lots of practical strategies to support and tune up your brain. 

Tune in to hear just some of what she’s got to say about this tricky subject and for the full episode scoot back to Season 2, Episode 16, where there’s a whole load more advice for you that I couldn’t squeeze into this taster. Enjoy!

If you’re a fan of The Happy Menopause, please tell your friends and family, and do give it a 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on. It makes a huge difference to the algorithms which influence the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

This is the first of a series of Best Bits to celebrate the amazing milestone of 500,000 downloads. Huge thanks to all of you for making this possible by listening!

Looking back over the past 5 seasons, there are so many great moments of advice, insight and inspiration from my brilliant guests that it’s hard to choose, but I’ve decided to start with some fascinating extracts from my interview with Dr Catherine Walter. 

Catherine is an Emeritus Fellow in Applied Linguistics at Oxford University, but she’s also a world-record-holding powerlifter, who took up the sport at the age of 65 and hasn’t looked back since. As you’ll see from these extracts, her story is incredibly inspiring and it’s a real example to any woman who wants to take control of her own health and wellbeing.

Tune in to find out about the ins and outs of powerlifting:- what it actually is; how to get started; how it can help your bones; and why it can make such a difference to your health in ways that reach far beyond strength and stamina, helping you become a whole new woman. 

If you’re inspired by these Best Bits, you can find the full episode in Season 3, Episode 6 where you can hear Catherine’s fascinating story and her excellent advice on strength training. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

In this episode, we talk about vaginas, vulvas, sex and sex toys, because we can! As young people we all tend to assume that older people don’t have sex, but we midlife women know better, don’t we? It may be more complicated for us, for a variety of reasons, but women in mid and later life are still sexual beings and we have every right to enjoy our intimate life just as much as we did when we were younger. 

But we all know that there can be obstacles to this, such as dryness, pain, recurrent infections and loss of libido, so my guest today is here to help with all that, because there’s nothing she doesn’t know about how to manage all these pesky issues that get in the way of a happy and fulfilling sex life. 

My guest in this episode is the brilliant Samantha Evans.  She has a background in nursing, so she knows all the nitty gritty about our intimate areas and she’s the founder of Jo Divine, an online sex toy company designed to support people to enjoy sexual intimacy and pleasure by using skin-safe products and irritant-free lubricants and moisturisers. We discuss everything from how to manage UTIs and thrush to why and how to use a sex toy to maximise your pleasure. 

What I love about Sam is that she completely normalises what is a sensitive subject for many of us, and she’s so practical and supportive with her advice. Nothing is off the table with her and it’s a wild ride of a conversation, so get your notebooks ready, buckle in and tune in to hear what she’s got to say!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

It’s that time of year when a fresh start seems very appealing so you’ve probably already started thinking about changes you might want to make to your life. I’m not a big fan of the radical detox, because it’s not sustainable and your body won’t really enjoy it or benefit from it in the longterm. On the other hand, simple and consistent changes can make a world of difference to your health and wellbeing and my guest for this episode is just the woman we need to help us create a beautiful midlife for ourselves. 

I’m delighted that Tania Dalton is joining me today, as she’s the most brilliantly positive person. She found herself ill-equipped to manage her own menopause transition and took action to educate herself in the different ways she could begin to thrive through midlife and beyond. She went on to found Beautiful Midlife, an expert health coaching business which empowers women to make small changes to transform their health, increase their confidence and thrive through this stage of life. She’s full of practical advice and wisdom, so let’s hear what she’s got to say. 

We discuss Tania’s MELT method – Move Beautiful, Eat Beautiful. Live Beautiful and Think Beautiful and she shares some fantastic advice on how to build these four pillars of her Beautiful Midlife approach. Chatting to Tania was a delight, as she’s just the breath of fresh air that we need to start the year feeling positive and inspired. Tune in for a real treat this January!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas isn’t it? Of course, that’s not always a good thing if you’re the one organising it and feeling a bit overwhelmed at this point. But even if you absolutely love Christmas (and I have to confess that I do!), there can be a slight sense of dread about the impact it can have on your health and wellbeing, and especially your waistline, with all those extra goodies and social events going on. 

So I’ve decided to have a bit of fun with a Christmas special episode, because I’ve devised a festive nutrition quiz to test your knowledge and to give you some handy tips and tricks to help avoid some of the health traps that line the holiday season. 

Tune in to test your knowledge and to pick up some festive foodie tips along the way: discover the best hangover relieving breakfast; which Christmas classic treat contains the least sugar; which popular snack is highest in salt; which cheese is the lowest in saturated fat, plus lots more handy yuletide info. You’ll even find out the best snack to leave out for Santa, so he completes his rounds in good time. 
 
 Give yourself a Christmas treat and see how well you can score!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. Thanks so much for listening

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Blood sugar balance seems to be very much in vogue at the moment, so I’ve decided to dedicate this episode to talking through it, because I think there’s quite a lot of confusion around it. 

As a nutritionist, I really believe it’s one of the key pillars to managing menopause symptoms and Nutrition 101 if you want to apply a dietary approach to your health and wellbeing during the menopause. 

But it’s important not to overcomplicate things – if you get the basics of your macronutrients right, everything else will pretty much fall into place and your blood sugar will sort itself out without any help from expensive constant glucose monitoring attachments.

In this episode I talk through:

- the biochemistry of blood sugar, so you understand what’s going on in the body and the internal (and quite natural) reactions that occur when you eat (or don’t eat). 

- how blood sugar balance helps to regulate menopause symptoms by supporting the body’s plan B for producing oestrogen post-menopause

- how to achieve the correct balance of macros to support blood sugar balance

- specific suggestions for breakfast, lunch and dinner, including portion advice 

- the role of blood sugar management in regulating stress hormones

- why wearing a constant glucose monitor may not be right for you

- how the body maintains a natural state of balance known as homeostasis 

The episode is packed with practical, evidence-based advice, which is also based on my clinical experience, so tune in for everything you need to know about blood sugar balance. 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause!

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Do you ever feel invisible? Perhaps you struggle to get your voice heard. If so, you’re not alone, because this is something that most women have experienced at some point, especially as we move into midlife and menopause. But it’s not something we should put up with, because it’s not right and because, let’s face it, middle aged men don’t experience the same problem, do they? 

I’ve invited Dr Vanessa Collingridge to join me for this episode. I first met her at the Menopause Festival in Edinburgh, where were both speaking and I was intrigued by the title of her workshop  - The Revenge of the Invisible Woman. She struck me as just the woman we need to help us deal with this eternal problem!

Vanessa is a woman with a fascinating history and I really needed a lot longer to talk to her! She’s a broadcaster, author and impact coach, who has researched and presented award-winning history documentaries; is the author of several books and she’s a communications expert too. As an impact coach, she has a passion for developing female talent and helping women find their voice and shares loads of practical advice. 

We discuss the reasons why women feel invisible and why it can be so hard to get your voice heard at any age, but especially during midlife and menopause. Vanessa is full of practical advice about how to get yourself noticed and make your mark in work or social situations, and how to help your loved ones remember that you’re there, so that you’re not taken for granted. 

This episode is a mini masterclass in how to regain your confidence and get the recognition and appreciation you deserve!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. Thanks so much for listening. Bye for now. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

On World Menopause day it seems very fitting to look at the menopause from a historical angle and link it to women’s experience today. It hasn’t been an easy ride for middle-aged women over the centuries.  We’ve proven to be quite a mystery to the medical community, which has led to some unusual, hilarious and often very distressing assumptions about what’s going on with the female body. 

To help us unravel all this, I’m joined by oral historian Dr Helen Foster of the East Midlands Oral History Archive at the University of Leicester. As well as being an expert around menopausal themes throughout history, she’s also developed the Silent Archive, working with a group of volunteers to record women’s stories of menopause through interviews, personal audio diaries and conversations. I first heard her give a talk about The Bloody History of Menopause last year at The Old Operating Theatre Museum in London, and I was fascinated so I just had to snap her up for the podcast!

Helen takes us through the history of menopause, explaining the confusion and superstition about menstrual blood that built up over the centuries – did you know that we could turn milk sour and cause all manner of other domestic upheaval during our period? 

We talk about vilification of post-menopausal women who didn’t fit into the norm, which led to many of the witchcraft trials in the 16th century and women being shut up in asylums in later centuries. She also explains the utterly bizarre medical theory of the “wandering womb” which could apparently cause a whole host of mental and physical health issues! 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

The theme for this year’s World Menopause Day is cardiovascular disease. You may wonder what that’s got to do with the menopause, so here’s the thing: once you come through the menopause, your body will adjust to the new hormonal version of you and for the most part your symptoms will settle down, just like they did after puberty. But there are one or two key areas that you need to continue to focus on in the long-term – bone health is one, as I’m sure you’re aware. Heart health is another, which is why we’re shining a spotlight on it this year. 

It may surprise you to know that cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death amongst women, so it’s much more common than you might think, and your heart definitely deserves your full attention. I come across cardiovascular conditions quite a lot in my menopause nutrition clinic, so I’ve decided to dedicate this episode to sharing a range of diet and lifestyle approaches to support a healthy heart. 

I explain blood pressure and cholesterol, so you know what role they play in the body and how they can impact your cardiovascular health, and I talk you through the different parameters, so that you can understand the basics of any test results. 

Tune in to find out which foods to focus on to maintain a healthy blood pressure and to regulate your cholesterol levels and what you need to avoid or limit to keep on track. I also talk you through the heart healthy diets with the most research, so you can start to tweak your shopping list and meal planning to keep yourself on track. 

This episode is full of all my best foodie tips to help you show your heart some love!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

We all know that cooking with fresh ingredients can make a huge difference to our health and wellbeing, but that can be easier said than done when you’re juggling the demands of a busy life. And if you’re not especially confident in the kitchen, it can seem very daunting to start cooking from scratch if you’re worn out after a busy day. But help is at hand in today’s episode, as I’m joined by the brilliant chef Fiona Staunton who’s made it her mission to make cooking good food uncomplicated, quick and easy. 

Fiona is a Ballymaloe-trained chef and the founder of Fiona’s Food For Life, which specialises in in-person and virtual cooking demonstrations to create healthy treats and to take the hassle out of home-cooked meals for the whole family. She’s full of fantastic practical tips to make our lives easier and our meals more delicious. 

We discuss the barriers to cooking healthy food and how to overcome them, especially if you lack confidence in the kitchen. We also explore the key foods that can play a part in managing menopause symptoms and Fiona shares some of her mouthwatering and menopause-friendly recipe ideas for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

I promise you that you’ll feel inspired to get into the kitchen and start cooking straight away, once you’ve listened to what Fiona has to say!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Have you ever tried reflexology? It’s way more than just a fancy foot massage! In fact, it’s been used for thousands of years as a therapeutic practice to support health and wellbeing. I’m a fairly recent convert to the wonders of reflexology and I know it makes a huge difference to me. So to find out more and to understand the research behind it, I’ve called on the help of expert reflexologist and teacher, Sally Earlam to share her wisdom with us. 

She has a background in nursing and has been a reflexologist for 24 years. She’s also a trained teacher and has previously taught the Reflexology Diploma, but now focuses on teaching advanced courses for qualified reflexologists in Menopause, Maternity and Mindful Reflexology.

Sally explains the fascinating history of reflexology and the theory behind it. We discuss the emerging body of research around the health benefits of the practice and how it could make a real difference to hormone balance and your menopause symptoms, as well as more broadly addressing issues such as stress, insomnia and pain management. 

We also discuss what to expect from a reflexology session; why you shouldn’t worry if you’re ticklish (yes, really!); and how to find an accredited reflexology practitioner. 

After chatting to Sally, I booked a session straight away, as I realised that it’s been a while since I had one. I always feel amazing afterwards and have a brilliant night’s sleep. So how about it? Are you tempted? Why don’t you tune in to find out more? I promise you won’t regret it!

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Chronic insomnia can be very stressful – not only are you feeling tired and worried about how you’ll cope the next day, but you’re probably also worrying about all those stories you’ve heard about the potential long-term health impact of not sleeping. And that means that you’re even less likely to get to sleep! 

Women are generally much more prone to sleep disorders than men, and when we reach the perfect storm of midlife, things can get very tricky. In this episode we focus on the potential benefits of sleep loss. 

I chat to author and researcher Annabel Abbs about the findings from her latest book Sleepless: Discovering the Power of the Night Self. Following a series of bereavements, Annabel charts her experience of sleep loss and her research into the way women have dealt with it over the centuries. 

It’s a fascinating insight into wakefulness that turns the issue of insomnia on its head and looks at the benefits of sleep loss instead. Annabel explains how the female night self is a quite unique and extraordinary being, with increased creativity, freedom and boldness. 

If you’re feeling stressed about the quality of your sleep, this episode is for you, because you’ll start to see the issue in a whole new way and Annabel has some great tips about dealing with insomnia.

If you’re a fan of The Happy Menopause, please tell your friends and family about it, and do give it a 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on. It makes a huge difference to the algorithms which influence the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

I’ve always thought that magnesium is every menopausal woman’s best friend. It’s a magnificent mineral and a mega multitasker. So it really does deserve a whole episode of The Happy Menopause! I’ve invited magnesium expert Andrew Thomas to talk us through everything you need to know about this marvellous mineral. 

Andrew is the founder of Better You, which is one of my favourite supplement companies. He founded the business in 2006, and it was the first company in the world to commercialise transdermal magnesium therapy and to develop the delivery of nutrients via an oral spray. We had a great chat about vitamin D in Season 4 (worth a listen if you haven’t found it already)  and he’s back to share his wisdom about magnesium. 

This episode is a real magnesium masterclass, as Andrew explains the 300+ roles of magnesium on the body, why we might be low in it and how magnesium depletion could be the root cause of a number of symptoms.  We also discuss the different forms of magnesium in supplements and Andrew explains the difference between oxides, malates, glycinates, sulphates and citrates and why certain forms may suit some people better than others.  It’s truly fascinating!

We discuss dosage, because supplements need to be treated with respect, especially if you’re on medication or have any medical conditions. And of course we discuss which foods you need to focus on to boost your magnesium levels, because ‘Food First’ is always going to be my mantra for any therapeutic nutritional approach! Tune in – this is an incredibly helpful episode!

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

To kick off Season 5, we’re looking at the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) of the perimenopause and menopause. Because let’s face it, we’ve all got questions and there are some subjects that you might not feel too comfortable asking about. But fear no more!  I’m chatting to the brilliant Julie Robinson, founder of Meno Health and Move It, Or Lose It, who’s helped thousands of women over the years. Her new book has collated some of the most common (and some not so common!) questions and concerns and she’s worked with a number of experts to provide the answers. 

FAQs on Menopause: Your Questions Answered is a great little book and I’d urge you to add it to your bookshelf, because you won’t regret it. In this episode, I pulled out a selection of questions from the book which cover some of the burning issues familiar to so many of us as we go through perimenopause and menopause.

We discuss anxiety, facial hair, HRT, joint pain and managing the menopause at work and Julie shares some really sound, practical advice on how to manage all of these. She’s kind, funny, engaging and has the unbeatable knack of making exercise fun! 

Julie has made it her life’s work to get women and girls of all ages moving more, to support our physical and mental health and wellbeing. She founded Menohealth after her own experience of early menopause, so this is a woman who knows all about the challenges of this phase of life. Julie is a real breath of fresh air and I absolutely loved chatting to her, so tune in to hear more about those key questions that so many of us struggle with.  

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

I’m wrapping up Season 4 by looking at that crucial decade after menopause, when a proactive approach to our health and wellbeing is more important than ever to define the way that we age. In this episode I chat to the brilliant health coach and author Susan Saunders about her latest book The Power Decade: How to Thrive After Menopause.

There are huge positives to life post-menopause: this is the time to create the adventures – large and small – we want in our lives. And the foundation for this? Our health, both physical and mental. Life 50+ is not about decline and deficiency and decrepitude – it’s about an incredible opportunity to live the life we want to live!

As a coach, Susan works with women all over the world to help them reduce their dementia risk through one-to-one coaching, workshops and courses. She trained with Alzheimer’s Prevention neuroscientist Dr Dale Bredesen and has a particular interest in dementia prevention for women post-menopause. She’s also co-creator of The Age-Well Project platform, co-author of The Age Well Project: Easy Ways to  a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life and author of The Age Well Plan: the 6-Week Programme to a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life.

We discuss three crucial areas which make up the cornerstone of Susan’s advice – Meals, Movement and Mindset - and she takes us through the findings of her research to create the approach to live your best possible life post-menopause. It’s incredible how small but consistent changes can make a huge difference to your health and wellbeing.

This is no time to write yourself off! The Power Decade is your moment to lay down the groundwork for a fit, healthy and positive later life. Tune in to hear Susan’s expert advice and find out how to make the most of this stage of your life.

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode, and please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on.  And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

How daring do you feel these days? Sometimes it’s easy for us to write ourselves off in midlife and think the fun and adventure is all over. In this episode, we’re going to explore the extraordinary adventures of some inspiring women who have smashed through barriers, broken taboos and paved the way for the rest of us. I promise you that by the end of the episode, you’ll be just raring to go and start an adventure of your own!

My guest will be well-known to many of you, because she was a much-loved presenter on BBC Breakfast for 20 years. She’s used her profile to champion women’s stories and to raise awareness of the menopause, mental health and women’s safety. She’s also a highly successful triathlete who represented Great Britain in her age-group. If you haven’t guessed already, I’m chatting to the brilliant Louise Minchin who’s here to discuss her latest book Fearless: Adventures with Extraordinary Women and to give us all an appetite for adventure.

Louise introduces us to a whole host of inspiring women and talks us through the adventures she shared with them, including freediving under ice, cycling across Argentina, wild caving and a swim escape from Alcatraz. We discuss the importance of challenging yourself to build resilience and how vital it is to remain physically confident to ensure we keep fit and well through mid- and later life. Louise is an incredibly positive role model and full of great advice on how to empower yourself to take that first step into adventure so that you can make the most of this latest stage of your life. 

She was a delight to chat to and I promise you that you’ll enjoy listening to her as much as I enjoyed chatting to her! 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode, and please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on.  And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Do you ever feel left out of the menopause conversation? If you’re dealing with the menopause post-cancer it can be very frustrating when all the messaging in the media seems to revolve around HRT as the solution to all your symptoms. So in this episode, I’m focusing on the very specific diet and lifestyle steps you can take to manage your menopause if you’ve recently had cancer treatment, or are taking hormone suppressant medication, which means that you can't take HRT, even if you wanted to..

Cancer nutrition is a highly specialised and complex area so I’ve brought in the big guns with my guest for this episode. I’m delighted to be joined by Dr Carol Granger. She’s a registered nutrition practitioner and microbiologist who works with people with a cancer diagnosis, before during and after treatment to complement their treatment and support resilience and recovery. She’s also an executive member of the British Society for Integrative Oncology and has published numerous research papers on nutrition and cancer. 

Carol is a mine of useful information and shares her practical and expert advice on the do’s and don’ts of diet and lifestyle after a cancer diagnosis. We discuss the importance of the Mediterranean diet; why you need to follow a smart-fat rather than a low-fat diet; and why it’s important to apply caution with certain supplements. This is an incredibly helpful episode for anyone looking to manage their health and wellbeing during and post-menopause after a cancer diagnosis.

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode, and please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on.  And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Are you fed up with dieting and not making any progress with weight loss? Managing a healthy weight in midlife can be a real minefield and it’s incredibly disheartening if despite your best efforts you’re not really getting anywhere. The female body is complicated and the cocktail of hormones around the menopause can make it a real uphill battle to keep in shape. We often find that the tried and trusted methods of the past don’t really work for us now, so what can we do about that? Surely there’s a better way? Well, there is! And I’ve got just the woman to help us with it in this month’s podcast.

In this episode I chat to Elizabeth Sherman, a life and weight-loss coach who supports women through the hormonal shifts of the perimenopause and menopause and who’s made it her business to guide them through the challenges of managing a healthy  weight in midlife. She’s also the host of the excellent Done With Dieting podcast which is for all of us who are looking to manage our health, wellbeing and weight in a way that’s successful and sustainable. 

We discuss the ups and downs of weight management in menopause; explore the issues around emotional eating with Elizabeth’s expert advice for managing this; and we look at the 8 healthy habits you need to get in place to support a healthy weight in midlife. Chatting to Elizabeth was a really helpful reminder of just how complex our body is and why we need to be giving it the best possible support through the menopause and beyond. 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode, and please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on.  And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is Embrace Equity focusing on forging equality for women and raising awareness around discrimination. And this got me thinking about the inequalities around women’s health and the menopause, because there are a lot of them. It’s still very much a man’s world and it can be hard for women to ensure their voice is heard in the health arena. In this IWD special episode, I chat to a hugely inspiring woman, who’s been campaigning around the menopause for years and who’s made a material difference to the conversation around women’s health.  

Back in Season 1, I invited Elizabeth Carr-Ellis and her Pausitivity colleagues to share the work they’d been doing around raising awareness of the menopause amongst local communities. I’m thrilled that she’s back with me today for an update and to give us her insights on the ongoing challenges of managing inequality around the menopause.
 

Since we last spoke, Liz has continued to campaign tirelessly, and she even took the menopause to the UK parliament, addressing MPs and peers at the All Party Parliamentary Group on menopause. She’s also been named a Big Issue Changemaker for her work taking the menopause into vulnerable communities. 

We discuss the postcode lottery of the menopause experience for women in the UK; the shocking truth around the majority of medical research which is based on the male experience; the heart-breaking challenges that women face as they grapple with their menopause symptoms; and the lack of support from government and some elements of the medical community around the HRT shortages. 

It’s enough to make you want to get out there and (wo)man the barricades! Tune in to find out what concrete steps you can take to ensure that you receive equity around your health and the menopause. 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode, and please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on.  And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

What does your menopause look like? The chances are it’s not much like a lot of the media portrayals of the menopause! 

With International Women’s Day fast approaching and with a theme of Embrace Equity, I wanted to take a closer look at diversity around the menopause, because it doesn’t just happen to the tired-looking grey-haired white woman that seems to take centre stage in so many of the slightly depressing stock shots used in the media. 

Every woman goes through menopause – and it can happen at any age, some women experience premature menopause, others may have menopause triggered by medical treatment or a surgical intervention.

 And women of every ethnicity experience menopause and it’s really important to understand that the timing and some of the symptoms and risk factors can vary quite significantly if you’re black or Asian, for example. 

If that’s you or one of your loved ones, it’s essential to understand these key differences in order to take positive action and this month’s guest is just the woman to help us with this. 

Meet Karen Arthur! She’s a fashion creative, menopause diversity campaigner and host of the ground-breaking podcast Menopause Whilst Black. Karen is also the inspiration behind Wear Your Happy, because she believes passionately in the power of clothing and accessories to enhance your mood and lift your spirits.
 
In this episode we discuss the different way that black women experience menopause and the challenges that they face. Karen talks through her own experience and the motivation behind creating her Menopause Whilst Black podcast. She’s keen to open up the menopause conversation to women of all ages and ethnicities, taking the conversation out to communities and is doing a brilliant job of it. 

Karen is also completely inspirational on the subject of fashion and how what you wear should make you happy. She’s a complete bundle of energy and positivity – tune in to hear her words of wisdom!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode, and please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on.  And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

What do you think about yoga? Are you a regular devotee; is it something you do occasionally, or do you really think this is something for other people? If yoga is something you’ve discounted or let slide in your wellbeing journey so far, you might want to think again after you’ve heard what my latest guest has to say about the multiple benefits for women in midlife. 

Meet Libby Stevenson – she’s a yoga instructor and therapeutic wellbeing practitioner for women at different stages of life but with a special interest in midlife and menopause. Libby’s own journey of discovery into yoga inspired her to train as an instructor and to gain specialist certification in the areas she’s passionate about, so she’s just the person we need to tell us more about this wonderful practice.

In this episode we drill down into the different ways that yoga can support our health and wellbeing. We discuss the role that yoga can play in supporting the nervous system and reducing stress levels, really underpinning our mental health at a stage in life when we can be feeling a little fragile. 

There are a range of physical benefits too, from improving flexibility, stamina & balance and helping to build bone and muscle strength to reducing hot flushes and supporting sleep. 

Find out why yoga is for everyone, regardless of your shape, weight, flexibility and fitness. You won’t regret giving it a try, I promise!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode, and please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on.  And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

It’s 2023 and New Year, New You, they say! But is there actually anything wrong with the old you? Probably not, but we’re often very self-critical! Rather than making a whole lot of radical resolutions that won’t last more than a week or two, in this episode I’m focusing on small, consistent changes that can reap big benefits as you transition through the menopause. And I’ve found just the woman to help us with this, because I’m chatting to the brilliant Amanda Thebe who’s just the most practical, pragmatic and relatable menopause champion and she’s made a material difference to thousands of women through her work. 

Amanda is a Women’s Health and Fitness Expert with nearly thirty years of experience in the fitness industry and the author of the best-selling book, Menopocalypse: How I Learned to Thrive During Menopause and How You Can Too, which is her story of how she was trapped in the perimenopause rabbit hole and how she got out of it. She’s a bundle of energy, positivity and wisdom, so tune in to hear what she’s got to say!

We discuss the many different ways that you can take a proactive approach to managing your menopause and Amanda shares her five keystones of optimal health in midlife. She also busts some of the popular menopause myths out there around diet and lifestyle, shares her thoughts on supplements and speaks frankly about her views on some of the misleading (and expensive!) advice that is out there without the relevant evidence to back it up.  

Just chatting to Amanda has made me feel more energised and positive – imagine how it would feel to work with her! 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Welcome to my latest Best Bit, part of my series to celebrate half a million downloads for The Happy Menopause podcast, and the chance for you to catch up on some of the brilliant episodes you may have missed. This edition focuses on vaginal dryness, which is rather the Cinderella of the menopause. 

In recent years, we’ve become more confident about discussing our menopause – some women will mention their hot flushes without turning a hair, and the common mental health symptoms  such as anxiety and mood swings have also started to come out of the closet, which is a great thing, but we’re still not quite ready to be open about the vaginal symptoms. 

So for this extract, I zoom back to Season 2 Episode 15 where we shine a light on this tricky issue, because it can be a huge problem for many women through the menopause and beyond. To help us, I’ve turned to one of the most clinically experienced menopause specialists in the UK. Kathy Abernethy, who’s been a leading light in the field of women’s health and the menopause for over 30 years. 

From her early years as a sister on a gynae ward, through her time as Chair of the British Menopause Society and now as the leader of a multidisciplinary NHS menopause clinic and director of menopause services at Peppy health, a digital health company, Kathy has consistently championed women’s health and transformed the lives of hundreds of women with her clinical advice and support. There really is no better person to give us the lowdown on how to manage vaginal dryness, so tune in to hear her expert advice on moisturisers, lubricants, vaginal oestrogen and how to manage UTIs. 

To hear the full episode, check out Season 2 Episode 15, where there’s even more practical advice for you. 

If you’re a fan of The Happy Menopause, please tell your friends and family, and do give it a 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on. It makes a huge difference to the algorithms which influence the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Are you a caregiver? The shoulder for everyone else? The fixer in your family? The workplace workhorse? Is there no time for self-care?  Women are hardwired to nurture, and it can be very difficult to know where to draw the line if we think that other people need us. 

And that can be a real issue, because self care is a non-negotiable for women in midlife and it can make a world of difference to the way we experience the menopause. But many of us aren’t very good at it, although we’re brilliant at looking after other people!

That’s why I’ve called in the big guns for this episode, with Jess Baker, psychologist and co-author of The Super Helper Syndrome, which is a survival guide for compassionate people. She’s a chartered psychologist and an award-winning coach, and her new book is a fabulously helpful guide to supporting people who want to adopt a healthy helper mindset so that they can meet their own needs, as well as supporting those around them. 

In this episode we explore where the urge to help comes from and how it can often lead back to childhood and the influences we encounter as we grow up. Jess talks us through the classic signs of someone who is a compulsive helper and explains the implications this can have on health and wellbeing. We discuss how to set boundaries in our professional and our personal lives so that we don’t overload ourselves and can take the time to look after ourselves too. 

She’s full of very practical advice on how to get the balance right in our lives, so that we become healthy helpers. As she so beautifully puts it: “When helping comes from a place of compassion and not from compulsion, that’s when caring gives us courage.”

This episode is for all the women out there who are so busy helping everyone else that they often don’t give a thought to themselves, their health and their wellbeing.

Find out more about Jess and her work in the Show Notes on my website: www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast.

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

In this episode I’m focusing on good mood foods, because there is no doubt that what we eat can have a huge impact on our brain and cognitive function. 

Mood swings, anxiety and brain fog are incredibly common issues for women in their early 40s onwards, which can come as an unwelcome surprise. And while there’s no doubt that your hormones are playing a big part in this, the right diet and lifestyle can play a huge part in helping correct the balance so that you get your brain back on an even keel. 

I’ve decided to go solo for this podcast so I can focus specifically on my own area of expertise, which is nutrition. I’m sharing 8 ways that your food choices can help to calm your nerves, regulate your mood and clear your brain, so that your neurotransmitters are fully fired up!

Tune in to find out why it’s important to boost the B’s, maximise magnesium, power up the protein and be good to your gut and I’ll give you some practical tips on how to do all that. I set a fun foodie challenge for you as well – you’ll have to listen in to find out what that is, but I promise that you’ll enjoy it!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on. And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. Thanks so much for listening, bye for now!

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

This summer I discovered The Expectation Effect, the latest book by David Robson and what I learned was fascinating, so I was thrilled when he agreed to come on the podcast for this World Menopause Day special on cognition.  

Our mindset shapes every facet of our lives, and our expectations have a direct impact on every experience. Of course, we all know that looking on the bright side promotes positivity, but there’s an impressive body of research around the way that our expectations can significantly influence our health, wellbeing, fitness and even our weight and the way that we age!  As we work our way through the challenges of midlife and the menopause, it’s really good to know that at least some of the power is in our hands and this episode is full of good advice about how to make the most of that. 

My guest is David Robson, an award-winning science writer specialising in the extremes of the human brain, body and behaviour. His second book, The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life is a journey through the cutting-edge science of how our beliefs can create self-fulfilling prophecies in every area of our lives. 

We discuss all the different ways that your expectations can influence your health, your wellbeing and your life. David shares some extraordinary research about this and explains how very small changes can make a world of difference to our experience of a situation, a challenge or a health problem. 

It’s incredibly empowering to discover just how much we can influence our own health and wellbeing, especially at this time of our lives when we can often feel as if control is slipping away from us. I promise you’ll find this a very helpful episode!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

The theme of this year’s World Menopause Day is cognition, so I’ve invited the wonderful Dr Sabina Brennan back to chat to us, because there is no better woman to help us with the cognitive challenges of the menopause

She’s a chartered health psychologist, neuroscientist, host of the Super Brain podcast and author of two fantastic books: 100 Days to A Younger Brain and Beating Brain Fog. There’s no one better to help us tackle the subject of brain health!

Brain fog, poor memory and loss of concentration and focus can significantly affect women during the menopause but fear not, because, in this episode, Sabina is full of practical advice on how to keep your brain and your neurotransmitters firing on all cylinders. 

We discuss the ageing brain and how to keep it healthy and agile through novelty, variety, diet and lifestyle. It’s very encouraging to learn that our behaviours and our lifestyle choices can directly influence our brain health and smart choices can make a material difference to our cognitive function.

Sabina is full of practical advice and simple everyday strategies that we can apply to keep our brain in great shape through menopause and beyond.
 
 If you enjoy the podcast, please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on. And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

In this episode, we’re exploring the power of song, because there’s something very joyous about singing and it’s something we can all do and that we can all enjoy, even if you prefer to do it in the privacy of your shower! There are multiple benefits to singing and it can have a significant impact on your mental health and wellbeing, so we’ll be discovering how singing can make a difference to you and your menopause symptoms. 

My guest is Dr Catherine Pestano, she’s a community musician and mental health social worker with a passion for helping people to free their voices and share in the joy of singing and creative music making, at all levels. Catherine is also a lead adviser for the national Song Therapy training and a long-term member of the natural voice network. And as a menopause activist, she’s very conscious of the positive impact of song as a support for women in midlife and she’s kindly shared her expertise with us. 

We discuss all aspects of singing in this podcast and explore the various physical and mental health benefits, as well as the extraordinary support and friendship you can experience from being part of a group singing project. Catherine works with singers of all levels and is incredibly reassuring about the inhibitions we may feel about our own ability to carry a tune or sing as a group. It’s fascinating to hear about the singing therapy she’s involved in and the work she does with people going through midlife hormonal transitions  – yes, hormonal changes can affect your voice and your confidence (as we all know!), but with Catherine’s help and encouragement, we can definitely still enjoy the joy of singing. 

After chatting to Catherine, I felt hugely motivated to get out there and start singing and I’m sure you will too!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Skincare is a hot topic for many women and never more so than in midlife when the hormonal fluctuations of the perimenopause bring about a sea change in the condition of our skin. Acne, dry skin and loss of elasticity are all very common problems, and we often find that our tried and trusted skincare routine is no longer effective. And that can be a problem, because if we feel that we’re no longer presenting our best face to the world it can create a knock-on issue of loss of confidence at a time when we may already be feeling a bit less comfortable in our skin. But help is at hand with my latest guest, consultant dermatologist Dr Emma Wedgeworth. 

Emma is a highly experienced clinician who treats the full range of skin conditions, including acne, rosacea and ageing skin. She’s published numerous scientific articles and been involved in cutting-edge dermatological research, so we’re definitely in good hands! 

Get your pen ready, you’ll want to take notes for this one. Emma packs so much advice into such a short space of time. We discuss moisturisers, cleansers, acne, dry skin, wrinkles, those pesky facial hairs that pop up and all the things you can do about them. Emma very kindly shares advice on specific brands and products, which I’ve included in the show notes that you’ll find on the podcast page of my website. 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it to. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Season 4  of The Happy Menopause  is supported by innovative natural health company Better You. Tune in to the podcast for details of a 20% discount on their range of oral  vitamin and mineral sprays and transdermal magnesium. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Vitamin D is a non-negotiable for our health and wellbeing at any age, but never more so than in mid and later life which is why I’ve decided to shine a light on it in this episode. I’ve invited Andrew Thomas, founder of one my favourite supplement companies Better You to chat to me about all things vitamin D. 

He’s just the man we need to help us understand the ins and outs of this hormone-like vitamin. Andrew has been on quite a journey, from a chance encounter at a rodeo, which led him to found Better You to winning the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2021. 

The level of research into Vitamin D has expanded considerably in recent years and we explore the broad role that it plays in supporting your health and wellbeing, such as bone health, mental health and immune function, including reducing the severity and longevity of Covid-19 symptoms. Andrew explains what Vitamin D is; why we need it; why we might be deficient and typical signs of that; how the body produces it and what sort of supplement dosage is appropriate.  

This is a really practical and helpful episode that should answer any questions about Vitamin D, especially as we slide into the autumn and winter when a supplement is more important than ever. 

If you enjoy the podcast, please give it a 5 star rating and a review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, And do tell your friends and family about it. I’d be so grateful because it really does make a difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Season 4  of The Happy Menopause  is supported by  innovative natural health company Better You. Tune in to the podcast for details of a 20% discount on their range of oral  vitamin and mineral sprays and transdermal magnesium. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Can’t run, won’t run? Listen to this episode before you write yourself off!

It’s September and with the whole post-holiday vibe it’s often a good time be thinking about a new fitness regime. With that in mind, I’ve decided to kick off Season 4 with an episode on running. If it’s not something you’ve tried before or thought you’d never do in a million years (that was me until Hello Lockdown!) this is the podcast for you, because I’m speaking to a specialist women’s running coach who knows exactly how to help us get started and how to do it in a way that suits our midlife body. 

I’m delighted to welcome Sam Palmer to the podcast to share her expertise. This is a woman with a lot of get up and go, who’s reinvented herself multiple times and used the knowledge from each incarnation to help her develop the next one. She started out as a nurse in neonatal intensive care; retrained as a teacher after becoming a mother; set up her own first aid training business and then retrained again as a running coach, specialising in supporting women in their first steps at becoming a runner. All of this expertise combined when she launched her Midlife Makeover coaching programmes to support women with simple lifestyle changes to improve their health and wellbeing. 

We discuss all aspects of running – how to get started if you’re a newbie and how to pick up again if you’ve taken a break. We look at the tangible health benefits and the surprising fringe benefits you can experience. Sam advises on the practical aspects of kitting yourself out and is full of good advice on how to look after yourself and reduce the risk of injury. 

Sam is so positive and encouraging. I think the big takeaway from this episode is not to rule yourself out of anything. And never say never

If you enjoy the podcast, please give it a 5 star rating and a review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, And please do tell your friends and family about it. I’d be so grateful because it really does make a difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

 Season 4 of The Happy Menopause  is supported by  innovative natural health company Better You. Tune in to the podcast for details of a 20% discount on their range of oral  vitamin and mineral sprays and transdermal magnesium. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Bloating can be a nasty niggling issue for a lot of women in midlife. It can affect different people in different ways. You might have a sense of overfullness after even quite a small meal. Or find that you can’t do up your trousers by the end of the day. 
 
 Some women experience such a distended abdomen that they describe it as looking 6 months pregnant, after starting the day with a flat stomach. Bloating can also manifest as back pain, and a sensation of trapped wind can be very common too. Whatever your experience, bloating is generally unpleasant, often painful and can be annoyingly unpredictable. 

I see a lot of women in my nutrition clinic who struggle with bloating, which is why I’ve decided to wrap up Season 3 of The Happy Menopause with a solo episode which focuses on this tricky subject. Tune in to hear 8 tried and trusted methods of tackling bloating that you can try for yourself at home. 

The mechanics of your digestion rely on a delicate balance, and what, when and how you eat can all potentially contribute to issues of bloating and trapped wind. I explore the stages of the digestive process and the role of digestive enzymes; common potential trigger foods to consider; the impact of different fluids on bloating; why fruit may not be your best friend if you’re bloated and why finishing first is a loser’s game when you’re eating with friends or family. 

If you want to get to beat the bloat, the simple, practical advice in this episode is a great place to start!

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, why not dip back into the archive this summer? The podcast covers a whole range of different symptoms and issues and also includes episodes which feature some incredibly inspiring women, who are fantastic role models for midlife. Season 4 will kick off on 1st September, so keep a look out for that, as it launches with 3 brilliant episodes!

Jackie Lynch is an award-winning nutritionist and founder of the WellWellWell nutrition clinic where she specialises in women’s health and the menopause. Keen to break the taboo about discussing the menopause, she launched the popular diet & lifestyle podcast The Happy Menopause and her new book, The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish is out now.

She is also the author of Va Va Voom: The 10-Day Energy Dietand The Right Bite: Smart Food Choices for Eating on the Go.  Jackie’s advice featur

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Do you leak a little bit of urine when you laugh or sneeze or run? Let’s face it, it’s something that’s happened to most of us at some point and statistics show that more than 1 in 3 women struggle with this. It’s called urinary stress incontinence, usually due to a weak pelvic floor, and it’s one of those things we mostly don’t talk about because it’s embarrassing. 

This month’s guest is going to help us bust that taboo wide open, because I’m speaking to the fabulous Elaine Miller. She’s a pelvic health physiotherapist and has helped countless women reverse the problem with her clinical support. But she’s also a stand-up comic and has used her comedic talent to create the hilarious Gusset Grippers show, employing humour as a health promotion tool, and going on to win the Fringe World Comedy award in 2020. She’s frank, she’s funny and I’m thrilled that she’s joined us to share her wisdom. 

We learn all about the pelvic floor: what it is; where it is; why it’s important; and how to keep it in great shape. Elaine explains some of the factors that can weaken your pelvic floor and we discuss the best ways to manage that.  We even try out the exercises, so you can squeeze along with us! Elaine’s mantra is “We won’t pee, with a 10 -10-3”, so tune in to find out what that’s all about and to enjoy a very entertaining conversation.

 We also discuss her upcoming show Viva Your Vulva at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August, where she’ll once again be busting open the taboo around out intimate health with the help of giant, sparkly vulva on stage. That’s definitely a date for your diary, if you’ll be in the area, so check out the show notes for more details!

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please do tell your friends and family about the podcast and leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple podcasts or whichever platform you listen on. It really helps to activate the algorithms and boost the rankings so that more women can find the show.  Because every woman deserves a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Are you ready for an adventure? Midlife is a time when we can get itchy feet and want to explore new horizons, but sometimes niggling doubts and a lack of confidence can get in the way of that. So in this episode, I’m chatting to adventurer Alice Morrison, who’s just the woman we need to give us the encouragement to take that first big step. 

Alice is an adventurer, TV presenter and author, who’s currently living in a little village in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. I met her at The Travel Show earlier this year, where she was talking about her latest book Walking With Nomads and I knew straight away that I wanted to chat to her in more detail. 

After a successful career in journalism, Alice decided it was time for a change and she embarked on a series of adventures in midlife which have transformed her life – she’s cycled across Africa; run across deserts, and trekked across Morocco, for starters. Alice knows exactly what it’s like to travel solo as a woman, so she’s just the person to help us get started on our own midlife adventures!

My conversation with Alice has definitely reawakened my travel bug, and I love how encouraging and matter of fact she is about it. She’s quite right – we just need to do it, and I hope you will!

If you’re a fan of The Happy Menopause, please tell your friends and family about it, and do give it a 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on. It makes a huge difference to the algorithms which influence the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. Because, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

When was the last time you had a good night’s sleep? We all know that we’re better for it, but it can be extremely elusive, especially in midlife where a combination of the hormonal surges that often trigger night sweats and the stresses and strains of daily life can make it incredibly hard to get quality sleep. And quality more than quantity really does count when it comes to how we feel the next day. 

My guest in this episode is Lisa Cypers Kamen who’s the author of a new book called Rested: Solutions for Restorative Sleep and Wellbeing. Doesn’t that sound just what we all need? As the founder of the fabulous Harvesting Happiness lifestyle consultancy which specialises in positive psychology coaching, she’s made it her life’s work to help her clients improve their wellbeing and quality of life. Concerned by what she describes as a global sleep epidemic, she’s reviewed a mountain of research and distilled her findings into an incredibly helpful sleep guide. If you’re struggling with sleep, this episode could be a game-changer for you.

We discuss the structure of our sleep cycles and why each stage is important. Lisa explains the different strategies we can apply to support a restorative night’s sleep and we cover everything from stress and sleep hygiene to nutrition and lifestyle. It’s a fascinating episode packed with practical tips to ease you into a delicious, restful slumber. 

If you enjoy this episode, please tell your friends and family, and leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you listen on, as it really helps to spread the word, so that new listeners can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Walking is something that’s accessible to almost all of us and it can be a much less daunting prospect to the harassed midlife woman than high impact work, running or intense training. What’s wonderful about the research we discuss in this episode is that walking isn’t a second-best option if you’re not up to other forms of exercise. It’s much, much more than that and we discuss the very many ways that different types of walking can benefit us – something I’d never really thought about before, even though I often recommend a daily walk to women in my nutrition clinic.  But walking in different weathers, at different speeds, in different terrain and with a different mindset can all bring different health benefits. 

My guest in this episode is the wonderful Annabel Streets, who’s an award-winning writer of highly researched fiction and non-fiction. She’s an absolute genius at translating complex research into simple and manageable habits that we can include in our everyday life. We discuss her latest book 52 Ways to Walk – The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time. Her books (sometimes written under the name Annabel Abbs) have been translated into over 30 languages. Her most recent books include 52 Ways to Walk (Bloomsbury), Windswept: Why Women Walk (Two Roads) and The Language of Food (Simon and Schuster). She is also co-founder of the Age-Well Project blog and co-author of The Age-Well Project: Easy Ways to a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life (Piatkus).

There are multiple health benefits associated with long, short, slow and brisk walks. A range of positive effects are associated with the weather and the environments you walk in, and we discuss the impact of a cold walk, walking in the sunshine and strolling by water or through trees. Annabel explains the impact that tuning up our wayfinding skills could have on our risk of dementia and she also describes how to walk as you work. 

It's a truly fascinating discussion and I’ve been excited about recording this podcast since I received the book. I’m confident you’re going to enjoy hearing from Annabel, as much as I did, and I hope you enjoy discovering new and different ways to walk your way to health. 

If you enjoy this episode, please tell your friends and family, and leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you listen on, as it really helps to spread the word, so that new listeners can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

This episode is all about the perimenopause, because those years running up to the menopause can be full of hormonal havoc. In fact, although we use it as a catch-all term, the menopause technically only lasts for one day. It’s that day when it’s been 12 months since your last period. After that, you’re post menopausal. So the perimenopause is when all the fun and games really start and that can be a lot earlier than you might think. In fact, hormonal fluctuations can be going on in the background from your early 40s onwards and some of the initial symptoms can be surprising and disconcerting. Anxiety, brain fog, poor memory and loss of confidence are all fairly common issues, and they can cause a lot of concern, especially if your periods are still regular and you assume you’re too young. Why would you associate that with the menopause? But these early warning signs are very characteristic of the perimenopause and you don’t have to put up with them, because there are lots of options to help you deal with them. 

And this is where my latest guest comes in. I’m chatting to the brilliant Ruth Devlin, who’s a nurse, health coach and clinical educator specialising in the menopause. Dhe’s also the author of the excellent book Men! Let’s Talk Menopause, which is a snappy and useful guide to help the men in our life understand what’s going on. We discuss the different challenges faced by women during the perimenopause, from the emotional and cognitive symptoms to the physical issues such as hot flushes and vaginal dryness. 

Ruth explains some of the multiple options available to you to help manage the problems arising from the hormone ups and downs of the perimenopause and we discuss a range of potential solutions, including cognitive behavioural therapy, HRT, diet and lifestyle. This episode is a great place to start if you’ve just realised you’re perimenopausal and you’re wondering what to do about it. 

Tune in for her excellent advice, because Ruth is an absolute mine of useful information! I think the big takeaway here is to arm yourself with information and not rule anything out or make any assumptions about the best route for you, until you’ve considered all the options. I really hope this episode will help you feel empowered to do that, because this is your body and you have every right to make sure that you’re happy, comfortable and confident to manage your perimenopause in the way that is right for you. 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please do leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple podcasts or whichever platform you listen on and make sure you tell all your friends – it makes a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast and really helps to spread the word. B

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Is your sex life everything you want it to be? If the answer is a hollow laugh and “What sex life?”, then you’re not unusual. It’s very common for women in midlife and beyond to write themselves off as sexual beings and there can be lots of reasons for that, including loss of body confidence, fatigue, anxiety, vaginal dryness, low libido. No matter the reason, we deserve to have the sex life we want – whatever it may be – which is why I’ve called on the brilliant Dr Claire Macaulay for some practical advice to help with that. 
 
 Claire is an oncologist who treats people with breast cancer, but she’s joined the podcast in her other role as a self-confessed sex science geek and founder of the rather brilliant Pleasure Possibility, a coaching programme to help people create the kind of sex life that is right for them. Kind, humorous, pragmatic and totally unshockable, Claire offers some fantastic advice to help you and your sexuality thrive in midlife and beyond. 

Tune in for a no holds barred conversation about how to overcome the various barriers that are in the way of a happy and fulfilling sex life – from the tangible concerns of vaginal dryness and painful sex to the less tangible but equally challenging concerns of body confidence and lack of arousal. Claire encourages us all to be open to the possibility of pleasure in our body and our life in every moment and every day, because once we’re alive to that possibility, we can achieve anything. It’s such a positive message and we can apply that to so many areas of our life. It was an absolute joy chatting to Claire and I promise you that you’ll feel motivated and inspired just listening to her!

If you enjoy this episode, please do tell your friends and family, and leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you listen on, as it really helps to spread the word, so that new listeners can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

2021 was pretty challenging for many of us and it’s good to be turning the page and moving into a new year with all the possibilities that this brings us. January is a great time for transformation and new beginnings and that’s what I’m focusing on in this episode: how can we make small changes that can help us to get the most out of life? And I‘ve got the perfect guest to help us with that!

Meet Tracy Acock, who’s a life coach and mentor. After a lifetime of cancer nursing, she went back to her roots and retired to Cornwall. But then she realised that she wasn’t quite ready to stop and so she retrained as a life coach and now runs The Wellbeing Wisdom Club, a highly successful coaching programme helping women discover tips and techniques to transform themselves and to enjoy their life. Her clinical and life experience combined with her coaching expertise make her the perfect person to advise us on how to make a positive start to this new year.

Tracy shares her wisdom with us and explains how simple steps can make a huge difference to your health and wellbeing. We discuss the different challenges that women can face in midlife and how to overcome them. It was a delight to chat to her and she’s full of practical, helpful advice on how you can transform your life and make 2022 your best year yet! 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please do leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple podcasts or whichever platform you listen on and make sure you tell all your friends – it makes a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast and really helps to spread the word. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Probably the most well-known of the menopausal symptoms, the hot flush has provided endless material for humourists over the years but it’s no fun when it’s happening to you. It can cause huge distress, especially in a professional or social situation or if it’s persistently disrupting your sleep. But help is at hand in this episode with this month’s guest who is just the woman we need to provide us with some practical flush-busting strategies.

I’m delighted to introduce the brilliant Dr Melanie Smith – she’s a clinical health psychologist who played a key role, along with Professor Myra Hunter,  in developing and facilitating the first cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT as it’s often known, for menopause groups as part of an innovative research trial. This research demonstrates that CBT is a valid and effective non-medical approach to managing menopause symptoms and Melanie is here today to explain to us what a huge difference it can make to dealing with hot flushes. 

We discuss what hot flushes are and why they happen. Melanie explains what CBT is and why a psychological approach can help to tackle something that seems to be such a physical problem. We explore the role of stress in triggering and exacerbating hot flushes and Melanie shares some practical strategies to help you combat them. 

If you enjoy this episode, please tell your friends and family, and leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you listen on, as it really helps to spread the word, so that new listeners can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Now that November is here, the cold and flu season is well underway and many of you have probably already succumbed to some sort of lurgy by now. And with the spectre of Covid 19 still lurking, supporting our immune system is very much on the agenda right now, which is why I’ve dedicated this episode to foods that can keep you and your family fighting fit and I’ve found the perfect guest for this. 

Today I’m welcoming herbalist Ed Joy back to the podcast. He’s a specialist in herbal medicine with over 20 years’ experience and he weaves a combination of homeopathy, naturopathy and nutrition into his work, taking a truly holistic approach. My interview with him on a herbal approach to the menopause was one of the big hits of Season 1 and in this episode I’ll be tapping into his expertise on the different foods that can help our immune system be more robust, because we all need a bit of that right now. Ed shares his top 3 everyday foods for immune support and gives us the inside track on not just what we should eat, but how we should cook it so that we can maximise the vitamin, mineral and antioxidant content of our food. There are so many culinary tips and tricks that I guarantee you’ll be fascinated by what he has to say. 

Ed shares his top 3 foods that every immune-conscious cook should have in their kitchen. We take an in-depth look at the role of the gut microbiome in immune health;  discuss the nutritional powerhouse that is broccoli and how to optimise absorption of vitamin C and zinc; explore a whole host of tips around preparing, cooking and storing food; and Ed explains why a finger of ginger every day is just enough to keep you fit and well!

If you enjoy this episode, please tell your friends and family, and leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you listen on, as it really helps to spread the word, so that new listeners can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

The theme of this year’s World Menopause Day is bone health, something that really needs to be front of mind for women in mid and later life. Bones contain cells called osteoclasts which dissolve old bone and osteoblasts which build new bone. This regular renewal process helps to keep our bones strong, but bone tissue is reactive and needs impact to grow, which is why resistant forms of exercise are so important. So while the drop in oestrogen post-menopause significantly affects our bone density, we really do have it in our hands to arrest and even reverse that decline. My guest in this podcast is the perfect role model because she’s done just that and now has the bone density of a 20-year-old. I’m sure we’d all like to know how she’s done it! 

Meet Dr Catherine Walter – she’s a shining light in the world of English-Language Teaching and an Emeritus Fellow in Applied Linguistics at Oxford University, but she’s also a world-record-holding power lifter, who took up the sport at the age of 65 and hasn’t looked back since.

Catherine’s story is incredibly inspiring and is a real example to any woman who wants to take control of her own health and wellbeing. We discuss all the ins and outs of power lifting:- what it actually is; how to get started; why it can make such a difference to your health in ways that reach far beyond strength and stamina and how it could help you become a whole new woman. I have to say that just a short chat with her left me feeling hugely motivated to get out there, find myself a power coach and start lifting.

 Tune in to learn about Catherine’s fascinating journey, her helpful advice for exercising as an older woman and the physical confidence she’s achieved through building her strength which provided her with the ultimate put-down for an annoying guy in a bar!  

If you enjoy this episode, please tell your friends and family, and leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you listen on, as it really helps to spread the word, so that new listeners can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Bone health is a very real concern for women in mid and later life, because when they go through the menopause, oestrogen levels drop rapidly and bones lose strength at a much faster rate. There are 3.5 million people living with osteoporosis in the UK today, and 50% of women and 20% of men over 50 will break a bone because of it. Osteoporosis is a condition that causes bones to lose strength and break more easily. However, it’s often referred to as a ‘silent disease’ because of under-diagnosis, under-treatment and low levels of public awareness. 

The theme of this year’s World Menopause Day is bone health, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get some expert advice from a woman who knows all about bones. I’m delighted to be speaking to Sarah Leyland, who is an osteoporosis specialist nurse currently working as a clinical adviser with the Royal Osteoporosis Society. With over 20 years of experience in providing specialist advice, guidance and support, she’s exactly the person we need to tell us how we can support our bone density and reduce the risk of fractures that can be a very real concern for women, post menopause. 

Sarah and I discuss what bones are made of and how they renew themselves. She explains the various risk factors for low bone density and why it’s important to assess your own fracture risk, as well as talking us through the diet and lifestyle factors that can affect your bones, plus the various treatment options available. 

It was fascinating to hear about her work at The Royal Osteoporosis Society, which is the UK’s only national charity dedicated to bone health and osteoporosis. They work to improve the bone health of the nation and support everyone with osteoporosis to live well through their support services and advice. Their free Helpline, run by a team of specialist nurses, including Sarah herself, provides information and support to anyone with questions about their bone health or osteoporosis.

This really is an episode that covers everything you might want to know about bones, so tune in for her excellent practical advice. 

If you enjoy this episode, please tell your friends and family, and leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you listen on, as it really helps to spread the word, so that new listeners can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Our family doctor is at the heart of the community and the first port of call for health advice, support and treatment for us and our loved ones. But even before the restrictions around the pandemic, that had become more difficult. With appointments often limited to 10 minutes and a one problem: one appointment policy in many surgeries, what does the menopausal women do, if she’s struggling with multiple debilitating symptoms? And how does she make herself heard? I’ve come across so many examples of women feeling that they’ve been dismissed, ignored and simply not listened to and it’s really heart-breaking to hear those stories. So in this episode I’m tackling the doctor’s appointment – how to get one and how to get the most out of it so that you get the exact support you need.

Who better to call upon for this than the nation’s favourite GP, Dr Dawn Harper, who’s worked in the NHS for over 30 years. Possibly best known for her role in the BAFTA-award winning series Embarrassing Bodies, Dawn is a very familiar face on our TV screens, commenting on medical matters. She’s also the author of 12 health and well-being books, but most importantly, she’s still a practising GP, serving her local community. So there’s no one better to give us the inside track on how to manage the conversation with your doctor. 

We discuss strategies for getting the appointment in the first place; how to make sure you get to see the right person; how a little planning can go a long way; which questions to ask your doctor and why you should never, ever feel embarrassed! Tune in for Dawn’s brilliant practical advice on how to make the most of your doctor’s appointment. 

If you enjoy this episode, please tell your friends and family, and leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you listen on, as it really helps to spread the word, so that new listeners can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Welcome to my latest Best Bit, part of my series to celebrate half a million downloads for The Happy Menopause podcast and the chance for you to catch up on some of the brilliant episodes you may have missed.

This edition focuses on anxiety, which is one of the most underestimated and unexpected symptoms of the menopause, and yet it’s so common. So many of the women in my nutrition clinic struggle with anxiety during the menopause and it often takes them by surprise.  This is why I called upon Rachel Weiss, accredited counsellor and founder of the Rowan Consultancy to help us out. 

Rachel explains what’s going on in our brain when we experience anxiety and has some incredibly helpful tips on how to support our mental health and wellbeing. She talks us through some physical and mental strategies to calm the nervous system and to dial down the anxiety. 

This is a brilliant episode, with some fantastic expert advice to help you feel more on top of things. If you’d like to listen to the full episode, you can find it in Season 2, Episode 7, where you’ll get the full benefit of Rachel’s expertise. 

If you’re a fan of The Happy Menopause, please tell your friends and family, and do give it a 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on. It makes a huge difference to the algorithms which influence the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Tense, nervous headache anyone? Did you know that during our fertile years, women are 3 times more likely to suffer from headaches than men? Up until puberty and then after the menopause, our propensity for headaches is roughly the same as for men, so those pesky hormones have a lot to answer for. If menstrual migraine is an issue for you, then this episode could be just what you need because I’ve called in the big guns to help us out here. I’m speaking to Professor Anne MacGregor who has spent her career studying hormonal headaches and treating women who struggle with them so there is no one better to advise us here. 

From her initial doctorate where she explored the role of oestrogen in migraine, Anne has gone on to publish over 200 research papers and authored numerous books on the subject. A specialist trainer, researcher and clinician, she’s really pushed the boundaries of research in the area of hormonal headaches and has supported countless women along the way. She is currently based at the Headache and Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare Centre at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London and is a British Menopause Society specialist and trainer. 

Tune in to find out about Anne’s fascinating journey from her initial research which led to her blazing a trail in the field of hormonal headaches and giving a voice to women who have struggled with this issue for years. We discuss menstrual migraine – what it is, why it happens and what you can do about it; the role of nutrition in brain function; and what to look for in over-the-counter pain relief. There’s so much to learn here and it’s an invaluable episode for anyone who struggles with headaches and migraines. 

If you enjoy this episode, please tell your friends and family, and leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you listen on, as it really helps to spread the word, so that new listeners can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Every woman deserves to have a happy menopause – regular listeners will know how important that is to me and that’s the entire inspiration behind this podcast. In this episode we’re going to go a little broader and talk about not just having a happy menopause but how to have a magnificent midlife! This time in a woman’s life can be truly transformational, as the hormones that have driven your decisions, your approach to life and your emotions since puberty, start to subside and there’s headspace for you to focus on yourself and what you want to do with the rest of your life. Rachel Lankester is just the woman to help us with this, because she’s the founder of the Magnificent Midlife Movement which is all about celebrating and empowering women who are over 40, and we could all do with a bit of that!

Rachel is on a mission to disrupt negative ageist and sexist stereotypes about older women, menopause and aging. Founder of Magnificent Midlife and host of an inspiring podcast of the same name, she's passionate about changing how society perceives women in midlife and beyond, and also how we view ourselves. She’s full of practical advice on how we can build up our confidence and transform ourselves and our lives so that we can truly make the most of our 40s, 50s and beyond. 

Tune in for an injection of confidence and some fantastic insights and inspiration on how you can transform yourself and your life at this pivotal time for women. 

If you've enjoyed this episode, please tell your friends and family, and leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you listen on, as it really helps to spread the word, so that new listeners can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

September is the perfect time for new beginnings and a different way of doing things. For most of us, things tend to be a little quieter in August, so that we can enjoy a bit of a break and this can be a handy reminder of the importance of work-life balance and getting plenty of free time. So that’s what I’d like to focus on in this episode, because things usually start to crank up again as we move into the autumn and it’s easy to let your good resolutions slide, so that before you know it, the pressure’s piling up again and you don’t know which way to turn. In this episode, I’m chatting to Fab Giovanetti, author of Reclaim Your Time Off who’s going to help us to get the balance right.

Fab is an award-winning entrepreneur and social media & marketing expert who’s supported multiple start-ups and helped them establish and grow their brand. She’s also the founder of Creative Impact, a collective of hundreds of creatives aiming to make a positive impact on others and the planet. Fab is a woman who’s been juggling a huge amount of things for a long time and it was this that caused her to stop, take stock and develop some key strategies to improve her work-life balance. This is what led to her wonderful new book Reclaim Your Time Off which is full of advice on just how we can do that effectively, because we midlife women definitely need to give ourselves a break!

In this episode we discuss the importance of setting boundaries and how to have the confidence to say ‘no’. Fab talks us through strategies for an effective work-life balance and  to help you disconnect from the pressures of work. She also shares her 3-step solution to reclaiming your time off to help you make the most of your free time.

If you've enjoyed this episode, please tell your friends and family, and leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you listen on, as it really helps to spread the word, so that new listeners can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

This episode of The Happy Menopause is all about energy. Have you lost your Va Va Voom? Do you feel tired all the time? Do you blame your age for your lack of energy? If this sounds familiar, then it’s definitely time to take action, because whether you’re 29 or 69, it’s far more likely that your diet and lifestyle are the main culprits and a few simple changes and new habits could make a world of difference to the way you feel, so that’s what we’ll be focusing on today. Registered Nutritional Therapist and The Happy Menopause host, Jackie Lynch is flying solo in this episode, because nutrition for energy is a specialist subject of hers. In fact she’s written a whole book about it called Va Va Voom: The 10-Day Energy Diet. 

We’re all feeling a bit weary from the impact of Covid, whether we had it or not. Our lives have changed a lot in the past year and dealing with all the associated issues around the pandemic have ground many of us down, so it wouldn’t be surprising if you’re feeling generally tired. And that’s before we take into account all the hormonal havoc that comes with the perimenopause and menopause, because that also has a significant impact on physical and mental energy. 

So this episode takes a close look at energy for all you tired midlife women out there – how the body produces it, the different types, the role of different nutrients in the energy production process and Jackie’s written some little quizzes to help you identify whether a deficiency might be playing a part in your symptoms. Tune in for her best energy nutrition tips to help you get your Va Va Voom back so that you feel like a whole new woman! 

Jackie Lynch is a Registered Nutritional Therapist and founder of the WellWellWell nutrition clinic where she specialises in women’s health and the menopause. Keen to break the taboo about discussing the menopause, she launched the popular diet & lifestyle podcast The Happy Menopause and her new book, The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish is out now. 

If you've enjoyed this episode, please tell your friends and family, and leave a 5-star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you listen on, as it really helps to spread the word, so that new listeners can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Join me for a FREE live webinar bringing together the two pillars of menopause management – nutrition and HRT. I’ll be joined by GP and bestselling author Dr Ellie Cannon to share practical strategies, answer your questions, and help you navigate perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Book your place here: https://bit.ly/42SrPAx.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.