The Midlife Reset: Sleep, Strength & Joyful Living for Women 50+ – Détails, épisodes et analyse

🧘‍♀️ Embracing Midlife Wellness

Midlife brings unique challenges—restless sleep, joint stiffness, and fluctuating energy. In this episode, we explore holistic approaches to reclaim vitality through mindful movement and breathwork.

🤝 Meet Fariya Doctor

With over 25 years in wellness, Fariya specializes in helping individuals enhance movement, alleviate pain, and improve breathing patterns. Her integrative approach combines manual therapy with movement education using the Feldenkrais method.

🧠 The Power of Habitual Movement

The Feldenkrais Method sheds light on unconscious movement habits. By exploring alternative ways to move, individuals can uncover patterns that may contribute to discomfort or pain.

"Habits tend to be a blind spot. Through gentle exploration, we can discover more efficient ways to move."

🌬️ Breath as a Healing Tool

Breathing patterns significantly impact our nervous system. Fariya emphasizes the importance of conscious breathing to enhance movement and reduce stress.

"Conscious breathwork can immediately influence our nervous system, promoting relaxation and better movement.

Many people don’t know they have breathing pattern disorders. That can be a key issue for breathing problems such as asthma, anxiety, sinus issues, and other chronic health conditions. I had a client with recurring bronchitis. Every single year she would get seriously ill. After assessing her breathing, and looking at her airways I was able to determine she was breathing too fast, and breathing mostly through her mouth. I taught her simple techniques to do daily, and she agreed to start taping her mouth at night. Within a couple of weeks, her symptoms dramatically changed, she was sleeping better, and feeling much less stressed and anxious. The recurring Bronchitis stopped. “anxiety

🛌 Enhancing Sleep and Energy

Proper breathing techniques can improve sleep quality and daytime energy. Fariya shares insights on how breathwork can aid in better rest and increased vitality. So many in our stressed out culture breathe rapidly from the mouth. This results in an excess of oxygen and a depletion of CO2, throwing blood chemistry off and creating a stress response in the system.

"Nighttime breathing sets the tone for daytime focus and energy levels."

🌟 Breathing and Anxiety

We sometimes tell people when they’re stressed to take a deep breath. It could be the exact opposite of what they need. Breathing is automatic and gives us access to so many of the automatic functions in the body, like digestion and falling asleep. Through simple breathing practices, you can rewire your response to stress and stimuli like chronic pain.

🌟 Integrating Breath and Movement

Combining breath awareness with mindful movement creates a powerful synergy for healing. This integrated approach supports sustainable wellness practices.

"Blending breathwork with movement exploration leads to profound and lasting changes."

🎁 Free Resources

Explore additional tools and practices to support your wellness journey:

* Free Breathing Techniques Guide

* Mindful Movement Video Series

By incorporating these practices, you can navigate midlife with greater ease, vitality, and joy. Remember, small, consistent steps lead to meaningful transformation.

So welcome to episode 13 of the Midlife Reset podcast. I'm Cheryl Gordon, and I educate midlife women on sleeping better, feeling stronger, and losing weight using the tools of yoga and mindfulness. We release a new episode of this podcast every week, so be sure to subscribe so you don't miss anything. And, you know, share with your friends. We're really committed to supporting midlife women to rock the most exciting phase of their lives.

So let's share with our girlfriends. Now one of the biggest bonuses I've enjoyed since starting this podcast, not even a full two months ago, is the chance to talk with other amazing women. So here's the story. I reached out to today's guest because I thought our community of midlife women might be interested in a conversation about osteopathy. And if you ever, ever, ever doubt, the that the universe has your back, girlfriend, this is something you wanna catch for sure.

Once we started to get to know each other, today's guest and myself, I discovered a true kindred spirit. And we quickly left the dry medical descriptions of soft tissue work and stuff, and we dove into these great explorations of spirituality and intuition and living our most authentic lives. And it was definitely a guiding force that led me to this fascinating women woman that you're about to meet. And we are all gonna be vibrating a little more intensely after sharing in her love and wisdom. So I'd like to welcome Shira Keller to our show.

She is an osteopath, a mom of three, and a fascinating woman. And we have so much to talk about, Shira, but let's start with your day job. Could you please fill us in on what an osteopath is? First of all, Shira, thank you so much. That was such a kind and warm introduction, and I'm just so honored that you reached out to me and to be here.

So thank you so much. I mean, one of my biggest passions I have a bunch of passions, but one of them is definitely osteopathy. And the way I look at osteopathy is like a human mechanic. So you have a body. You have a car.

All of a sudden, the car light goes on or it's making this funny noise or you have a body and all of a sudden, you have an ache here and a pain there. So you take your car into the shop or you take your body to your osteopath. And the point of the car mechanic is to say, okay. I know you have this light here, but the problem is not with the light bulb. Right?

I am a whiz at cars. I'm gonna open up the front, open up the back, look at the tires, look at the this is, look at the dots, and figure out where is the problem really coming from. Oh, and by the way, you know that sound you hear sometimes when you make a left turn and how that light flicker, the well, the things, those are actually related. So in the same way, our bodies are related, and you come in and you say, hey. It hurts here.

And people often say, can you right here. Why are you going here? And my job is to look at the body as a whole and say, what is really going on with this body? What are all the connections? How is everything linked?

And how can we gently unwind the body in a way that's respectful to the body and is gentle and comfortable to the patient on the table for the purpose of proper alignment. And when there's proper alignment, it's not just, like, the muscles that feel better. If we actually get better blood flow, the nerves work better, even the organs and lymphatics work better. So it's this beautiful amazing picture. Yeah.

And that's a bit about osteopathy. Mhmm. Well, I love how you really emphasized how it's the interconnectedness of all the different parts of the body. And we were talking about breathing and how breathing changes when you move your body in different positions. Yeah.

Absolutely. So that's a really cool thing. Just a quick demo, for all those people out there. So I want you to just bend to the left and twist to the right and take a nice deep breath. And Not much room.

Yeah. Just feel how awful that feels. Yeah. Not much room in there. So don't do that.

It's like a little back. Take a deep breath. Relax your body. But you can see how your posture affects, like, a very obvious thing like your breathe like, you're breathing. And, obviously, we're not walking around totally, you know, like this.

Or but we do have those twists and turns, and they do affect the rib cage. They affect the spine. They affect how the ribs can move, how the intercostal muscles, which are the muscles between your ribs, can have, like, their have the tension, and it can affect you. It could even affect things like you can get migraines, you can get brain fog just from a lack of proper breathing. And I'm sure that's something that you deal with also, allowing people to Bingo.

Yes. Keep those deep breaths and stretch them on on their own. And in the same way that it is with the rib cage and the breathing, you can actually see the seam in the digestive system. When we have a pelvis that's twisted or when we have a rib that is affecting the part of the nerve system that affects the digestive system, when these things are not properly aligned, we can get digestive issues. We can get menstrual issues.

Or on the other side, we can get menopausal issues, hot flashes, and sweats, and all of these things that we wish would leave us. Because we talk to midlife women a lot on this podcast, the alignment of the pelvis and the organs and how the the circulation's moving throughout, that has a big effect on hormones, doesn't it? Absolutely. Especially since hormones, they float in the blood. Right?

And if blood flow is improper for impinging blood flow or we're making the body have to work harder to get the blood where it needs to go, it can definitely affect the body hormonally. Yeah. And and so osteopaths, what what do they do for people? Like, what what does what does a treatment look like? Yeah.

So an initial treatment with me would be someone would come in. We'd take a quick health a quick health history, trying to figure out what are the main things that are bothering you and what is what's gone on in your life that may be causing it. And then my job is to take a look in all positions to see what is moving and what's not moving. What that looks like, it looks like gentle stretching. I'll have you gently push against me.

I'll gently push against you. It doesn't you know, my patients will sometimes get off the table and they'll say, that's it. We're done. And then I'll say, just wait. And then I get a phone call a few minutes later.

Or, you know, the next time they come in, they say, like, wow. Did I feel that? How did I feel that from what you did? You know? How is that even possible?

So that's what it looks like. Just gentle stretching, gentle motion. What it is is so much deeper. It's really figuring out where the body needs to move and where the body hasn't been moving and approaching that tissue in a respectful way. People come in with all sorts of issues.

I'm sure you get a lot of similar, you know, people. A lot of people are coming in with, oh, I have this neck hump or people who feel like their bodies are all folded and kyphosis. Some people come in for more, like, physio physiologic issues like constipation or diarrhea, IBS, migraines. Well, everyone has a different issue. I have my favorite patients are the ones that say, you know, everything's basically fine.

I just wanna make sure that, you know, I'm I'm moving properly, which is incredible because thank you for taking care of your body. Well, if we go back to your mechanics, analogy, I mean, we go in for tune ups all the time for our car, oil changes, that sort of thing. So you can help patients retain their mobility with regular checkups. That's exactly it. And when you're going for regular checkups, you don't have the like, those big extreme swings.

Right? When people come in and they say, hey. I've been in pain. Like, the progression I usually get is that people say, oh, I had this back pain, for example, and it used to come and go. And then it would come for, like, two weeks, but then it would go.

And then, like, the last time it came, it just it hasn't gone, and it's been, you know, a month, two months, or it's been a year, two years, or it's been ten years or twenty years. And when you're now going in twenty years later, okay. That's fine. I'm glad you're here. We're gonna work things out.

We're gonna make things the best they can be. And I wish that we didn't let it get there because it could have been tune up. It could have been a few quick treatments. And now we're having to put a little more effort into the body, which is so worth it still. But, you know, I wish we didn't have to get there.

And and when you have somebody who's had that little warning signal in their system for such a long period of time, that comes with actual neurological changes which affects your alignment and your movement. So you're unwinding deeper and deeper patterns the longer that little danger signal has been there. Exactly. And our body likes to be in the position that it's in. Right?

So Familiar. Sometime what was that? It's familiar. Right? Yeah.

Exactly. It's familiar. Sometimes you have to like, there's a process of unlearning it when it's been that way for so long, reminding you, oh, you have mobility to stand straight. Right? When before it was they were stuck in that way, now we have we have to remind the body, hey.

Look. Now we can do it on our own. But when you go in and you erase those issues right at the beginning, you don't have that same uphill battle. Yeah. And I just Oh, go ahead.

Sorry. Sure. I just like to say when I first started, I had this, like, very powerful vision, that for my business and for my for my practice, I really I saw my own grandparents aging, and then I saw my parents aging, and it really, like, it really hit me. Like, wow. They're aging like my grandparents.

And I have this dream that every grandparent and every grandparent can get on the floor with their grandkids. Like, you know, you wait so long for those opportunities if you're blessed to have them, to be able to get down on the floor, to be able to play with them, and then to be able to get back up, not be afraid, am I gonna get stuck? You get to get back up without the sound effects, you know, like, oh, oh, oh, you know, to be able to just go down and get up, like, with a functional body. So that's my dream. Well, that's wonderful.

And as a grandma, I'm like, thank you. Because, you know, it it you really do that's a great why to take care of yourself. And a shout out to all midlife women. We give so much to others, and we rarely ask for a lot back. But, it is really important to take care of yourself and go for these regular tune ups and do your body work because your why is so you can really be there for your family in the long run and it'd be be able to really take that joy from the family.

Right? There's something that I find really notable about that. I think sometimes we're afraid to be takers and especially your generation. You guys are a generation of givers, and you guys have really given a lot, and it's beautiful. And I think sometimes self care has this, like, tone of well, like, it's just taking.

I'm just caring for myself, and I don't wanna be all about me. That's not my type. I'm not maybe you knew a woman like that that was, like, offensive to you or disgusting to you. And I just wanna reframe that as we're not giving to we're not taking to have, we're taking to give. Right?

We're we're caring for ourselves so that and I think when our our taking is in balance like that, it actually feels amazing. Yeah. When we keep in mind, it's it's so we can ultimately be of more service. Let's let's double back to this. I just wanna finish a little bit more about our discussion on osteopathy.

Can you share with us maybe some case studies, Shira, of some of your clients and how they have benefited from osteopathy? Yeah. Absolutely. So I have a few patients that stick out in my mind. One of them this was the one that I think hit me the most emotionally.

I had a patient. She was coming for a few months already. And in that time, not only did her body change, like, crazy. Like, she went from being in excruciating pain, and I could barely put my hands on her without her saying, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch. And osteopathy is a very gentle practice.

So if I have a patient that's saying ouch, ouch, I know this is a body that's really crying for help, to a point where she was coming in and saying, yeah, sure. Do your magic. I'm I'm feeling pretty good. Usually, I kick these patients out, but she I couldn't kick her out. And and I said to her, like, you know, a lot has changed in the past, I don't know, three months, four months.

And she said, you know, Shira, I've been doing this work in therapy for years. I've been really working on myself and trying to get all these different things in motion. And I was trying my best, but it wasn't really going anywhere. And when I started working with you, all the things I was working on in therapy, they started just it started being so much easier to do it. One of the examples she gave me is that, you know, she likes to cook and she would wanna cook for herself and cook for her mother, Givers, Us woman givers, cooking for her mother.

And she wants to really be able to provide that nutritious food, but she couldn't stand on her feet for that long. And now that her body is functioning so much better, she says, like, Shira, I can stand and I can cook for an hour, for two hours, for three hours. Whatever I need to do, I can just do it. I want to exercise because it doesn't hurt me to exercise anymore. So to me, that was like a wow.

Like, look how amazing it is to have a functional body and what it can do to the rest of your life. So that was one patient. Can can we just talk about that for just a second more? I'm kind of going a bit off script. I know, Shira, but I just love that that story because it just shows that nothing like I mean, I've been to therapy.

I think I think, you know, therapy is a really important part of our health care, but how you have to have that somatic component to it. Because as one of my teachers says, the issues are in the tissues. And when you work with the soft tissue and osteopathy, you're actually starting to move some of that stuck emotion. We often say emotions are energy in motion. So we've got that locked energy in our tissues and the osteopath comes and starts to help us release, and then the therapy just clicks in so much more, you know, intensively.

And I think sometimes in therapy, you're like you feel like you're pushing. It's an uphill battle. Right? Like, you have to, like it's all in here, and I'm trying to do the right thing and make the right step. And I think when you just release the body, when the body is not in a state of fight or flight, and that's a really beautiful thing that happens on the table.

So I really feel bodies release tension and really relax. You know, people get up, and I can't carry a conversation with them after because they're just they're in this, like, post treatment relaxation. They're Yeah. Yeah. Physically induced.

It's but it's it's amazing to see and then to have where, like, that's the effect. It's really it's really incredible. Yeah. Another just telling me about that one patient who was really struggling to breathe, and they were they had some surgery. Because I think a lot of people can relate to this.

When you have surgery, it's it there's a lot more than just the scar to heal, isn't there? Absolutely. And I think one of the frustrating parts about surgery also is that, you know, sometimes it officially works, but it doesn't it doesn't do what we wanted it to do. We didn't realize that when you go in, there'll be all these other effects like the scar tissues. And and sometimes, you know, I had, two c sections.

And when I had my first, I was still in school. When I had my second, I was also still in school. But when I had my first, I was in first year of osteopathy, and I and I remember just being devastated. Like, I'm caught. I'm caught tissue.

I have scar tissue. And I remember one of my professors said, yeah. You would have died otherwise. And he was like, oh, yeah. You're right.

Like, sometimes you just gotta do it. And, you know, if you can't move and you need that knee replacement, you need that knee replacement. But with that said, that tissue's still around and needs to adjust. And, you know, when that scar tissue will affect the rest of the body, it's just the reality, and it's okay we can cope with that reality. So that patient you were talking about, had had quite a bit of surgery and quite a huge scar.

And it was definitely a necessary surgery, and, you know, it's just the reality of these are the bodies we live with. And it was amazing. By just focusing on releasing that abdominal scar tissue, that patient was able to get a full deep breath. And it it's just, like, so it's so cool to feel it. I you know, to put my hands on the rib cage and to feel those ribs going in and out.

And it's obviously it's a more complicated each person is a more complicated picture. They're not just this piece of scar tissue. Right? There's a spine that's been doing what it's been doing for years. There's the rib cage that's been doing what it's been doing for years.

There's a whole body that's attached to it, but it was so cool to have that that change just under my hands. And then just one more case if you'll Yeah. For sure. Oh, man. Two more cases.

Okay. Whatever. One of them is a quick one. I had a patient. This is actually I was still in school when I treated.

She was a friend of mine, and she comes in. And for all of you who can't, see in the video, I'll describe it as I'm doing it. She came in and she said, oh, my right arm, it's killing me. And she lifts her arm to about 45 degrees painfully, and then she goes, this is what I can do. She takes her left arm, she grabs her right arm, and she shoves it up.

Up. And she goes, that's as much as I can do. And I'm thinking, if you have to use one arm to shove the other arm up, you can't do any of that. Like, stop it. Don't do that.

And it was amazing. So she said she had already been to the best physio in Toronto, and he told her it was in her head. Oh, no. Because officially, everything was fine. And I treated her, and it was incredible.

After that first treatment, she was had full mobility of that shoulder. This is sometimes there's miracles, but the miracles are not me. Okay? Just so we're fully clear. Sometimes there's miracles and the miracles are not me.

Osteopathy is so cool. And my greatest gift is to just be a messenger when I can be that messenger. But she had full range of motion with some pain, and the next morning, she had no pain. And it's stayed. It's been eight years.

She's had a few tune ups here and there, but, otherwise, it's been incredible. So that was one. And then the one more patient who I also think went to the same physio who also told her her it was in her head. I could be wrong with that, though. But she was having, a she could not did not have any feeling in one of her feet, and it started creeping up.

And it even got to the point where her foot was sliding off the gas pedal. Now this is a younger woman. I'm not talking about someone who's in her insert very older age here. I don't wanna say an age because this is a woman in her late thirties. Yeah.

And that is devastating. Oh. That is devastating. And she had done everything. She had done physio, and she'd done everything.

And it was incredible working on her and seeing as she slowly started getting feeling back in her foot, getting more control over her foot. She's a busy woman, so it's not always easy to catch her and, you know, or for her to focus on on that piece. But it was absolutely incredible to see a change, and I've had a few patients to say that said, oh, are your floors heated? And I'll say, yeah. And they say, I didn't have a feeling in my feet before.

I never noticed it before. So but, yeah, those are my patients. Well, obviously, you really love what you do, Shira. I wanna jump to something else that you really love. You have three kids.

How old are you? So I have my oldest is seven. I have a boy that's seven and I have twins that boy girl twins that are four and a half. You are busy. So thank you so much for taking this time today.

I just wanted to ask you about being a mom and the work that you do. When you went through having having the kids, how did that change for you? Yeah. It's a great question. So I had my kids in school.

So I wouldn't say so much has changed, but I would say that those two processes happen together. Osteopathy, like, really percolating in my mind and parenthood. So the way osteopathy was taught to me was principles based. So it wasn't just I have a shoulder here of 10 techniques for the shoulder. It was here is all of anatomy.

Now here's how physiology works. Now go figure out how it's connected. How can that pain be coming from upwards, downwards, to the right, to the left? What are all the pieces? How can we sort out this person?

And I think I really look at my kids the same way. You know, it's not just what is this behavior, but it's where is this where is the behavior coming from? What's there? What is my goal for you as a human? Right?

Not how do I get you to listen to me, which sometimes I also just need. But how do I really support you in in learning and growing? So that's, like, one one way. And I think vice versa, being a mother has affected me as an osteopath because you just learn compassion as a mother, and you learn that things take time and that sometimes a kid just is in the stage of tantrums, and they're gonna outgrow it, and you just have to keep plugging away and repeat the same over and over again. And in the same way bodies, I love to see bodies that heal quickly, and we have to understand that bodies have their own pace and their own trajectory.

And sometimes it takes time, and sometimes it feels like you're doing the same thing over and over. But, eventually, that seed that you sprout in that body will bud, and you'll see you'll see fruit from that from those treatments. I love that you're emphasizing how, you know, we all have this really unique journey in the body's an expression of that, and so there's not a good or a bad. Right. It strikes me that the cataclysmic shifts that us women go through as we learn about motherhood is kinda similar to the rock my world that comes with menopause.

I mean, everything has to change whether we like it or not. Yeah. It's very true. It's very true. I look at it kind of like a butterfly and you have this caterpillar, and it is an entity into itself.

It's a whole creature, that caterpillar, but it's not. It's in its complete form. And motherhood and and this, like, you know, growing up and becoming not just the little baby woman and mommy, but but going through menopause and going through a whole other trajectory and stage of life. You have, like, these crazy hormones. And, also, like, your perspective is shifting on things, and you're seeing things different, and you have more wisdom and more maturity, and that can feel very destructive.

And it can feel very internally, like, it could destroy you in a certain sense. And I think that's on purpose that that we change and this the butterfly emerges not as a caterpillar with red wings. It emerges as a whole new creature. And I think as mothers and as more senior women, we also emerge in the same way as with totally different perspectives and as a much more well rounded person. Yeah.

You said the authentic person. Sometimes I feel like I'm just growing into my voice. Yeah. Dara, I know you're tuning in more and more to your own intuition when working with patients. Can you can you share how that feels for you?

Like, what sort of outcomes do you see when you welcome that sort of spiritual awareness into your work? Yeah. So I see intuition and spirituality as a little bit as separate. There is an intuition that I think as an osteopath, you know, it's been eight years that I've had my hands on bodies including school and practice. And you start to to trust that, yes, these are all the things I could do, but this is where I feel like this person is going, and I'm just gonna go with it.

So you're applying the principles of osteopathy, but with that intuitive sense of, I think this is my best bet. We're gonna follow this channel. If it doesn't work, I have I have the 10 other ways I could think perhaps I could think down. So for me, what that looks like is just being available to the patient, really quieting my own inner voice and trying to listen what does this patient need right now, what does this body need. Sometimes I'll get, like, a clarity that says, you know, this doesn't feel like an injury or this feels like something old.

This feels like it's not letting go and it's not doing what I want to do. I was holding someone's neck the other day, and it just wasn't releasing. And I had gone I had worked on the shoulders, and I had worked on the spine, and I had worked to here, and I worked to there, and it wasn't letting go. So I just asked them, like, what are you holding here? What emotions are you holding in your neck?

Which is not something I would typically ask. And she knew what it was, and she said, I'm holding this there. And I said, what would you need to do to release that? And she told me what she would need to do. And I said, I want you to just really take a minute and visualize that.

And as I'm holding her neck, like, I just felt it go. So I think when when I am more open to that intuitive piece, you it's just you're guided in certain directions, and that's you know, it's a really cool thing. Sometimes people will even have an emotional release at the same time. Sometimes they know what it's about. Sometimes they don't even know what it's about.

They just, you know, feel like they need to cry and let things go and blessed to have that safe space for them. So you have to you have to kind of really do your own personal work, Shira, so that you can be really, like you said, truly available to your patient. Yeah. Definitely. But I feel like I I feel like that's me.

Like, I just feel like my own my own journey and my own you know, the way I was made and the way my own life experiences have just kind of allowed me to be that. I don't wanna say naturally because I think we all have to work on things, but more naturally, I think. I have a very nonjudgmental personality. I'm able to just hold things for people. So I think that kind of helps with that.

And and as you come into your own, Shara, because you're a couple decades younger than me, how are you finding your voice for spiritual growth? Yes. So I think it was very hard to find that voice when I had my kids. I was a very spiritual person when I was teenager, and I had kids pretty young. So I think that really did you know, like we were talking talking before, it did walk rock my world, especially spiritually.

And I think now that I have more space, I have been giving myself the opportunity to just have quiet. And I think that sometimes spirituality is just uncovering your own self and seeing who am I really? Because the greatest gift that we have to give to the world is really ourselves. Right? Some of us are blessed to have people we love and some of us are alone, and we really are our own gift to the world.

And, yeah, so connecting with myself. And then I think when we connect with ourselves, then we are available to connect with other people and to I mean, I connect to God or whatever people connect to higher being when we are our most authentic self, I think that is, like, the greatest spiritual ascension that we can have. Well, wise words for one so young. You know, when we hit our fifties and our sixties, a lot of us have been conforming all these years, and we're just so used to making everyone else happy or being people pleasers that that spiritual longing within us has really gone unanswered for so many decades, and we're numbing out. We're drinking too much wine.

We're shopping too much. We're eating too much chocolate. We're obsessively planning travel or renovations. Sounds nice. Well, it it it's pleasurable, but it's taking us away.

It's distracting us from true joy. And I think that's what you're talking about, building that time for quiet, getting to know yourself, kind of being your own best friend. It's something I've been really learning in the last couple years. So I I just wanna wind back to your day job for a minute, Sherry. This has been amazing.

With the drop in hormones that midlife women explain experience comes a lot of injuries and joint pain. And this is real. It's not just in our heads, so no one should tell us it's, you know, it's not real like I you were telling us before. Right. And I don't like hearing you're just getting old, deal with it, because that's what a lot of clients have been told.

And I know that there's tons of that that I can offer from the yoga world to keep people mobile and graceful. But, Shira, there's there's lots that you can do as an osteopath that compliments what yoga brings. Right? Yeah. Absolutely.

To me, the greatest compliment between osteopathy and yoga is it's your job to keep the body moving as a whole. Right? That's the daily practice. Whereas for me, when you're generally moving as a whole, there'll still be areas that you don't have proper leverage to get into, And that's my job. My job is when you're taking care of your body like you are, you come to me and I say, these ribs these ribs aren't moving.

Very gently. Let's make those ribs move. Let's get your sacrum moving. Let's make sure the pelvis is nice and aligned. But I don't have to work as hard hard when you're doing the daily alignment.

And when I do my alignment for you, then you'll see that you have so much more range of motion. Or I'm sure you find with yourself and with others, sometimes the left side moves more, sometimes the right side moves more. We're uneven. So and sometimes that's just us, and that's okay. I have scoliosis.

I'll always be uneven. That's okay. But the main thing is that when things are moving better and feeling better, you can really continue that practice, that daily practice, and keep opening yourself up. And I find I mean, I wanna say a % of the time. I feel like you can never say a % of the time, but almost a % of the time, my patients that exercise, my patients that move, it's a world of a difference how they age and versus how my patients that don't move.

Difference how they age and versus how my patients that don't move. And it doesn't matter body size, it really, really is. Are you moving? Are you moving regularly? And are you moving in a way that feels good to you?

It makes a huge difference. Well, Well, thank you for that shout out because I I always say movement is your medicine. So, Shira, we will put your website in the show notes so people can contact you. Where are you physically practicing from right now? Where's your I'm in the right now.

In the GTA. In the GTA. Okay. Wonderful. Because I know I mean, you certainly have a lot of population to to draw from, but you also have some plans.

We won't say anything today, but also have some plans to reach out to a digital audience. So you'll wanna make sure you visit Shira's website and just keep abreast of these lovely things. So thank you so much for sharing today, Shira. It's been an honor to connect with a kindred spirit, and we'll have to check-in with each other soon. Maybe you can come back and do another episode to see where your heart centered dreams are incubating.

Thank you. And, Cheryl, thank you. It's been really lovely to speak to you. Okay. Everyone listening, you guys are all so blessed to have Cheryl.

Keep on listening. So it is so nice. Thank you so much for the work you're doing. Namaste. Namaste.

In the meantime, before we have Shira back, I will put a link, as I said, in the show notes for Shira's contact information. I'll also put a link to a joint freeing series video that's on my website. This is a program of simple movement. It can be done standing, using a chair. There's another version where you're even laying down in bed.

So it's a great way at home to build more mobility, freedom of movement, and like Sherra was saying, so when you go to see her, you've already done your homework. At least until you can get to your friendly local osteopath. Have a wonderful day, and we will look forward to talking with you next time. Thank you.

Contact Shira:

https://alignedtodesign.com/

Get a Free Joint Freeing practice video to alleviate chronic pain and mobilize your body…. https://cherylgordonyt.com/at-home-yoga-programs-for-women-over-50/a-miracle-cure-for-sore-joints/

C: Episode 4!!! We’re so amazingly psyched to finally give you the action plan for managing the stress - weight connection. I’m Cheryl Gordon. I help educate midlife women about sleeping better, feeling stronger and losing weight using the tools of yoga and mindfulness.

S: And I’m Sharlene Styles, certified holistic nutritionist, life coach and metabolism mechanic. You want to lose that menopause middle or belly? The stuff that just appears out of nowhere it seems!

C: I know! And I was still exercising, eating healthy, etc. Where did all that flesh come from???

S: Today we’ll look at the role of cortisol and why that causes weight gain. So many of my clients are busy, accomplished women who have juggled stressful schedules and lives for decades. Why do they suddenly gain weight from stress? It seems like nothing new after all.

C: I might have a clue. (show graphic) When we’re at home base, we are feeling safe, calm and centred. Below home base, we’re feeling a lack of energy. Above home base, we’re feeling jazzed, maybe a bit scattered, even overwhelmed. We’re at our best when we’re at home base. Our brain is firing on all cylinders but we’re also maximizing efficiency in our systems. Pushing our systems to the orange zone is inefficient, exhausting and depleting our bodies of essential infrastructure repair resources.

Picture a war zone. That’s a place that has been in crisis mode and it’s a blown up wreck of rubble. After decades of running crazy, never resting enough, pushing ourselves to the limit, our systems are a blown up wreck in a lot of ways. Not enough energy to digest well or do cellular repair.

In our 30’s, we could get away with it. But the consistent deficit of restoring the systems adds up.

S: And the hormone that circulates during prolonged periods in that orange zone is cortisol. When cortisol stays high for too long—whether from stress, over-exercising, or lack of sleep—it signals your body to store fat, especially around the belly. That’s because your body thinks it needs to conserve energy for a crisis, even if that “crisis” is just daily stress. Plus, cortisol triggers the breakdown of glycogen into glucose, flooding your system with extra fuel to escape the perceived threat—except there’s nothing to actually run from. And as we covered in the hormone episode, that spike in glucose triggers an insulin response, and insulin’s job is to store fat—especially in the belly.

C: Last session, I mentioned yoga and mindfulness “snacks”.

S: Yeah, I love that term! Rather than using food as snacks, we nourish our nervous system instead.

C: It’s just not that easy for the average busy woman to take an hour for a yoga practice then meditate twice a day and glide around chanting peace, love and joy. It is a great way to live for sure, but not practical for most.

Yoga and mindfulness “snacks” are mini-retreats that you weave into your day.

S: Like the 3 minute breathing space?

C: Yes! Or a quick series of stretches or a short “loving kindness” meditation

S: And how often would you recommend people “snack” on yoga each day?

C: I think it’s realistic to build in 3 snacks a day. Overall, this is only 15 minutes or less. You could squeeze that out couldn’t you Sharlene, as busy as you are?

S: It’s just a matter of understanding the benefit and making that commitment to myself and making it a daily habit. And I may even venture to say to feel it’s benefits?

C: You know it. How could just 3 - 5 minutes on a reset make any real impact? It’s got to do with resilience. I know how it feels to get stuck in the orange zone of stress. (Show graphic again) It’s addicting to feel that rush of adrenalin. Coming down out of the orange zone to the gray zone feels dull and depressing. God forbid I feel anything unpleasant! So I push back up to jazzy. There’s no real chance to get familiar with that green zone.

The little “snacks” re-educate the nervous system to find that green zone. And you develop the ability to land in the green zone on demand, even if outside circumstances are still super crazy.

S: I always feel more relaxed and grounded after yoga.

C: The reason mindful movement is so powerful has to do with how stress is held in the tissues.

Every event that has ever happened to you… someone smiled at you yesterday or, conversely, you almost got hit in traffic… this creates a neurochemical reaction in the body. The brain, almost instantaneously, evaluates this circumstance, searches through its lifelong database of possible meanings and then issues commands for a hormonal cascade that historically has helped you manage similar circumstances. To facilitate the effectiveness of this mechanism, the tissues in the body ALSO store records of these neurochemical signatures and stand super ready to send signals up to the brain as to how to react. It’s bi-directional information flowing constantly in your nervous system (and probably through your connective tissue).

That’s why the slow, rhythmic movement of yoga, timed with deep nostril breathing, literally cleanses these neurochemical habits. Yoga really is unique in that it combines movement with no competitive aspect to fire up the nervous system. So you get the physical benefits of exercise plus the guidance back to the green zone.

I really want to do a deeper dive on somatics and releasing stress in our four part course, Sharlene.

S: Yes, I’m so excited about that. We’ll be releasing several deeper dive courses over the next few months so be sure to sign up for our newsletters to get priority access. You can find sign up forms and more resources on either of our websites, www.purenaturalhealth.ca or www.cherylgordonyt.com Please subscribe to this youtube channel or comment. Let us know how your empress journey is unfolding and whether these topics affect you too.

S: Welcome to Episode 3! Today I’m excited to bust a few myths about hormones and weight gain. That jazzes me - being a nutrition nerd.

C: This is Sharlene Styles, certified holistic nutritionist, life coach and metabolism mechanic. I’m Cheryl Gordon. I provide education about sleeping better, losing weight and feeling stronger for midlife women using the tools of yoga and mindfulness.

This is such an essential topic. All most of us know at this stage of life is that hormones are wonky and ruining my life!

S: For sure. What we may have always taken for granted has suddenly shaken our confidence and maybe even the scale. I get it. Even for me, what I used to do for exercise or nutrition just stopped working.

C: I thought I’d breeze through menopause because I do yoga. Yoga balances hormones. Which it does. But with the cataclysmic shifts for women over 50, a whole new level of understanding is necessary.

S: So let’s dive in. You mentioned "cataclysmic shifts"—and that’s not an exaggeration! The changes happening in midlife aren’t just about menopause; they’re about how our entire system is interconnected. I look at it as the intersection of midlife where the ‘hormone domino effect’ collides with years of built-up imbalances—nutritional gaps, stress overload, digestive issues, and a metabolism that’s just not playing by the same rules anymore. It’s like our bodies suddenly changed the game on us! And no one informed us of the new rules.

C: My yoga and self care rituals were great but there was this background deficit for decades. We just keep pushing because we can get away with it. No one told us when we were 30 that burning the candle at both ends would kick us in the ass someday. Or maybe they did and we didn’t listen.

S: When we look at hormones, when one hormone shifts, it triggers changes in others, setting off a chain reaction that affects everything from metabolism to mood, sleep, and even how we store fat.

For example, when estrogen starts to decline, it impacts insulin sensitivity—meaning your body might store more fat, especially around the belly. Lower estrogen also affects cortisol, your stress hormone, which can increase cravings and disrupt sleep. And when sleep is off, guess what? Your hunger hormones—ghrelin and leptin—get out of whack, making you feel hungrier and less satisfied with food.

C: So, it’s not just "hormones gone wild"—it’s a whole cascade of effects that make it harder to feel balanced.

S: Exactly! That’s why what used to work for diet and exercise may not work anymore. But when you understand this domino effect, you can start making shifts that work with your body instead of fighting against it.

C: Wow, so it’s not just about willpower—it’s about working with our biology?

S: Yes! And once we understand the "why" behind these changes, we can take steps to reset metabolism, balance hormones, and feel like ourselves again.

C: So it’s not just estrogen that causes the weight gain BUT it’s the drop in many influential hormones that starts that domino effect. Why is it that insulin resistance becomes such a big deal?

S: Great question! Insulin is one of the most powerful hormones in your body, responsible for regulating blood sugar and how your body stores or burns energy aka fat. But as we hit midlife, hormonal changes—especially the drop in estrogen—can make our cells less sensitive to insulin. This means your body has to produce more insulin to keep blood sugar stable.

C: And more insulin means…?

S: More fat storage! Insulin is a fat-storage hormone, especially around the belly. When insulin levels stay high, it becomes harder for your body to burn stored fat. Plus, insulin resistance can lead to energy crashes, sugar cravings, and that frustrating feeling of weight gain—even when you think you’re eating well.

C: So it’s not just about carbs—it’s about how our body processes them differently now?

S: Yes! And how and when we eat them. The same bowl of pasta that didn’t affect you in your 30s might now trigger a bigger insulin response in your 50s, leading to more fat storage and cravings later.

C: That makes so much sense! So how do we keep insulin in check?

S: The key is balancing blood sugar—which means focusing on protein, fat and fiber at every meal, choosing slow-digesting carbs, and avoiding long periods of fasting or extreme dieting. Strength training also helps because muscle makes your body more insulin-sensitive!

C: We’ve all heard about reducing sugar and simple carbs. But it’s tricky right?

S: The good news is this topic is making it to the mainstream more now than ever. There are some simple food fixes that can make a big difference—without feeling deprived. It’s not just about cutting sugar; it’s about choosing the right kinds of carbs. Simple carbs—like white bread, pastries, and sugary snacks—spike blood sugar and lead to crashes, cravings, and fat storage. But complex carbs—like veggies and legumes—break down more slowly because of the fiber they contain, keeping energy stable rather than peaking then crashing like it does with simple carbs. Pairing those with protein and healthy fats helps even more, making it easier to control cravings, boost energy, and lose stubborn belly fat. Perhaps the most supportive way of looking at carbs, is to not eat them on their own - to have them part of a balanced meal or at the end of a meal.

C: In my training, I’ve become convinced that deprivation, in terms of low calorie diets or intermittent fasting, really screws up the nervous system. Which makes us vulnerable to binges and other behaviours to just make us feel better (think over exercising, excessive shopping, a little too much wine, etc). I really love your balanced, holistic approach here.

S: Thanks! This is why we are here today, really trying to reassure women like us that losing the menopause belly is do-able without extremes.

C: And I know that we’ll talk more next session about stress and weight gain, but can I just insert here how it is essential that we invest in self care? For example, I make great food choices all day long. Then it’s after dinner, I’m tired, trying to shut out all the messages in my head that I didn’t achieve enough today, etc. The chips and chocolate are calling to me while I’m trying to chill with Netflix. Willpower is just too hard when my defences are down. My nervous system KNOWS that if I just dive into that yummy treat, I’ll feel instantly better. It might be the first time all day that I feel relaxed or that I finally got something for just myself.

That’s the secret… right there. We need to build in regular breaks throughout our day where we feel like we’re nurtured, where we can relax a bit and that our needs are being recognized.

Shameless plug here for yoga and mindfulness snacks at regular intervals throughout the day. You can find lots of resources on my website… things that take just 3 minutes. I promise you, if you take this up as an experiment, you will definitely find those nighttime urges for simple carbs reduce.

S: And it may be worth mentioning that by balancing macros (protein, healthy fat and complex carbs at every meal) can also help the nighttime cravings. I’m excited to dive deeper into this topic in our four part course, Hormones and Weight Gain. Be sure to sign up for either of our newsletters or comment below so you get priority access to it.

C: If you found this helpful, please share with other fabulous women. In the meantime, you can find more resources on either of our websites, www.purenaturalhealth.ca or www.cherylgordonyt.com Please subscribe to this youtube channel or comment below. Let us know how this new knowledge is shifting your exercise or dietary habits.

C: Welcome back to episode 2! Today, we’ll cover why caloric restriction is doomed to fail AND you’ll get some great strategies for befriending your metabolism. I’m Cheryl Gordon, yoga therapist.

S: And I’m Sharlene Styles, certified holistic nutritionist, life coach and metabolism mechanic. Here are the answers no one is talking about because selling you a medication, diet product or a supplement generates big recurring profits. Healing yourself naturally doesn’t generate ongoing revenue.

C: Sharlene, let’s show the Total Daily Energy Expenditure pic. For me, it totally made it clear why calories in and calories out is just not helpful!

S: Yes, the expenditure of energy is a good fundamental concept to understand when it comes to metabolism and weight management.

Basically it’s the total amount of energy your body burns in a day. It’s made up of four parts:

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) – This is the energy your body needs just to keep you alive—breathing, circulating blood, and even thinking! It makes up the largest chunk of your TDEE. about 70%

Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) – This includes all the little movements we don’t think about—fidgeting, walking to the kitchen, even talking with our hands! Which makes up about 15% of the total

Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) – This is the energy your body uses to digest and process food. Protein-rich foods actually burn more calories during digestion! This uses about 10% of TDEE

C: That’s why you suggested last episode to prioritize protein!

S: Exercise Activity (EA) – This is the energy burned during intentional movement, like workouts, yoga, or a dance class. 5%

C: Whoa, just 5%! So it's not just about the gym?

S: Not at all! In fact, NEAT can make a bigger impact than you think. Small daily movements add up over time, and understanding your TDEE helps you make smart choices for sustainable energy balance.

C: So all the diets I’ve been on that calculate my Basic Metabolic Rate plus the calories I’m burning in exercise are bogus?

S: Not necessarily bogus, but definitely incomplete. Most diet plans focus only on BMR and workouts, ignoring NEAT and the Thermic Effect of Food.

C: So, I’ve been missing two key pieces of the puzzle?

S: Exactly! If you only focus on exercise, you’re overlooking the 10-15% of calories burned through daily movement. Plus, digestion itself burns calories—especially when you eat protein-rich foods. The problem is, most diet plans don’t factor in how your body uniquely uses energy.

C: That makes so much sense! So instead of obsessing over gym time, I should be looking at my whole daily energy picture?

S: Yes! Sustainable weight management isn’t just about burning calories in the gym—it’s about working with your metabolism all day long.

C: Can we just shout out to the rooftops that all that data on your smart device about calories burned is probably hurting your progress?!!!

S: It can really distracting from mindfulness, right?

C: When I’m teaching yoga, the smart watches are beeping and chirping. I find it affects my concentration so I can imagine how it interferes with the practice for the student. I’m so glad you’re clarifying why the obsession with tracking steps or calories is just not necessary. Let’s get into the experience of the activity… be mindful!

S: Hear! Hear!

We’ll take a deeper dive into why calories in and calories out is not an effective model in our dedicated four part course (details coming so be sure to sign up for our newsletters at www.cherylgordonyt.com or www.purenaturalhealth.ca) but let’s just outline here the reasons exercising to lose weight is a frustrating endeavour.

C: You know Sharlene, I still find myself labouring under these outdated beliefs! So to our listeners, you are not alone!

1. The body is a super efficient machine. For most of our existence as humans, starvation was a reality. For the first few minutes of an activity, the body might kick in extra energy but very quickly, it adapts and minimizes energy expenditure. So this phenomenon is not reflected in calorie counters on your smart device.

2. Even if you did burn 500 calories on the treadmill, eating one store bought muffin blows that away.

3. All that time pushing yourself into more and more km or calorie burn means you get pressed for time in other areas. This creates stress. Which inhibits weight loss. More on this in episode 4.

4. Long periods of steady state cardio exercise can actually reduce muscle mass.

S: Yikes! Losing muscle mass is not where we need to go.

Because muscle is like a metabolic engine—it keeps your body burning energy efficiently. But as we hit midlife, things start to shift.

* We naturally lose muscle mass—starting as early as our 30s. As women, we can lose up to 2% per year, and this loss speeds up in our 40s and 50s. Less muscle means a slower metabolism, which can lead to weight gain, less energy, and even a higher risk of injury.

* Hormonal changes—declining estrogen, progesterone, and even testosterone can make it harder to maintain muscle and easier to store fat. Remember our discussion of the Musculoskeletal Syndrome last episode.

* We often move less—life gets busy, stress increases, and we might not prioritize movement like we used to. Less movement = fewer calories burned daily.

C: So that’s why it feels like my metabolism is slowing down?

S: Exactly! But here’s the good news: You can fight back by focusing on muscle-building activities, staying active throughout the day, and fueling your body properly. Strength training, walking, and protein-rich foods can help counteract these changes and keep your metabolism strong!

C: Just to emphasize… it’s a combination of prioritizing muscle building in fitness, focusing on protein each meal and investing in meaningful self care that shifts the needle… NOT cutting out food groups, starving yourself or doing killer workouts!

S: Yes! It’s not about quick fixes—it’s about making small, sustainable shifts that work with your body. Let’s look at this again. (Show graphic on TDEE.)

To naturally reset your metabolism, focus on these three areas:

Move More – Prioritize strength training and increase daily movement (NEAT) to preserve muscle and keep your metabolism active.

Fuel Smart – Eat protein at every meal to support muscle maintenance and boost the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF).

Recover Well – Stress management, quality sleep, and self-care all help regulate hormones that impact metabolism.

When you put these together, your body starts working for you instead of against you!

C: I still find myself a little panicky that I didn’t get my “k’s” in. And feeling guilty when I’m putting up my feet mid day. But I look at my scale with a big grin and know this is the secret sauce.

S: Right?! We’ve been fed this story for decades, and we’ve taken it as truth. But now, we know better—and we can do better!

If you found this helpful, share it with other women who could benefit from it, too. And if you want more resources, check out our websites: www.purenaturalhealth.ca or www.cherylgordonyt.com.

Don’t forget to subscribe to this sub stack and drop a comment below—tell us how this new perspective is shifting your approach to exercise or nutrition. We’d love to hear from you!

C: See you next episode for an essential discussion about hormones, especially the one hormone that holds fat more than any other.

S: Welcome! It is so amazing that you’re here. This 8-part series is intended to break myths, empower women, and provide real, actionable steps. We’re going to help midlife women manage their weight without extreme diets or over-exercising.

I’m Sharlene Styles, a holistic nutritionist, metabolism mechanic, and life coach.

C: And I’m Cheryl Gordon, a professional yoga therapist. The real reason I’m here - partnering with Sharlene - is because I wish this resource had been available to me ten years ago

S: After years of helping women transform their health, I found myself facing challenges when I hit perimenopause. What once worked—just didn’t anymore. That led me to dive deep into hormones, metabolism, and midlife health—first to solve my own struggles, then to help others do the same. Now, I’m here to share what actually works, so you don’t have to waste time guessing or feeling stuck.

C: Sharlene and I are committed to getting this essential info out to women like us. Each episode will be under 20 minutes and blend nutrition, movement, stress management, and mindset to create sustainable results.

S: Cheryl and I are dedicated to supporting women, like you and like us, find answers in a sea of misinformation and outright craziness sometimes.

C: Let’s dive in. Sooooo, menopause kicked my butt. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that it wasn’t the hot flashes, wrinkles or sleeplessness that drove me to finally ask for help. It was the weight gain.

S: So many of my clients come to me frustrated about menopause weight—especially that stubborn 'menopause belly' that seems to appear overnight and refuses to budge. And I get it! It’s confusing because what worked in your 30s just doesn’t work the same way anymore.

C: The messaging in my mind was so judgemental! You are snacking too much. You should cycle longer, get your heart rate up!

S: Ok, first myth busting… let’s just shout this from the rooftops! Miidlife weight gain isn’t just about eating less and moving more—it’s about changing hormones and a shifting metabolism.

And here’s the why… As estrogen declines, fat storage patterns shift, and your body starts holding onto weight—especially around the midsection. At the same time, insulin sensitivity decreases, making blood sugar spikes (and crashes) more common, which fuels cravings and increased fat storage. Throw in higher cortisol from stress, which signals your body to store fat as “protection,” plus a natural decline in muscle mass, and suddenly… your metabolism is running at a completely different speed than it used to. I can’t wait to show you the metabolism facts in our next episode.

C: We have a great visual for you to help explain this next episode.

Beating myself up that I wasn’t exercising enough, or that I had to cut out all carbs, was definitely not the answer. I know this, not only because the research supports this, but because my own body was proving it!

S: But here’s the good news—you’re not stuck with it. Midlife weight gain isn’t inevitable. Once you understand how your hormones and metabolism are shifting, you can make small, strategic adjustments that work with your body instead of against it.

C: Let’s talk about those adjustments. I just want to highlight that making all the changes at once is counterproductive. Change is sustainable when it’s sequential and broken into manageable bites.

It means I needed to set some goals, be kinder to myself and find patience as my body and I figured out this stage of life. And Sharlene, this is what you do with your clients…. Create individualized plans, right?

S: I’ve worked with hundreds of women just like us.

One of the biggest shifts we can make to support your metabolism is prioritizing protein.

As we age, muscle mass naturally declines, which slows metabolism and makes it easier to store fat—especially around the midsection. Protein is key to preserving muscle, keeping your metabolism active, and preventing that stubborn weight gain.

It also stabilizes blood sugar, which helps reduce cravings, energy crashes, and the fat-storing effects of insulin spikes. And bonus—it keeps you fuller for longer, so you’re not constantly battling hunger.

So, what does this actually look like? It varies from person to person but 25–30 grams of protein per meal is a good general zone. That could be 3 eggs at breakfast, a piece of salmon or chicken at lunch, or a hearty lentil and veggie bowl at dinner. A bit of an advanced strategy is to make sure you get a variety of proteins in your diet. It’s easy to eat the same foods on rotation, yet our bodies need a variety of nutrients from various foods, specifically amino acids from proteins that our bodies can’t make on their own.

So, instead of focusing on eating less, start focusing on eating smarter. Fuel your body with enough protein, and you’ll naturally support your metabolism, energy, and hormones—without feeling deprived.

C: I had to be willing to take a fresh look at so many of my lifestyle habits. I did yoga daily, meditated, lots of hiking and biking. Achy joints caught me off guard. It made me nervous to move. That zumba class could put out my back, etc. As we lose muscle mass, we become more susceptible to injury. It’s a vicious circle. Then we really do get old.

You feel achy because estrogen acts as a regulating factor in nearly all types of musculoskeletal tissue, including bone, tendons, muscle, cartilage, ligaments, fascia, and even adipose tissue. The midlife drop in estrogen that begins in perimenopause is the catalyst for it all.

We need to understand that the musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause affects approximately 70 percent of us. Yet in 40 percent of women who suffer from it, no structural findings will manifest on x-rays, MRIs, or scans. Doctors might misdiagnose the syndrome as psychological or just tell you to get used to getting old.

You see the scale going up and the pressure to exercise more increases.

S: But if your joints are achy, exercising MORE isn’t fun. And it adds more things to your “to do” list that gives you enough stress as it is.

C; The big game changer for me was acknowledging that the stress of my life was hoarding the weight.

S: Oh, cortisol! If you’re dealing with stubborn midlife weight gain, stress might be playing a bigger role than you think.

Cortisol is your body’s main stress hormone, and when it’s running high—whether from work stress, poor sleep, skipping meals, or even over-exercising—your body goes into “survival mode.” That means holding onto fat, especially around your belly, and slowing down digestion because your body thinks it needs to conserve energy.

And here’s the kicker—even if you’re eating well, if your cortisol is too high, your body may not be digesting and absorbing nutrients properly. So instead of fueling your body, food can sit like a brick in your stomach, leading to bloating, sluggish digestion, and energy crashes.

C: Let’s admit it. Even yoga teachers, Sharlene and I both practice daily, have STRESS. Stress response isn’t inherently bad. It’s how I get up out of bed in the morning or how Sharlene and I got these videos organized. You’re not doing anything wrong if you have some stress. It’s the chronic, wearisome, “I have no control over this stress” that we’re talking about.

S: But there is good news. You can absolutely lower cortisol naturally. It takes some lifestyle shifts, but simple things—like eating balanced meals (instead of skipping or rushing through them), taking deep breaths before you eat, and actually allowing your body to slow down, like prioritizing sleep and rest—can make a huge difference.

C: Us goal oriented, kick ass women really need to start prioritizing our own comfort. This was a key point in my weight loss last year. Taking a deep dive into how to create a feeling of safety and kindness for myself.

Decades of making sure everyone else was happy and fed left me starving for a little nurturing. It was really tough to come up with a plan that celebrated my small wins and proved to my nervous system that I was a priority. Everything was about relaxing with a glass of wine or indulging in chocolate as a refuge from discomfort. Or retail therapy. None of which truly nourished my soul.

Resting is vital to weight loss. We’ll talk more about that in episode 4. So is investing in authentic, supportive relationships. This means boundary setting, asking for what we need and truly being present in the moment. This is episode 7 (maybe my favourite).

So Sharlene, if you had to just boil this down to a couple key points, what would be the new rules for midlife weight management?

S: It really comes down to a few key shifts that make all the difference in midlife.

First, balance your blood sugar. If your blood sugar is spiking and crashing all day, your body is constantly in fat-storage mode and contributing to even more physical stress.. So instead of skipping meals or grabbing quick carbs, focus on protein, fiber, and healthy fats at every meal to keep things steady.

C: A shout out here to mindful eating. We’ll talk more about that next session. Magic stuff.

S: Second, prioritize protein. We naturally lose muscle as we age, and that slows metabolism. Eating enough protein—about 25 to 30 grams per meal—helps preserve muscle, keeps you full, and supports fat loss. But eating protein isn’t enough on its own. We need to use that protein. Which leads to number 3…

Which is to focus on building muscle instead of burning calories. A lot of women try to out-cardio midlife weight gain, but too much cardio can actually backfire by raising cortisol and breaking down muscle. Strength training and walking are far better for metabolism and hormone balance and to put the protein to use.

C: Strength training for women is essential! You can get a great bone building workout done in about 20 minutes vs an hour on the treadmill. Look at the time you can save!

S: Fourth, support your nervous system. If your body is in a constant state of stress, high cortisol tells it to store fat—especially around the belly as well as increases cravings and impacts sleep, which when heal and cover leading to even more stress. uggh! Simple things like deep breathing, slowing down when you eat, and getting quality sleep make a massive difference.

C: Be sure to tune in to episode 5 to learn a lot more about sleep and weight loss.

S: Midlife weight management isn’t about eating less and moving more. And your body that’s not working the one it once did? It’s not broken—it’s always working for you. The key isn’t pushing it harder or getting frustrated with it, but understanding what it needs now and learning to work with it. When you do that, everything gets easier.

C: Sharlene, I so appreciate how you have researched and field tested this wisdom so thoroughly. I hope so many women watching this share this series with their friends. We can create a revolution!

S: I’m down for that! Tune in to our next episode when we dive a little deeper into metabolism. It’s not just calories in and calories out.

C: In the meantime, you can find more resources on either of our websites, www.purenaturalhealth.ca or www.cherylgordonyt.com

S: For now, check out the links in the show notes to access my FREE five day hormone balancing meal plan to get started.

C: Please subscribe to this substack so you don’t miss any episodes. Comment to let us know how your empress journey is unfolding and whether these topics affect you too.

Looking for some direction on how to begin your yoga journey? Click here for a FREE Essential Guide to Yoga for Women over 50.

Contact Heather through her website. Order the 100 Days of Care Workbook.

C: Welcome to episode number 12 of the Midlife Reset podcast. I am thrilled you're here. Today, you're going to meet a woman who is totally tuned into her heart vibration and made a wholesale shift midlife to follow her dream. So, please welcome Heather Fenton, from Gently Down the Stream Yoga, in beautiful lakeside, Port Colborne, Ontario. So, welcome Heather, tell us a little about yourself.

H: Hi Cheryl, that's a, that's a big open question to start with. I'm sitting here in uh, our studio space. I could start with that. Locate myself in space and time, so again, I'm happy to be here to chat with you.

C: Oh, wonderful. And Heather, the reason I really wanted to get you on the podcast was because I love what you do at the hut, and you're sitting in the hut right now. And I want to talk more about that. But it's the tuning into your heart vibration that led you to create that beautiful yoga space. So, let's give some context as to how that decision came about.

H: Yeah, well, it was really a function of just doing the next right thing, you know, day after day, showing up for life and uh, I mean that's got a backstory of its own, going to train in meditation and mindfulness, but eventually my life led me down here to Niagara. I met my husband, Michael. Um, and and moved down here and we shared a dream to live in the country, to live quietly in the country. And I always had the wish to create a retreat retreat space, a space where people could come and practice meditation. And it just it started to fall into place. Kind of like, you know, it I didn't do it. It did itself, you know? I just showed up and made the decisions one by one. Does that make sense?

C: That's cool. That's cool. And so Heather, you were living as a Buddhist nun, a renunciate, if you will, right? At one point?

H: I was, yeah, in my thirties I uh packed everything up into about two suitcases, got rid of my job and my apartment and went looking for peace and truth. And that led me to living in Dharma centers. Um, and a Dharma center is a retreat, right? It's a type of, it is, it's sort of a modern monastery. So um, here in the West, we don't have these great big institutions like came up in the east and so people will just live communally and practice together and yeah.

C: Wow. And then as you were living that life, a little whisper came into your heart, I guess, about maybe doing something quite different really, going from being like basically a Buddhist nun to meeting your husband and having a daughter.

H: Yeah. Yeah, and there was a gap there of of maybe four or five years before I met Mike. Uh, and it was less of a whisper in the heart and more of a uh, finally, like a a kind of shouting internally, like a finally coming to admit that what I really wanted was a conventional life, and that part of my renunciation was actually um, a hiding. I wanted to hide away from from uh, you know, what is difficult? It's difficult to be married. It's difficult to be in relationship with people. And for me, you know, kind of tucking away and meditating for long periods was a way to avoid having to get my heart broken or break other people's hearts. And uh, yeah, so I had to start listening.

C: I want to come back to that. I want to come back to that in just a second. But before I forget, can we talk for a second about the four or five year gap there? Because that must not have been a very easy time.

H: Oh, but it was very, it was, you're right. It was one of the more difficult, challenging times in my life, but uh it was it was the path that needed to be taken, you know? On the one hand it was challenging, you know, I put myself out there, started meeting people, came back into ordinary life. Uh, on the other hand it was easy because finally after years of sort of following, you know, training and looking to others, I was following my heart instead. I was following what actually lit me up, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And that's really scary, right?

C: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so I want to circle back to what you were talking about of, of being in in the, in the spiritual life as a renunciate, and that was a way of hiding a little bit from some of the scarier things in the great big bad world out there. Do you, do you think that that's a form of spiritual bypass?

H: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I, I mean, I think uh, just because I stepped out of that life, I didn't finally abandon spiritual bypassing. I think it's something that shows up again and again, you know? We really were kind of wired that way. We don't want discomfort, we seek comfort. And uh, yeah, so I think it's easy to to look everywhere but straight ahead at the truth of things. Yeah.

C: And it takes a lot of courage to do that. One of the things I I've been trying to talk about on the podcast. We've been talking about all different kinds of things about weight loss and osteoporosis and all this different kinds of stuff. But one of the things that I wanted to encourage women to do in their midlife is step into the truth and really face what's going on. Because we might not be spiritually bypassing by going to an ashram for yogis or to a Dharma center for a Buddhist, but we can do a lot of bypassing with a good bottle of wine. Yeah. And and you know, like planning travel, obsessively planning travel so that you're on one trip and you're already planning your next. You know what I mean?

H: Yeah. Yeah. And shopping and Netflix and yeah, gossiping. Gossiping.

C: I'm guilty. I'm working so hard on watching the language that comes out of my mouth because, hey, who doesn't like a good bit of juicy gossip, right? Yeah.

H: Yeah. It captivates us. But it is a way, as as you're saying, it's a way to kind of distracting ourselves from our own discomfort or our own existential angst, which is in our culture, we're really not very good at being uncomfortable for a while.

C: I lost some weight last year and one of the things that I've really been working on is feeling my feelings. And sometimes I woke up this morning, I was crabby. So, I just, instead of like immediately pretending I'm not, I kind of journaled about it. I kind of told my walking buddy this morning, "Yeah, I'm having a crabby day." And she was all worried. "Oh, you're crabby, I must fix it for you right now."

H: It's true. We do that. We don't like our own discomfort and we don't like when other people are uncomfortable. And that's really a way that I continuously frame the path for myself is and many teachers frame it the same way, is like becoming comfortable with discomfort. Uh, sometimes you hear this facing uncertainty, you know, like being willing to open to what is instead of what we wish things to be.

C: So, it takes courage. It takes some steadiness, yeah. And a good practice, a good foundational practice. I think yoga is, is my foundation. . Which includes, you know, meditation and mindfulness.

H: Yeah, it's something that I have been exploring in recent years. Most recently with a course that we're doing here in the hut called Yoga for Life, where we're looking at daily ritual practices that we can undertake. So, and I think of it in terms of like children, like toddlers and young children, they thrive on routine. That's that you've heard that saying, right? Well, it's just true of all of us. We the structure gives us the space in which we can relax and and be creative. Like the freedom is actually found in the discipline.

C: It sounds like an oxymoron, but if you understand the nervous system, which I'm always ranting and raving about, it makes perfect sense. The nervous system appreciates rhythmic living. It calms the the vigilance in the background so that more creativity emerges. Yes, familiarity keeps the stress levels down. And and speaking of kids, how old is your baby now?

H: She is five and a half.

C: I remember coming to visit you before the hut was even built. You were very pregnant. And we were trying some restorative poses in an effort to kind of help you find some comfort. And then right after that, the pandemic and all the shutdowns hit. So, you were a new mom, you were launching a new business, trying to get that place built. That must have been something.

H: It was quite something. And I will just point out, because it's for me, it's one of the most exciting parts of my life story, is that I was 49 when I was pregnant. I had Harper quite late in life. And it was something that I had thought as a renunciate for many years, celibate, that I would never have children of my own. And so, this was this amazing blessing. And then at the in the same year, we decided to build the hut. So, and then coming into motherhood, which any mother will tell you is a wild ride, and then the pandemic hit. So, it was a very busy time.

C: One of the things with new motherhood is the isolation and then you have the pandemic enforcing isolation on you. Thank goodness you had such a wonderful grounding in practice. Can I talk to you a little bit about like how the hut has developed? So, now you have this beautiful practice space. You host regular weekly classes there, as well as workshops, right?

H: We're located a little bit rural. Like we're in a rural setting. It's a farm across the street. It's quite beautiful. We've got 10 acres here, so it has a feeling like a retreat center, but we're just three kilometers from the canal here in in Port Colborne. And so, people come for weekly classes. We still have enough of a base to do a regular series of classes. And then the pandemic kind of got in the way because our my main passion is the silent retreat and doing some um, more intense practice, which you we could do classes online, but we couldn't really recreate that retreat experience, being in community and silence. And so, that's now hitting its stride. Now that we're a few years out of the pandemic, I'm really enjoying developing that piece of the stream project.

C: I have never done a silent retreat, Heather. You might find that hard to believe. But I realize I I do get it and I think it's it's got to be on my list to do.

H: Oh, I think so, yeah. Because I think we can and it's like everything, we can understand it intellectually, but until we've immersed ourselves in it, we don't understand the fullness of the benefits.

C: It's one of those things I'm scared of being uncomfortable. So, definitely a personal growth opportunity waiting for me there. And one of the things that I've really enjoyed that you've come up with in the last little while is your book project. I participated last fall in your 100 Days of Care. Tell us about that.

H: Yeah, that was lovely to see when you joined and to have you coming in on the calls. Um, the book, I'm just going to hold it up here. Is that okay?

C: Give us a visual.

H: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So, 100 Days of Care. It's the the first book that I've written and it it technically, I'd say it's a handbook or a workbook. A workbook. And so, it's a daily living retreat workbook. So the idea and my general passion is to get people practicing a little bit every day. And you know, it's a reflection of what I want for myself, is to create retreat experience in my daily life. That sense of calm and centered and, you know, uh, mindful. And so, the 100 Days of Care is uh, 100 days commitment, each day checking in, but it's a very small commitment. So, the you know, each day the you're required to to write out a personal mantra of loving kindness. That's the minimum involvement. And from there, there's sort of opportunities to expand that, to do a little bit more if you like, and to tie it in with other things you're already doing, which is a, you know, a well-known hack for creating new habits is to partner them with things you're already doing. Yeah. So, adding mindfulness uh, well, for example, for myself, my morning coffee is involved in my morning meditation practice, right? Because one, I won't skip, don't skip. Yeah? So, it cues me into the other.

C: I have post-it notes all over. Yes, to remind me. Because of the little, like you say, if you break your your structure or your framework for your practice into little bits throughout the day, it creates that lovely rhythm to your day that your nervous system can acclimate and tune to and. Yes. And count on. But you do need the reminders. Otherwise, your crazy, cuckoo mind will sweep you away. But getting back to 100 Days of Care, you also have the weekly calls that are by donation. So they're very accessible for people. And that for last fall, they were on Wednesday nights. I don't know what they are coming up.

H: Well right now, we don't have any current live support. The next planned live cohort where you can, so you could do the book and the program on your own at home, no problem. And then I think in September, we'll do another series where it's um, supported by these free weekly call in Zoom where you could come here in person if you're local. Uh, and there's a website associated with the book that has all of the um, materials for the three times now we've done the program. So the book came as a result of doing the program two times through as a community here at Stream. And then I wrote it as a sort of physical manual that people could connect with. And uh, yeah, so we'll do it again in the fall if there's people who are interested and want that support.

C: And if there's somebody that that is interested in starting and it's not September yet, you have a Facebook group as well, right?

H: We do. It's it's pretty quiet these days, but you're welcome to join in there and and start a conversation,

C: But you would monitor that. So, if someone has questions for you that you they could they could access your wisdom through the Facebook group.

H: The book is available on Amazon. I'm also exploring moving into one-on-one mentoring. So if people are looking for someone to help them with their meditation practice, you know, I teach the group classes in various settings here in and around Niagara, but I'm also, you could reach out if you have an interest in in connecting one on one.

C: That's awesome to know, because a lot of people really do appreciate, you know, the privacy or the customization that can come with one-on-one coaching. That's amazing. Heather, it's been amazing connecting with you again. I'm going to have to drive out to Port Colborne and and have a visit.

H: I would love to see you. You'll well soon it'll be the season for riding your bike along the friendship trail. I know that was a passion of yours.

C:. So, thank you Heather for taking the time today. It's been amazing. We will put Heather's contact information in the show notes. So she has a website, she has the 100 Days of Care website and we'll put all of that in the show notes. And maybe you'll have a chance to catch a class. Because you do, most of your classes are online as well as you have a hybrid option for a lot of your classes, right?

H: We do. That was one of the great benefits coming out of the pandemic was when we pivoted online, we never stopped offering online. So, almost everything we do, you can attend from anywhere in the world.

C: Because we do have listeners across North America. I can say that. Isn't that something? Namaste, Heather.

H: Namaste. Thank you, Cheryl.

C: Today on the Midlife Reset podcast, which is episode 11, by the way, you are going to finally get the answers you need about your hormones.

I am thrilled to welcome Dr. Laura Imola, naturopathic doctor and passionate advocate for women's health.

Getting this essential information out to women is a big focus of our work.

So Laura, can you tell me a little bit about your practice as a naturopathic doctor? Where are you located? How long have you been there?

L: I'm in Niagara Falls at Wynn Health Performance Center. I started practice in 2003, so I'm in practice over 20 years now. I can't believe it. It feels like a blank. The clinic is a multidisciplinary setting. I'm a co-owner with my husband, Ernie. He's a chiropractor. But we've been really on this path to help the community, help improve people's health. And contribute in some way to create a healthier community.

And the majority of my practice, I do see a lot of women. So this has been a passion of mine as I realized that women really thrive when they.have knowledge and they have options and so that they can advocate for their health. So that's really been a foundation to the work that I do.

C: And tell me a little bit about, in case we have listeners from different countries, a naturopathic doctor in Ontario trains basic university and then how many years?

L: We have pretty rigorous training. We're regulated health providers in Ontario. I did complete my Bachelor of Science at the University of Western Ontario, which I'm a scientist by nature, and then dove into naturopathic medicine at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine in Toronto, and it's a four-year program. So four year full time program and there's licensing exams that are written for every graduate to be able to practice in Ontario and so yeah that was many years ago.

I still have students come in the preceptor with me because I do enjoy again the element of health education. And supporting students, because I remember what it was like then. And so, yeah, this is how naturopaths come to be in the health care spectrum.

And that's, you know, the differences is that although we do get a tremendous amount of medical training to understand health conditions, medications, we have to be able to navigate what to recommend to a person based on what their health history might be. Their lifestyle, like all of these different elements of their health, of course, without interfering with what other healthcare providers might be providing for them, like the medical doctor, so very respectful of that, but then still offering, and the difference being that we're going to offer natural support to them using many different types of therapies that we have a very in-depth knowledge on how to use as well in a therapeutic sense.

C: And that's why I'm so excited that you're here, Dr. Laura, because you can hear from her training that when you tell us something, this is science-based, it's evidence-based,and you've been trialing this in your own practice for over 20 years.

So I'm really excited.  Let's dive in.

This is a huge subject, hormones, midlife women. And Dr. Laura, one of the biggest areas I think you can help us understand is the role of hormones in our midlife journey.

We always hear that the changes start in perimenopause, but let's talk about what that actually feels like.

Even though I'm a yoga therapist and I say a million times a day to my students, listen to your body, I didn't even really realize I was in perimenopause. I mean, I can read the calendar. Is that common?

L: It is. And I think that now because there's much more awareness around perimenopause, more women are attuning to their body and understanding that this isn't my typical, I'm noticing this shift and it's been going on for three months, for six months or for a year and something just doesn't feel right.

So although I do have a lot of women still asking me questions like, could this be perimenopause? And coming to differentiate that, there's a lot more information, thankfully. In the last two or three years, it's actually even over the last year, we've seen such a wider, diverse amount of platforms speaking to perimenopause.

Some of the symptoms are sleepless nights, some warmth and some body temperature changes, maybe not full on hot sweats or night flashes, but they can have hot flashes and night sweats. They can happen, but to different degrees. And then also changes in libido. So women often will start talking with me about how they have a decreased desire to have sex. So these are the combination of symptoms that women start to experience.

C: And of all of them, I can speak to the heavy bleeding, you know, having accidents out in public, all that kind of stuff. I did go to my medical doctor and the the solution they offered was the Mirena, which is like an IUD. It's a birth control product. And because I was someone who really tries to handle my health naturally, I was kind of turned off of the birth control options. So what kinds of things can you offer to your patients, Dr. Laura?

L: So There are options that can help increase progesterone levels that are natural. There are options that help to stabilize estrogen and progesterone. So I often will use things like herbs. Sometimes acupuncture depends on what the symptom picture is. We look at nutrition. I've even seen things like supporting a woman's nutrition quality can help stabilize hormone balance.

So it depends. And we can be very specific on what it might be, but it always is individualized to the woman.

C: It would start with blood work and then probably you would talk to her about her lifestyle because I'm sure stress factors into this quite a bit, right?

L: but then also talk about things like what's your health history like, like what's happening with all the different systems in your body, because all of the systems are connected. So even we're going to, I'm sure talk about this, but the connection of stress, the connection of digestion, you know, what's happening in sleep, like all of these different components can start to change hormone levels.

C: One of the things that happens for me, it happened to me in my 30s, and I don't think this is so unusual, is that's when thyroid starts to act up. So the role of thyroid metabolism is so important, isn't it?

L: Is this really a thyroid issue? Because we wouldn't be able to know until that type of test is done. And there are different reasons why thyroid starts to become the flag of things starting to change hormonally in the body.

And usually has a lot to do with stress.

C: Which connects us into the discussion of the action of the adrenal glands, right?

L: Yes. Yes, it's the root of, I feel, many hormone disruptions.

C: So talk about adrenal fatigue.

L: The adrenal glands, they sit on top of the kidneys. They're part of the glandular system. So the thyroid, the pancreas, the ovaries, the pituitary, like this is the glandular system. And we're getting, thankfully, way more awareness in, the last couple of years around cortisol.

And the cortisol comes from our adrenal glands. And cortisol is a necessary hormone, we need cortisol to mobilize us, but persistent cortisol secretion too high and too much overactivity of the adrenals can lead to a dysregulated pattern of adrenal function and secretion of the of the hormone cortisol, among other things to even adrenaline is part of that.

But that's the adrenal fatigue part is that this dysregulation starts to begin if it's been chronic, a chronic stress sort of experience for a person. Very common with women who multitask and are caregivers and very much feel a sense of responsibility in this role of duty.

So the ongoing stress by the time you're in your thirties and oftentimes even early forties, these are the symptoms that we start to feel like this tiredness that can be often linked to the adrenals.

But secondarily, this cortisol is a big disruptor for what's happening in the brain at the pituitary level.

The pituitary is the very first spot that our female hormones start to get the signal to be secreted. It can disrupt the ovaries. The cortisol can disrupt the thyroid.

So it's, and it can cause changes also in inflammation. So this is, I feel the root typically we want to, if we think physiologically, oftentimes in the body, it's the adrenal glands.

And then we think about, well, what is influencing the stress levels in a woman's life? Like that's the deeper root.

C: And let's be honest, it's inherent that you're going to have high stress levels in the 21st century. Right, because this is how our society runs, especially in North America.

L: So this is where it becomes interesting that, you know, I believe that there's more awareness around this, as you probably seem to share with yoga, mindfulness. More understanding about somatic exercise and movement and how that helps to regulate the nervous system,especially like engages the parasympathetic nervous system, which we need to engage to rest and relax.

So thankfully, there's this awareness like this is not sustainable, like our pace is not healthy. So finding little ways to take care of oneself. And this is, again, a message I think is getting to be a bit stronger and understanding that You know, we need to take care of ourselves in the everyday busyness to find moments to do that.

C: I so appreciate your medical opinion, Dr. Laura, about how essential rest is. Because so much of the work that I do, you're right, is around building in that therapeutic rest throughout the day, actually. I call them mindfulness snacks. So three to five minutes. And it just kind of gives the adrenals a chance to like reset.

For me, it was the thirties and forties is when the thyroid started to go out, but I still didn't clue into that, to the adrenal fatigue. Now that's going to play havoc with my hormones. And then perimenopause hits. I have the super heavy breathing, bleeding. I have this sleeplessness. I don't, really clue into what's really going on.

Now I hit menopause a little late in the game. I was in my late fifties. I hit the actual menopause break that helped that came at the beginning of COVID. So it, you know, the isolation of the shutdowns and all that added to my stress. So even though I was doing the yoga and I was doing the mindfulness and I was eating as healthy as I knew how, I needed to have a different prescription.

I needed a nervous system shakeup. So I would encourage our viewers and our listeners to reach out for expert help a little earlier in the game. I waited until the symptoms were just so severe that really I could hardly function. I allowed life to shake me up instead of being in the driver's seat where I should have been.

Do you see that with a lot of women? They have trouble asking for help or reaching out?

L: Yes, yes. Again, it's really part of trying to do as much as possible independently and a bit isolated in that. Very challenging to admit that a woman needs help and men too, like this is very human to feel that maybe they're not really sure who to ask or what to ask, or should they even be putting this focus on themselves?

Because, you know, again, there's so many distractions.

C: And you feel self-centered or, you know, conceited, all these different kinds of things.

But the adrenal fatigue is real and it does set off this cascade of hormones that over the decades gets harder and harder, you know, to kind of schlep around.

So we've heard that the adrenals produce cortisol, but what about their role in serotonin production?

L: So with the serotonin piece, you know, serotonin is created in a few different places. So even like, of course, in the brain. And so if the stress hormones are interfering with the brain, the nervous system function, it can affect serotonin levels there and also in the gut.

So serotonin also is produced in the gut because the gut is our second brain. Like we have as many nerve endings in the gut as we have in the spinal cord.

So there is a connection there And things that we can do to help promote, well, not only serotonin insura, but also, you know, dopamine, endorphins. Like these are, I see them as a complement of feeling good. We do need to protect our ability to create those things.

And that's through these mindfulness snacks can help. with the complement of things like endorphins and serotonin and dopamine together can make a big difference. Movement, walking, you know, anything. There's so many things we can do to help improve the whole complement of those feel-good hormones

C: Because you were mentioning so many nerve endings in the gut rather than the spinal cord, and that's where a lot of our autonomic nervous system that governs the parasympathetic nervous system, that's where a lot of that messaging is coming from, from the gut up to the brain, right?

L: That's right.

C: And we all try to eat healthy. But as stress levels get more and more stubborn to shift, I know that I sought comfort in food. You know, you've had a you've had a long day and maybe it's been a great day. Maybe you've been out shopping with friends or you've been whatever. But at the end of the day, you're feeling that stress load because it is stressful being out shopping with friends, even though it's fun and your system just needs needs some comfort.

So I would reach for, you know, some comfort foods. You know, sometimes it's carbohydrates. Sometimes it's, you know, something salty and fatty. I used to celebrate good times and numb out and tough times.

L: I'm with you, Cheryl. I mean, we're all human. We all have those moments. I love chocolate and I love, you know, having something like that, like a little salty and crunchy. I mean, my goodness, like, like you're, you're definitely on the same wavelength as I would have.

And especially if we are tired, you know, and there's not a lot of time to prepare a meal. And I've talked to so many women. who find themselves in these situations.

And so I just see a lot of, I have a lot of compassion in these moments because I do realize, again, a very human, very like real reality based experience for so many women.

And so I see nutrition as a work in progress, like, you know, just to, if we can do away with some of that judgment or even like, you know, has to be a certain way, but bring more compassion and realize that I always tell everybody I work with, like nutrition is a work in progress.

It's like making these little adjustments over time. You may fall off. I fall off, you know, and then we get back on the path and we try again.

So, and we learn things and sometimes even, in this life path, even with nutrition, you know, maybe something you were ready for now, you weren't ready for before with nutrition.

So it's about alignment too. So I'm very much mindful about that and just keeping the encouragement going and like whatever support people need in their nutrition.

So that's what I would share with you too, Cheryl. You probably are in a different place now than you were two or three years ago, even with your nutrition.

C: I've learned a lot in the last couple of years, but Dr. Laura, it's so nice, so reassuring to hear that if we come to see you, like we're still gonna be able to have maybe some chocolate once in a while. You're not gonna take away all of our comfort at once because you and I both understand that changes are best tackled in these tiny bites.

That glorious nervous system we've been talking about will fight tooth and nail to keep things the same that it already knows. If things stay the same, the nervous system knows what to expect and not too much effort needs to be expended. If we keep things the same, we can be very efficient with our energy.

So really trying to change, like throwing out carbohydrates or trying to be perfect with your diet is actually causing you stress, right?

L: I am really, truly mindful of this. So speaking of a mindfulness practice in my own work, And a humanistic practice because, you know, there's this, which is very much realistic. It's very much about meeting people where they're at. It's acknowledging that this is a work in progress. It's small steps because I find the stepping stones are often a lot more sustainable over time. And it's also identifying that sometimes these extreme changes in diet, they can create a lot of pressure for people.

They can create a lot of stress and there's counter wills. You know, you don't want me to eat that. Well, you know, give it a few weeks and you know, that's going to come on full force.

So it's really that delicate balance. Of course, I work with people who may have food allergies. And these are other contexts that we navigate. Even in those situations, I'm very mindful about like, telling people to completely cut things out. You know, again, it's by person to person relates to what's happening.

But yeah, I'm with you, Cheryl, like, small, small, achievable things, tiny steps and a lot of compassion.

Because we're learning as we're doing things. And even when we fall off track, like we learn something every time.

So we just use that as a source of like moving ourselves forward rather than getting stuck in the judgment or stopping ourselves in our tracks.

Let's just like take a deep breath. It's a bit awkward, kind of like a yoga posture that you're not comfortable in, right?

C: And you don't have to hold a yoga posture if it's genuinely not right for you.

Let's just kind of move on to actual menopause transition. There are natural supports.

Now, full disclosure, I went through a number of options naturally and made the decision with my doctor and after researching carefully to go on pharmaceutical hormone therapy for menopause. But there's a ton of things that you can do before you make that decision just to see if your body reacts well to these different natural approaches, right?

L: Cheryl, there's a place for all of the treatments. You know, every woman is so different. Every person's health history, background, and current health is so different.

So, yeah, although, you know, there are lots of natural options, but we have to always see how does it change quality of life for a given woman?

So it's okay.

C: So the hot flashes were really crazy for me. They were making the sleeplessness from perimenopause even worse. And once you don't sleep, then you really can't function.

So getting support with all of that, talking to somebody who really understands what's happening and giving you permission to do what's right for your body. This has been an amazing conversation.

I know I've learned a lot, Dr. Laura. Thank you

Now, we're going to include the booking address in the show notes in case anybody wants to follow up with you and ask more personalized questions.

Are there any other resources that you would like included in the show notes, Dr. Laura,

L: We have our Win health clinic Instagram, which is a variety of different things we do here at the clinic. And oftentimes between the two, there's some really great health resources. We'll post blog posts on the clinic Instagram page. So that's links back to our website.

And there's a number of different articles that have been written. And many of them are naturopathic based, like either for myself or my colleagues. So we give a lot of resources through our website that are free. So you can find a bunch of stuff there for sure.

Get the seasonal newsletter

And thank you so much, Dr. Laura, for taking time because I know you're busy and us offering this to our community.

Namaste.

C: Welcome!  This is the Midlife Reset podcast, episode number 10!  I’m Cheryl Gordon.  I am dedicated to educating midlife women about sleeping better, losing weight and feeling stronger.  

Now here’s an embarrassing question.  Do you pee when you sneeze?  Do you avoid jumping or running for that same reason?  Do you spend way too much time in bathrooms in your life?  I totally get it!  My incontinence, which nobody knew about by the way, was affecting my life.  I stopped going for walks with friends because I was embarrassed how often I had to squat behind bushes!  

Sound familiar?  I am excited to share with you today that many of those issues have faded a lot due to the wonderful woman you are about to meet.  This is my pelvic floor physiotherapist, Marie-Eve Knackers!

M: Hello!  This is awesome to be here and spread the word.

C: We have so much to talk about.  Getting fed up with the pee thing happened in 2019.  I was at a yoga conference with a much older colleague.  I offered her the room closest to the bathroom because I figured she’d have to get up to pee more than me.  She declined by saying, “I just tell my bladder it’s not time”.  Yeah right!  But it got me to thinking.  Maybe this wasn’t a given that I had to pee constantly.  I asked around for recommendations and Marie Eve was my girl.

Get the complete one hour class FREE here.

We think of our bones as solid structures. They hold us up! But in reality, bone tissue is some of the most dynamic in the body. It’s changing all the time.

As we age, hormonal and other lifestyle changes can cause our bones to change in less than healthy ways. Our bones can become more porous as in the case of osteoporosis. We often don’t have any outward symptoms. Until there is some weird, unexplained pain and the X-rays reveal a fracture. Then the fear of God is dumped on us. Don’t move this way! Don’t do this or you’ll snap in two!

In other cases, our medical team is alert and orders a bone scan. Then the risk of osteoporosis shows up. Again, the fear is around taking medication and other techniques to try and preserve what bone we have.

All in all, it’s a lot of scary stuff. This workshop is about addressing that fear. This is your greatest enemy… not your diagnosis.

Movement is ABSOLUTELY essential to maintaining your wellness. This is true for every body but especially true when your body has a diagnosis.

How Yoga Contributes to Stronger Bones

Many of my clients have had well meaning clinicians advise against yoga. With all due respect, my expertise is in guiding movement. I have to know what is safe and what isn’t for my clients. Other clinicians may have an area of expertise in reading the scans or knowing the pharmaceutical options. They may not have 20 years + of experience almost exclusively guiding movement.

Yoga is amazing practice for those with osteopenia and osteoarthritis. The practices may look a little different from what’s in the magazines but the main benefit that yoga has over all other forms of exercise is the mindfulness. Staying focused and present with your current activity builds balance. It’s not the porous bones that kill you… it’s the fall.

Yoga is also weight bearing. It focuses a lot of attention on the core, breathing and supporting the spine.

Understanding Bone Health

Bones are living tissues that constantly undergo a process of breakdown and rebuilding. They provide structural support, protect vital organs, and store essential minerals such as calcium and phosphorus. Bone density refers to the strength and compactness of bones, which naturally decreases with age if not properly maintained.

Osteopenia is the early stage of bone density loss, where bones become weaker but are not yet fragile enough to break easily. Osteoporosis is a more advanced condition in which bones become porous, brittle, and more prone to fractures, especially in the spine, hips, and wrists.

Bone loss can be influenced by multiple factors, including aging, hormonal changes (such as menopause-related estrogen decline), inadequate calcium and vitamin D intake, lack of weight-bearing exercise, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and certain medical conditions or medications that affect bone metabolism. These include corticosteroids (e.g., prednisone), which can reduce bone formation; certain anticonvulsants, which affect vitamin D metabolism; proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) that interfere with calcium absorption; and some antidepressants and thyroid medications that can impact bone density over time.

Benefits of Yoga for Bone Health

* Improves balance and coordination to prevent falls. As mentioned earlier, the key factor here is the concentration and mindfulness required for poses. Yoga is the opposite of multi tasking! The brain will think what it’s been trained to think. In the practice, you train the brain to really sense where your body is in space and time (proprioception). It becomes habitual. You don’t have to really think about where to step on that icy step or how to catch yourself if you do trip. Your brain has been practising this during your poses.

* Enhances posture and alignment - another thing you practice in poses, especially when they are executed mindfully, is how to stack the bones in the most efficient way. Take Mountain Pose. It’s not just standing around. It’s consciously sensing how the hips align over the legs and where the weight is in the feet and how the shoulders settle above the pelvis, etc. This also builds proprioception.

* Strengthens muscles that support bones - skillful execution of asana means engaging muscles in specific and novel ways. Does your teacher ever say things like “wrap the muscle around the bone” or “feel the gluteus muscles contract”? These kind of cues build awareness of how to activate muscles for pure movement. It’s not just flinging dumb bells around (which is great exercise too - if done mindfully). When muscles contract, they pull on the bone tissue which stimulates growth. Paying attention as that contraction affects the bone makes it all the more powerful. The same exercise done the same way all the time loses its effectiveness over time.

* Promotes flexibility without strain - fluid movement is confident movement. Yoga stretches should be kind of boring. Stretches that create strong sensation, big dramatic effect, may be over doing the work on the connective tissue. This can lead to joint instability. The key to safe yoga, especially as we age, is to discern exactly where the sweet spot is in any given movement. Goldilocks type movement. It’s just right.

Safety Guidelines for Yoga and Bone Health

* A little bit of impact can be quite helpful to stimulate bone growth. This would be like the common pressure from walking or even a little hop. So you can still do the common Sun Salute A with a jump through for example, if that’s in your practice already.

* Avoid binds. When using a strap, allow lots of room. It’s better to come into twists and forward folds just using your muscles on their own rather than pulling to reach something.

* Focusing on slow, controlled movements. This allows lots of time for the brain to process the full impact of the movement. A slower pace aids proprioception.

* Using props for support. The biggest set of postures that, I feel, absolutely must use props are seated. For example, the simple seated twist must be done with a vertically aligned spine. Hip joints MUST be higher than knees for the pelvis to provide a stable base for the spine. This often means a chair but sometimes a block or blanket might do. A good rule is to maintain neutral spine as often as possible in postures. Most forward folds will require modification.

* Move into the practice with curiosity and confidence. Every time you hit the mat, it’s a new day. It’s natural for the poses to evolve and change as we do. It doesn’t have to mean that we’re old or weak. I like to think of this time in my life as my wisdom years. And I get to be the biggest beneficiary of my repository of knowledge. In other words, get over it and just be yoga.

Best Yoga Poses for Bone Strength

* Most standing poses (ie Warrior II) strengthen legs and hips. Avoid variations that ask you to join hands behind the head or back. If there is leaning forward in a pose, such as pyramid pose, only go as far as you can maintain neutral spine. Use a chair seat or blocks instead of aiming for the floor.

* Balance poses, like Tree Pose challenge your concentration and improve proprioception. They build confidence. After all, each walking step involves balancing on one leg. Keep a chair handy just in case you do wobble a bit too much that day.

* Spinal extension postures like Bridge Pose, Camel, Cobra, Locust and Bow can be helpful to strengthen spinal and hip muscles. Again, avoid clasping hands and use a strap in Bow to connect hands and feet so there’s lots of ease.

* Forward bending is a group of postures that is commonly in the avoid category. Caution is necessary but the functional movement is part of our lives. The main caveat is to forward fold without load on the spine. For example, cat/cow done slowly with breath is ok. Angling the body forward in pyramid, as mentioned earlier, is ok as long as you maintain neutral spine and use props. Child’s pose with arms extended out front and support under the head is preferred compared to the traditional version where the spine is flexed.

* Twists are safe if one maintains a vertical spine. I like standing twists where the arms move freely. Seated twists are best done with a chair in most cases. Focus on using the oblique muscles to execute the twist to build core strength.

Poses to Avoid

* Deep forward bends and twists where you are trying to achieve a certain shape or have expectations can be dangerous. These movements are natural in life but do the poses gently with lots of kindness.

* High-impact aerobic style movements are contraindicated. A little bit of bounce (ie seated in chair and lightly stomping your feet on the floor) can actually be helpful.

* Extreme backbends especially if you are trying to clasp hands or reach feet. When extending the spine, you’re looking for a gentle, even curve the whole length. The pose should ALWAYS be easeful and soft in which to breathe.

* Poses that put excessive pressure on wrists or spine. Down dog is accessible but many people will find better freedom in the pose by using a chair. Many other postures, like plank, can be done on forearms. Using blocks under the forearms in poses like table are also freeing.

* It’s not necessary to takes arms above the head in chair pose or warrior 1 for example. Explore modifying poses by placing hands in prayer or cactus arms.

* Standard Shoulder Stand is out. Way too much pressure on the cervical spine. Try Viparita Karani instead. Headstand on forearms may be appropriate if alignment is meticulous and you are very experienced with the posture. Using a wall for inversions may prevent falls.

Incorporating Yoga into Daily Life

* Practice regularly with consistency. Remember the brain is learning while you are doing, or not doing, your activities. We learn best with repetition. Regular practice builds proprioception.

* Strength training can complement your yoga practice. I lift weights focusing on my breath and with mindfulness. Yoga postures are weight bearing especially planks, bird dog, warrior poses, bridge and locust.

* Consulting a healthcare professional to build the best diet for you. It’s not just about piling on calcium. It’s worth investing in a registered dietitian or naturopath to get customized recommendations.

* Commit to the full practice of yoga incorporating daily relaxation (such as restorative yoga) and meditation. Use mindfulness tools like the 3 minute breathing space and journaling to manage overall stress levels.

Summary of key points

* Movement is ESSENTIAL to living a full, strong life. Allowing the fear around your diagnosis is the fastest path to limiting your longevity. Have confidence in your natural intuition and wisdom. You are the world’s expert in your body. Build a kind, attentive relationship with your body’s sensations. This is the best path forward.

* Yoga is safe but you need to broaden your practice to include using props, moving more mindfully and rooting out any outdated expectations of your poses.

Try this complete yoga practice to get you started.

Find more resources at www.cherylgordonyt.com

Sign up for my newsletter to learn of new resources right away.