5 Things To Do In Perimenopause

I'm Dr. Amy Shah, and welcome back. This is episode number four. I can't believe we've already gone through four episodes. This is the fourth one. So, so grateful that all of you have been listening and for the feedback and get ready for another big one today. So want to thank truly. First of all, because they're the first sponsors for my podcast, they have this amazing wellness shot that has turmeric and ginger and black pepper.

It tastes delicious, and I personally love it. I'm a huge fan of turmeric and ginger, black pepper. And when I tasted it, I was like, this is a winner. Because it's delicious. It's easy. It's like a powder you can just add to your water or you can take a shot of it in the morning. I truly loved it, and I told the team and they said, well, guess what? We would love to give your listeners 50% off. So all you have to do for you to try it is go to truly.com and put in my code.

Dr. Shaw, 50 and you get 50% off, which is an amazing deal. Thank you so much to truly because I gave you the feedback and you supported me on this journey. So thanks you. And let's get into it. The five top tips for perimenopause. So what is perimenopause? That's a big question. I think a lot of women are asking, or men, too, because perimenopause is never really defined in the literature and the media.

Perimenopause is the years before you hit menopause, and that can start as early as your late thirty s and go all the way into your. It's a huge. I mean, think about it. It can be a 20 year time frame. So people experience symptoms between ten to 20 years in perimenopause and can tell you that I'm personally in that perimenopausal zone, and it's not fun. There's a lot of things that happen that nobody really explains to you. There's a lot of nutritional things that we could be doing. And when I went to nutrition school, we never talked about menopause or perimenopause.

So you may do the things that I'm talking to you about today and prevent yourself from having a bad perimenopausemenopause. So this is really exciting. I think this is a topic that doesn't get talked about enough. In fact, when you look at the menopause textbooks, there's really not a section on nutrition. They're sprinkled in between everything. But I really think that this is an area that needs more focus. So I hope I'm going to give you some actionable tips, some steps that you can take to live a better life and have really a blossoming of your life during this time, rather than making it so painful and a time that you want to forget. Step number one, activate those heat shock proteins.

Okay. You might be wondering, what the heck are heat shock proteins? These are the proteins that are released when your core body temperature goes up. So this is why sauna therapy has been really recommended for people who are getting older, because heat shock proteins, when they're produced, they're anti inflammatory, they are able to boost growth hormone, they're able to activate pathways in your body that help with aging. In fact, there are even data that things like sauna can help you prevent heart disease and overall death. So we have a lot of data from Finland. So in Finland, everyone uses a sauna. Sauna is like a part of life. How cool is that, right? I guess because it's so cold.

It's a big part of life. They have these dry saunas, which a lot of you might know that you have at the gym, and they go all the way up to like 167 degrees fahrenheit, and that seems to be the right temperature. And these people who sat in saunas for 30 minutes, the highest users. So people who use it four to seven times a week had a market decrease, like a 50% decrease in cardiovascular disease. They also had a boost in growth hormone. Some of the studies show up to 500% increase in the growth hormone. So let me explain to you why I would even recommend this in perimenopause. Like, aren't you so hot you want to be cold? Yes.

They help you heal, they help you feel better, they help you look younger. So your own growth hormone is released in your body, especially when you sleep, when you weight train, when you eat healthy, and when you produce heat shock proteins. Heat shock proteins are something that you can get through sauna therapy. So, like I said, 30 minutes, ideally four to seven times a week, or you can do other forms of heat therapy. So hot yoga counts. Steam room, infrared saunas, all these other types of modalities that produce heat shock proteins can be a great way to boost growth hormone and prevent cardiovascular disease and overall death. We're just finding out more and more statistics about how heat shock proteins can be really great for your health. So it's something that you can add to your life that's relatively inexpensive or free, depending on if you have a gym membership that has it, or if you go to a place that already has hot yoga, or you participate in a workout in hot weather.

These are all ways that you can produce heat shock proteins, even hot baths. So there's good data from Japan that japanese hot baths are really a good way to produce heat shock proteins. At about 103 degrees, soak for about 20 minutes. I mean, this is an easy way for us to be improving our health. So that's step number one. Step number two, get your gut bacteria involved. Okay, what does that even mean? We have a gut brain connection, and as we get older, our gut bacteria, these big communicators, the ones that hold walkie talkies and speak to our brain and our hormones and the rest of our body, they start to diminish. And we think they diminish because as we start to lose estrogen, they start to die off.

There's a change in your microbiome during the years of perimenopause and menopause, where your hormone levels are fluctuating. So now we have less of this amazing army that helps us take nutrients in from food, that communicates with our brain, with our other hormones, that even produces its own hormones. Yes, I said it. They produce their own hormones. They produce neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. I mean, these bacteria are amazing. They're literally our partners. However, when we go through perimenopause and menopause, we start to lose that gut bacteria.

And so one of the things that you can do, a step that you can do to really transform your health, is improve the levels and the diversity of your gut bacteria. The gut microbiome is all kinds of microbes, so fungi, viruses, bacteria, and it is communicating all the time with your brain, then the other parts of your body. So if you want to feel better, like improve your mood, your energy levels, your cravings, your long term health, you want to improve the gut bacteria, you want to increase the number and increase the diversity, especially during these years of perimenopause, what a lot of people feel, they end up gaining weight, they end up having low vitamin D levels, they end up having high cholesterol levels. And all of these changes seem to be linked back to the change in the gut microbiome. So then you might be wondering, well, how the heck do I improve my gut microbiome? There's several ways, one of which know in studies, you can transplant gut bacteria from one person to the other, called fecal transplant, that is banned in the US, except for one condition called c. Difficile, which is a very severe intestinal infection. But barring fecal transplants, the best way to change your gut bacteria is through your diet. Nutrition is king when it comes to changing your gut microbiome.

You want to feed the bacteria that you have, so you want to feed them fiber, particularly in fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and really whole foods. So basically everything but your fried, processed junk food. And then you want to feed them probiotics so other bacteria can join them. So what does probiotics mean? Oh, does it mean take a pill? No, not necessarily. In fact, we think that when probiotics come with food in the matrix of food, they're more likely to reach the gut where they need to go. And if you're taking them just by a pill, your body knows, like, oh, my gosh, she's swallowing a whole bunch of bacteria. Let's go kill it. So it largely gets killed before going into the gut.

And so really, the best way to get bacteria into your gut is by eating it through food. So fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, probiotic, cottage cheese, yogurt, kombucha are all great ways to get more bacteria in your gut. So fiber, fermented probiotic food. By the way, some fermented food is not probiotic. So, for example, pickles, once they pickle them, they put them straight in the fridge. They're no longer probiotic. Old time pickles didn't need their refrigeration. Sorry that they let them ferment without refrigeration.

You want to feel fuller, you want to build muscle. Adequate protein is really important. During perimenopause, we're losing a lot of protein. Sorry, losing a lot of muscle. And so you want to be replacing that with weight training and by eating adequate protein so you can build muscle during this time, you really want to kind of mediate the loss. And so building that gut microbiome is so important. Try not to take antibiotics unless you absolutely need them. Don't use antibacterial cleansers or cleaners or antibacterial mouthwash.

Actually, antibacterial mouthwash has been linked to hypertension because people who use antibacterial mouthwash are killing the bacteria in their mouth, which seems to be essential in managing blood pressure. So we really want to minimize how much we kill the bacteria. Back in the day, even when I was in medical school, we really just wanted to kill all the bacteria. We didn't recognize how significant they are in helping us. Now we want to build as much bacteria. So nature time, spending time outdoors. There's something about being outdoors, you just catch more bacteria. Being around healthy people is actually a great way to build microbiome.

So you're sharing food or just being around them. You share a microbiome with the people that you spend the most time with. So choose wisely. And these are ways that you can build that gut health so that your hormone levels are better, your body composition is better, your mood is better, your energy levels are better, and as you age, you're less likely to develop diseases of aging. So that's that. The number three step to a better perimenopause is walking. Walking, preferably outdoors. But walking is one of the best ways for you to actually optimize your metabolism, to improve your mental health, to get an activity that is not very stressful to the body.

So during perimenopause, you think of yourself as kind of in a stressed state, and your body is less resilient to more stressors. So you don't want to be layering on very stressful exercise, whatever that means to you. Stressful. For some people, doing a hit class is not that stressful. For others. You really want to minimize how many hit classes you do a week. Maybe just once a week is what I recommend to a lot of people, because at this time, you're kind of not as resilient to stress. So you want to focus on activities like walking, like nature walking, that really keep your stress levels low and make you feel energized and also give you activity.

One of the biggest reasons women gain weight during perimenopause is because they aren't moving as much. So when they looked at studies about why women are gaining weight, yes, of course, it has to do with the changing hormonal levels. But they also found that women tend to walk less during these years. They just tend to move less. Whether it's responsibilities, whether it's your brain being more tired because you're not sleeping as well, whatever it may be, people are just less active than they used to be. And so asking them to do more walking, getting 10,000 steps or more is a great way to improve your mental health, your physical health, and prevent yourself from gaining those menopausal pounds. Being outdoors is the best way to walk because you get the nature benefits. I'm always telling everyone to get sunlight in the morning.

And doing your walk while getting sunlight is the optimal way to do walking. In fact, I tell people to do three f morning. So one is being fasted twelve to 14 hours. Second is fitness. So morning fitness outdoors is ideal. And then the third is food. Like I mentioned to you, the fiber fermented, high protein food. So get your steps.

If you can't get steps, do it some other way. Swimming, biking, dancing, whatever it is. But low stress movement is one of the best ways that you can improve your symptoms and feel great during perimenopause. Step number four, improve your circadian rhythms. Remember, sun sleep. Circadian rhythms matter. Getting sunlight in the morning, the morning is the best time to get it. But really getting light, any time of day, is really helpful in resetting your circadian rhythms and sleep.

Adequate sleep and sleeping at the same time every night. You will be shocked at how much your mood and energy levels improve when you improve your circadian rhythms. During perimenopause. A lot of people have a lot of sleep disturbances, and they're not really sure how to boost their energy levels. So I think it's more important than ever to really time yourself with circadian rhythms. The science behind circadian biology is just fascinating. In fact, the Nobel Prize in Medicine a few years ago went to the scientists that uncovered how circadian rhythms really run about 80% of our genes. So almost everything runs on a circadian rhythm.

I mean, it's incredible how nutrition is so powerful. It's literally medicine for your body. So when you are trying to optimize your nutrition in perimenopause, here's the tenets. You want to have at least 25 grams of fiber. If not like 35 grams of fiber a day on a free app like myfitness pal, you can track how much fiber you're having and you want to be at that level. Protein. So you want to be between 0.8 to 1 gram per pound, ideal body weight. I know that sounds like a lot, but it's really what you need to build muscle.

If you're someone who has special medical problems, obviously check with your doctor. But for a vast majority of you, this should be helpful. You want to eat omega three fatty acids. So for me, I don't eat fish, so I take algae oil. You want to take up to 3 grams a day of that, okay, vitamin D. You want to get it through foods or you can take a supplement. Especially if you're low, you may need to take a supplement. Magnesium.