Regain control of your hormones
Our focus for this Season is the 4 Ms (Monthlies, Miscarriage, Maternity and Menopause) and I'm delighted to welcome Nicki Williams as my guest. Today, we'll be talking about how to regain control of your hormones.
A big thank you to The Surrey Park Clinic for sponsoring this season. Many of us don't prioritise our health. Whether we are juggling work, home-life or family, we often put our health concerns to the bottom of the list. But going through periods, gynae concerns, fertility problems, pregnancy and menopause can be physically and emotionally draining and can affect our confidence. The Surrey Park Clinic can help and will put your health first. Open 6 days a week and offering both virtual or in-person consultations, they are offering our listeners 10% off all initial consultations when you reference this podcast. To find out more, call 01483 454 016 or visit www.thesurreyparkclinic.co.uk.
About this episode
Our focus for this Season is the 4 M’s which are Monthlies, Miscarriage, Maternity and Menopause, and how these can affect women at work. I’ll be talking to some incredible women and experts from around the world to share their real-life stories, advice and tips, to inspire you in your career.
It is my absolute pleasure to welcome Nicki Williams as my guest today. Nicki is an award-winning nutritionist, author, speaker, women’s health expert and founder of her business, Happy Hormones for Life. Having been a client of Nicki’s in the past, I’m delighted she’s joining me today to talk about the impact of hormone imbalances in working women, and her advice and tips on how to ‘Regain control of your hormones’.
Resources
The Surrey Park Clinic: The Surrey Park Clinic is offering our listeners 10% off all initial consultations when you reference this podcast. To find out more, call 01483 454 016 or visit www.thesurreyparkclinic.co.uk.
Nicki’s website: https://happyhormonesforlife.com/
Nicki’s book 'It’s Not You, It’s Your Hormones': https://happyhormonesforlife.com/book-info/
My Confidence Matters Hormone Hubs: A major obstacle for women at work is dealing with the 4 Ms – Monthlies, Miscarriage, Maternity and Menopause. The symptoms and side effects of all of these can be debilitating, impact a woman’s confidence and can lead to many days of sick leave, taking extended time off work or leaving the workplace altogether. Our Hormone Hubs are eight-week virtual group coaching programmes delivered on Zoom for up to eight women at a time to support your women with coaching, health and wellbeing support, access to specialists and providing a support network of colleagues. They can be run as a Menopause Hub, Monthlies/Period Hub, Maternity Hub and/or Miscarriage Hub depending on the needs of your organisation. Get in touch to find out more.
Episode transcript
Joy Burnford: Hello, Nikki, and welcome to The Confidence Conversation.
Nicki Williams: Hi, Joy. Thanks so much for having me.
Joy Burnford: Brilliant to have you here. And I'm delighted that you're joining me on the podcast. As you know, you've helped me in the past with my own health issues. And when I decided to do this season on the four Ms, you're the first person I thought of to come on and chat to our listeners because you've got such amazing stuff to say about hormones. So thank you. You work with women a lot with who are struggling with their hormones. I thought perhaps we could start with you and tell my listeners a little bit about your personal story and how you've struggled with your own hormone imbalances over the years.
Nicki Williams: Yes, so we're going back a few years now in my early 40s. So I worked in corporate jobs from leaving uni up until my early 40s, and various roles but very kind of stressed, like most sort of corporate jobs there's a lot of stress in there, there's deadlines, there's responsibility, and I managed quite a big team and I'd had a baby. So I had my first child and went back to work. That was challenging. And then I got pregnant with my second child. And when I had her, I tried to do the same and I went back to work and my goodness was I hit. This was my early 40s so I ended up just on like I think it was on a robotic kind of routine of you know, never ending lists of what to do. You know, as women we try and have it all that way and as Jo calls it, the Superwoman syndrome, and I was definitely trying that, but I felt absolutely awful. I was absolutely flat out exhausted, I was stressed out, I was always overwhelmed and just foggy. My brain fog, I couldn't use my brain as I used to be able to use it. I was forgetful. I had a big, I thought it was big, tyre around my tummy, maybe not as much as other people thought. But for me, it was a huge problem. So I'd always had a weight issue in my life and could always get rid of it when I needed to. But this time, nothing was working. And actually I didn't really have much energy and wasn't very nice to be around, my husband will attest to that. My kids, you know, I had young kids and I wanted to be a fun mum, I wanted to be a happy mum, and you know, be a role model for them. And I was just completely opposite, I was moody, snappy, shouting at them all the time. Everything they did annoyed me. So I just wasn't very nice to be around really.
Joy Burnford: And I was fine but when number two comes along as well. I think you know, you can just about manage with one and then I had my second and it was like ‘oh my goodness me’. You know, you've got your second child who's then a toddler. Then you've got a baby as well and it's just the whole thing. I just found that very, very hard to do.
Nicki Williams: Well, it's even harder when you're in your 40s and you're in perimenopause, which I didn't know at the time. But you know, I was 42, my daughter was about six or seven, I got home from work one day and I was standing at the kitchen sink washing up, had fed them the usual rubbish because back then, I didn't know how to feed my kids properly. Anyway, the usual stuff and I was standing at the kitchen window washing up looking out into the dark night and thinking I've got a report to write tomorrow for my boss. I literally cannot think, I can't function, I'm just flat out exhausted. All I want to do is sleep. And my daughter came rushing in the room with a picture shew drew at school of a giraffe as she knew that was my favourite animal. She thought I'd be really happy to see her. She ran into me, mummy, I've drawn this picture and I whipped around and my first reaction was to tell her to go away. I just said not now Sasha. And her little face crumpled, her eyes started to cry. And I just knew then at that point that was a particular low for me. I felt she literally said, Mummy, why are you always so grumpy?
Joy Burnford: This is so familiar.
Nicki Williams: So I thought I need something about this right now. So of course, I phoned my doctor and sat in the appointment for the usual 10 minutes reeling off all my symptoms. And you know, was a little bit teary to be fair, because I was fed up. And of course, the prescription was for Prozac, which was the antidepressant of the day, couldn’t give me any other option. And I went out of that surgery with this prescription looking at it going, yes, I'm upset. Yes, I'm feeling low. But I don't think it's depression. You know, I've never had it before. We've never had a family history. I didn't know what that felt like. But I kind of knew what gut feeling it wasn't that. So I rang up my Dad. My dad was a hormone doctor, and I didn't know what that was, I had no idea what hormones were really other than you know, your monthly cycle. So I said Dad, the doctor wants to put me on Prozac, and I reeled off all my symptoms. And he said, no, it's your hormones. You're in perimenopause. And this is nearly 15 years ago. And I said, what did you say? Perimenopause? What? Because back then that word didn't exist, now there’s a lot more awareness around thankfully. But I didn't know what that was. And the fact that he'd said menopause. I thought you have to be really old to go through that. That's not me. I've literally just had my second kid, you know? And I’ll be honest, I didn't believe him. So he did the tests on me. We got tested because I needed to see it in black and white. I needed to see what was going on because I didn't really understand what he was talking about. So I got all my hormones tested, and most of them were on the floor, or they were all off. And I thought, it wasn't just the sex hormones either, my cortisol was flatlined, which meant you know how much stress I was under, my thyroid was borderline weak because your stress impacts your thyroid. My oestrogen was all over the place. And my progesterone was on the floor. So that was giving me an imbalance. And my blood sugar's were out. And I had low nutrient status as well, just to cap it all off. And I looked at this and I thought, oh, you know, actually, part of it was total relief, that it wasn't all in my head. I wasn't making this up. It wasn't depression, most of all, and it was this physical hormone imbalances. And I could actually see them on paper, and I could actually do something about it. So I said, Dad, what do I do about this? So he said, Well, you got to look after them. So what do you mean, look after them? What are you talking about? The right, you've got to eat these foods, and you've got to take these supplements, and you've got to manage your stress. And you've got to not cane it at the gym. And that was a bit of a nice thing to hear. And various other things that I kind of, it wasn't rocket science, but it was tweaking it towards looking after my hormones. And there were some things that were completely flipped, like stop going on those crazy diets that you're going on, that's not going to help at all, and eat more fat. And I was like, No, surely that makes you fat. No, it doesn't make you fat. It's going to help your hormones and all these things that we've been told in the past I did to, you know, really change for me. And as I started implementing them, within a few weeks, literally, the brain fog lifted, the energy came back, I was so much happier to be around. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't done these things. You know, I dread to think how patient my husband and kids would have been.
Joy Burnford: And think about all those women who are in that situation. And still in those situations now.
Nicki Williams: Oh, completely. And we see women all the time coming and saying, you know, if I hadn't have done this, or we hadn't worked with you, I literally, you know, I don't know where my marriage would have gone. And sometimes we were too late, you know, women have gone through this and it is too late for them. But you know, at least we can get them back to some sort of normality so that they can live a happy and fruitful rest of their life because menopause isn't the end, right? We all think we're told with post menopause. It's such a horrible label, isn't it? Who wants to be post menopause? It's just awful. It feels like you're an old hag.
Joy Burnford: I know!
Nicki Williams: We'll just call you an old hag and be done with it. Because what is that and you know, yes, you know, we're in our 50s I'm 54 going on 55. And I've got you know, a good hopefully our life expectancy is in the 80s for most women, so we've got a good 30 years post menopause to make that an amazing time, free of responsibility, free of children who may have gone off if you've had children, or you know, elderly parents may well have passed. So you've got this opportunity now to actually live life for yourself rather than having to having had you know, looked after everyone else for the rest of your life. So, for me, it's a very positive thing. And you know, our reward and our, like, the joy of what we do is getting women in a place where they can really, really thrive through those years instead of just getting by or just putting up with stuff that doesn't they don't have to put up with.
Joy Burnford: Absolutely. So that leads us nicely on to sort of tell our listeners what you now do to help and support women to regain this control of their hormones.
Nicki Williams: Yeah, so a lot of what we do is education. So education, inspiration, because women do need inspiration in terms of you know, what, a lot of women forget what it feels like to feel good. So they need to be inspired that they can feel better. And that's possible. Empowerment is absolutely key. So we empower women with what to eat, how to really look after themselves, so that they're going to get the best version of themselves out there. So I think a real mixture of all of that, but I mean, what that looks like is we offer free resources, so people can help themselves. I've got a book that they can read all about the hormones and how to look after them. And then we've got our one-to-one work where if women want to dive deeper, they can come in and get proper test done, and we can support them on that on what to do for their person, like that's the personalised medicine side. That's the personalised journey that women can go on and really find that missing piece of the jigsaw if they've tried everything else.
Joy Burnford: Amazing. So in your experience, what hormonal challenges do women typically struggle with? And how does this affect them at work? So obviously, we're talking to a lot of sort of corporate women, you know, how does this sort of play out in terms of day to day life for a lot of women?
Nicki Williams: Yeah, so I'm going to assume your audience is mainly women over 40, because you know, obviously, you've got the pre-menopause hormone issues of PMS, and there's hormone conditions like endometriosis, PCOS, but for the majority of women that we work with, they're past the 40 mark, and that is that perimenopausal journey. So symptoms. When people talk about menopause, it's been Menopause Awareness Month recently, and, and it's you know, there's this huge perception that managing menopause is just about hot flushes and HRT and that is it, you know, just it's hot flushes, get hot flushes, go and get some HRT and that's kind of put in a little box. Oh, my goodness, we know, there are over 40-50 odd symptoms associated with this stage. Because it's not just about oestrogen, progesterone, we've got 100 or so hormones running around the body. Any one of them if you go through perimenopause, and if one of those others 100 can be out of balance, they're going to cause different symptoms. So HRT is one solution. But it may not be, you're going to need to have to work on all those others as well. So symptom wise, we're looking at, you know, fatigue, mood swings, slow mood, anxiety, poor sleep, weight gain, brain fog,
Joy Burnford: night sweats! That’s what I've suffered with a lot.
Nicki Williams: Yes, dry, itchy skin, hair loss, digestive issues. I mean, the list goes on and on. And so I think, you know, it's very easy for the doctors to get a little bit confused with medical symptoms, because there are so many, and they can actually cross over with so many other things. So it's really important to get to the bottom of what is causing your symptoms, because it may not be oestrogen progesterone, it may be something else.
Joy Burnford: Yeah. And I've spoken to a lot of women, obviously, I personally am going through perimenopause, as well. But I've spoken to a lot of women over the years, both through my work and for this podcast. And I know this can affect and have a massive impact on confidence levels. And so can we talk a little bit about that? And how that can, you know, sort of come to the fore in the workplace?
Nicki Williams: Yeah, absolutely. Confidence is one of the things that women generally struggle with anyway, let alone when they go through this phase where, you know, they may be having hot flushes, or embarrassing kind of hot flushes in the middle of a, in the office or on train, or in the middle of a meeting or a presentation, I mean, what could be the worst that could happen to you to literally just flooding with sweat. And when you're red in the face, it's embarrassing to be to have that happen. So your confidence can go down. Because, you know, you don't know when that's going to happen, you have no control over it. Low confidence can also be when you're not performing at work as well, because your brains kind of mixed up, it's harder to focus or concentrate, it's harder to problem solve, it's harder to be productive and creative. And you can forget things, you know, if you're working with clients, and you can't remember their name, or you can't remember the last session you had or any of those things, gosh, you know, you feel like you have lost yourself somewhere, who is this woman, you know, used to be sharp and savvy, and now you're a sort of a blithering mess because you can't think of the right word. And it that is going to decimate your confidence because you don't know when that's going to happen next and you don't know how that's going affect your performance. And if you're working for someone else, they might see that you’re not performing and then you're you know, if you're in a competitive environment with particularly men around you, that's going to you know, have an impact on how you feel about yourself. And the weight gain as well. Physical confidence. Women you know, want to look good, they want to be at their best and part of that is how they look and that's always where we've got a little bit of confidence from. So you know if your hair or your nails aren't right or you've put weight on and you can't shift it, you know, that's all going to affect your confidence in the way you show up. Yeah.
Joy Burnford: And as you know, I'm writing a book called ‘Don't Fix Women’ that's all about how we can not just leave it to the women to deal with these issues. I mean, obviously, we've got to deal with them, because they're our personal challenges. But, you know, I think sometimes if you're working in an environment where there are lots of maybe men around, it's more difficult, but if there's a different culture within an organisation, a sort of an open culture about talking about these things, I think that can often help, can't it because you can sort of say, Oh, that's my, when I say it all the time. Well, I can't remember that. That word that must be you know, that's my brain fog, kicking in or, oh, my, and I'm going to flush probably in a minute, because I'm going through this and actually be able to be honest about it and say, just sort of talk about it, and don't try and hide it.
Nicki Williams: Communication is so, so vital, it's the solution to pretty much everything in the world, isn't it communication around this and that your, what you're going through, and I think where it needs to come from in organisations is actually from the top. Imagine if your, you know, female bosses from the top are actually being very open about their symptoms, or how they're coping with or how they're not coping with things that would feed down the whole organisation and enable women to come out and talk about what they're going through and share stuff without having to feel like they're going to be judged or to disciplined for it. There was a recent survey that showed up that that women who were absent from work, I think it was around 80% of them said they'd lied for the reason because it was menopausal reasons. But they said it was a bug or something else. So you know, there's a there's a sense of shame, and there's a sense of embarrassment. And there's a fear that you're going to be judged or seen in a different light.
Joy Burnford: And I think that the increase of flexible working, hybrid working things that COVID sort of handed to us, in a way is really positive around things like you know, when women are feeling perhaps not so great, not such you know their best. And that's given an opportunity, I think, for this whole flexible working to work for women, I think we've got to try and keep hold of that. So that if somebody just wants to work at home, because they've got not necessarily menopausal, but you know, they've got a really heavy period or something. And they're really struggling. And they don't feel great, but they could sit at home and work. And I think that's a really positive that's come out of this whole flexible working. And I think my personal view is we need to do a lot to encourage organisations not to let that go, and actually not to revert back to how it used to be with, you know, women wanting to work from home and men to go into the office.
*** Joy Burnford: I do hope you’re enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a moment to tell you a little bit more about my reasons for doing this podcast. At My Confidence Matters our mission is to advance gender equality through building confidence and capability. I’m passionate about enabling every woman to have the confidence to progress in their career, and I love talking to, and sharing women’s stories to inspire others. This podcast forms a small part of what we do, and if you think there’s room for improvement in the way your organisation understands and manages the issues, barriers and obstacles that women face in the workplace, please do get in touch or tell your HR contact about us.
And don’t forget, if women’s health issues are impacting you at work, the highly experienced team of specialist fertility and women's health consultants, nurses and sonographers at The Surrey Park Clinic are offering you 10% off all initial consultations when you reference this podcast. ***
Joy Burnford: Just to still sort of keep you on the subject of organisations, what would you advise women to do who want to talk to their line manager or employer about what they're experiencing? And how can they go about, you know, raising it? And what support could they ask for?
Nicki Williams: So first of all line manager if they are receptive, so you may not want to talk to your line manager depending on the relationship you have with them. And you know, whether what gender they are and whether they would understand. So a lot of women are reluctant to do that. So that would be the first time if you can talk to your manager do that, because then they can raise that as an issue. But also, you know, be very open about how it's affecting you, and what kind of support you're looking for as well so that they can go and get that for your champion. But if you can't speak to your line manager, it's really important to speak to other women in the organization's colleagues that may be going through similar things. And then maybe HR or the wellbeing, a lot of companies have wellbeing divisions now or set up, so you can go along and say, look, there's a lot of us in this situation. We'd love to either set up a support group or have a menopause champion or have somebody come in and talk to us about what we can do to help ourselves, there's so many resources out there now. There are companies dedicated to going into organisations and teaching them how to support women, both on a personal level but also within the organisation because it's absolutely needed. Because this sector of the workforce, women between 40 and 55, as you know Joy, is the fastest growing in the UK. So there are more and more women needing this support. It's not going away.
Joy Burnford: Yeah, exactly. And actually, I don't know if you know, but I'm working with Karen Skidmore, at the moment, we're developing a, what we're calling hormone hubs. And it's going to be a sort of menopause hub. So we're going to be going into organisations to run eight week, coaching programmes, group coaching programmes for women, in organisations, because we just feel that there's this such a need for this group coaching, support, space, safe space to be able to talk about these things. So hopefully, if anybody is listening and wants to hear more, let me know.
Nicki Williams: The link as well with mental health, because we know that mental health has been fully, you know, really well supported now more than it was before. And the menopause is the same kind of going the same way. And there's so many crossovers with menopause and mental health that, you know, need supporting in its own right, but there are many crossovers too.
Joy Burnford: Definitely. So when we last spoke you, you talked a little bit about your tips and advice that you can offer women and I know you talk I think it's called the four step code, is it, diet, stress, sleep exercise environment, I wondered if we could talk a little bit about each of those to give some practical advice.
Nicki Williams: Yes, of course. Hormones basically need certain things for them to work properly. So you know, to be produced or transported, eliminated, we need they need nutrients they need, the first step is eat. So we're going to look a little bit about what sort of things we need to be eating. The second step is rest because your body and your hormones need you to switch off that cortisol response at least once a day. And the third is cleanse. And so that's where your hormones need to sort of really clean environment, they don't need more disruptors coming in. And fourth is move where your hormones need an active body. So we go back to step one is eat. And this is where we want to be starting to think about food as information rather than calories. Then when I first looked into this, I was like, we don't have to count calories anymore. That's amazing. Because calories in calories out is assuming your body works like a cash machine. And sort of you know, it doesn't work like that your body is almost like a chemistry lab. So every food you eat has a different biochemical reaction in the body. So we're looking for foods with the right nutrients to support your hormones. And of course, you know, that's generally a healthy diet, meaning lots of healthy fats that we can eat now, good quality protein and the sort of low sugar carbs. So complex carbohydrates that will lend not disrupt your blood sugar too much because blood sugar balance is one of the key things that dictates a lot of how we feel. If we're blood sugar balances out and it's going up and down all day long, we're going to feel really tired, groggy, foggy, and we're going to be putting on weight so there's a lot of things we can do with blood sugar that will stop us going on that roller coaster and make us feel better in almost immediately. So that can be done so straightaway, if you're going to do anything just start to balance your blood sugar, and that starts in the morning. You know the traditional breakfast is cereal, toast, fruit, or a fruit yoghurt type thing and orange juice you know that's the last thing you're going to need if you're if you'd want to avoid that blood sugar rollercoaster. So we want to be looking at protein like eggs or natural yoghurt nuts, seeds, berries, which is a very low sugar fruit. And you know if you're going to have porridge oats are good but you don't want to be completely filling your bowl with honey and maple syrup on top of that. So you know using the fruit as your sweetener, maybe a little bit of honey but it's really, really important that you don't overload your blood sugar in the morning. And then certain foods can really help with hormones. So things like phytoestrogens, which are the plant oestrogen foods, which are very similar to our own oestrogen and they lock on the receptors and they help to balance oestrogen whether it's too high or too low. It's kind of I like to think of them as Mother Nature's little oestrogens. And you find those mostly in soy. So not all soy is equal. We want to be looking for organic soy. So organic soy milk yoghurt, plain yoghurt, not the fruit ones because they're too much sugar in there, tofu mizo, edamame beans, that sort of soy is really full of these phytoestrogens. And if you can't eat soy because some people are a little bit intolerant, you can get supplements. They're not to be taken with HRT, though, because they do a little bit of a similar job much, much less potent. But for those people who can't take HRT or don't want to for any reason, then they're a really nice, natural alternative. And then things like we want to be upping our fibre we want to be making sure we're drinking enough water I mean it's not rocket science, but it's often, we forget.
Joy Burnford: All the things we know we should be doing but it's really hard.
Nicki Williams: Really hard to remember it all. Yeah, and also to do things when you're stressed and tired out. Yes, absolutely. But you know, this is where kind of a little bit of planning comes in. You know, when you go shopping don't buy the crap, just don't buy it and so when you know if you haven't got it in the house, you're not going to probably not going to make the effort to run to the shop and get that.
Joy Burnford: And it's changing habits, isn't it? I know and we spoke was it back in 2018 I think we first had a conversation about this and I switched to almond milk in the morning with my cereal. I still have muesli but I have it you know with almond milk and I love it and actually it's become part of my habits, my pattern, my daily routine, and it's something that's been easy to fix. And I think that's the challenge is finding something that's an alternative that you really like. Because if you don't like it, it's not going to happen. And it's changing those habits.
Nicki Williams: And everyone different there is no one diet fits all for everyone, you’ve got to find what works for you. Because some people like, you know, don't do well on dairy or gluten, others are fine with it. You know, some people have to be careful with certain foods. So, or caffeine if you've got hot flushes. So you know, there are certain triggers that you want to be avoiding if those are your symptoms. So for everyone, it's going to be slightly different, obviously, because we're all unique.
Joy Burnford: So we've talked about the first step. So that's diet, and what was the second one?
Nicki Williams: Rest. So this is where, you know, cortisol has such a dominating effect on all your other hormones. So cortisol is our main stress hormone. So of course, we're pumping out cortisol left, right and centre this in this modern life of ours, with everything that we were thrown at. So cortisol is one of our main issues. And for me, it's one of the main determinants of how well you'll go through menopause is how much cortisol, you're pumping out how stressed you are. And it's not necessarily just external stress, it's internal stressors, too. So the fact that your hormones are imbalanced is a stress, the fact you may have food sensitivities or stress on the body, if you've got an underlying infection in the gut, that's a stress on the body. Blood sugar imbalance is a stressor on the body, there's lots of toxins, there's lots of different things that are stressing you on the inside. But also, there's external stressors that we can see. So there's a whole array of different stressors that we're exposed to, we can't change that necessarily, but what we can do is manage our response to that. And that means switching off because in the old days, when we were, you know, attacked by a lion, we'd kick in our fight or flight response. And we'd either fight or fight, fight or flight, flee. And then we the danger would be passed, and we'd go and rest in our cave for the next day or two, knowing that, you know, we're good, we're safe, we've survived. But we don't get that rest time anymore. And our evolutionary stress fight or flight response is exactly the same as it was when we were being attacked by lions. Now we get attacked by micro stressors every single second of the day. So from the time your alarm goes off to, you know, getting to work, getting stuck in a traffic jam every single minute of the day. So there's a little micro stress going on. So we don't get the chance to go sit in our caves anymore. So we have to build that into our routines now. And of course, we can't do that for days on end. So we want to build in time per day, so even, but the research suggests that just you know, 15 minutes a day can really help to balance out that cortisol response. So for especially for us midlife women that are bombarded by stress more than everyone else, then you know this bit is this piece is really, really important. I'd say it's even more important than the diet right now. Because if we do if we don't switch off that cortisol response, that doesn't matter how good your diet is, you're still going to have symptoms,
Joy Burnford: Although don't do what I did. When we were in Milton Keynes with the kids a couple of weeks ago, I was on my own with the kids and I said at lunchtime I said I'm really tired. I've got to just switch off for half an hour, going to shut my eyes and I left the kids to do their own thing in the car. I pulled into this car park in Milton Keynes sat there fell asleep for half an hour and thought oh, well it's a pain to pay. So we haven't gone anywhere so I'm not going to pay, so I drove out the carpark and yesterday got a bill for £100 parking fine for my sleep, the most expensive sleep I've ever had. So just be careful where you have your middle of the day sleeps. Anyway, sorry, so moving on to your third step.
Nicki Williams: That is cleanse. And this is where we’ve just got to be aware. And this is about awareness, it's not preachy, or it's not scare mongering, it's just awareness of the chemicals that are around us, especially women because we have a lot of things that we liked that smell nice that we like to surround ourselves with like scented candles and air fresheners and products that smell nice. Because one of the big endocrine disruptors, they’re called endocrine disrupting chemicals for a reason because they disrupt our hormones. One of the biggest ones is something called phthalates, if you Google it, you'll see 1000s and 1000s of scientific studies on how it disrupts your hormones, your reproductive cycle, your health in general. So what they're doing is these chemicals is they're acting, they're mimicking oestrogen. So when we inhale, particularly these synthetic fragrances, candles, air fresheners, everything that smells nice that we like to put on, when we inhale, the chemicals go in the to the lungs and straight into the bloodstream, there's no gut or liver to filter them out. So we're not eating them, we're just inhaling it's the quickest way into the bloodstream, and then it’s in the body and it builds up. So we want to be really just trying to avoid too much inhalation of these chemicals. So you know the simple things we can do like switch to candles with essential oils instead of synthetic fragrances. So there's loads of companies now that do lovely candles, yes, they're a bit more expensive. But you know they are, if you think about them as a health aid, and that's your justification. Avoiding air fresheners because I haven't found one yet that you know, is not synthetic and doesn't do the job. So especially car air fresheners never put one in your car, you're literally in a confined space, you're going to be inhaling that, like some of those taxis I get in and I've got to wind down the window. And so synthetic fragrances is one and of course perfume falls into that.
Joy Burnford: I was so surprised when he told me that first I was like really?!
Nicki Williams: And perfume is has not just got phthalates in it, it's got all sorts of other things in there, someone's told me that there were over 300 chemicals in one spray. Now of course the skin absorption is another way of getting into the bloodstream pretty quickly. So you know, if you are, you know, desperately wanting to hang on to your perfume, which I you know, obviously have sympathy with then spraying it onto your clothes. And so your skin would just alleviate some of that, but just wearing it for special occasions rather than every day. And just minimising that exposure. Really, the next biggest one is pesticides, another very, very much a hormone disruptor. So the easy way to avoid that is to sort of buy more organic where you're eating the skins of things. So not necessary for things like onions and bananas that you peel. But where you're eating the skins like berries, apples, you know, salad leaves, try and get organic where possible, because otherwise you're ingesting those pesticides, and they're just going to build up and up, they're not going to kill you. But they're going to just be another piece of that little jigsaw. And then the last one is BPA in plastic. So plastics we know we're getting rid of, well slowly but surely for the planet, which is great. But it's also great for your hormones. So you know, we've got BPA in plastic that can leach into the food and water and then you're ingesting it straight away. And it's probably the number one endocrine disruptor. So those are the top three in terms of cleanse. And then the last step is move. And this one's about getting the right balance for you. Because every single person will be individual in this respect in terms of your fitness levels and your own whatever's going on for you. But we want to be finding the nice balance between the two extremes being sitting all day. And over exercising, because those two things are stressful. So we want to be somewhere in the middle, along a line of wherever, whatever works for you. So for me, it's a mixture of walking outside, I can't run anymore, my joints have gone but they're not. They're still there. But it's not good for my joints. I do yoga, which is amazing for your hormones, because it just ticks all the boxes. And then I do some sort of weights resistance as well, because that's really important for your muscle mass because we lose it so much as we get older. So though that works for me, I've got my bike, as well as my indoor bike for a little bit of cardio. But I don't go mad on that. Because, you know, I want to make sure because my cortisol has always been a problem for me. So I want to make sure that I'm not over pumping the cortisol by doing too much.
Joy Burnford: Brilliant. Wow, there's a lot to take in there. So if people want to find out more, they've obviously got your book, which is Happy Hormones for Life.
Nicki Williams: It’s called ‘It’s Not You, It’s your Hormones’. And it’s actually just been updated as well. So with the latest on you know, all the natural bioidentical HRT formulas and all of that stuff that people ask a lot about, and supplements and all of that. So it's just been updated.
Joy Burnford: So where should people find you.
Nicki Williams: If you go to the website, there's links to the book on there, that's probably the easiest place to go to. If you go to www.happyhormonesforlife.com and you just click Start Here, you'll get all the different free resources that we give. We've got the hormone balancing guide, there's a quiz there as well, magazine, and the book, there's a contact page for anybody who wants to go a bit deeper and look at testing.
Joy Burnford: And I know I get your newsletter, which you always have some lovely blogs and videos and things which always give me some lots of interesting ideas and thoughts for the day. So brilliant. Thank you. Thank you so much, Nicki, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast today. I'm sure the listeners would have really enjoyed it.
Joy Burnford: And that’s it for this week. Thank you very much for listening and I’ll be back again soon with another Confidence Conversation. If you know anyone who might find this podcast useful, please do pass on the link and it would give me a real confidence boost if you could subscribe, rate and leave a written review (on Apple podcasts here or on Podchaser here). If you like what you’ve heard, sign up for updates where I’ll be sharing tips and notes from each episode and you can send in your ideas for future topics.
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Thank you, and until the next time, bye for now.