Transcript of Episode #93 Featuring Dr. Sonya Jensen! The HORMONE Episode! Tune in for one of the most in depth hormone discussions you will ever hear! New

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She is absolutely tremendous, and I cannot wait to share so many things that she's doing. She is a naturopathic physician, an international speaker and author, which we're going to talk about quite a bit here, and an embodied healer. Now, what she does is guides women to reclaim their power through hormonal wisdom, emotional depth, and ancestral healing. But what I'm really excited about, and she is, too, is her new book. Now, she has something called The HEER Her Method, which is healing the hormonal, emotional, and relational loop. We're going to get into everything that she does, especially her new book. Her new book is called Heal Your Hormones, Reclaim Yourself. Without further ado, welcome Dr. Sonja Jensen.

Thank you for having me here.

Like I said, thank you for taking the time to come down here and see me. I'm always super flattered and appreciative when people are willing to come and talk to me. Like I said, I'm excited because once I learned about you and met you and learned about what you do and the impact that it has, it resonates with me and it's going to resonate with my audience tremendously. Let's get into this her method a little bit here. Did you develop this yourself? Because I love the acronym here, the synonym. Talk about me what that actually is and means and how you even came up with it.

I've been practicing since 2009, so I have seen thousands of women. I really started see that there was a theme that every woman was coming in with. Often, she would come in, talk about fatigue or low sex drive or irritability, anxiety. We'd start doing the physical work, but we couldn't do the physical work without doing the emotional. And you started to see that those two elements were affecting her relationship with herself, her relationship with her partner, her kids, anyone around her, her colleagues. I always knew that each one of these categories was so connected that we had to put the pieces together for a woman to understand how it's impacting her physical health, her emotional health, and then her relational health.

One of the things that I've really shifted my focus on, which aligns with you tremendously, is the mind and body connection, as opposed to where I was like a fitness, so much fitness and nutrition-focused and never took the time to really discuss, talk about, and honestly piece together how much the emotional side Whether it be stress-related emotional disturbances, which can be from hormonal imbalance, which we'll get into as well. How important is it to tie all of this together?

I think we see everything in life through the lens of our emotions, whether it's a movie that we're watching and it's the emotion that's giving us this feeling of joy or sorrow, whatever it might be, a conversation we're having or a trigger that we don't even know it's coming from. It could be a look that our partner gives us, and all of a sudden we're having these emotions show up, and then we're reacting to that emotion. When we're having these different phases of life go on, so whether that's puberty when our hormones are changing or her postpartum, when a woman gives birth or perimenopause, when her hormones are going wild and she's losing hormones or gaining, it changes how she's perceiving life and herself. It changes her emotional regulation. If she can understand that, she doesn't have the same shame and guilt that might show up if she doesn't understand it. If she does get irritated with her kids and not knowing where that irritation is coming from, she can pause and understand, Okay, I'm in my Luteal phase, or I'm burnt out. I haven't been eating as well as I could be to feed my hormones, and that's where that reaction is coming from.

There's nothing wrong with me. My biology has changed, my physiology is changing, and my body is just signaling to me that something needs some comfort, or we need to slow down, or we need some healing in different areas.

Here's what I'd like to do, because I haven't done this yet with anybody that I've talked to. I would like to go through a step-by-step type time frame for women. I understand this is selective. I'm talking about in general because I do know that there's always exceptions to rule. So anybody watching, I do understand that If you say, Well, this happened to me early, but I'm just a general timeline, when do women start to enter that, maybe start to downward slide into menopause a little bit? The perimenopause. The perimenopause stage, what age do you see that coming? Then in general, when would a woman expect to enter into menopause? What can you expect in perimenopause and then full-blown menopause?

Yeah, that's a great question. Like you said, it is very different for different women. Really in your 30s, you start to feel it. Usually in mid-30s to late, it's typically around 35. You start to notice changes. Maybe it's changes in your cycle, or maybe it's changes in how you're adapting to stress. They gain. There's going to be changes in libido. All of a sudden, you're just noticing something's off. It might be and might not be that apparent, like a hot flash or a night sweat, some of those typical things that you hear about that might come up after. But you will notice asking any woman, once she's reached 40, there's a switch that turns off and another one that turns on. She really starts to see herself in a very different way. So now her memory isn't as sharp as it used to be. That's something that's huge. Like the brain is starting to change. Her energy isn't as it was before. Her libido isn't there like it was before. She's changing in many, many ways over about a 10-year period, usually. Menopause, the way it's defined, it's usually you have your last cycle and one year later on day 356 is where...

Sorry, 66 is usually where they say, Okay, now you're in menopause, and after that day, you're postmenopausal. That transition period, the way I've defined it for a lot of women who have given birth, when you're giving birth, you're in labor, you're having contractions, all of a sudden, you go to this transition phase where your whole body starts to shake, and you feel like something's got to give, like something's going to explode. I don't know, I can't control what's happening, and all of a sudden, you give birth to this beautiful baby. And so perimenopause is like transition. Everything is shaky. Your hormones are going up, they're going down, sideways. You're questioning yourself, you're questioning relationships. You're starting to... There's this armor that your hormones give your brain and your body that's dissolving. So things that you weren't triggered by before, now all of a sudden, are triggering you. You're recognizing things about yourself that maybe you suppressed long time ago, dreams that you had that you didn't fulfill resentments that are coming up where you didn't use your voice. So all these things start to show up in this phase, and then women just don't know what to do with that.

Women will have depression more often, anxiety, divorces are higher during perimenopause. Cause. It's not that it's the hormone's to blame, but what's happening, there's just so much change that she's trying to understand herself again. You don't recognize who you are anymore.

Do you think there's a lot of confusion, a lot of regret, and a lot of just maybe almost creation of things that aren't there? Or is it stuff that was there that was just pushed aside? When somebody has very traumatic issue that they block out. Is there stuff like that going on? It doesn't have to necessarily be something traumatic, just things that were there that you blocked out, that now they're coming back?

I think it's both.

Okay.

I do think so. Even in In the book, I talk about generational trauma that maybe wasn't addressed, and there's patterns that got passed down. There's biology changed because of that generational trauma. When you don't have the armor of those hormones, you're more susceptible then to the trigger today. That trigger might be traffic. That trigger might be a tone that your partner is using that reminds you of how you felt in that moment where you didn't feel safe or you didn't feel heard. Then it triggers the emotion today, you not knowing that it's from the past, but it actually is because that past experience drives how your brain predicts how to react. Like, your brain is a predictor. It's not really responding to this moment. It's thinking back of like, Okay, what happened before? How should I respond so that I feel safe? The important thing to know about estrogen in that whole mix is that estrogen is declining in perimenopause, but estrogen equals emotional regulation. We have many receptors for estrogen in different parts of our brain, especially our amygdala, which suppresses fear. It helps us actually navigate fear. But what it also does when you go through a trauma, it gathers information.

Women are actually wired to look at cues in their environment, and estrogen is part of that. So you were asking that question of, could it be made up in that moment? It can be in a sense, because we're reacting to our past and not our present.

So one of the things that I've always talked about as hormones. That's one of my main areas of, I guess, expertise. I hate to say that, but one of the areas I talk about and that I coach on. And so with women, it's a little different because just like with men, there's estrogen to testosterone ratio, but then there's also the progesterone factor that goes into there, too, which has to be looked at. I guess this is a two-part question. One, do you struggle with women that have a misconception of testosterone, don't understand it, don't look at it? Two, how do all three of these intertwine together? What's the importance of the balance more so in menopause than there is in general with the three that I mentioned, progesterone, testosterone, and estrogen.

Yeah. Testosterone, for me, is always part of the conversation with my patients. I do think women are starting to understand that it's not just a male hormone. It even goes beyond just libido. It's for your motivation It's for drive. It's an antidepressant. Testosterone will come from DHEA, and so will estrogen. And estrogen and testosterone will feed into one another depending on what your body needs in that moment. When you start to understand the role of testosterone, and then you can understand what you need to do to support it. For everyone, it starts to decline around age 25, and it's starting to do this slow decline. It often isn't until we start to feel like the saggy underarms. We're trying to do all the triceps work and everything, and it's not working. Then when we know what's going on here. Like, well, that's your testosterone. It's sarcopenia. We're not getting that lean muscle mass because of that decline. So many things It will impact testosterone, including your blood sugar. There's that stress. Cortisol will influence it. There's such a dance that happens and a choreography between all of these hormones that we have to understand. It's very nuanced, especially for women.

In postmenopause, your estrogen is low, your testosterone is low, now your progesterone is low. If you've gone through life in a state of stress, in a state of burnout, your brain and your body are in a pattern of high stress, so high cortisol often. That cortisol comes from progesterone, which is the hormone that helps you feel calm. Now you're moving into this phase, feeling more anxious, low testosterone, feeling more depressed, low estrogen, not having emotional regulation. You're moving in with this vulnerability around emotional regulation. I think it's important to understand that you need to nurture all three of them to have more of that balanced state when you're postmenopausal.

When do you recommend for your people to start looking at blood panels? So your followers and people that are younger, especially Especially because I'm a very proactive person, and I have people running things quite early because there are things that you can find early that you may not know that were inherited genes, LP, little A, cholesterol, for example, things that could really kill you early. When do you start recommending for people to look at certain key markers to see, Man, there might be a little decline here?

It really depends on the woman that's in front of me. But even women that I see in their 20s, I start looking at their SHB G. It depends on what's going on. Are they on birth control pill? Do they have the Mirena, like IUD? What their story is will then identify what we need to test. But I start them very young so that they can understand their patterns with their hormones. We have these patterns before, so we can compare them when she's going to perimenopause or when she's talking about fertility. We already have a knowing of where her body's at. So many women are dealing with PCOS today. It's really important to look at testosterone, SHBG, their insulin levels. There's all those things we want to be managing before she starts thinking about having children.

Let's talk about SHBG. For people listening, it's sex hormone binding globulin. Now, for For men, when the SHBG is high, it's bounding up testosterone. Then that's part of the reason for low testosterone. When I'm analyzing panels and people are coming to me, Oh, testosterone? What? That's the first thing I look for. If that's high, we try to get that down, free up some, and then release it, get it higher. For women, what exactly is its purpose or significance on how it plays a role in balance?

Similar to men, it has the affinity towards testosterone. If you're on birth control, your SHPG will be higher because of that excess testosterone and estrogen. If you're on thyroid medication, it'll also be higher, and then it will bind up that free testosterone. If it's really low, you have higher testosterone, which equals PCOS. I do look at that marker all the time, and especially if a woman is going on testosterone, too, I want to understand what her SHVG is doing.

Pcos for people listening, you want to tell?

Polycystic Ovarian syndrome. Often there's a metabolic piece there where women aren't balancing their insulin and their glucose very well. Usually, we'll have irregular cycles, low progesterone often, high levels of glutinizing hormone, high levels of testosterone, and them just not feeling themselves, high anxiety. I come from an Indian background, and we're actually more susceptible to PCOS than someone from the West because of our lineage. What happened generations ago, not even that far back with some of the famines that our ancestors had to go through, it changed how our pancreas is working. If you know that about yourself, you then know, I have to eat a certain way for my metabolic health. That will then translate into your hormone health.

Let's talk about things that could potentially have a negative effect. Are there things that could put you into menopause early? Are there certain nutrition habits or Drinking, smoking, things like that. They could do that? Or is it just all this is just bad luck genetics or how the cards that were dealt to me?

Yeah. Well, we're given a certain amount of eggs at birth, so that will determine when we go into menopause. But then the stresses we have, whether we are on birth control or not, how many pregnancies we've had, all of that will play a role into when we go into menopause. Okay. Early menopause can happen if a woman has a partial hysterectomy or a hysterectomy, that will make a difference. Stress plays a huge role. I've seen stress, increase in stress, increase FSH, which then stops them with follicle-stimulating hormone. It'll stop their bleeds. Then What happens often if she's gone through early menopause and we start to change her nervous system, we start to work with her hormones, all of a sudden she starts bleeding five years later. I have seen that happen. But I do think it's predetermined in terms of how many eggs You have.

Okay. Let's talk about the birth control stuff. That's a different polarizing subject, and I haven't gotten into it a ton. I know a little bit, but I'd like to get into it more with you. Let's talk about some of the negative effects that that can have. One of the ones that I always get brought to me is the weight gain that happens a lot of times with birth control. Why does that happen? What are some other aspects that you would say are pretty negative about using birth control that people need to be aware of, that short and long term?

Yeah. I think the thing to understand, it depends on the generation of birth control you're using. Most are from testosterone. One of the big things that happens for women is low libido, which is the opposite of what you want. A lot of women will choose birth control because they want freedom. What happens is all of a sudden, they just don't feel that motivation right more. No libido anymore. They're attracted to different individuals when you're on birth control as well. It changes your brain chemistry So that's huge. I mean, that's life decisions that are being made when you're young and you're using birth control. And when we're using birth control, it's basically telling your brain it doesn't have to do the work anymore that you've got this. And so now you're cutting the communication between your pituitary gland and your egg. And by doing that, it's creating this false rhythm that's not really yours. It's completely separating you from your body's rhythm and your body's knowing. Your cycle at the end of the month is a detox process. It's very telling of your overall health, like whether you're detoxing, whether you're eating well. All those symptoms that we have the week leading up is an indication of things that are out of balance or in balance.

If you're not getting that signaling, you're not really learning about your body, you're not understanding your own rhythm, then you can't make those lifestyle choices that are actually going to support you. From what I understand with birth control, it is depleting when it comes to your B vitamins like Zinc, it'll deplete that as well, and it'll increase dysbiosis. So a lot of women on birth control can have more yeast infections or are more prone to yeast infections. That's the negative piece of it. The positive is the freedom that women get from it. And I understand from an emotional perspective, there's a certain time in a woman's life where she might make that decision if she's focusing on her career or if she's needing that extra insurance for herself. But I think it's important to understand the disconnect it creates so that you can do other things to still understand your cycle.

Yeah. I mean, look, I operate on facts and science and everything, but I'm also a very spiritual guy, and it's just not how we were created. That's where I believe that you see that there's so many transient issues that go along with the use. I get it. I understand shit. When I was a kid, I wanted girls I was dating to use it. But the older I got, the more you actually understand. I mean, Like I said, I'm not Mr. Pro or anti, but if you're asking a question, it's like, yeah, there's a lot of bad that goes along with this short and long term. When something affects your mind and it starts changing your decision-making patterns and That's where I draw the line where it's a little too risky with the obvious health repercussions on it.

Especially when you use it. If a woman or a young woman gets her cycle around age 12, which now is actually late, a lot of are getting them 9, 10. It takes about 5 to 7 years for your ovulation to regulate. Then if you give a young woman birth control at 15 or 16, her body didn't even get that opportunity to regulate her cycle. She doesn't know who she is yet. Her body is at a rhythm. Then 10 years later, when she wants to have children, it creates a lot of challenge for her to get to know her body and for hormones to regulate. Again, that's not everyone's story, but a majority of what I've seen.

I discussed anabolic steroids and did a lot of coaching on those for many years. There's a serious correlation here with what you're saying to where I'm going. That's why I wanted to do this with you and get into the effects of it. Because when a man uses even TRT or just steroids, what happens is it shuts down our natural testosterone production. Body forgets how to do it. We think we're getting it exogenously, and then boom, you never produce it again. Now, recovery time is different, but just like you said, some people recover better than others. But when guys use steroids too young, just like what you said with women using it too young, they never had a chance to grow, they never had a chance to actually get to their genetic potential, and then boom, you got problems forever. It's the same correlation with men and women here. It's just two different concepts of drugs, but it's the same type of thing. There's a lot of testosterone derived. Yeah, well, see, it works both ways. Yeah, it does.

It does both ways, yeah. That's usually in perimenopause and menopause, that women will feel those impacts of our choices from our 20s and what we did before. When we're having that difficulty in that transition phase, and same for men, andropause, when they're going through that process and all of a sudden losing hair or forming breasts that aren't supposed to be there because of the hormones. I think it's so important to understand that choices we make today will feed our tomorrow.

Let's talk about balance of hormones, the importance of balancing hormones. When do you notice, if somebody's not done all of the shit we're talking about with steroids and birth control and in general, but just people that are just every day, and once again, this is general, when do we start to see hormones start to become out of whack or out of balance. I understand that drug use, alcohol, stress, these things can cause it earlier. What's a normal science age, though, when you would start to see that?

Thirties type of thing? Thirties, mid-thirties. Yeah, usually about 35 is where you would notice it. But like said, all those things that you mentioned are going to fast track those symptoms and those changes in your hormones. I don't think there's anyone in the world that doesn't have some form of stress or some story that they're carrying, that they're healing. All of us are moving into these phases a lot earlier and with more challenge.

I'd say, and you tell me what you think, I'd say that, like what you said, scientifically, the decline should start to occur in our 30s. But I think with the way that the world is and the way our lives are and between the stress all the other stuff that everybody does when they're young and dumb, it throws them out of whack a lot earlier.

Yeah, absolutely. When that's happening, I think it creates confusion when someone's trying to eat the way that they did 10 years ago or they're not sleeping because in your 20s, you can get away with it. Then they're wondering why they're gaining weight and their moods are off and everything because they're doing all the right things in their mind, but not realizing with age, with this challenge, and the challenges we're carrying in our body will dictate how we're healing and how we recover in our 40s and 50s.

Before I get further into the hormone side of things, let's talk about stress a little bit. How big of an impact does stress have on hormones, on just overall total health, and then menopause stages?

I think it's everything. Your nervous system fuels everything. It's your signal that's going to tell you if you're safe or not, and if you're not safe. And that could mean you just running from one task to the next or rushing through your day. And your brain is thinking, Oh, she's in danger. I need to give her cortisol. I need to give her adrenaline. Those are the hormones that are going to support her, not her estrogen, progesterone or testosterone. So if we've been living that way, we're stuck in a cycle. We're stuck in a pattern of reactivity. And so when the body is not feeling safe, it can't heal. So until we can recognize that, until we can calm the nervous system down, work on our vagus nerve, work on our signaling and our patterns, the hormones are getting a signal mixed up. The communication that they're receiving is that it's not safe, so they can't do their jobs as well as they should be able to. That's where the symptoms are coming up. A woman that's lived that life, and now she's going into menopause, she will have the hot flashes, she will have the night sweats, she will have insomnia.

All these things will show up, amplified. Her depression or her anxiety will be amplified even more because of the cycle that we've been in from before.

How important and what a role does the vagus nerve have on everything?

It's everything, really. If we can master that, I think we can master ourselves and our hormones. There are so many simple things that we can do in our day. I think people don't realize. We think we have to buy all the gadgets, and the gadgets are great. I think they can be really useful. Humming, singing, breathing, praying, just calming the nervous system down, bringing joy into your day. Those simple things can activate that nervous system and create a new pattern. It can tell your brain that, Oh, there's these safe moments. There's these moments where I can exhale. There's these moments where I can finally let go. And not everything has to be done right now. I can let go of expectations. I can let go of identities and roles that I've been carrying. I think when we start doing that deep work, the body follows. Yeah.

I don't have the study in front of me, but I had some statistics about the percentage of people with overactive parasympathetic nervous systems that are constantly in fight or flight, the effect that it has, and the amount of people. It's astounding. It's a constant battle, I think, for people, and they don't understand this aspect of it. I'm so thankful that at this point in my journey through all this that I grasped how important it is. I mean, it's literally everything. It is. What do you do to help people get out of that fight or flight mode all the time and to get back into more balance?

Yeah. Well, first up is the awareness of knowing that this isn't who I am and that this might not even be my story to carry. There was a study that was done. It's called the CAR study, looking at cortisol waning responses in pregnant women. They saw the women that had low cortisol in the morning due to stress. Because we need that cortisol peak to get us going for the day. They tested the infants after they were born about nine months post-pregnancy or postnatal. They put them in stressful situations of separating them from mom and seeing how they would regulate due to that stress. Infants that were born from moms that had low CARS scores couldn't regulate because they had adrenal insufficiency. There are studies that have been done on Holocaust survivors, and 100% of their offspring had adrenaline insufficiency. You could see we could be born already with not being able to adapt to stress. Then life happens and we're moving through our childhood with the generation before us was basically just surviving and may not have had the time that maybe we're giving our kids today. We may have learned in order to be heard, I have to act a certain way or behave a certain way.

We take on all these beliefs about ourselves and then have expectations of perfection or not speaking because I'm going to ruffle some feathers and create stress in the family. When we tack on all this stress that we're carrying, it changes who we are. It changes how we're perceiving ourselves or how we're presenting ourselves. It changes our identity which then changes our physiology to match it. It takes that understanding and awareness first of like, Okay, this isn't me. I can shift something. The next thing is discernment. How do I discern this voice that's in my head, this narrator that's telling my story, is it actually mine or is it culture? Is it my parents? Is it generational? So understanding that. Then I give them simple tools to be able to do that in their everyday so that they can start to understand that voice. But I do think working on the physical body is number one, first, to clear the noise. Then we can take that extra step to look at the deep work, the emotions.

When you're a naturopathic or a health coach, you're almost like a psychologist. You have to be because you have to learn and understand the story because the story is generally the biggest part of the problem.

Absolutely.

I think a lot of people that get into that don't understand the actual amount of ability that you have to have to be a true good coach. Because if I don't know everything about your situation, I can't really get into the depths of everything. It's like when you go to the doctor, the general practitioners, and you see them five minutes, and they put you on some shit, and then kick you out. They don't ask you anything, really, about your sleep, your stress. I mean, so many things, your diet, the things that play the big role into it. Do you take on clients, one-on-one. One of the things that I've always struggled with is when people, they don't understand why you can't take on a million people, and then two, why you charge what you do. But it's because the amount of time it takes to really, really, really care for one person, to really, truly care for them, I don't think people understand. Can you talk about what you go through just to take care of one individual? Yeah.

Our first visit, I still have a physical practice with my husband. The first hour that I sit with a woman, I'm really just letting her tell her story because I just want to know her. I'm very clear about that with her. I want to understand you as much as I can so I can support you in the way that you need supported. For me, having a naturopathic practice, they come in with certain expectations of like, Oh, is she going to give me supplements? Am I going to do IVs? Or what am I going to go home with? I have to understand in that moment how far can it take her in that first visit. Can I actually ask the questions I already know need to be asked, or do I need to just help her with her fatigue? Look at her adrenals, do some testing to help her understand. It takes a lot of investigative work in the beginning, many, many hours to understand the real picture, and then Getting them feeling a little bit better, making few choices that are good, whether it's her diet or her exercise, like the basics, the supplements that could be supportive, and then planting those other seeds, then building trust, and asking those deeper questions.

I have found, in order for me to do that, I've had to work on my stuff. I've had to work on my story to be able to take them as far as I can now. Because if I didn't do that, I wouldn't understand the little cues of like, Oh, she's not making eye contact when I'm asking her this question. Oh, her body language is changing. Okay, I can see. Now a woman walks in, I already know. I already have a knowing of what her deep story is, whether it's sexual trauma, whether it's emotional trauma, or a physical trauma, or whatever it might be. I have to understand how I can softly bring her to this place of trust so that she can finally let go and receive the healing that she actually needs.

I'm curious because this is any age or any particular person, a lot of people, they have trouble admitting things, whether it's something that we do wrong, the accountability side of things, or something that you're feeling that you just don't want to admit. For me, it's like there are certain things because I'm a major athlete, and there are certain things that I just can't do the same anymore, and it's not easy. It's taking me quite a long time to admit it. Do you find, and this isn't just one particular person or anything, but just do you find in general, that when you start to uncover things or tell people, This is the areas that you need to fix, that they're cut off from reality, or they don't want to admit it, or they just don't see it for whatever reason? Do you find that a lot, or are people more receptive to?

I think there's a mix, depending on what stage they're in, how much information they already have. But I also think understanding why there's resistance is important. So women that I see sometimes will have that glass of wine at the end of the night to wind down. And when it starts to become a problem for them, and I'm starting to ask them questions around it, if I take the reward away or that one moment of your heath that they have at night, it's not going to go over well. Yeah. So we have to bring in something that can replace that or understand why is it that moment? What is it about that that helps you feel like yourself or helps you feel enough or helps you feel like you succeeded in that day? So how can we unravel that? So maybe we change it to a cup of tea or a walk around the block or something really simple to replace that habit that we know isn't nurturing us anymore. I do think we're human. We're going to have resistance. I still do in many ways. When my husband will point out things I don't want him to.

I think being able to step away and look at big picture is important, but I think people are becoming more aware. Sometimes you just plant the seed first and then see where it goes.

I'm not a big fan of terms terms and things that people put on certain areas of life or whatever. But the reality is that term midlife crisis is a real thing that happens. But what would you say that actually is the midlife crisis Is it hormonal changes? Is it the acceptance of my mortality is kicking in? Is it I can't do certain things like I was saying that I can't do? Is it a combination of everything? What is it?

Yeah, I think it's all of it. I think There's a lot of grief that happens at that stage because we are looking backwards or reflecting of what did and I do, especially when we have those moments where you feel like you can't do what you did before. So maybe it was a sport you didn't play, or maybe it was that chance that you didn't take, or maybe it was a childhood that could have been better. So we start to reflect on the gaps. We start to reflect on what was missing. But I think it's an opportunity to then create this second part of our life from our own command. I do think the first half, we're looking at culture, we're looking at society, we're doing the things we're supposed to be doing, not really knowing who we are. So when this unraveling happens, I think it's an opportunity to understand who we are, what is our actual identity? What are my values? And how do I want to go forward in my life and create a life from that place and not one of expectation or not one of where I'm pleasing others, really understanding myself.

I do think it's an opportunity be. I like to reframe the crisis into more of opportunity for women because it feels chaotic because you don't know what's going on inside, even when you know. I've been doing this since 2009, so I knew what to expect. And yet when I turned 45, so much change. I was complaining to my friend Andrea this week. I'm like, Nothing fits me anymore. My body's changing. I think there's a level of acceptance of change that we struggle with. The grief of what we're losing when it comes to our bodies. And then that realization we might have older parents, so we're in that sandwich. And a generation, some of us might have kids and older parents, and we're taking care of both right now. So there's a lot pulling for our attention while we're going through this change. So yes, it can feel chaotic, but I think if we understand it and start to embrace it, we can make different choices to understand who we actually are. Yeah.

It lost accountability. I think that you gain freedom when you get older. When I say that, what I mean is that you have freed your mind and certain things that go on within you. So for me, it was like the freedom of worrying about what everybody else thought about me, the image that I was putting on for people. A lot of that came through prayer and getting closer to God. But I think a lot of the early part of your life is training, and things didn't happen for a reason, and probably because you weren't ready for them to happen at the time. I struggled with that for a while. Why am I not getting the do I deserve? Then I looked back and I was like, Well, because you sucked. It's that certain things that I thought I was so good at. Well, maybe I wasn't. Maybe I was giving myself too much credit. I think that if you have that ability to do that as you get older, then it brings up the best part of your life and the best part of you. It's hard to get people to do that, I understand.

But I think if you can open people up to that and understand a of this was preparation for what was to come and to get you ready for whatever it was you were actually supposed to do. Now, granted, there's a lot of shit that we wish we wouldn't have done. But I think that that, too, will alleviate a lot of the stress, the hormone issues, and everything else that goes on if you can become more accepting.

That's right.

Realizing, wow, there's a lot of good that came out of this.

There's so much to be said around surrendering to a process. I think as a culture, we're very resistant. Even with aging, we're very resistant. The fear around death and the fear around aging, there's so much of that and a lot of the messaging we get, too, especially for women. If you start to look a certain way, your hair starts to go gray. I'm starting to gray. My own aunt was like, I have this natural dye that you can use. I'm like, That's fine if my hair is making you feel uncomfortable. We get that from family, we get it from culture. It's really hard to embrace change when we're not going to feel like we belong or we're going to feel like we're shoved to the side as we're aging. I think culturally, things need to change in the conversation around aging, which will make it easier to surrender, but it starts with ourselves first.

I pointed at my face because my beard is growing in half white. I always tell my wife, Should we color this or not? Because then I look ridiculous when we color it. I'm like, You know what? Screw it.

It's wisdom. It's right.

It makes me smarter than I am.

I call them my wisdom hairs. I'm like, Wisdom's coming in. Why would I block it?

You know, though, sometimes if you sit and look at it, sometimes they'll go, Shit, that doesn't look so bad. Sometimes it's okay. Then the other days, I'm like, Man, I can't do this.

I know. For me, too. I'm like, Depending on where I'm in my cycle, I'm like, Oh, this is amazing. And next day, Oh, no, no, something's got to give.

Before I get into the book a little bit, I want to talk a little bit about nutrition with you. I've been a big proponent of creatine use for women as they get into those stages later in life. Really, shit, I'm like that. I'm pro-creatine for everybody in teens and everything, but especially for women in menopause and my mom that's in her 70s and people in general, because of sarcopenia is a real thing, bone degradation is a real thing, it does increase as you get older, and especially when women are going through those hormonal changes. For me, creatine is a very important supplement to add What about diet? Is there a certain diet that could help women that are going through these stages? Is lower carb good? Is higher carb, higher protein? Or is it just that doesn't really play a role here in anything?

I think diet always plays a role because I feel food is medicine. I think understanding your cycle and eating for your cycle can be helpful. You know in the beginning of your cycle, when your estrogen is high, you're feeding your estrogen with foods that it needs. When progesterone is high in the last half, you're eating a little bit healthier carbs. Even redefining what carbs are. I'm talking sweet potatoes and then good vegetables and fiber and all of that, not so much of the processed carbs. But being able to do that throughout your cycle can be really important. I'm a seasonal eater as well. So looking at the season in and where you live. I'm in Vancouver, so we get the four seasons. In the fall, I'm eating warming foods, I'm eating more soups and stews. I'm going with the rhythm of the environment plus my body. I do think protein, healthy fats, good amount of fiber is really important and decreasing that process. We would actually eliminating it and really looking at your glucose levels, looking at insulin, because you do become more insulin resistant. You do have to shift how you're processing those sugars.

So if you're eating healthy protein, you're eating those healthy fats and fiber and wholefoods, I think you can really simplify things. It doesn't have to be so complicated and eat for your body.

When I coach athletes, and especially when I was doing bodybuilders, I'd give them a three-prong breakdown, and it would be diet, training, and then your supplements, and if they were using shit they shouldn't be using. And I'd give percentages, and I'd tell them all. I'd say, Dude, your diet is... I argue 80% of all of this. We'll say 75 to 80. The training, obviously important, 15 to 20, and the supplements and all the other stuff, 2 to 5%. The diet is so significant from the moment you're born to the end of your life. It's the hardest thing for people to stay consistent on, I would argue. There's so many times of weakness or temptation, or I just am sick of this, I don't want to do this. But the role it plays on hormones and balancing those out and how we age, because you were saying, the processed foods, these seed oils, all of this crap that they put in the foods, that ages us, too.

Yeah, your digestive system is a reflection of everything. Just looking at estrogen balance for women, so women with heavy cycles or endometriosis or even PCOS, your liver and your gut are working together to detoxify estrogens from your environment and from your food. If you're not eating well, you're recirculating those excess estrogens in your body, which will then create those challenges like cystic acne, irregular cycles, heaviness, cysts and fibroids, all these symptoms that women are experiencing. And by changing your diet, you can shift how that's working by feeding your microbiome what it needs. It can be really supportive.

Do you have any supplement regimens or even just vitamins or anything that are even extra important for women as they get a little bit older and menopause?

Definitely, I always say it's individual depending on what they're working on. But amino acids is one So creatine, I also like that as well. B vitamins, depending on their hormonal story, some women need DIM to help support their liver. So liver support, gut support, and I would say, yeah.

Dim is one that I'm very familiar with because trying to keep estrogen under control for people using testosterone and things of that nature. So yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because I was curious as to how you recommend women using that and what the benefit was for them there. Yeah, that's a good I haven't had a lot of people bring that one up unless- I loved them.

I know it's been getting some negative press with some people in social media right now, but I've been using it for years with women, and you use it when it's needed. I always test them to see how they're processing their estrogens in their liver. If they need more two hydroxyesterone, then I'm giving them dim. If they're making too much estrogen and it's feeding their fibroids, I'm giving them dim. I've seen it successfully work over and over What's the negative that you've heard about it? That it just doesn't work, that you don't need it.

Well, maybe it doesn't work because you're not getting the right one or the right quality of one. Right amount.

Yeah.

Or don't know how to use it because I can guarantee you from just my experiences and trying to keep men off aromatase inhibitors, that it absolutely does work because I've witnessed it work.

I've seen fibroids drink. Yeah.

Because I do not like aromatase inhibitors at all. They're just completely misused. I used to be pro them until I really realized that I was parroting stuff and that I was wrong. Dim is one of the go-to supplements for estrogen control. I'm glad you brought that up as well. Last question before your book, I lied. The testosterone with women, what are a few of the misconceptions that women have? How big of a problem do you think it is as they get older?

Yes, I think testosterone is huge, more for mood because it really is your motivator. It's right. It's an antidepressant. We do lose that testosterone as we're aging, like we were saying, starting from age 25. Also muscle mass is huge. Then libido, which is a big challenge as well. Some of the misconceptions that women have is the hair growth or the hair loss that they will have. The other one is just it's going to bulk them up. It's going to turn you into a man. It's going to turn you into a man. It's all about dosing, too. I think what women don't sometimes know that you can do physiological dosing that just supports your body. It supports your physiology. It just gives you that extra zest, that like oomph for life that we lose over time. I think it's a key in a woman's routine. Maybe you don't take testosterone, maybe you're taking fenugreek, maybe you're taking safran. There are other ways you can help increase your testosterone. Maybe you're working out a certain way. There's other things that you can do before you use testosterone. But I've used low levels, even just one milligram with women, and it's been successful.

That's where I was going to go with that, too, is there's alternate options. You don't have to just go to straight TRT injections. There are combination ingredients that you can take together, or There are testosterone boosters that do actually work. You brought up fenugreke, tribulus could go along in there, boron helps. There's a ton of things that you can do. But also, it's like with men, you have to have a balance of testosterone and estrogen. If we have too high of estrogen, well, they're going to retain water. You could get gynecomastia, you could have libido issues. But if you have too low, you could start to have all of this confusion, brain fog, and then the libido issue. And tension. Yeah, exactly. Over or under emotional. Same goes with women. I have seen so many women that have testosterone problems, and they either are not receptive to it, don't No, because they never looked or scared. I think that it's probably a way bigger problem that we even know because people don't even look for it.

Yeah. There's options. You mentioned injections. You can do creams. That's right. You can even start with DHEA and see if that feeds into your testosterone properly. There's different ways to navigate it.

There's a new product called Kaisatrex. I'm actually getting ready to start it. I know the guy that founded it. I've been waiting now, but it's an oral testosterone that actually truly works. It's been out for about two years now, and I've seen enough data now to trust it, but there's plenty of options for women. I generally with women, I've always gone straight to the testosterone boosters first to see how they work.

Then if, okay, it's not working, well, We got other ones. Then looking at the other things, what's your insulin like? What's your stress levels like? You want to be looking at all of that when you're working with testosterone.

Sleep and stress and all the other stuff we keep talking about.

The foundation.

Yes. It It affects everything. Okay, let's get into your book. I was laughing with you beforehand because I was talking about the stressors, and you told me you're a writer and how much you love it. Tell me, first of all, how long did it take you to come up with the idea? Then secondly, how long did it take you to sit down and write it?

The idea has always been there. I wrote my first book several years ago during COVID called Woman Unleashed. There's pieces of this book that come from that book. That book was about my story and how trauma influences hormones. And big part of it was understanding that stress cycle and how it influences everything in our life, including our hormones. And so this book was birthed out of that book, actually. So I started writing in 2023 and back and forth with my publisher, with editing and all of that. So it was a couple of years of process to sit with this book. And it's funny when you're writing a book, how much you learn about yourself as you're navigating it and how much you miss writing after. That was my experience. I had a lot of grief around not sitting with my words as I was before, but it helped me to put what I've been doing or what's been in my head the last 15 to 17 years onto paper and into this method. The women reading it can start to understand how they can already implement it into their lives and how simple it actually can be when you start to understand your story.

Okay. I know what it's like because I've talked with a bunch of people that write with ghostwriters, and you just give them your ideas and record it, talk to them, and then they write it. For you, that's what I think about sitting in writing. I'm like, Man, I'm sitting there. I'm thinking about when I wrote stories in school, and you just sit down and you just start rolling start and just go. Do you do segments? Do you sit down for eight-hour sessions? Is it just- It was in between pickup, but it was taking them to hockey and soccer.

It was sitting with them when they were sick beside them in writing. It was on my Tuesdays and Thursdays, it's a bit more free, so I would sometimes sit down. Or if I get an idea, I'd go run to my computer and write it down.

But does it all flow start to finish, or are you just throwing stuff in and then piecing it together later?

I went in sequence. Okay. The editing, it started to change a little bit, but my first draft, I went all sequence.

I'm just curious as to how one balances the time. It's just like, okay, I feel like writing right now.

Yeah, because I still have more practice about two young boys, 11: 14, that are playing sports and doing all the things. You find a way, especially when it's something that you love.

Do you ever have extremely late nights where it's like, Okay, it's 3: 00 AM. I better go to bed now?

No. Okay. That was a boundary I had for myself. Okay. Yeah. I didn't actually write in the evenings.

Okay. I didn't know how that worked.

It might work for some people. It's a quiet time. But for me, I'm perimenopausal. I had to sleep. That would be changing my relationship with my husband, my kids the next day. I wasn't going to be living the book if I did that. Okay.

The book is coming out end of February. Is this your second book?

This is my second book.

You plan on writing more?

I love writing, so I hope so.

I don't know if you can answer this. What gives you the most fulfillment?

I don't know if you read that part of my book, that first line that I wrote in chapter one was a woman one day was like, You saved my life. I didn't know I had that an impact on her. When you hear those kinds of stories or when a couple comes to me and the other systems told them they'll never get pregnant naturally, and all of a sudden she's on baby number two now, it's that. It's seeing women find their power, and just having a little role in that can be so empowering for me. I learned so much from them. A lot of my healing has happened because of them.

When did it hit you like, Okay, I need to write this second book? Is that something that you- My first book, I pitched to a publisher or a friend introduced me to them.

I was just hoping they were going to buy my first book. Then they read it, they're like, No, you need to write more. Okay. Then it just opened up the door. When I started doing this work, it really opened up a softer side for me, and I started to understand that, okay, to impact the world, because every relationship in the world starts with a woman. Yes, we have our spiritual relationship. We have a relationship with God. But that first relationship on Earth is with a woman. If I can support her, I'm then creating a ripple effect in the world. I'm then changing the world.

I'm really thankful to have the conversation and hopefully get you out in front of more people that see what you're doing and that there's people like you out there that they can go to and trust and You speak very calmly and trusting and eloquently, and I think it's very nice to hear. I appreciate the conversation.

Thank you. I really appreciate that. For you to have this space open for us to have a voice to make a difference. That's cute.

That's the least I could do for all the shit I've done wrong. No, I have a purpose, and the purpose is very simply put, to help everybody build their quality of life and fix it. Part of that is me spotlighting people that need to be heard and get the right message out. That's my purpose, and that's all I'm here to do. Thank you. Absolutely. I can't forget to date your books coming out since I told you it was the day before my birthday. Everybody watching February 22nd. Where can they buy it?

Anywhere, really. On Amazon, your local bookstores like Barnes & Nobles. I'm from Canada, so Indigo. Yeah, you'll find it everywhere. Online. You can get on my website, healyourhormonesbook. Com.

People that want to follow you, too, where are the best places, then where can they become a client?

You can go to Instagram, drsoniajensen, or drsoniajensen. Com, and you can just message me.

You do virtual then? Yeah. Okay. Perfect. All right. Well, I thank you for the time for coming to see me. We're going to get your message out to everybody, and I appreciate everything. That wraps up another one, everybody. Make sure you get out and get the book, February That wraps up another one. So stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Jameli and Dr. Sonja Jensen signing off.