Perimenopause Relief Options Without HRT

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Welcome to the Uncomplicated Perimenopause Podcast .

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I'm Kate Grosvenor , your friendly perimenopause expert and life coach , and I'm Gabriella Kate's daughter , representing all the women who are nowhere near perimenopause but want to understand it better .

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Whether you're just starting your perimenopause journey deep into it , or you're a loved one trying to support someone who is , we've got you covered .

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We'll be answering all of your burning questions , exploring the ups and downs and sharing expert advice and personal insights .

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So grab a cup of tea , get comfy and let's dive into the wonderful , sometimes wild , world of perimenopause together .

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And remember , no matter where you are on your journey , you are not alone .

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Welcome to the Uncomplicated Perimenopause . Hello , my darlings , and welcome to episode three of the Uncomplicated Perimenopause Podcast . My name is Kate Grosvenor . I'm a perimenopause expert and life coach .

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And I'm Gabriella Grosvenor , Kate's daughter here to listen with you all .

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So , as always , gabriella is going to ask me your questions about anything to do with perimenopause and , as always , I have no idea what she's going to ask me .

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And if you want to ask a question as well , submit it to the Facebook group or on WhatsApp . I'm always a bit nervous at this point because I know I literally don't know what the question is going to be , and although I that's what I do for a living I spend my entire life answering questions I'm kind of at this point . I never know what it's going to be right , hit me with it this is Jenny from our Facebook group .

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Hi , jenny . Jenny wants to know what are some suggestions for relief for those who cannot have HRT . Okay , she had estrogen-fed breast cancer . Oh , bless you . And has to be careful with eating foods , especially even ones with soy in it . Yeah , yeah , she is 16 years , cancer-free now .

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Those are Well done .

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Her irritability gets the best of her .

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Okay , yeah , and she's constantly on edge . Yeah , any suggestions .

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First of all , congratulations congrats , jenny .

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That's good . It's great news on one side , but I get the irritability on the other side . Okay , so for anybody that doesn't understand why this um would be a thing , oestrogen fed breast cancer means that your body , estrogen is a grower in your body . So estrogen is what I call a fertilizer . Sorry , I do apologize .

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By the way , there's certain words for those of you who don't know me very well , I'm on the spectrum . So there's certain words that I say , that I always say in a certain accent and it's very entertaining for everyone around me . So there's certain words that I say , that I always say in a certain accent and it's very entertaining for everyone around me . But I can't help it . It is , it's just , it's one of those things . Yeah , you get used to it . So oestrogen is a fertilizer and progesterone is a mower . So those are the two main hormones that we look at in perimenopause game . So estrogen being a fertilizer , if you've had estrogen fed breast cancer and then you , you , your body was given any type of estrogen , it would increase the abnormal cells again . So what's going to happen then is you're likely , if you've got any abnormal cells , they're likely to reoccur so she has to be super , super careful .

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Now there are certain foods that we call photoestrogens and they're great for people in perimenopause . They're great for people in menopause , people that want to boost their natural supply of estrogens . Fantastic things like soy milk , things like edamame beans you know , know , when we go to Yo Sushi and you and the girls love to eat those edamame beans with salt on taste delicious , full oestrogen , lovely , natural oestrogen . Jenny can't have them . Okay , why ? Because they're oestrogen , right . They literally will give your body a natural boost of oestrogen , and so if she were to eat them , if there were any abnormal cell activities in her body , it might cause them to grow , because oestrogen is a fertilizer .

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Okay , in everyday life we have oestrogen , progesterone and testosterone . Now , in the last episode , we talked about testosterone when we looked at debbie , when we were talking about libido , yeah . But in this episode , when we're talking about jenny , we're looking at her irritability , we're looking . We're going to talk more about progesterone . Now that sounds weird because she's talking about oestrogen . So why are we talking about progesterone ? Well , it's because you can't have one without the other . So if you were to go to the doctor and you were to talk about HRT , they would .

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Wouldn't give you one without the other okay , that makes sense great because you have to have a fertilizer , which is your oestrogen , and a mower , which is your progesterone . So if you were going to plant grass in the garden , you would plant the grass seed and eventually you'd have to mow the lawn . Makes perfect sense . Back in the day when HRT first became a thing , they used to make HRT out of pregnant mare's urine .

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You will have to elaborate on that what .

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So I'll say it again , because I don't know if there's another way I can say it . It's not a normal sentence . What ?

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you're saying listen , I know it's not a normal sentence , okay , so when they first created hrt , which is hormone replacement therapy , hrt , they only produced the estrogen side of it and in order to produce the oestrogen side of it , they produced it from pregnant mares urine . So , because that's the only source of oestrogen they could find , okay , so pregnant mares , pregnant horses , had a lot of oestrogen in their urine , so they would create the HRT from that . Okay , good that they've stopped that . It Okay good that they've stopped that . It's good that they've stopped that for many reasons , one of which was that giving women just the oestrogen and not the progesterone .

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Remember , it's a fertilizer and there's no mower yeah so if you fertilize something and you don't mow it down , you end up with just fertilizer , and then what happened was the lining of the uterus and all this kind of you know would get thicker and thicker and thicker , and then you're likely to get uterine cancer or and this is why you can't give just yeah , do you understand ?

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because you're just growing things and you're not mowing them down . So it's like just throwing grass seed on your lawn and not mowing it down . You end's like just throwing grass seed on your lawn and not mowing it down . You end up with a jungle . That makes a lot of sense . Yeah , okay , so this is the problem . So you have to have estrogen and progesterone , right ? So let's go back to jenny's case . She can't have progesterone because she's not taking estrogen , because everything has to be in balance . Yeah , why is that a problem ? Well , because progesterone is the thing that we call a soporific . So the soporific is the thing that makes you calm , it makes you sleepy , it makes you peaceful , it makes you feel , ah . So she ain't getting that . Bless , bless her . So that's the first thing . So her sleep will be affected . Yeah , she won't feel calm because she's not getting that naturally in her body , because they can't give her that , because they ain't giving her the other stuff .

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Yeah , and they can't , and they can't give her one without the other .

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So she's already out of balance . Yeah , all right . So that's number one . Number two oestrogen is very important in the production of things that make your gut feel okay , and serotonin . Serotonin is produced in the gut . You , for example , you are a woman that suffers from endometriosis . Yes , fun fact . Fun fact for the whole family . No , not for the whole family , thank you , it's just . You bless your heart . So when you have a bout of endometriosis , you are likely to get IBS type symptoms . So you get bloated , you get very distended , hard stomach . Yeah , what's your mood like ?

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grumpy , bitch , yeah , in a bad mood . Yeah , I live with her because it's just the pain that you're in ?

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yeah , but you presume that it's the pain that you're in . Yeah , not necessarily . 90 to 95 percent of your serotonin is produced in your gut . Serotonin is your happy hormone , okay it's the one you can't produce it in an acidic environment .

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So if your tummy isn't in a , it isn't happy , is acidic , is is bloated , is distended . You're not producing your serotonin because it can't be producing that environment . Yeah , go back to grade six science for a moment , rather not so . Another fun fact I used to be a head teacher . Gabby used to be at my school . Yeah , she was my head teacher .

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I was Debbie's head teacher . That was . That was lovely . Use your imagination , yes lovely

Stress Management for Perimenopause

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So if you don't have a great environment in your gut and this is why , if people say to me what are two really important things in perimenopause , I say look after your gut , because without a healthy gut , you're going to have all kinds of problems , not just because of the nutrition , which you desperately , desperately need in perimenopause for so many different things , but also because of the serotonin factor , because you're going to need all the healthy , happy hormones that you can get . That's number one . So you , if you don't have a healthy gut , you're not going to have the happy hormones . Number two you also really need to have a grip on your cortisol .

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Cortisol gets a bad rep . Cortisol , we know most women know , is your stress hormone . Okay , yes , and no , okay , you actually do need it . So everybody , everybody needs cortisol . We know it's our stress hormone , but it also wakes you up . It's your awake hormone as well . Okay , so you do need cortisol in the morning . So we need to wake up . Being awake's good , and the first hour , hour and a half of the day you shouldn't actually have your coffee . So we have this thing in our head and it's a habit that we get into . I call it like the Garfield phenomenon you know this kind of like grumpy . Give me my coffee in the morning yeah , yeah , yeah .

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You know like I hate Mondays .

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I hate Mondays . Yeah right , give me my coffee and we think that we need coffee first thing , but we don't . Actually , we should wait an hour , an hour and a half like go on the school run , come back then have a coffee and put some collagen in it , but that's a story for another day , because you let your cortisol do its job and then have a coffee . But managing your stress is massively important as well . Why is it more important ? For Debbie and anyone else that is going through perimenopause , but especially anybody else that can't take progesterone ? There's something called progesterone steal , which means that the place where progesterone is made is also where cortisol is made . And if you're making lots of cortisol because you're really stressed , your body is going to make that first and then make progesterone second , and there's nothing you can do . Well , there's nothing you can do because your body will always prioritize fight or flight . Oh , okay , because your body wants to keep you alive . So if you're really , really stressed , your body thinks , oh , she's going to get eaten by a big beast because they're coming to attack you . Oh , my God , the big monster is coming to take you away . Because that's what modern day stress is . Right , it's the equivalent of the beast is coming to get you , yeah . So it always prioritizes fight or flight . So when you're stressed , it always pumps cortisol through you because it thinks that you're going to get eaten by this monster . And it will always prioritize that over regulating hormones . Because , quite frankly , who gives a shit if you can have a baby ? Yeah , if you go back to get eaten by a monster , you need to be alive . You need to be alive anyway . So , meh , right , it doesn't make a difference . So it's always going to prioritise producing cortisol over producing progesterone . Okay . So again , debbie loses out . So if you're stressed , you're not going to produce progesterone . That's kind of like a catch-22 , because you need progesterone to's kind of like a catch-22 because you need progesterone to feel less stressed . But as soon as you get stressed , you're going to produce less cortisol , yeah .

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So what does all of this mean ? It means I'm sorry , debbie , it's debbie . Bless you . Debbie , jenny , jenny , sorry . Now I've got going with debbie jenny , okay . So what does this mean , jenny ? This means that your main priority is going to be reducing stress . How do you do that ? Well , there's certain things that you can do . First and foremost , there are certain supplements that you can take and you have to take your oncologists . So oncologist is somebody that helps you with a cancer referral , yeah , and when you've had breast cancer , you will still have ongoing support and referrals and just support from that , yeah . So there are things like ashwagandha . Ashwagandha is a root and it's something that I recommend for a lot of perinapausal women who have anxiety , but it's also things I would recommend it for . It's a really exciting . So those of us who who like neuroscience my background is psychology , so I get very excited about neuroscience and I for a lot of . I do a lot of research on neuroscience because I'm just strangely geeky .

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I enjoy hearing all about it .

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Actually , I'm not very so yeah , so my dad's also a psychologist . So we we kind of have these massive debates about neuroscience and latest research and we really get into it at the dinner table we're a fun family .

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Well , you know we're you know we're rock and roll in our house , but ashwagandha is a very is from Indian medicine and it's very interesting what it actually does to the brain . But it essentially relaxes the brain . So have a look into that , get an approval from your oncologist and see what it can do for you , and I think it will help you massively . I genuinely recommend it . Something else that you can take with it is CBD , which most people know from the marijuana plant with no benefits , just to let you know . But that's also very , very good you don't need a prescription as well .

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No , cbd .

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You can get from holland and barrett , yeah , and other major retailers are available . Um , but try and get ones that have a good strength . So , like a 20 cbd oil , don't go for the five percent , because they're really not worth it . Something else is reishi mushroom reishi r-e-i-s-h-i mushroom . It's literally a mushroom . Okay , again , nothing dodgy , no kind of like psychedelic mushroom no special mushrooms in there .

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These are all things that have relaxing benefits for you . Okay , they're all very good for relaxation of your brain . So these are all things I'm talking about for your brain that we know have relaxation for your brain . Another thing that you can have is valerian root . They use that in things like calms . Have you ever heard of the tablets ? If you look at the ingredients of a calm natural remedy tablet , it will just say valerian root , valerian root is also . There's a company I'll put it into the links in the show notes One of my favorite companies Teapix . Do you know ? I have lots of Teapix because herbal teas in general are really good , and the thing that I'd love all the listeners to get into is understanding that your perimenopause journey is yours . Yeah , is perimenopause the most fun you're ever going to have , doesn't ?

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sound like it no , can you do things to help yourself ? Yes , so it's about saying listen , this is my life , this is where I'm going . Is it a little bit sucky On occasions ? Yes , but there are things that you can do , like , for example , having a herbal tea before bed with valerian root . The one that they have from Tea Picks is called Calm .

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It has a little buddy rabbit on the front will this help your stomach as well , in your guts ?

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no , not the calm . The one that would help your stomach and your gut is peppermint and licorice . Peppermint tea , as we know , is most people know is very , very good for your tummy . Licorice is a nap , is nature's natural anti-inflammatory oh good to know . So licorice in general is very good for the skin . If you have a lot of women in in perimenopause have inflamed skin , they have a rash on that . You like to get a rash on your skin because the capillaries in your skin will dilate and contract quite a lot because of the hot flashes . So the capillaries in your skin will dilate and you know all that stuff . So licorice is a very good ingredient that you can find in a lot of skincare that's aimed at perimenopausal women .

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Super drug , by the way , do a whole range of I think it's menopause rather than perimenopause . But they they asked me to do a campaign for them . I think it was last october and um , on tiktok . Good , yeah , I did a campaign for them . I actually , I genuinely use their every day . I use their under eye , their eye cream , because it has caffeine in it every morning and caffeine is very good for waking up . Yeah , um , eye cream to wake up your eyes because it de-puffs the eyes in the morning .

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That's really good caffeine so instead of having a cup of coffee first thing in the morning , put that on Bung your coffee in your eye bags , mate , okay .

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So licorice is really good . So for anything inflammatory licorice is really good . And while we're on the subject of anti-inflammatories , again helping yourself , turmeric really good for anti-inflammatory Ginger very good as nature's natural anti-inflammatory ginger . Yeah , very good as a nature's natural anti-inflammatory garlic again and they also happy hormone food as well yes , garlic is , as is bananas , dark chocolate , pasta , weird things . Okay , not all together , because garlic , yeah , chocolate is my pasta ? Yes , a bit , although you can put a bit of dark chocolate in a spaghetti bolognese and it just brings a long story .

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A bit of chili as well someone take one for the team and try it and let us know how it I've done it before .

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You have just never noticed . Oh no , yeah , you fed that to me . Oh , you don't even know what you've eaten over the years you've made pasta last night .

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I'm now questioning who did you know ? I'm not chocolate rude .

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I made pasta last night . I'm now questioning no , I'm dark chocolate Rude . I made pasta last night with beautiful cherry tomatoes , garlic , fresh mascarpone and heaps of baby spinach , with shavings of parmesan cheese and black pepper . She thinks I feed her weird stuff . No , it's just . Sometimes the shaving of dark chocolate in a like a ragu sauce just brings out the flavor .

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Okay , honestly , um , so , yes , so just having a look at those kind of things will help the brain . So that's the brain part . How do you relax your brain ? Yep , one of the most important things you can do to relax your brain is learning the word no . Simple , very simple

Self-Care and Setting Boundaries for Perimenopause

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Putting your boundaries in place and realising that you don't have to be everything for everyone and you don't have to sacrifice yourself on the altar of children and family and everybody else's wishes and desires every day will massively help you to reduce your stress and your irritability . One of the biggest problems we have as women is that we will prioritize our children , our parents , our house , our job , our cats , our pot plants . You know everybody else in our life will get higher ranking . You know I'll have clients that will be absolutely as a life coach . This is , clients will come to me and they'll be like I can't , can't do anything for myself . You know , I'm I'm at the end of my tether and they'll be almost burned out . And then I'll say what do you do ?

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Last night , well , after I'd driven my daughter to ballet class , and I came back and I answered my parents call and I dealt with my sister-in-law and I was like , oh , where was you in all of this ? Oh , I didn't have time for me . And I'm like , well , hang on a minute . Yeah , and this is the thing . So if you did something for yourself every day and it doesn't have to be a spa every single day I mean , why can't it be ? But we have 1,440 minutes in a day .

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Okay , I didn't know the number yeah , but what's wrong with 10 minutes for a bath ? What's wrong with a mental health walk ? Yeah , for 30 minutes . I mean you take mental health walks every single day , right ? Yeah , it massively massively helps .

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Yeah , I mean , you wake up if you're feeling anxious . Feeling anxious , you go for a walk . I'm one of those people . Every single night , I take very , very good care of my skin and people go . That's fantasy , it's not , it's my . My routine at night time is like it's yours , it's mine and I it's my time , and it sounds really like vain , but I , like I do all my skin and I oil all my cuticles and my feet creams and you know , like my body creams , and it's just a nighttime ritual , like a sleep hygiene routine . And it's not just about pampering and self-care . It's a way to love myself and have downtime and peace . And I don't do it whilst screaming at I haven't got any little children . I mean , my youngest is 17 , but do you know what I mean ? It's like I can do it whilst listening to , like calming music or a meditation .

Speaker 1 22:06

You're so right there's over a thousand minutes , one thousand nearly one thousand .

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It's 1440 in a day . Yeah , if you took 10 , 20 , 30 minutes of that to look after yourself yeah , and it's so doable it's so doable , but we don't prioritize , we wait to see if there's any time left , yes , for ourselves .

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And then we wonder why we feel like we're burned out . Why are we so irritated ? Why do we feel exhausted ? Why do we feel like we are on empty ? Well , you're on empty because you , you give nothing to yourself . Okay , and we need that time . And in perimenopause , I'm sorry , we need the time even more . Yeah , okay , because we're , we are on empty by that point , okay . So , jenny , my darling , say no , because no is a full sentence I love that saying .

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I know .

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No , it is a full sentence prioritize yourself , boundaries in place with some friends and family , because at this point it's not being selfish . No one in your life and this is absolutely true , no one in your life will suffer if you learn to look after yourself and take some time for yourself . No one in your life . If you feel more calm and you feel happier and you feel more content , no one suffers from that . And , trust me , I used to be shouty mum . I was chronically depressed back in 2016 . I was so unhappy . I was depressed . I wouldn't get out of bed during the day . Poor Gabby quite often had to take the kids to school because my life was a train wreck . And now , when I look back , I feel very sorry for the girls . You know I've apologised to you , haven't I , though ? I have apologised to you for my've apologized to you , haven't I , though ? I have apologized to you for my own mental health ? Back then , I couldn't .

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But if you look after yourself , no one loses out . But actually people benefit , everybody benefits , everybody does truly especially yourself .

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Yeah , but everybody benefits when you look after yourself . It's so , so , so important . And other things , just even a breathing routine , meditation , yoga and people look at me , go , I'm not bendy . It's got nothing to do with being bendy , I was made out of gear we're not .

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No , we're not a bendy family , we're tennis .

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I'm like boxing , hockey , horse riding . There's no bend in me , trust me . But it's about calm , it's about peace , it's about relaxation . So if you blend the kind of yoga , mindfulness , meditation with taking time for yourself , even just a cup of tea and a book , a bath , a skincare routine , mental health walks with herbal remedies to relax the brain , relax the mind , with understanding what's going on with your body , taking care of your gut and managing your stress , and then the last bit , I know you've joined my pyramid pause group on Facebook . Bless your heart , it's your home now and feel free . I know that you're getting a lot from it because I can .

Speaker 2 25:08

I've seen your comments , so thank you for a of the of the community and I hope it gives . It's giving you everything that you want and more . But if you combine all those things together , that's the secret recipe to reducing your irritability . And whenever you have a moment to take time for yourself , it's saying to yourself I'm safe , I am loved , it's okay to take time for me , and then making sure that you take it and saying it's okay for me to put me first . It's okay , yeah , okay . So I hope that helps . Thank you to Gabriella , as always , for being my sidekick thank you to Kate for being wonderful , kate Bless you All right , my darlings .

Speaker 2 25:56

As always , keep the questions coming and we will speak to you soon . Take care Bye . Thanks for joining us today on the Uncomplicated Perimenopause Podcast .

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We hope you found this episode helpful and inspiring , don't forget if you have any questions or topics you'd like us to cover , you can reach out through our perimenopause group or on whatsapp for more information on my coaching , perimenopause supplements , books or upcoming events . Please visit wwwkategrovernercom and if you've enjoyed today's episode , please subscribe , rate and review our podcast . It really helps us reach more listeners , just like you , until next time .

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Remember , perimenopause doesn't have to be complicated . We're here to help you every step of the way stay uncomplicated .

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Bye bye , bye , bye , bye , bye .