Ep 499: An Insider Look at Life After Menopause With Nicki Williams

Feeling overwhelmed when it comes to health shifts over 40? Not finding answers from your primary care doc or gynecologist? After failing to find any medical help for her health issues herself in her early 40’s, Nicki Williams discovered that she could turn things around using diet, lifestyle and natural supplements. She is now an award winning nutritionist, author, speaker, host of the Happy Hormones Podcast and a leading expert in women’s health, hormones and aging. She is the founder of Happy Hormones for Life, helping women of all ages to rebalance their hormones and reclaim their health. In this episode of The Health Fix Podcast, Dr. Jannine Krause interviews Nicki Williams on what works to help you feel amazing in menopause and beyond.

Resources From The Show:

• 7 Types of Rest
• Happy Hormones For Life – Nicki’s Website
• Nicki’s Happy Hormones Podcast
• Nicki’s Instagram 
• Nicki’s book – Life After Menopause – out late Sept 2024

Our Partners

Podcast Trasncript

2:46 – Nikki’s story

20:21 – Mindset / attitude

21:56 – “Life After Menopause” embrace protocol

23:31 – “E” Eat well

26:30 – “M” Move

31:48 – “B” Balance

32:34 – “R” Rest

36:06 – “A” Activate protective pathways

39:36 – “C” Connect

44:36 – “E” Eliminate and defend

51:44 – Cold plunge pool

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[Intro] Welcome to the HealthFix Podcast, where health junkies get their weekly

fix of tips, tools, and techniques to have limitless energy, sharp minds, and fit

physiques for life.

JANNINE: Hey Health Junkies, on this episode of the HealthFix Podcast, I’m interviewing

Nikki Williams. She’s an award-winning nutritionist, author, speaker, host of

The Happy Hormones Podcast, and she’s a leading expert in women’s health. And

And in fact, she’s the founder of Happy Hormones for Life,

where she’s helping women of all ages

rebalance their hormones and reclaim their health.

And this all started after Nikki found

that she was going to the doctor

and she wasn’t really being understood

when it came to her hormone imbalances.

And she was given a prescription for Prozac

and sent on her way,

which unfortunately is a common thing that happens.

Now Nikki’s moved into Menopause and she’s moved on from her book about, it’s not you,

it’s your hormones, her perimenopause story.

And now she’s moved on to her new book, Life After Menopause.

I haven’t interviewed anyone on Life After Menopause.

I have no experience in Life After Menopause.

I am in perimenopause as it stands.

My only experience is working with patients that are going through menopause.

There’s definitely a change that happens in terms of symptoms and hormone shifts.

And so Nikki’s going to talk about it today.

She’s going to give you a fun, exciting podcast where we talk about all kinds of

things that you might not have thought about when it comes to shifts in your

hormones and how life after amount of pause really is about aging well.

So let’s introduce you to Nikki Williams.

Nikki Williams, welcome to the health fix podcast.

NICKI: Thank you so much, Jannine.

Thanks for having me.

JANNINE: Well, I’m excited about this one

because I haven’t really talked about life

after Menopause.

And because I have no experience personally,

I feel that I am not qualified to talk

about this realm of life.

And so I’m really excited to chat with you today.

Now, of course, as I start most podcasts,

I’m like, okay, we know you had your first book, right?

And you shared all about like,

it’s not your two hormones,

which can we, yes, yes, please,

everyone needs to hear that.

But really, obviously you had a journey

and there were some things you went through

to help create the insights into that book.

And now your second book, Life After Menopause,

I really would love to kind of hear the story of like,

okay, how did menopause play out for you?

And what led you to like, oh no, I have to get some help

and I gotta write a book for folks to hear the story.

NICKI: Yeah, great question, I love this one.

I tell it a lot, but every time I tell it,

it reminds me of why I’m doing this.

So it’s a great workplace to start.

So I was in my late 40s, sorry, early 40s,

it’s been so long ago now.

I should have liked it.

Early 40s, I was in a corporate career

working for a big company, I had two young kids.

Usual, you know, midlife kind of hit 40,

and then you’re, you know, exhausted.

You feel like what life is one big to do, Liz.

You’re walking through Trico,

and I had all of that stuff,

and it just seemed to happen very quickly.

And I wasn’t my usual bubbly self.

I couldn’t find the joy particularly in my children

because they were just a chore at that point

because I had so much on my plate

and we juggled that.

And I was a master juggler,

but I was leaving or everything out there

and I had nothing left for myself.

And I was miserable.

And I just thought, okay, so it’s my busy life.

It can’t be more than that.

I had no idea about medical issues, health issues.

I was in the corporate world.

So I went to my doctor and I explained all my symptoms.

You know, I was exhausted, stressed out,

putting on usual stuff and he looked at me and he gave me a prescription as many of them

do. I’m sure they’re getting better now. This is quite a while ago and it was Prozac.

So that was the antidepressant of the day and of course, yeah, I was a little bit upset,

but you know, I said, no, no, I don’t think it’s depression. I’ve never suffered before.

I don’t have it in my family. It doesn’t feel like it’s that, but I don’t know what it

is. And he said, well, that’s all I’ve got kind of thing. So I walked out of that surgery,

appointment and I just was baffled. I thought, hang on a minute. It’s not this. I know it’s not.

This medication may help, but I don’t think it’s the right thing for me. Anyway, luckily for me,

my dad is a hormone doctor, a bit like yourself. He is a passionate believer in

bio– He’s been working with biodenticals for long, long, long time. Ever since they were

invented, I think. I didn’t know what hormones were back then. I didn’t know what he did. I

you kind of, I just, I just, I didn’t know what he did. So I had no idea. So I rang him up and I

said, you know, dad, you’re a doctor. What would you say with these symptoms that I’ve got? And he

goes, Oh, God, Nick, you’re going through perimenopause, you’re 42. And I said, I’m going, I’m doing what?

And he said, yeah, perimen. And of course, you know, this is 15, 16 years ago, right? The word

would didn’t exist back then. I’d never heard of it. I heard him say menopause and I just thought

thought that happened when you were old in gray and over way

older than I was. And I, you know, I was still having my

periods. I, you know, my kids were young. No, that wasn’t me.

So I said, explain, I don’t understand. So then he’s, he

gave me the education that I’d never received at school or

my own doctor or in magazines. Nothing. There was nothing back

then. You and you in the US were slightly ahead of us here, as

as usual, with your with the right, there were some people

talking about hormones and there were some books, but of course they weren’t on my radar.

So he told me what was happening to my hormones, how they were changing, and I was like, wow,

what’s going on?

This is amazing.

This is so fascinating to me.

I got sort of hooked onto all these little chemical messengers running around our bodies,

and we definitely didn’t learn that in biology.

And I was like, okay, I get it now.

I sort of started to understand and piece it together.

Excuse me.

So he said that, you know,

you need to start looking after them.

I said, oh, okay.

So he went around through my diet

and he looked at my stress, my lifestyle,

the supplements I was taking

and he kind of created this thing for me.

And I started doing this,

making some changes and they weren’t radical.

They were just small changes.

But I started feeling so much better.

The brain fog lifted, the energy came back.

My moods was so much better.

And I just thought, hang on a minute.

is not rocket science but it’s stuff that we don’t know about. So I went down the rabbit hole,

I got really into it, I started geeking out on hormones and science and I thought,

you know, I’m not really enjoying my corporate job. This is so much more interesting. So I decided

to give it all up and go back to college and the next four years I learned about nutrition and

hormones and in 2014 I launched my business Happy Hormones for Life and since then, so that’s

10 years now. We’ve been helping women with the education, the empowerment, giving them tools to

really be able to take control of their hormones and really feel better than they ever could without

that. And then wrote the book in 2017, so three years into clinical practice, because I couldn’t

reach that many people just doing the one to ones and a lot of people couldn’t necessarily

forward it so I said I’ve got to get this out there in a much bigger way so that I can reach

more people and the book seemed like the obvious idea and it just flew out of me and I think I

wrote it in about eight weeks or something crazy so wow that thing was easy and then so and that’s

the only thing I ever thought I’d ever need so I’ve got you know I’ve got my toolkit I’m in my

40s I’m in Perry I’ve got my toolkits working I feel brilliant excellent and then I’d hit 50

And then I just, these things started creeping in.

I started getting horrendous night sweats out of nowhere.

I was like, hang on a minute.

I, you know, I, I got this sussed.

What’s going on here?

Um, again, I talked to my dad and he said, you know, you know, you know, you’re talking

about, you know, let’s, let’s get your estrogen tested.

Cause, you know, you may be doing everything right, but there may be some things going

on.

So I, I did the, the tests that we, we normally run the duct, the urine tests.

And of course my knee’s trigem was on the floor,

my progesterone was nonexistent.

And also my mum had just been diagnosed with osteoporosis.

And I just thought, hang on a minute,

I know that has worked in my 40s,

but I’m getting these symptoms that I’ve never had before.

And I’ve got risks in my family.

So, and I’ve just tested my hormones and they’re really low.

So no one dries I’m starting to feel

the some extra symptoms that haven’t been felt before.

So I started on body identical, we call them here in the UK,

which we can get on the NHS, which is our medical system for free.

I started on the estrogen gel and the uterus just down,

which is micronized progesterone.

So I knew the difference between synthetic and body identical,

bio identical.

So I was very insistent.

I went into my doctor and I said, I want to try this.

And he looked at me blankly as if to say,

like I was speaking another language because he had no idea

what the difference was.

He was trying to get me on this other stuff.

I’m going, no, no, no, I want this.

And it was a battle, but I got there.

And I started to take it very low dose to start

and then sort of titrate up until I felt right.

And that’s made a huge difference to me.

So in my 50s, I felt like the landscape has changed for me.

I’ve got different challenges.

Obviously, we’ve got aging thrown in, more inflammation,

all of that stuff.

And you’ve got to sort of adapt and sort of change your talk

it a little bit to adjust for the aging years and the different

challenges that we face.

And that’s how I felt going into my 50s.

And I’m now in my sort of late of 50s.

And I’m sure it’s going to change again in my 60s.

But that’s the thing I didn’t quite realize in my 40s.

I thought I’d got it sussed for life.

And so I never thought they’d be another book coming along.

And then halfway through my 50s.

And I’m going through a sort of mid-life transition

as well as the physical challenges of aging,

I think there’s this whole emotional transition

that you have to go through

of finding yourself again,

rediscovering what likes you are,

having a look at your purpose again,

making sure you’re doing more things that give you joy,

making sure that you’re upping your self care,

all those things as well,

they become more important as you get older.

And I think writing this book has really, really helped me

kind of get all that down on paper.

The changes I’ve made to my 40s toolkit,

because actually it’s not just about hormones anymore.

There’s this whole other stuff going on

that we have to deal with.

And so it becomes a much bigger kind of jigsaw puzzle

if you like.

As I always talk to my clients about your health

is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle.

Yours is gonna be so different from anyone else’s,

your picture’s gonna be different.

Each piece you’ve gotta sort of work out for yourself,

which pieces fit together and work for you

because everybody’s so different

and it’s gonna be a different target for everybody.

So that’s what I’m sort of trying to get across to people,

giving them lots of options,

but making sure they’re picking the right things

that work for them and not saying that this cookie cutter

kind of one size fits all thing,

which we all know doesn’t exist.

So there we go, not too history.

JANNINE: Oh my goodness, it’s funny how the cookie cutter thing

comes in a play because we do try to find the magic pill,

The one thing, the this, the that, and unfortunately,

yeah, I’m starting to notice like

through the trajectory of my own experience

with perimenopause and, you know,

getting closer, closer, closer to menopause,

I’m noticing like, yeah, this is the symptom shift,

the need shift, the hormones definitely shift.

And there is like a point at which I’ll see people

like hold non okay and then just boom,

the hormones just drop off.

And oftentimes it happens after the period stops.

I’m curious if this happened to you.

like period stopped, you’re like, all right, I’m cruising.

And then all of a sudden just wall– 

NICKI:  Totally coincided with that.

You know, my cycles stopped for that year.

I was officially post-menopals and then the nights

was just kicked in straight away.

It was like, you know, my ovaries kind of just went, yeah, had it done, done.

JANNINE: Yeah, they’re like checked out by.

Yeah.

It’s, it’s funny how that happens.

And I’m starting to see that right now because I’ve been lucky enough to see

patients for over 10 years in one same place.

So I’m seeing everybody’s trajectory.

And I’m like, Oh, okay.

Shoot, okay, I’m seeing it.

I’m seeing it.

Now it’s, you know, the big thing,

because unfortunately or fortunately,

I mean, I love that the word’s getting out about hormones,

but we’re also creating the media, I suppose.

I could say is creating something of a,

you get the hormones problem solved.

Like you just get the hormones and the problem solved.

Are you seeing that in the folks

that are coming into your programs as well?

NICKI: Oh, totally, totally.

And you know, with the whole awareness thing

that’s happened over the last five to six, seven years,

you know, celebrities talking about it openly now.

And we’ve had a massive campaign here in the UK

to bring awareness to HRT and the benefits of it

because our doctors here

are really don’t have any training on it.

So they kind of don’t know and women’s health,

as you know, is so down,

down the bottom of the pile,

that especially older women’s health,

that’s even further down.

So it’s not been given the attention.

It deserves despite the fact that we’re half the population,

but we could spend a whole hour talking about that.

But yes, massive campaigns, massive awareness,

which is amazing for women to find out,

I had my dad in my life, which was really fortunate,

but the average woman does not have any expertise

around to ask for help.

So books are important, awareness is important.

But with that has come very much,

a HRT is the miracle cure.

You only need to do that.

Get everybody on it and you’re fine.

It’s this kind of mass broad brush stroke

of every woman needs it.

And you’re absolutely fine if you take,

that’s all you need.

You don’t have to worry about anything else.

So my message now has become more about,

yes, for the Perry Manipause,

it wasn’t, it didn’t really involve HRT,

’cause I kind of didn’t need it at that time.

And a lot of the things that you’re going through

Peri can be managed naturally. However, with this new awareness of HRT, all of that’s

kind of like, “Well, we don’t need to bother changing our diet or exercising or doing anything

else because we’ve got this thing and it’s going to clear everything up.” And for a small

majority of women, it actually does do that and they don’t. They’re just the lucky ones,

aren’t they? But for the majority, I think they either, well, yes, they might do better.

a lot of women are doing better on it, but they’re not quite there, they’re not 100%

or they’re doing worse on it and it’s because it’s not the right format dose or it’s not even

right for them. So there’s this whole spectrum if you like of HRT, but it suddenly become, well,

take it or don’t, you know, don’t take it because you can’t kind of thing. There’s no sort of gray

areas and because of that it’s become quite divisive and what I really hate seeing is women arguing

with each other and this is just it’s become a kind of us versus them type scenario which is the

worst that can happen because we know we all need to support each other and stick together and

stand up for each other and there’s been you know it’s been quite divisive this whole HLT thing

and people getting quite angry about it and I’m just in the middle going hey there’s room for

everybody you know we we need HLT we need natural solutions we need there’s a whole spectrum in

between and it’s for every woman to be empowered and informed enough to make that choice for herself.

That’s the important thing. It’s not about who’s right and who’s wrong here.

It’s about giving women the information they need to make their own minds up. And that’s it.

JANNINE: I couldn’t have said it better. I couldn’t have said it better. I mean, it’s just a lot of people

like, “But you’re a naturopath, but you like biodonticals. What’s wrong with you?” You know,

no, it’s what works, right? First and foremost, what works? What gets someone their life back?

That’s my first thing. And the comprehensive approach, because they do find that’s not just one

magical pill, as you’ve noticed, and especially with your new book, because you’ve got the

Embrace Protocol, which I love because it takes everything into account here, because yeah,

it just kills me with society and this like one hit wonder thing, man. We just want that one

thing the easiest thing and I get it but at the same time I’m like hi. 

NICKI: Well when you look at all

the things that we need to look at as we get older you realize that you know HRT is so limited isn’t

it because it’s only what is it doing it’s just replacing two or maybe three hormones that’s it

well we’ve you know we’ve got lots and lots and lots of hormones that are doing their thing and

getting older we’ve got inflammation raging we’ve got disease coming out of us and risks of disease

coming at us. So we’ve got to do more than just take a pill. We’ve got to look at our whole life

and look at every aspect of it that impacts our health and that’s pretty much everything,

to be honest. And the more I research the book, the more I realise that, oh my goodness, there’s

so many things that impact our health from your thoughts to your, the we know how much you move

every day and how stressed resilience is working because we can’t just get rid of stress. Emotions,

work stress, technology, there’s so many things that impact us and how long we live.

And this whole longevity thing. And of course, it’s moved now from life span to health span.

As you know, it’s all about how we age better because for a woman here, the life expectancy is now

83, I’m not sure what it is in the US, but I’m sure it’s similar. And you know, we’re

not living very well up until that age, you know, and I think the stats in the US are

worse than they are here. But I’m sure it’s, it’s, it, it, you need to be focusing on this

now in midlife so that you can maximize those years. Because if you think about it, if your

average menopause is 52 and you’ve got to a lady that’s another 30 plus years potentially.

That’s almost half a lifetime. That’s huge. It’s a huge amount of time and it’s a massive

possibility for you to start doing something amazing for yourself and start, you know, like I

watched one of your Instagram reels on, you know, transforming that metamorphosis. It’s amazing.

You know, what a opportunity we have in that latter stage of our life to really make those

years count and really focus on ourselves for once because most women have been looking

after other people all their lives. And you know, and I’m sure that you know there are

some people who have still had the care, care for people, but it’s also an opportunity to have a

bit more freedom and make use and really really use that wisdom that we’ve gained and it’s a huge

opportunity and all I see in society is you know trashing older women and the ageism that is rife

particularly for older women and it’s we’ve got to fight that as well as our aging bodies and

perceptions and all of that. So there’s a lot that goes into kind of managing that and making sure

you’re on top of it and you’re really, yeah, putting yourself in a position to really max out those

those years and make them count. 

JANNINE: Absolutely, absolutely. I think I’ve kind of gone in the same direction

is you’re like, okay, yes, menopause, hormones is important.

Now let’s help everybody for that.

Yes, however many years you get to live this life.

And it’s so important to have the foundations down too.

And even if you didn’t get them younger, now is the time.

I think we also have that idea of like, oh, I’ve wasted,

and I know I’ve done this too,

gone like I’ve wasted how many years now I’m 46 oh geez you know it’s over 

NICKI: yes yes but that’s

where the the attitude comes in because you can always change your thoughts you can always

change your attitudes to things and that’s really really important in in managing this next phase

of our lives is to reframe aging for yourself and for others around you because a positive outlook

on aging and itself increase your life by eight years it’s been shown. So just having an attitude,

a different attitude about how you’re aging is huge. It’s a big piece in that protocol of

getting your own jigsaw puzzle is your attitude. So that’s a big piece because we know that negative

thoughts and pessimism can really shorten your life, which is incredible, isn’t it, to think that,

but it’s really true.

JANNINE: So it’s so mind-blowing how much the thought process,

you know, really only come away to that

in the last few years.

And it’s mind-blowing every single day when,

you know, you catch yourself, right?

‘Cause it’s easy to go down and around and like,

“Hey, I’m doing it again.”

– Doing it again.

– You know, and I know I’m not alone.

So it’s definitely something to be thinking about.

So I would love to hear how you’re incorporating it

into your programs, but also into your book,

Life After Menopause, because I think this is

so important to think about, as we’ve already talked about,

what is life after menopause? What can we achieve? What can we do? How does this work?

You know, what’s our own guidebook? How are we going to write this? So give us a scoop on the

embrace protocol. 

NICKI: When I was writing the book, there was sort of the ideas and the themes were

falling into different areas of this kind of jigsaw as I was doing it. And I just noticed,

It’s not constantly aware of the word embrace

’cause I really wanted to fit it into

how we approached this next section of our lives.

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NICKI: And so I went through the different sections and they kind of just fell naturally into

the word embrace.

So the E of embrace is eat well.

Now I’m a nutritionist by trade, so I’m going to put food in there and it comes up first

in this instance.

But it’s not always the first thing, but for me it’s super important to be eating well

as you get older.

You know, your food or your nutrients, they nourish every cell in the body.

So if your body’s aging, you’ve got to feed it good aging and the aging foods as I call

them.

So we’ve got to, you know, I’m not going to go through nutrition to your listeners because

I’m sure they know all of that stuff.

It’s not rocket science.

you know, aging foods that we’ve got to sort of limit like sugar and the refined carbs

and all of that stuff that impact our metabolism and our insulin resistance and all of that

stuff. The alcohol, I don’t know about you, but a lot of my friends are kind of reducing

or giving up because it just doesn’t fit anymore with their 50s, 60s kind of approach. I’m

doing my best, but I’m quite there yet. You know, the bad fats, the processed foods,

all of that stuff. And then we really want to concentrate and really fill out plates

with those healthy aging foods, you know, good protein, protein, so, so important as

we get older because we’re losing muscle mass that, that are faster rate.

So getting that protein in healthy fats all good.

We don’t need to worry about, you know, the low fats anymore unless you have a problem

metabolizing fat, but you know, want to get those healthy fats in for your body and then

the good quality carbs, making sure you’re not, you’re on your blood sugar is nice and

stable.

So all of that, I’m sure everybody knows getting those new, micro nutrients in the plant nutrients.

And then I have sort of some longevity kind of super foods that are coming up over and

over again in my research.

One of them was berries because we know how many antioxidants, flavonoids and polyphenols

they have in them and all of these things fight inflammation and they give you antioxidants

to fight free radicals as well.

So we know that that can help with living longer and healthier.

In fact, I think there was a study that showed that people who at berries regularly saw a

21% lower risk of mortality from any cause compared with those who didn’t.

And it wasn’t, stories all blue, blueberries and strawberries were great,

but actually the biggest reduction was with cranberries.

So that’s really, really interesting for me because I’ve not really seen that before in a study.

Now, category of foods like beans are really staple of the blue zone diets that have been

researched extensively, powerhouse of nutrients in there as well.

and again they’ve got around a 7% drop in mortality for every 20 grams in. So really good foods for

longevity, nuts and seeds, eggs, cruciferous vegetables we know are so good for our hormones

and our liver, olive oil, the smashed fish, you know the salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines and

herring which are so rich in EPA and DHA and omega-3 fats and they’re the lowest in mercury

because they’re the smaller fish and then gut health foods and being hydrated. So that’s a kind of

overall kind of dietary guidelines for getting all those nutrients in to help you age better.

So that’s the E. The M is move and that I’ve put move daily. So of course, modern life makes

us more and more sedentary and studies show that if you’re sedentary for over 12 hours a day,

you face and 38% increased risk of death compared to those who have a sedentary time of less than

eight hours. So the more we sit, the less longer we’re going to live basically is that equation.

So you’ve got to move and it’s not just exercise, that’s great, but it’s daily movement. It’s

only that neat, that non-exercise activity thermogenesis and that’s just, you know,

moving around, taking more breaks from standing and just not necessary, formal exercise, but not

sitting. So that’s the middle bit. And then you’ve got, you know, my three kind of bases for movement

are sweat, strengthen and stretch, the three S’s sweating because that’s great for your cardio

health but it’s detoxing and it’s a good for your immune system as well and that can just,

you don’t have to sweat in a gym, you can go for a walk up a hill or a brisk walk in this heat

here in the UK now I’m sweating just talking to you. It’s, you know, it’s whatever makes you sweat

you can sit in a sauna as well. But you know, strengthen is so, so important. That’s the bit

where we’re really adding to our muscle mass because we’re not adding to actually

we’re maintaining it, aren’t we? Because the rate at which we’re losing it,

we’re just fighting just to maintain it at my age. And that’s really, really important. I think

a lot of women have resistance to resistance if you like. They don’t feel like, you know,

strength training is for girls and for women. And I’m seeing that change now. But especially

for my generation, I think there’s a real reticence to kind of do weight lifting and I’m just pushing

it as much as I can because it’s not that hard. You don’t have to go to a gym and lift weights,

you can do squats or lunges at home, you can get resistance bands, you can do kind of active

pilates if you like, which works your muscles, dynamic yoga does the same thing and just running

up and down the stairs will do it too. So you do something that kind of works for you but you are

working on those muscles so important because it’s the base of your metabolism as well. So,

you know, all of that’s good. And then stretching so good for mobility, balance, and avoiding those

risk of falls as you get older. So, you know, I wish my mum had known all this because she has

osteoporosis and then she only found out because she fell out of her car in the supermarket car park.

She was just sitting in her mini and her mini is only this much off the ground. She

She pulled it out and she got her leg trapped in the seat belt, she put it back properly

and she just kind of fell down about a foot to the floor, smashed her hip into smithereens

and they said, “Well hang on, you’ve only just fallen like this.”

She had really bad osteoporosis, but she had no clue there was no testing or anything.

I think, and that was a long long period in hospital with lots of physiotherapy and

recovery and we have to try and avoid that because it’s not only a nasty operation but

you’re in hospital for a long time, you’re immobile for a long time and you’re at massive

risk of more fractures and also anything else you can pick up in hospital too. There’s quite

a risk of going in and not coming out the same anyway. So yeah, so keeping mobile and

And of course yoga is great for that, polarity,

Tai Chi stretching, any kind of stretchy stretching

of your muscles is good for that kind of stuff.

And then we’ve got to look after our pelvic floor as well.

We must forget about that because those muscles

kind of hold you up and hold everything in place.

And they’re really important to your back

for staying away from things like leaking,

prolapse, all that sort of stuff.

So really important for your quality of ages

as you get older.

And a lot, not a huge amount of women know about

pelvic floor or know how to look after it as well. So it’s really important to get that knowledge

across too. But that pretty much wraps up move. 

JANNINE: Nice. Nice. You know, I mean, the pelvic floor

discussion, I mean, we’re getting there. I have two lovely gals, Kim Vopney and Dr. Brian Grogan. I

mean, they’ve been game changers for a lot of my patients, but also for me to just learn, right?

And then now the devices, I just tried this crazy thing called the V tone. It looks like a teardrop,

Have you tried this?

Have you heard of it?

NICKI: No, I’ve not heard of it.

JANNINE: Oh my goodness, it inserts vaginally

and so you’re like, okay, this is interesting.

And then it’s connected to a radio frequency,

like pulse device.

And I never felt my pelvic floor like that before.

I was like, whoa, this thing’s impressive.

So I think we’re really getting there

and I think if we could just keep spreading the word,

like yes, pelvic floor.

‘Cause nobody wants to like diaper situation.

Like, come on, oh, no one wants that.

NICKI: And it’s quite difficult actually to do the,

do like, access, pelvic floor exercises properly

without stranding something else or doing it wrong,

which you can make it actually worse.

So these little devices are, you know,

they can be game changes, I’m sure, yeah.

JANNINE: Yeah, just fun stuff.

All right, so we’ve got, we’ve finished that move.

We got balance, rest, activate, connect, and eliminate.

We got some more stuff there.

What else are you doing with folks?

NICKI: So balance, I’m gonna skip over

because that’s kind of, you’ve done,

that’s about your hormones, basically.

So yes, hormones are important,

there are only a small part of this whole protocol and you know you’ve got enough stuff on hormones

but it’s all about balancing. I have a I have I talk a lot about the feisty four hormones which

are cortisol insulin thyroid and estrogen the four hormones that kind of you get though in

control of those if you get those balanced you’re pretty much there you know so if we can just focus

on those four it makes it a little less overwhelming when we’re talking about hormones in general

but we’ve talked about HRT, it’s important for a lot of women but not for everyone.

And you’ve got to look after those hormones as best you can and you know there are many many ways

of doing that. I could talk to you about that for a long time. You know you teach this stuff as

well. So we’re going to I’m going to skip over B and I’m going to go straight on which is rest

enough. And this is all about stress management because we know that stress is for me in my

the number one indicator of how well you’re going to go through pairing men in pause.

The more stressed you are, the more symptoms seem to correlate for me.

And it didn’t really register until I’d had that clinical experience because I always

thought it was about food.

But, woof, no, it’s about stress, isn’t it?

Oh my goodness.

And I think that’s why we’re having so many problems with our hormones because we’re just

not resting enough and we’re not switching off enough and we’re all too hyper.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of Sandra Dalton Smith.

She’s done an amazing TED Talk and she talks about seven types of rest.

And so I’ve stolen those from her with her permission.

And I talk about those in the books.

I think they’re really important because when we think about rest,

we might think about sitting on the sofa watching Netflix or, you know,

going on a spa day once in a while or just taking a holiday.

And it’s just not enough.

We need to be switching off daily.

And there are seven types of rest that she talks about that are,

that makes us think a little bit about the types of switch off

we need. She talks about obviously physical rest meaning sleep and physical relaxation,

which is so important. So we know how important sleep is, but getting that enough sleep,

but also making sure that we have periods where we’re relaxing. So that could be just reading

your book or meditating or whatever you want to do for that. Mental rest is that stress,

work stress, potentially, your over commitments, all of that stuff that is just taxing your brain.

So you need a brain break every so often.

And that can be lots of different things to different people.

We’ve got sensory rest, which is switching off technology, screens, noise, lights,

might be going to the line of the dark room for a little bit.

And we’ve got creative rest where we can just re-invigorate our creativity,

you know, spend time in nature, appreciating beauty, that kind of stuff.

Art. We’ve got emotional rest, which is about, you know, stopping that whole

people pleasing thing that we do, that need for approval, they’re getting used to saying no,

those types of things. And then social rest where, you know, we can get bombarded by social activities

too. So that’s like making sure your connections are really positive ones. So spending more time

with people you love that lift you up and less time with people who don’t. And then the last one

is spiritual rest, which is nice too. And that’s reconnecting with either, you know, your religion

or whatever you believe in, the universe or divine or whatever it is, and also your kind

of passion and purpose. So you’re connected to something bigger than you in this world,

and I think that’s really important as well. And whether you do that through prayer,

meditation or volunteering or whatever it is that works for you, I think that’s a really

key part of resting as well. So those are the kind of things that I think we need to look at,

and maybe if you’re doing your meditation every day or you sleep well, maybe

there’s another aspect of rest that you kind of haven’t thought of that you

probably need to address that’s pushing up your cortisol and making things a

little bit more challenging. So I like the way she’s incorporated all those

different aspects. 

JANNINE: That’s cool. That’s cool. We’ll have to link to her too here

in the podcast notes at doctorjkrausend.com because yeah the the seven times are

us be the important. So cool. 

NICKI: So the next one is kind of for the a little bit if

you want to go a little bit deeper, activate your protective pathways. So

So we’ve got a lot of things that happening as we’re aging, things like senescence and

inflammation and, you know, wonky nutrient signaling and DNA damage.

There’s all sorts of things that the aging process incorporates, kind of the pillars

of aging, if you like.

So there’s quite a bit we can do to actually support these pillars and make sure they’re

not aging us too quickly.

So some of these involve things like heat and light and cold therapy.

that you might not thought of, but you’re maybe doing, but didn’t realize what they were doing for

you. So things like heat therapy, like saunas and things like that, where your body is producing

like heat shop proteins and they can repair, help repair like damaged proteins in the body.

They can also act as like antioxidants and reduce that location, the sticky proteins that cause

inflammation. And so heat shop proteins and on the other side, cold shop proteins are doing

similar thing as well and they can help strengthen your immune system as well. So heat and cold are

really lovely ways to kind of activate these pathways and get some more protection on your side.

Light therapy as well and I know I looked into red light therapy which is fairly new in the

well-being space but it’s getting a lot of accolades using the power of infrared rather than heat

to rejuvenate your cells. So again you can do that on your face or your whole body. I believe

there’s dental devices now and even vaginal ones as well. So yeah, I think there’s going to be a

device for everything. So probably watch out for that. And then the next one to kind of activate

your protective pathways, the big area is fasting. Of course, lots of people are talking about

fasting these days, but it activates something called autophagy. I think that’s the way you say it.

boost your mitochondria, it reduces oxidative stress and all kinds of other things and helps

with inflammation too. So it’s a really good way of switching on those pathways without too much

disruption, especially if you do the overnight fasting, which as I know is one of them all

easiest ways to fast. So you know you have a sort of 12 to 16 hour window between dinner and breakfast.

Not suitable for everyone I must say, particularly if you’ve got adrenal or thyroid issues or you’re

or underweight or you’ve got hormonal issues,

I’m sure you’ve seen examples of where women

are just don’t thrive on fasting.

So don’t do it if you feel any symptoms with it.

If it makes you feel great, stick to it.

But again, people have been, it’s one of those issues

where it’s kind of a miracle thing

or it’s been, everyone must do it.

It’s going to help everyone.

Well, doesn’t this, there’s a spectrum again.

So I want people to be aware that it’s a tool

but it doesn’t have to be used by everybody.

JANNINE: Yep.

NICKI: And then supplements can be super helpful

to activate those protective pathways

and there’s a whole range of supplements

that are available now that can help us,

I suppose, or support us as we’re getting older.

I won’t go into all of that

because that is a whole day’s topic.

JANNINE: Possibly a week, yes.

That’s a big one.

NICKI: Possibly a week.

– Yeah, yeah.

So that’s where I’ve learnt supplements

in the activates section, although I do recommend

some very basic ones for most people.

So it’s not necessarily a deeper therapy if you like.

And then the C is connect.

And this is where we are looking at

our emotional health really,

looking at human connection,

which we have struggled with actually,

particularly since the pandemic,

really the phrase “friends recession” has been coined.

Social fitness is something we all talk about now

and it’s become an issue that a lot of people struggling

with loneliness is off the scale in terms of numbers now.

Particularly in the UK for some reason,

we really struggle here.

I don’t know why, but we’re the worst in Europe, definitely.

So whether it’s just chatting to strangers

or really connecting deeply with your kind of most loved ones,

there’s a whole spectrum again of where we need to connect

and it’s not just with our partners,

it’s right down from say hello to people in the coffee shops.

There’s so much evidence now that that helps us.

So we are wired for human connections.

So we need to nurture those connections

and really seek out more deeper connections where possible

to be able to feel more emotionally stable and happy

because connection makes us happy.

So that’s the human connection.

We’ve also lost a lot of our connections in nature.

Super important, spending time outside,

decreases stress, lowers our blood pressure,

improves our mood and it’s also good for brain health.

So we need fresh air, we need light,

daylight particularly to produce serotonin

melatonin asleep, wake cycle. We really benefit from being the

water occasionally, that’s really calming for a nervous system,

and we have the Earth connection as well, which was interesting when I was researching it.

I came across a lot about gardening, I think I know you’ve posted about this too, about how

beneficial it is, how soothing it is almost coming in contact, and that’s because you’re

coming in contact with the earth and you’re able to absorb those electrons which can help

neutralise free radicals whether you know it or not but it’s a really good way of

staying younger and it’s no wonder that it becomes more popular as we get older. I think that’s

just your body telling you you need to get out there and get your hands dirty and get your hands

into the ground. Yeah, connection to our food we’ve lost as well, we’ve convenience foods,

we don’t know where they’re coming from, we don’t sit down and eat together anymore,

we don’t cook it in our, you know, there’s a lot of disconnection with our food. So really sort of

reconnecting with our food, you know, really just visiting more farmers markets, maybe growing

your own, just dabbling that you don’t have to do the whole thing, you don’t have to be self-sufficient,

but just having an idea of where it’s coming from helps. And I think also social eating is so,

so important, just getting together and making sure you’re eating with others. And if you can,

then maybe getting out to a cafe or something where you were actually got other people around you,

even if you’re not with them, but it has been shown to really, really support your health as you get older.

And then spiritually connected, we’ve talked about the rest element, but finding that connection

to whatever you believe in really helps you to deal with stress, increase your resilience,

make helps you find community as well and purpose, and then connection to yourself. So important,

that self-awareness, self-acceptance, such a crucial part of evading particularly for women as we see

changes to our bodies and accepting that but also making sure you’re aware of why it’s happening but

also quantifying your needs, making sure you’ve got those in place, looking at your whole self-development

really, looking at your inner critics, putting boundaries in place, shaking up

up your routine, staying present, practicing, gratitude, all those are tools. I’ve got a lot

more in the book, but I won’t go through them all. But they are tools that we can use to

really get to know ourselves better. Because once you get, once you know yourself really well,

you’re going to know what makes you happy and what makes you fulfilled. And that’s going to be

a key theme in, in, in that last stages the next few years. And making sure they, they are

everything you want them to be. It’s so important. So important.

JANNINE: Yeah, the connection thing, you know, you mentioned we’ve lost that absolutely with since the pandemic.

I see that too. So many people just lonely lost. It’s huge, but also connecting to yourself.

Like finding out like, who are you and what do you really want to do? Like what light to you up?

I find that the most fun to watch people kind of rediscover themselves. Let’s put it that way.

NICKI: Totally. Yeah. Yeah. I’m doing a lot of that myself too. So I think we’re all on this journey of

trying to work out what brings us joy and just getting trying to get more of it in our lives because

we realise it how important it is. And then the last one is E which is, I’ve devoted to gut health

and liver health so it’s eliminate and defend which is your gut and liver and your immune system

because these are kind of the unsung heroes almost of our bodies and the systems. They’re absolutely

crucial for keeping us healthy but now but also in the future. Because gut health is not just about

digestion, it’s a whole ecosystem that’s supporting the whole body. It’s our second brain, it’s

our control centre, it’s controlling inflammation, it’s controlling immune system, it’s controlling

how your hormones are produced and work, your mental health, all of it. So it’s so important to

support your gut with the right foods, the prebiotic foods, the probiotic foods, lots of fiber,

lots of plant nutrients. You’re limiting those food stresses so that your body can,

your gut can work properly, stress management because that’s really bad for your gut.

And then oral health as well, making sure you’re looking after your teeth and your

your gums because that’s really important too. And then the liver does a huge job. It does over

like something like 500 jobs. And it, you know, if you don’t look after your liver, it can lead to

really bad metabolism, hormone imbalances, increased risk of disease really. So we are exposed to

a huge chemical soup in modern life. We’ve got plastics, we’ve got chemicals that have just

been accumulated over the last hundred years or so. In everything that we buy, we put on ourselves

in the air, we breathe, the food we eat, all that stuff. So it’s really important to kind of

be aware of that but not get overwhelmed by it and just do what you can to minimize the plastics,

the fragrances, the pesticides and look after your liver that way and make sure you’re totally

hydrated and you’re eating those veg that are good for your liver, the chrysiferous

and the bit of veg, doing your sweating and your saunas and making sure you’re sleeping well.

And all of those things will help your liver and also watching your alcohol. I didn’t mention

that one, but that’s a key one. 

NICKI: It’s one that, you know, like you mentioned earlier,

a lot of friends you have are noticing having trouble with it. I myself, yeah, I can’t do it.

like minimal amounts if I even, because at this one I’m like,

“Mm, just my husband, yes, I don’t even really not interest it anymore.”

NICKI: Yeah, because you know the payoff, the cost of it is so much more than it used to be.

The cost is, you know, you can wipe the whole day out,

can’t you the next day, because you just don’t feel good.

And then in the past you could probably say,

“Yeah, I don’t mind doing that, I’m going to have a great time.”

But if you don’t have the great time and then you’re still getting the cost,

– No, then it stops getting like a silly equation.

JANNINE: It’s wild, it’s wild.

You know, I mean, you have to at some point

the look at like, okay, the liver side of that.

And like, I do find that when folks do start to hit a wall

with drinking alcohol,

always like, okay, we have like to deliver metabolism.

You know, what’s happening there.

And that’s probably one of the big things

that I had to, you know, face is like, okay, yeah,

There’s some things going on, toxic, you know, microbiome.

NICKI: Huge, and you imagine the accumulation of the stuff

over the years, it gets worse and worse,

and that’s why we get older, they mean,

the liver’s going, “Ah, you know,

“I just can’t cope with everything that you’re putting in me.”

So, something’s gotta go.

And it’s usually the alcohol, but yeah.

And then lastly, the immune system,

because that’s what’s keeping us strong

and keeping us protected.

And, you know, it helps us with a lot of these aging pathways as well.

So we want to, you know, nutrient dense anti-inflammatory anti-oxidamish diet.

We want to against manage our stress because that has an impact, a gut health and, you know, certain supplements as well.

So there’s a whole, there’s a whole thing, the big kind of, lots and lots and lots of information,

but it’s picking out what works for you and in your life and your lifestyle and what you can physically do as well,

because not you can’t do all of this.

this is not meant to be, you know, do it all,

because I’m certainly not doing it all.

I’m just putting it out there for you to just pick

and cherry pick if you like, pick and mix, what works for you.

And so that you can like have a bit more information

to put your own protocols together.

And even if it’s just taking one piece from each section

and starting there, then you are moving forward

and you’re taking those baby steps and that alone

can make you feel better already.

So any little part of this that you start doing is going to be beneficial in the long run.

JANNINE: I have no doubt. I have no doubt. I mean, I think unfortunately we’re back to the all

and or nothing kind of society or the one hit wonder or one magic coming. We do think that

there’s like going to be that one thing. But sometimes it’s a synergistic,

effective, multiple things and finding what what you like. Because I’ve also had, and you’ve probably

seen this too, where people come to you and they’re like, I’m doing all the things, but they’re

stressed out by all the things. And maybe there’s a lower level that actually your body will

feel actually better at.

NICKI: Yeah, because we want to be perfect, don’t we? We want to try and do everything perfectly.

That’s a whole female trait, isn’t it? The perfectionism thing. And it can come to health

as well. We want to do it perfectly, but in trying to do it perfectly, you’re massively

stressing your system out and your nervous system is just going, “No, I’m not going

and it doesn’t progress, it doesn’t give you the results you’re looking for because it’s saying,

“No, I can’t deal with that.” That’s the wrong way to approach it. But it’s often,

you don’t hear that message, you hear the message, or you’re not doing enough,

or you’re not doing it well enough. And we just trash talk ourselves, don’t we? And we say,

“You’re not good enough.” It’s, “Oh, another thing you’re failing at.” And all these things that,

again, because we’re negative talk to ourselves, is having the reverse effect. So, we’ve got to be

kind to ourselves and we’ve got to realize that we can’t do it or we can’t do it all perfectly.

So just a little bit and baby steps and do what you can and do what makes you feel good and just

start there. 

JANNINE: Absolutely, absolutely well said. So of course, I always have a question when there’s

a book and there’s a protocol. I like to see what the author’s aha moment was out of the whole

protocol? What was like your favorite thing that you discovered about yourself that was part of

part of this protocol that you’re like, “Oh wow, I really need this.” Or, “Oh, I really love this

aspect of the protocol.” 

NICKI: Well, there’s several actually. It’s like picking your children, isn’t it?

What’s my favorite child? I think the cold water thing was a revelation to me because I have always

been absolutely worse at getting into the water anywhere, if it’s cold, if it’s colder than

like 20 something degrees. So for me that was like something I’m going to write about it but I’m

never going to do it. And then I joined a local gym and they had this new brand new spa and in

it was a cold plunge pool. 

JANNINE: Nice. 

NICKI: I said now I’m not doing, I’m not the girl who does that so I’m

going to go in the sauna and get really warm and I’m just going to walk past it and just walk out.

one day I was with my sister and she’s come on look you’ve got this amazing thing you’ve written

about it you’ve researched it you know how good it is for you and she said just go in so anyway

I put my foot in no way and it took me about eight weeks I slowly every time I went I put another

body part in and I got sort of the next week I was up to my knees the following week I got up to my

thighs without you know before I freaked out and then and now I’m able to get in there and sit there

for five, good five minutes. And I am so proud of myself that I didn’t give up. And I honestly feel

I can understand why people get those endorphins when they come out because you feel amazing.

And I feel like I’ve just been kind of cleansed somehow it’s incredible the feeling you get.

And I’m just glad I kind of persevered because I’m so not that person. So I think that for me

was I don’t think I’d have done it if I hadn’t have researched the benefits for the book and

and realized how good it is and what the body does

and why it does it.

And, you know, I’ve got to use every tool in the book

for helping me age.

And, you know, if I can get over this one

and the rest seems quite easy.

JANNINE: Oh man, yeah, I’ve had patients ask me like,

do you have to do the cold plunging?

And I’m like, you know, it’s hard for me, you know?

It isn’t, I don’t like being cold.

It’s not, I’m gonna always divert to like the hot rock

and like, you know, whatever I can do to get hot.

NICKI: Yeah.

The thing is you don’t, the thing is you don’t need to go as far as you don’t have to get

into an ice bath.

You can just turn the shower down a little bit and make it a little bit cooler by, you

know, 10, 20 seconds every morning, just try and get your body used to a little bit of

colder shower.

That will help.

That will help.

And then you can kind of progress from there if you want to.

So you don’t have to go to a flush spa with an ice bath.

JANNINE: Although, I mean, it does sound a lot better than some of the folks in my local area who are dipping in the Puget sound,

which I’m like, “Nope, nope, nope, can you get me?”

But, oh, nope, nope, I need to know what’s underneath me.

If I, one, if I’m going in it, two, if it’s cold, forget it, I need to know if there’s not critters.

NICKI: Yeah, that open water swimming sounds so romantic, but our local river is full of sewage, so I don’t think that’s very nice.

JANNINE: No.

NICKI: It’s really putting me off.

JANNINE: No.

Yeah, I like the cold shower in the spa. That sounds amazing. I may I may try it at that point. Oh my goodness, Nikki

So we got to tell we got to talk to you get to tell folks about your programs too because you’ve quite the team that helps you out and

And so we’ve got the book and then folks could that you know dip their toes in not totally pun intended there

With the book and then they can work with you guys give us give us a scoop on your programs and working with your team

NICKI: Yes, so we have been helping women for the last 10 years in our clinic. We do functional testing and we do a lot of one-to-one support

So yeah, you can just go come over to happyhormansforlife.com

Go to the contact page and I can send you a whole load of information on how we work

Particularly beneficial if you’re in the UK because obviously a lot of the tests are UK only

But we do other we do support generally over zoom everything we do is online. So

So we can help that way.

And then yeah, the books and I’ve got a master free stuff,

lots of free resources too.

So yeah, go to the website, check it out, press start here

and then you’ll see everything in front of you.

JANNINE: All right.

And we also have the Happy Hormones podcast.

Can’t forget that.

NICKI: Yes.

JANNINE: That’s anywhere you can get podcasts correct.

That’s everywhere.

NICKI: Everywhere is the Happy Hormones podcast.

Yeah.

JANNINE: Excellent.

– Excellent.

– Nikki, thank you so much for coming on today

and chatting all about your book,

which we also have to remind folks,

it’s “Life After Menopause”

because I think there’s so many books on menopause really,

but perimenopause and hormone balancing,

but life after, aging well, that’s my jam here.

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Goodness.

Thank you so much again.

I really appreciate it.

NICKI: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

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