Podcast: E35 - Anxiety and Second Puberty
Listen to E35 - Anxiety and Second Puberty - https://bit.ly/4ku2jHO
Hey there, friend, it's Dr. Tiffany. I want to welcome you to episode 35 of Integrative Mental Health Therapy with Dr. Tiffany. And this episode, we are focusing on, is it second puberty? Second puberty. Can you believe that? I was shocked when I realized at a recent integrative medical conference that this phase of life for women, perimenopause, is actually referred to as second puberty.
I was shocked that during second puberty, not only do women experience all of the expected and anticipated hormonal changes, but also increased levels of inflammation, challenges in their marriages, there's a high incidence of divorce cases. I'll make sure I link the blog and the references to this material in the podcast notes. But there's actually like a significant movement around helping women navigate through perimenopause, basically second puberty, because so often this results in women not only feeling anxious and irritated and overwhelmed and basically unable to kind of navigate all of the things they were able to do previously in their jobs or in their responsibilities.
But also, like generally, women just saying, you know what, I'm tired of everyone, I'm tired of everything, I think I'm gonna just go live in a cave. Like this is literally what people who treat women in this phase of life, and in this more holistic space, our finding is a consistent theme in the research as well as just kind of on the ground.
And it was such a relief to attend this conference and be surrounded by holistic and integrative gynecologists, OBGYNs, internists, you name it, who are working with women to navigate the decade plus that is perimenopause and who have the data and the basically the receipts to actually talk about this. So I just wanted to dedicate a little bit of time and this podcast has been a month since I last checked in with you. And during that time, I was focused more on just the case studies, highlighting how I go about doing things in my practice and what holistic integrative mental health looks like from lab work and how that all ties in and how we always are addressing things brain, body, mind. But I've talked about this topic of perimenopause a few times, but just feeling like in my practice in the universe, I don't know, there's like a battle cry for more support. So just wanting to drop into it again. And I just want to speak to those of you who are listening.
I just want to speak to those of you who are listening who are going through this phase and feeling like you're going crazy or you're watching your friends get divorced or you're seeing that the relationships around you seem to be going offline, that there is a rewiring happening in the brain. So the reason this is called second puberty is because during the first puberty, right, when the menstrual cycle is starting.
The female brain actually rewires, it re-patterns. Neural pathways start to kind of lay themselves down differently because there are hormone receptors in the brain. And so, you know, you have neural pathways that look like back roads and you have some that look like expressways, like, you know, the most sophisticated networks that you're gonna find in Atlanta, Georgia, or LA in California, those really complicated expressways, that's what starts to happen during the first puberty, excuse me, I'm having to say that word a lot today, when the menstrual cycle starts, right? So that's what's happening. And it becomes a very busy, tumultuous time.
Think about all of you who have teenagers in your household and how it feels like all of a sudden she has lost her mind and she's crying and she's angry and she's spacey and she's in pain because having a menstrual cycle is not a walk in the park, especially with how congested our detox pathways are in this society, in this modern day society. And it's happening early on earlier, so younger bodies too can have a harder time dealing with it. But like basically your whole house is turned upside down because this young person's whole brain and body is going through remodeling. Well, welcome to the party, because as a 40 year old woman, and perimenopause basically is going to start to kick off, um, late 30s, early 40s, and it's going to conclude when you have gone a whole year without a menstrual cycle and now you're in menopause. Um, so that could be for some of you,
I know it's 45, right? And so maybe it started at 38 and ended at 45. I'm so not 45. I'm looking at being 48 here on the next birthday. And I swear mine started at 40 and it is showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. I feel like I have been on an amusement park ride that I did not ask for. Okay, so that is what we're looking at here. And could very well for me, actually be like 52 or 53 before I might even enter menopause, right? So that's 13 years quite possibly. That is a long time to feel like you are going crazy. And what kinds of things show up for us during the second puberty, right? Because it's very different than getting your period. We're trying to stop a period. Oh my gosh.
So let me speak to what you're experiencing. The first thing that drops out is progesterone. What does progesterone do? It helps with that sense of calm. It helps with managing anxiety. It helps you to sleep. It keeps levels of GABA, a neurotransmitter that is the equivalent of Valium or Xanax. It helps it to maintain its levels. It helps tissue in the body to be loose and pliable. It helps lubrication. It makes orgasm possible and pleasure more accessible. Hello, it is going in the toilet, out the window, like it's going down at a rapid level, but you are still cycling. So what happens when you're trying to have a menstrual cycle but half of the menstrual cycle is gone haywire? You don't sleep, you're having hot flashes, you're mad, your muscles are tight, you're more prone to headaches.
There's some weird stuff going on with the hair. Maybe it's dry, maybe it's thinning. There's all kinds of things. Your levels of muscle are going down and so that tone in your body has shifted. You have to get way more creative about how you maintain your weight and your lean tissue. Your sensitivity to alcohol, specifically wine, has gone through the roof. You have to now stop drinking wine because it makes you feel terrible, hung over, gives you brain fog. There are a number of individuals in my practice who have complained of having hives and all kinds of just skin disorders and all because of alcohol intake. I've had people vomiting because they're drinking and it's because the histamine levels that are now out of whack because your progesterone and estrogen levels have shifted.
Second puberty, perimenopause increases histamine levels in the body. Histamines are what are in fermented foods, fermented drinks, specifically wine, and histamines in high levels in the body when unchecked actually wake you up in the middle of the night, disrupt sleep. If your GABA is down, you're going to have a hard time with something called glutamate, is excitatory. It's a neurotransmitter because you have all these systemants. Does it sound like a hot mess? Because I could tell you it feels like a hot mess. At least it felt like a hot mess. I have my situation hormonally better under control. I have my GABA levels managed. I'm a non-drinker, so it was a non-issue anyway.
But when I didn't understand what was happening, it was a significant problem. And so I know many of you do not know what's going on. And when I tell you, have one of my clients I was talking to about this, who may be listening and smile to herself, because she's going to hear me quoting her. You mean my body is now telling me I have to do all those things for it that I wasn't doing. I have to take better care of myself. I have to be a healthier person.
Yes, absolutely. You really do need to decrease your sugar intake. You do need to increase your healthy fats. You do need to sleep like your life depends on it because it does. You must stop drinking wine before bedtime or later in the day. I'm not telling you to day drink. I don't know when you're supposed to drink the wine, but it's not before bedtime. If you must have alcohol, it needs to be vodka. You need to stop drinking the wine before bed.
You need to watch your histamine levels overall. We may need to add quercetin to your diet. If you are not able to figure out sleep or GABA or progesterone levels, those things need to be addressed. And I also look at this as a divorce prevention lifestyle intervention, like a marriage. Saving lifestyle intervention. You need to know that the reason your husband gets on your nerves or your partner gets on your nerves or your child is driving you crazy is because your progesterone has dropped out, your estrogen is going to follow it next, and those are accommodating, acquiescing, people-pleasing, bonding hormones. And they're dropping out because your brain and your body are remodeling to allow for you to be in a place where you are attending to you more and attending to everyone else less. So it is a time for you to make some serious life adjustments, right? And so to do that, it doesn't mean you cut off everyone and you go live in that cave, but it does mean that you're brain is not so I don't know inundated with the hormones of bonding like it has been and since those are calming down you're going to be able to hear more all the desires of your heart and mind and really really want to do what pleases you you're going to be disgruntled at work you're going to be disgruntled at home you're going to feel more frustrated and you need to know that this is not something that you need to over respond to. You need to know that this is not something that you need to get a divorce attorney for immediately. You need to know that you are changing, you are remodeling, and that in this season, you need to communicate better with the people you love.
You need to get the support. You need to learn how to say no. There's a lot of brain, body, and mind-based strategies that need to be brought on board for you to navigate this 10 years successfully. That is what this is. This is me saying to you, the way I do things, this brain, body, mind approach, the Doc Brown Bush approach, really genuinely applies, excuse me, to the first puberty for sure. I knew that to be the case. You should just see the blood work of my poor little 12 to 14 year old teenage girls. But absolutely to this phase of life when there are so many imbalances and you're super sensitive to all of those imbalances. And you're not used to having all of these intense feelings. You're not used to having these thoughts. And you don't know, what's real, what's not, how to respond to it, and what you're supposed to do and say in the face of it. So one of the blog posts I did was about relationships. I have an email that I'm gonna link here as well that talks about sleep. And I will have a pop-up webinar also coming up on July 14th. It's sometime in the afternoon around, I think, 3.30, four o'clock.
If you have time, you know, even if you can't make it live, sign up for it so you can get the replay. I'm gonna be dropping some really important takeaways, some just jewels, just nuggets of truth bombs to help you figure out, okay, where do I start? What's the priority? And then I do anticipate having a surviving perimenopause workshop, that runs for about three hours coming up in the next three to four weeks where you can just jump in, get everything you need for your survival guide and be off and running because this is such an important phase of life to successfully navigate. Welcome to second puberty and maybe you're listening to it and you're not there yet or you're in menopause and you wish someone had explained it to you but you have younger women in your life.
Share this with them. If we all knew this was coming, because you know, before our moms just didn't have the support of the medical system, functional medicine wasn't what it is now, there wasn't this kind of research, et cetera. If we had known we could have better prepared, so now that we do know we can better prepare the ones behind us to do this successfully and be healthy, so share this with the people you know. And remember, brain, body, mind is the way that the body works. And this is about meeting your body where it is, holistically. I hope this has been helpful. It has been a delightful podcast to record and look out for more on this topic. Until next time, be well.