Maryon Stewart: Managing menopause naturally

[01:25] Sonya: I'm absolutely delighted to have Maryon as my guest on Dear Menopause Today.

[01:31] Maryon: This is a really oh, gosh, beautiful, informative, educational, really warming interview with Marianne.

[01:40] Sonya: And I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.

[01:43] Sonya: Wonderful to be here. I love connected to Australia. I'm in.

[01:48] Maryon: I love that we just had a chat off air about your connections with Australia, which are quite fast, and the people that we actually know in common, which we didn't expect, which is amazing. So, Marianne, let's kick things off. Why don't you tell the audience a little bit about who you are and why we're chatting today.

[02:05] Sonya: Okay, so I have been around for a long time helping women with their hormone health. We started out treating women with PMS many, many years ago with a natural approach. And these days I'm sometimes referred to as the pioneer of the natural menopause movement because my team and I have literally helped probably at least 1000 women through our program successfully. And we manage everything we do is research based, and we manage without drugs and hormones, and we've done lots of research as well. And I've written well. Management. Menopause Naturally is my 28th book, but it's my first American book. And although I'm from England, as you can probably gather, I now live in America because I met them out of my dreams, and I'm living in Florida. And it was actually quite hard to get a publisher, even though I'd written all those other books in England and Australia. I've written lots of books in Australia. But I did manage to get a new world library. And in fact, I had two publishers fighting over me, I think, which was brilliant after about 30 rotations. Don't let New World Library hear that. And they've been amazing. And I had lots of tours and TV interviews and podcast interviews and to the point now where I've got I did have my own TV show in the UK, but now I'm working with PBS and at the moment, during Natural Menopause Awareness Month, I've got a TV series called Marion Stewart's Menopause Moment on PBS, which is really thrilling. And we're doing bigger series for the new year, so I'm loving it. It's just wonderful to be able to let women know that there's hope, that they don't have to give up. Our latest survey shows that 96% of women were taken by surprise by their menopause and twothirds of them felt robbed of life as they knew it. So it's a kind of wow where women get bowled over by their hormones and no one's really coming to their rescue. The Mayo Clinic survey in 2019 showed that only 7% of doctors and gynecologists felt adequately educated on women going through menopause. And so it's sad and I don't want to sit by and I know that there are other people out there now that are coming to the party who are all really keen to bring about massive change so that we leave a legacy for future generations. And not only that, but what the research shows is we can not only overcome our shortterm symptoms of perimenopause menopause, but postmenopause we are so predisposed to things like osteoporosis bones and heart disease and dementia. And I remember doing I was in the theater in Perth in Western Australia and I was doing a book signing at Menopause the Musical, and I was there for five days and nights and I was listening to all the chat from the women going past me and I heard them saying, been there, done that, and got the T shirt. And actually I was thinking, well, actually you haven't, because you haven't got the faintest clue that you're much more vulnerable now than you ever were before. And if you want to live a quality life because 100 years of so ago we weren't living much past 50, whereas now 40 something, maybe just halfway through. So many of us, we need to actually learn how to get ourselves into good shape.

[05:16] Maryon: Absolutely. That's where we're on the same page. A lot of my messaging with the women that I work with is around this. We have this window now where we can futureproof our bodies and we can lay down incredible foundations now through our nutrition and our exercise and the way that we care for our bodies to futureproof our bodies for the years that is still to come. And I think it's such an important message to be sharing.

[05:42] Sonya: Oh, I totally agree. And the research is so rich. There's so much of it. I mean, the first study I ever read was published in Australia, what was actually conducted in Australia at Molash University and published in the British Medical Journal. And they took a group of women and they fed them naturally occurring estrogen, or estrogen, and they found they were able to bring about a similar change in the lining of the ****** as they would have expected to see in women taking hormone replacement therapy. Well, I thought, wow, that's so amazing. And that was when we kind of started tweaking our PMS program and turning into menopause program, and it's been incredible. So we see, even though it's a five month program, even in the space of six weeks, we see women who are no longer having hot flushes and night sweats, they haven't got the aches and pains, they're not feeling 90 before their time, they're sleeping again, they can remember things, they don't think they've got dementia anymore. Do you know, it's a whole different ballgame. It is.

[06:40] Maryon: It's amazing. So that brings me to my first question for you, which was, and you've touched on this a little bit already, but I'd really like to dive a little bit deeper into this, which was what inspired you to really start helping women through their menopause. So to shift from that PMS side of your work into being more menopause focused.

[07:01] Sonya: Because I saw that there was a need and no one was doing it. I mean, we're talking about the early ninety s, there was no one anything to do with natural menopause. In fact, I remember going on to interviews on the radio and TV with other menopause experts who are all HRT experts, and the minute I open my mouth, they kind of chew me up. But now, because there's so much more research, it's very difficult to do that because everything we do is based on published medical research. And fast forward to I was out of this industry for about six years because my youngest daughter died and someone gave her something in a drink and I ended up running a campaign for six years. And so during that time it was a very high profile campaign in the UK, very successful campaign as well, but it was too painful for me to do social media as well. So at the end of that, the end of 2016, we changed the law, we saved tons of young lives and raised awareness. And I thought, I really want to go back to women's health because it was so joyful for me to see these incredible transformations. So I was in America at the time and I didn't have my network here because everything I'd done before that, apart from my trips to Australia and New Zealand, was in the UK. So someone introduced me to a filmmaker here and just by coincidence, if you believe in coincidence, she was running a Facebook Live course the next day and asked me to go. And I did, but I was bit kind of scared about making films on my phone. Rather than going to hair and makeup and groggy little films on my phone, she made me upload them or to Facebook. And I set up this little Facebook group within the space of twelve weeks, over a million women saw those films and I was completely inundated. And it made me angry because it was so it was 20 something years after I started helping women. I knew we could get some symptom free, I knew about the research, and yet here we were, 20 something something. Like years later, they're still in a terrible state, they're still not being helped, the doctors aren't even any better educated. And I just thought, this is no good. Something has to happen.

[09:20] Maryon: It's interesting because that was the first thought that I had when you mentioned that you started this work in the 90s. My first thought when you said that was wow. And here we are today, still having these conversations, still raising awareness and using our voices to shine a light on the struggles and discomfort that so many women have at this point in time. And it's such a shame that progress, I guess, is slower than we would like.

[09:50] Sonya: But now there are tons of other people who have come to the party and it's because menopause is becoming a business opportunity. And so there are really dynamic women who are stepping up and bringing some products with them. And I think together over time, there will be collaborations that will really change the face of everything. I mean, I know from my campaign in the UK on legal highs that I brought together over 20 world class experts and we work with the Prime Minister, we campaigned and it was a great result. And I'm sure that we're going to get the same result over time in the next five years with the menopause. And from my perspective, all women need is what I call a midlife refuel. And I'll tell you why in a minute. But it's like when they know that they can have that in their forty s or early 50s, there's no shame, there's no big mword to fear and all this ageism and everything associated with menopause because it can become just a hip thing to do to get your midlife refuel. Because after all said and done, women give out so much all their lives. They very often have babies, they breastfeed, they work, they look after the home, they look after their partner. You know, they're doing everything for everybody else and really they come bottom of their priority list. So this is a time in your life when you actually need to learn how to meet your changing needs, so that you can go from feeling like a shadow of your former self to the best version of yourself and probably better than you ever dreamed possible. Because we go downhill so slowly, we don't realize how far down we've gone until we bounce back up again.

[11:34] Maryon: That's right. That's right. And one of the themes that I love that comes out of the conversations that I have, particularly with women that have been through their menopause and in their postmenopausal phase is that they do have this awareness and recognition that actually it just gets better. And I love what you're talking about and I'm keen to dive into this midlife refueling concept of yours, which I think is very aligned with the foundations that I like to talk about. But if we can do that, then it's even better. That comes after post menopause and you're just ten times in the awesomeness and the opportunities and the power that we can step into as women in those years.

[12:21] Sonya: Yeah, if you're well, you can. I think when you get to midlife you've thought about a crossroads and if you don't get empowered with knowledge and information and support, you're just going to fall apart and go downhill. Just take off the corrosis. It's an invisible killer. 20% of women actually die off for a hip fracture within a year and we are much more prone to heart disease and 50% of women actually die from their first heart attack and then there's dementia, which just robs you of everything that you knew. But it doesn't have to be that way. If you learn how to all this incredible research to show that we can prevent all those things and so it really, really is important to have this refuel and then learn how to keep yourself in good shape in the long term.

[13:07] Maryon: So why do you think that we have been stuck in this kind of middle ground, I guess for quite some time now, where so many women have been led to believe and accept that the struggling and suffering and silence and that the stress of menopause is actually just part of being a woman and we need to just suck it up and get on with it. Why do you? I mean, we know about things like the Women's Health Initiative, which set us back considerably. What else do you think is kind of contributed to that state that we're in?

[13:44] Sonya: First of all, we didn't live much past 50 so it didn't matter. Second of all, the doctors are not educated for the most part and we don't get educated at any stage in our lives, so why would we automatically assume that it's going to be anything other than doom and gloom? People feel achy, they feel tired because they're not sleeping. They forget things, which makes them scared. They get vaginal dryness, which means they can't have pain free sex. They get hot, so they don't want to be touched. It just life becomes a nightmare and they just think, well, that's all part of the aging process. Why wouldn't they? No one ever told them it could be any different.

[14:28] Maryon: So how would you remedy that? I'd love to know what your thoughts are on. At what point do we start advocating for education to come in at an earlier phase rather than once the women that we're talking to are probably already perimenopausal? Have you put any thought into how you would like to see the education system, for example, change to be more supportive for women.

[14:58] Sonya: Yes, I've thought about it a lot and I think there are two factors here. One is, I think if we can pass on the legacy that even young women understand that menopause is just a lifestyle, it's just a transition and they have this refuel and then no big deal, just get going again. That's how it should be. And I think that the other thing, too, is that when we're looking at this issue and we have all this information and knowledge to impart, it isn't magic. Women have to implement it. You know what it's like. You're a fitness instructor and therefore, if you tell someone to exercise, how many women out of ten do you tend to do it? They come back and give you an excuse why they didn't do it. But I'm here to tell you after all these years that I've been helping women, as soon as they feel better, they go off the boil. Unless they're continually motivated and unless they're in real pain in the beginning, they're not going to make the changes because it isn't a magic pill. And so you've got so many factors to persuade people to, for example, cut down caffeine. If you can't sleep at night and you've got hot flushes, caffeine is going to make it all worse. But very often, unless you're really up against it, people say, oh no, I can't do without my caffeine in the morning. It gets me going in the morning. But there are other ways to get going in the morning. And so when women come, so you've got things like my book where people can self help and dip into it and try a bit of this and a bit of that. If you're suffering mildly or you're just going through the beginnings of perimenopause, that might be enough. But for those women who are really bowled over by their hormones, life has become untenable and they're really clinging on by their fingernails. They've got to have the full blown midlife refuel. And that means there's five tried and tested things that are included in that. One is learning how to meet your nutritional needs, because we did five studies in the early days showing that very often women have got low levels of important nutrients like magnesium, B vitamins, iron, zinc, calcium, vitamin D and so on, all affect your brain chemistry and your hormone function adversely. So you can't you go into what I call economy mode. So you're functioning like firing on two cylinders instead of four. That's the first thing. Learning how Mother Nature communicates with skin, nail and hairstyles and how we can identify and correct those things. The second part is when you go through perimenopause, when you're born as a baby girl, you've got millions of eggs and they get less and less and less as you get older. And then when you get to menopause your Ovaries retire, so you've got no eggs, so you've got empty receptor sites in your cells. Don't forget, we're now living past 50 and the brain doesn't like those empty receptor sites. It's trying to kickstart them so that your Ovaries will work again. And obviously that's not going to happen. So we teach women how to consume naturally occurring estrogen in food, because the molecule looks so similar to estrogen that you had before menopause, so it's keeping those receptor sites full little and often. So that's the next part of it. Then it's taking sciencebased supplements, supplements that being through properly conducted clinical trials, because very often the pretty packs and pots don't contain what they say on the label. It's not a regulated industry. So we're very picky about what we choose and they have to have been shown to be safe as well as effective, because we're obviously tinkering with our hormones. Then the next bit is exercise, you'll be pleased to hear. And that doesn't mean running a marathon. It just means finding the exercise that works for you. Whether it's getting off the chair and doing some dancing to your favorite music or doing some getting a hula hoop or whatever it happens to be. To get you going and get you moving again. To really make you feel good. Get those lovely endorphins out there to oxygenate your brain and also to speed up your metabolism so you can lose weight without dieting instead of getting all that better fat. And then finally to make sure that you're doing a session of formal relaxation every day for about 20 minutes to half an hour, because that helps to rewire your brain, helps to bring down a high cortisol stress hormone down, and it also helps to reduce hot flushes and night sweats by 50% to 60%. So all those huge I describe it like a pie and you need to take a bite of each section rather than just thinking, I'm going to try one thing today and one thing next week, I hope that it's going to work. Yes.

[19:45] Maryon: So talk to me just for a moment, a little bit more about that relaxation techniques each day. So what do you recommend that women may be to someone who has never really implemented any form of relaxation self care into their routine? How do you kind of recommend that someone get started with that? And what forms of relaxation do you recommend?

[20:11] Sonya: Well, it needs to be formal, so it's not knitting or watching TV or even reading a book, but it's going to be something like meditation or the relaxation that you do at the end of a yoga session. Now, a lot of people say, I can't meditate, my mind is too busy. And so we use apps. And there's one particular one we like called Pizzas, which was created by a group of neuroscientists and it takes you into a really deep, relaxed state and then brings you out again and you can just use it free to start with and then there's a paid for version, but you can adjust it and customize it to your own needs. And I just find for me and for my patients, it's absolutely magic because you can feel tired and afraid, go and lay down for half an hour without plugged into your ears and then get up as if you've had a night's sleep. And it also in the same app, it contains a sleep app and so for people that are struggling with their sleep, they can plug in and it helps them get back to sleep again. So technology helps us a lot. There are other apps as well, but if you can't and I'm one of those people that have a very busy mind, so when I first tried to meditate, I had a piece of paper and a pen next to me because every so often I had to just get up and write something down. I couldn't stop my mind. Now I do this every day because for me it's a lifesaver and I guess my brain is trained, so the minute I hear sudden sounds and noise, I kind of go into this amazingly relaxed place and it's wow, it's wonderful. It's so wonderful.

[21:50] Maryon: Can you just repeat the name of the app for me?

[21:52] Sonya: Yeah, it's called Pacific PZI double Z or PV.

[21:57] Maryon: And I'll link through to that in the show notes as well for anyone.

[22:01] Sonya: I'll email you afterwards because we've got a discount code, like a 50%, so people can use that.

[22:07] Maryon: Thank you.

[22:09] Sonya: People. Really. I think women. The first thing is you got to you've got to give yourself permission to focus on yourself. You know. To be almost like nurture yourself. Be your own parent and say. Yes. I'm going to do this for a few months and I'm going to get my people at home or people at work or whatever. I'm going to tell them what I'm doing. I'm going to ask them to be supportive. For the most part, they will be and it's in their interest to be because you're not going to be anxious or angry or whatever it is. Tired.

[22:50] Maryon: Interesting. It's feedback I get from a lot of women when they reach out to me and we talk about what their biggest struggle is at the moment, so that I can decide what is going to be the best way to help them and support them. And often, and this comes back to what we were talking about before as women, we never put ourselves first, but often the women will come back to me and say, I need to make life easier for my family.

[23:20] Sonya: Yeah.

[23:20] Maryon: And there's a part of it that breaks my heart because I think they're still not thinking about themselves, it's still that projection on to others. But yes, I can see how this relaxation and meditation bringing down the cortisol and operating from a karma state will have that flow on effect for everyone.

[23:45] Sonya: Absolutely. We've done some surveys on men as well, and men say they feel rejected and they feel scared. They don't recognize very often the person that they're living with. And also we overlook the fact that they go if you're waking up six times in the night and tossing and turning, that's going to disturb their night. If you're not the person that normally you're not showing up in the normal way, then that's going to make them feel weird and upset their equilibrium as well. So I think the more we can do this altogether so when we go into corporations now and we help in the workplace, we always include men. We always help them teach them how to support women. Either it's their employees or people, their partners at home, because it's so important that they understand that this is not you're not going to write this person off because they're acting in a strange manner. When they get to 40 something or 50 something, you just need to help them to have this refuel and give them a massage. Ask what you can do to serve them while they're going through this and it will pay to yeah, I think.

[24:59] Maryon: That'S such an important message. I interviewed on one of my podcast episodes and a lovely, lovely lady, Mal Kettle, who is based in Brisbane, Australia, and Mel runs a lot of workshops corporately to upskill leaders on how they can support their employees through their menopause transitions. And she tells a really beautiful story about a lady that was really struggling with hot flushes in the workplace to the point where she was actually uncomfortable to be at work because she was selfconscious and felt shame and all of those things that we feel when we don't want to talk about what's going on for us with the people around us. And I can't remember exactly what happened, but she mentioned to her boss, must have kind of called her in and asked her what was going on. And she mentioned that she was really struggling. And he said, well, bring a fan in for your desk. And she was like, I don't want to draw attention to myself that way. And he was like, oh, okay, I get that. Anyway, she came into work the next morning and he had put a fan on every employee's desk, the whole team. And what a man. What an incredible leader to have identified the problem, but come up with a solution that did not draw attention to her, made her feel included and cared for. And I just thought, how wonderful if we could create environments, more environments like that for our women.

[26:33] Sonya: Yes, absolutely. That is a really lovely story. I think that we have got more companies who are coming to the party now, and I think it is important. And not only that, but it's a win for them as well because Forbes says it costs $810,000,000,000 globally each year due to lost productivity associated with menopause. So it works out to about well, in American dollars it's about six and a half. It's probably more like 10,000 Australian dollars per woman per year. And not to mention lost talent on top of that. So if you nurture your workforce and support them and help them through this transition. They're going to get. We know from our work and from research that they're going to get ten times better so that they'll show up and they'll be productive and that's going to help the bottom line and help the economy as well as help the women and on a work level and also on a personal level and on.

[27:26] Maryon: A financial level as well. There's just been some research released here in Australia around the annual loss, the annual cost to women in loss of earnings and superannuation as a result of leaving their workplace or pulling their hours back when they're going through menopause. So women take a financial hit as well. And we already know that women retire earlier than men, so women are already behind the eight ball in that respect. So the more that we can do to create workplaces that are more inclusive and supportive and educated and aware that the better off everyone will be.

[28:06] Sonya: Absolutely. I totally agree with you. And we're meant to work longer, aren't we? I mean, women used to retire at 60, then it was 65. Now we're expected to go on into our seventy s. And so how on earth can you do that if you're not fully functioning?

[28:20] Maryon: Exactly. So your midlife refueling program, which I just absolutely love the whole name and concept of, I think it's amazing, how can women work with you? Tell us a little bit about that. And your book, how can they use your book to support themselves as well?

[28:39] Sonya: OK, so Managing Menopause Naturally is the latest book and you can get that I'm not sure where in Australia, but probably Amazon. I'm not sure if it's in all the bookshops, but you can definitely Google it and find it. We've got different things for different people. So we have a midlife refuel community and that's free so people can come and join us and there's tons of selfhelp material in there. We do live sessions and sometimes I have guest experts and so on, but we answer questions as well. So that's for people who are interested in the subject and also maybe suffering mildly to moderately, just go to Marian stewart.com, it's Maryonstewart.com. Or just Google Midlife Refuel Club and it will take you straight to the link and you can join that. And then the six week program that we run is the also on the website under Solutions. And what happens with that is people fill in a questionnaire and diet diary and then we enroll them on the course and then we work. With them for six concentrated weeks. They go through it individually, but also as a group, so they've got a whole load of other women who are supporting them. It's a relatively small group, but it's a really enlightening and empowering experience. And we work together, maybe every day if necessary, to just make sure they're fully supported and helped. And by the end of six weeks, as I said, what goes on below the waist, the vaginal dryness and all that takes longer, but everything else normally is under control, even within six weeks. And it's like magic. They suddenly sleep at night, they suddenly can think clearly, they're not hot anymore, they're not achy. All those anxious, horrible things that they were fighting with before just melt away. And once they have had the refuel, although the refuel takes a little bit longer than six weeks, it's amazing how quickly you can start to bounce back once you start meeting your needs again. We're a bit like a bucket with a hole in it when we start, so we're kind of plugging that hole and then helping you to fill up again.

[30:52] Maryon: That's a brilliant piece of imagery for women to really connect with how important this is. I love that. Thank you for sharing.

[31:03] Sonya: Yes, my pleasure. I think that if all we do today is give women hope, which I'm sure you do all the time, that they don't need to go on suffering anymore, and that they can get back to feeling really seriously like the best version of themselves, and that this could be a whole new chapter in their lives.

[31:20] Maryon: Absolutely.

[31:21] Sonya: Where they can use their wisdom that they've acquired all through their lives to best possible effect, because they're not played by the symptoms anymore. They just feel well and they can embrace life.

[31:34] Maryon: Absolutely wonderful. Now, I am going to throw you on the spot here a little bit because I forgot to give you a heads up about this before we started recording. But to wrap up all of my interviews, I asked my guest one question, and that is, what are you reading, watching or listening to right now that is bringing you joy?

[31:53] Sonya: Oh, wow. Well, I'm reading The Keeper of Happy Endings, which is on my kindle. I can't even tell you who wrote it because I can't find it, but I'm absolutely loving it. What am I watching on TV? We just finished watching a series. One of my favorite things I ever watched on TV was, I think, before the Pandemic was actually filmed in Australia called a place to call home. If you've seen that, that's amazing. And I'm watching every day. This sounds terrible, doesn't it? But I've done this Marion Stewart's Menopause moment and it's actually on TV in America. So for social media, I sit down with my little dog in the evening and my husband filmed me in front of the TV screen. And it's just we've been posting them on social media really funny. So I wouldn't be normally watching myself on TV, but it's just yeah, it's been a fun thing to do.

[32:53] Maryon: It reminds me of the app that I know my kids are using now, and it's kind of the new social media called Bereal, which is have you heard of Bereal?

[33:02] Sonya: No.

[33:02] Maryon: So it's a new kind of take on social media, if you like, and everybody on the app gets a notification at exactly the same time, and it's randomized throughout the day, so you never know when this notification is going to come through. And then once you get the notification, you have a really short window to post. And what you do is you take a photo of so with your phone, it takes a photo of you, and then it takes a photo from the back camera so what you're looking at, so it captures you and then whatever you're doing at that time, and that gets uploaded. And then there's a feed, obviously, of everybody's be reals. But it is that capturing yourself doing something which is spontaneous and not planned and curated, and you can't take 50 versions of yourself and then choose which one that you post. It's very in the moment and real, and it reminded me of that. You being filmed sitting there watching yourself. I think that's really cool.

[34:07] Sonya: I think it's the funniest thing also is that when we started doing this filming, I got this kind of scruffy little dog who I rescued. She was found under a bridge with a homeless man and her mom and other puppies, and she's a crossbreed, but the sweetest little thing you can ever imagine. And she jumped on my lap when we started filming the first Menopause moment. And so she got a starring role, so she's in every one. So that's why I sit there with herself on TV. I love that.

[34:39] Maryon: That's gorgeous. Marianne, thank you so much for your time today. I have really loved our chat. I think that you and I are very aligned on many, many areas, and I love connecting with women that at the start of my journey. You're so many years down the track and are helping so many women, and I just think it's amazing. And I'm so grateful that there are women like you in the world.

[35:02] Sonya: Oh, thank you very much. And it's just lovely to meet you. I'm sure I'll pass it across again.

[35:06] Maryon: Absolutely.

[35:11] Sonya: Thank you for listening today. I am so grateful to have these conversations with incredible women and experts. And I'm grateful that you chose to hit play on this episode of Dear Menopause. If you have a minute of time today, please leave a rating or a review. I would love to hear from you because you are my biggest driver for doing this work. If this chat went way too fast for you and you want more, head over to Stellarwomen.com Au podcast for the show.

[35:45] Maryon: Notes.

[35:46] Sonya: And while you're there, take my midlife quiz to see why it feels like midlife is messing with your head. You.