Heather Shannon (00:01.23)
Hello, my friends. We are here with a special guest today to talk about menopause and perimenopause and PMS and all of the things that those of us with a uterus must deal with. So let's welcome our guest, Amita Sharma. She is the co-founder of NourishDoc, a global holistic wellness platform empowering women to manage their hormone transitions from PMS to post-menopause with education,
support and evidence-based therapies. So welcome Amita, how are you?
Amita Sharma (00:35.056)
Great, great. Thank you so much, Heather. I love the work you're doing, the passion that you're bringing on this topic that's got stigma attached to it, taboo. We don't want to talk about it, even though we're living in this chat. Yeah, chat GPT world, AI world, and we don't talk about this.
Heather Shannon (00:38.478)
Thank you.
Heather Shannon (00:45.486)
It's so goofy.
Heather Shannon (00:51.402)
It's so even like it won't even let you talk about menopause or sex or either. No, that's so insane. I can I usually find a loophole and convince it. I'm like, this is for work. This is a professional context. And then it's like, okay. Now we'll let you talk about it. But I'm like, it shouldn't have to be jumping through hoops. Like, everyone has a body. Like, I think that's the thing that drives me crazy. It's like, we all exist because of sex. Now some of that's changing with IVF and stuff. But
Amita Sharma (00:57.601)
You know, I-
Heather Shannon (01:18.19)
most of us who are middle-aged these days, just because of sex, and we all have bodies. And I'm like, what is this weird thing we have where we're like, let's just not talk about sex, let's not talk about periods or hormones or menopause, let's just go through it blind and hope, our fingers and hope it goes well.
Amita Sharma (01:21.133)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (01:40.334)
It's so stupid. So stupid. But it's very exciting that like, I mean, I'm sure that's literally why you've developed your platform so that we like don't have to go through it blind. So can you tell us a little bit about because you mentioned before we hit record, you're like, well, I'm not the expert per se, but I've interviewed like so many and I have this platform. So how did you kind of what was your career path like to get to this point?
Amita Sharma (01:40.368)
I know it's crazy.
Amita Sharma (01:49.593)
Mm-hmm.
Amita Sharma (02:05.648)
You know, I was working in high tech and doing product management companies like Walmart and Western Union and some of these companies and managing some of the engineers since I was in product. And I was going through perimenopause, I didn't even know the word perimenopause. think...
Heather Shannon (02:11.342)
Okay.
Heather Shannon (02:18.19)
Mm-hmm.
Amita Sharma (02:25.648)
and I'm having strange things happening to me every single day for lack of focus, productivity, all of the things that you think of, it's happening to me. I honestly did not understand what the heck was happening. I went to medical for help, antidepressant, standard thing. Nobody told me anything about HRT, nothing. So I'm like a silent kind of a soul survivor here trying to survive.
Heather Shannon (02:40.044)
Mm-hmm.
Amita Sharma (02:53.058)
telling you, it's so bad, so bad. I seriously ended up quitting my full-time job. became a consultant because full-time jobs are like 24 by 7, pretty much, in the sense like you're supposed to work after hours too. I could handle, barely could handle the hours. And so that was my kind of an intro to perimenopause, menopause.
Heather Shannon (03:07.853)
Yeah.
Amita Sharma (03:19.536)
few years back, three, four years back, I just started thinking, you know, COVID time. I always believed in the holistic part of it. And I said, you know what? This is something I'm passionate about. Why don't I just start talking about with some of the experts? And then one thing led to another. Every time I talked to, especially a woman, and most of them are women mid-age, who have...
Heather Shannon (03:25.293)
Yeah.
Amita Sharma (03:42.304)
had some kind of a medical condition and then they went into that. This whole topic of perimenopause, menopause kept coming in and three years back we decided two, three years back we're to go deep into it. People don't want to talk about it, same thing what you just said, it's taboo, know, it's got stigma and it is a big part of our life and so many couples might be separating or getting divorced because of this reason.
Heather Shannon (03:57.838)
You
Heather Shannon (04:08.206)
That's crazy. Yeah.
Amita Sharma (04:09.328)
Right? I mean, it's a fact. I'm bringing it out because I read somewhere in UK and US, 60 % of women who are getting divorced are going through perimenopause, menopause journey. Yeah.
Heather Shannon (04:18.375)
Really? I never knew that statistic. So it's like specifically happening during this time of life often. Wow. Okay.
Amita Sharma (04:24.124)
Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now you put two and two together. I mean, you are the psychotherapist here, but the libido goes can go down or can go crazy up, but.
Heather Shannon (04:29.804)
Yeah. Yeah.
Heather Shannon (04:35.746)
Yeah, I've seen both.
Amita Sharma (04:40.592)
So how the heck, know, the vaginal dryness is happening. mean, body image is going out, you know, you suddenly putting on weight and you don't feel confident. All these things can lead up to so many complications in your relationship.
Heather Shannon (04:47.309)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (04:56.214)
Yeah, it's true, especially when you don't have the knowledge and the tools to deal with it. You know, it's like if there's some insecurities and maybe there's not a lot of, you know, feeling safe to be vulnerable in your relationship. Maybe there's just not a lot of knowledge of because some of the tell me a little bit more like what are some of the perimenopause symptoms that people complain about the most?
Amita Sharma (05:02.832)
Yeah
Amita Sharma (05:10.072)
you
Amita Sharma (05:21.208)
So the people I talk to pretty standard, know, most of the time it's like, you know, you can't sleep at night. I had the same issue. Then when you wake up in the morning, you're all groggy, like your brain fog, right? Your brain completely fogged up. And then you have anxiety. Same with me, I had anxiety on borderline depression, I would say it used to happen because no, you can talk, there's no, you know, what do you do? So you can get into the dark circle sometimes.
and then the heart flashes and weight. Most of them, most of the women complain about the weight and the bloating right around the eye and the tummy that the weight doesn't go away. So these are the common and the irregular cycles, right? The perimenopause when the hormonal fluctuations are happening, your mood swings going like crazy. Like, know what, like Jim Carrey in that, in the liar liar, you know, that movie.
Heather Shannon (05:55.874)
Okay.
Heather Shannon (06:01.528)
Okay.
Heather Shannon (06:07.137)
Yahoo!
Heather Shannon (06:17.71)
I'm so bad at remembering movie details, but I'm sure I've seen it. Yeah.
Amita Sharma (06:22.192)
Okay, so you know in that movie, his kid, he's separated from his wife and his kid always wants his dad and dad is always late and he's making all kinds of excuses and he's lying, right? When he goes home, he's lying to his wife, I think it's Jennifer Anston, if I'm not mistaken, and the kid and he says, you know what, I wish my dad stops lying. You know, he sees a shooting star.
Heather Shannon (06:46.712)
Okay.
Amita Sharma (06:47.196)
So after that and he's an attorney, a lawyer, he's supposed to lie for his work and he can't lie and he goes like...
Heather Shannon (06:51.662)
You
Amita Sharma (06:57.454)
And so that's what I think sometimes it happens to lot of menopausal women. I was a quiet person, I'm telling you. I had so much problems in expressing my opinion, my voice. I literally did not have a voice. And suddenly, I was on the quieter side. Let's put it this way. So suddenly, so many women said, suddenly these words start kind of coming out of your mouth. You have no idea where. All these deep inside feelings start coming out.
Heather Shannon (07:23.756)
Thanks
Heather Shannon (07:27.938)
Do you feel like there's something then where like when women hit 50 ish, they're like, I'm going to take up more space in the world.
Amita Sharma (07:38.0)
It's the, you know, if you ask me in my case, I think it was all the pent up kind of, you know, suppressed kind of feelings over the years, over the decades, I should say that. And I'm too scared to express myself thinking that, that person won't like me. I'll be judged. what would that, you know, I had all these strange things growing up. I was a mess. And then suddenly this whole petty man of ours brought all these strange things out.
Heather Shannon (07:46.712)
Mm-hmm.
Heather Shannon (07:59.201)
Okay.
Heather Shannon (08:04.141)
It's so interesting.
Amita Sharma (08:04.334)
It was like cleansing, inside out cleansing, I'm telling you.
Heather Shannon (08:08.462)
Do you see that with other women? so you're running a community now, right? Like a platform for, OK, is that something other women experience too?
Amita Sharma (08:12.438)
Yeah.
women told me that I don't care now I'm at the point the empathy part is out of the window
Heather Shannon (08:22.572)
Yes. my gosh.
Amita Sharma (08:28.816)
It's funny, know, most of us are raising kids, you know, we are the perfect age when the perimenopause hits, know, are couple of kids at home, teenagers maybe, you know, and then you are going through your own time, whatever, hormonal. So there's too much hormonal shifts happening at home if you have girls.
Heather Shannon (08:36.003)
No.
Heather Shannon (08:47.404)
Yeah
Yeah, it's interesting too, because I've asked my mom maybe just once, how is menopause for you? And she had a pretty smooth experience, but she was a pretty young mom when she had me. She was like 25. So I was out of the house already when she was going through menopause. So I didn't really get to witness it firsthand. So I bet there's a lot of people in my position too, where it's like you've never really had a close up.
view on what happens in menopause. so I mean, I would have to think at least numerically, because they say perimenopause is like the 10 years before menopause. I would have to think I'm technically in perimenopause then. the symptoms you've mentioned I think are so interesting too. like, because they could be anything. So like, for me, I'm kind of like, I've had some chronic health stuff anyways, especially with bloating. That's been just like a big thing.
Amita Sharma (09:25.776)
Typically, yeah, typically, yeah.
Amita Sharma (09:37.006)
Mm-hmm.
Heather Shannon (09:45.134)
and I've kind of leaned more towards anxiety my whole life, more so than like depression. So it's kind of like, how do you know if it's just like life, life-ing, or if it's actually like paramedipause and your hormones are starting to change and like maybe there's something you should do about
Amita Sharma (09:45.358)
Mm-hmm.
Amita Sharma (10:03.958)
No, your cycles, right? Your menstrual health is sort of like a mirror in the sense like your cycles are going to tell you, you're going to have irregular cycles. That's what most of the experts I have talked to, said the first thing that happens is your menstrual cycle is not going to be around the clock. It could be shorter when you are in your earlier perimenopause, which I don't know which date.
Heather Shannon (10:09.496)
Mm-hmm.
Heather Shannon (10:24.994)
That's what's happening with mine. Yeah, I used to be more like 30 days. Now I am probably like 26, 27.
Amita Sharma (10:31.696)
So it's gonna start doing 21, 15, something like that. It used to happen to me. And then as you start inching towards menopause, it goes further apart because now it's gonna stop, right? So then what happens is typically it'll be after two months or three months or six months. Eventually, when you haven't had your period for 12 consecutive months, that's the official.
Heather Shannon (10:34.98)
wow.
Heather Shannon (10:41.493)
Anyway.
Heather Shannon (10:44.95)
Interesting. Okay.
Heather Shannon (10:52.428)
Okay.
Heather Shannon (10:57.923)
Right.
Amita Sharma (10:59.158)
definition of menopause, then you're technically that's your menopause per se. You haven't had your period for 12 consecutive months.
Heather Shannon (11:00.78)
Mm-hmm.
Heather Shannon (11:05.804)
The menopause birthday. People should celebrate it like a birthday, you know? But I like actually what you just said, because like, you know, we've talked about menopause a little bit on the podcast, but what you just said about first your periods are going to get shorter, then they're going to get longer, then you have like the 12 month countdown.
Amita Sharma (11:29.646)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (11:30.22)
I like that idea of someone laying out, like, here's the timeline of what to expect, and here's the phase where you might want to do some kind of hormone therapy. And I know you're not a doctor, so you can't tell people exactly what to do, but just the idea of here's the phases you might go through so we can adjust our expectations and what we are going to see at each phase of the journey.
Amita Sharma (11:34.224)
you
Amita Sharma (11:40.472)
I know.
Amita Sharma (11:44.918)
No.
Mm-hmm.
Amita Sharma (11:53.136)
Yeah, because you know, I think in United States we are still learning, know, the menopause is perimenopause is not even taught in medical schools, by the way, doctors have told doctors.
Heather Shannon (12:03.054)
I should stop being surprised. I'm gonna be like, what? And then I'm like, wait, I'm not surprised because my episode on the clitoris, it's the fifth episode of the podcast, I had two doctors separately reach out to me and said they learned more from my podcast episode, which by the way, it was like audio only at the time. I didn't even like do any diagram, nothing. And they're like, I learned more from the podcast than medical school. And I was like, holy crap. So like people...
Amita Sharma (12:12.293)
Mm-hmm.
Amita Sharma (12:19.376)
my god.
Heather Shannon (12:28.15)
I think there's sort of this like glorifying of doctors in our society and even mental health providers like, they know everything. And I think it's a good thing that like society is starting to question conventional medicine and conventional mental health. it's not that, you know, we experts don't know anything, but we know some things, but none of us know everything. And I think it's so important that we're our own advocates.
Amita Sharma (12:31.45)
Yeah.
Amita Sharma (12:39.695)
Mm-hmm.
Amita Sharma (12:49.882)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, but it's a bit of like a scary if you go to OBGYN and she hasn't been taught about petty manner powers, all she's been taught about is fertility. why she's supposed to be right. And now I think they're trying to change it. Robert Kennedy and the other guys, they're trying to change this whole education. They are.
Heather Shannon (13:01.376)
yeah. Yeah.
Heather Shannon (13:07.542)
Yeah. Yes. That's encouraging. Okay.
Amita Sharma (13:13.946)
So that's gonna, who knows, it's gonna take a little time. It's not gonna happen overnight. But suddenly now the menopause is being discussed by, you know, Gwyneth Paltrow, Oprah, know, Hal Ferry.
Heather Shannon (13:18.424)
Right.
Heather Shannon (13:24.91)
I I saw Oprah had a special on it. I was like yes
Amita Sharma (13:29.486)
NAH!
She's past menopause, right? She's 71 years old. She never talked about it when she was going through it about a decade back, three decades back if you think about it. At that time, was not cool to talk about it.
Heather Shannon (13:33.846)
Yeah! Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, but you're right. like when we talk about the fact that our body is going through all these changes. mean, sleep, think, is one of the biggest things for our health. So sleep gets messed up. You're more anxious. So your physical and your mental health are messed up. You're having hot flashes. You're probably having an experience of loss of control of your body. We also are just taught that like,
Amita Sharma (13:56.688)
Yeah.
Amita Sharma (14:01.89)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Heather Shannon (14:06.412)
you know, women are supposed to be like young and thin and have no wrinkles. And that's what's attractive. And so then you're kind of having to like, re-conceptualize everything. Maybe your shape is changing, and then you're not informed. So you're like, what are my choices even? And what can be addressed and what can't be addressed? And yeah. And so then to think about trying to have a great sex life during that phase.
Amita Sharma (14:09.946)
Thank
Amita Sharma (14:27.856)
Thank
Mm-hmm.
Heather Shannon (14:31.798)
or just a great relationship even. mean, that statistic you mentioned about divorce is so interesting. But yeah, I'm curious. do you and does your platform, by the way, tell us a little bit about the platform because I keep referring to it and I feel like we need to explain what it is. So tell people about what it is that you do now.
Amita Sharma (14:33.732)
Yeah.
Amita Sharma (14:50.416)
Yeah, so we've been doing this a lot of webinars, workshops for the last two years, three years. Now we decided to come out with an app. Now the app and the thing is actually going to come out in August. We are doing the final QA. So the app, basically the platform, the way it's designed is the first step is the self-awareness, self-education, laying down the foundation of all the things because there's so much
cloud and confusion. So the self care is sort of like we have about actually 40 plus programs within the self care based on, yeah, it's It's nourished talk right now, but we haven't named the app as something fancy for now, but right now it's called nourished talk. depending on which stage you are, what age group and what kind of issue you have, we will put you in the right kind of a program, so to speak.
Heather Shannon (15:27.148)
Gosh, what is your platform called by the way?
Okay, cool.
Heather Shannon (15:41.891)
Okay.
Heather Shannon (15:48.034)
Very cool.
Amita Sharma (15:49.136)
So that's, and it's very, very deep. It's not like just a fluff. These are all the experts, right? As I said, we, you know, we, have 600 experts and these are experts talking. It's not like AI driven or, you know, something like that. So all over the world.
Heather Shannon (15:54.263)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (16:00.082)
my god. Okay.
Heather Shannon (16:06.85)
I like the diversity of experts too, because like we said, no one person knows all the things. And so the only way you're going to get really a comprehensive education is by doing that. Very cool.
Amita Sharma (16:14.852)
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Especially in UK, like I said, they're very advanced on the HRT. In fact, I interviewed this morning a nurse practitioner and she was telling me about the HRT and then they know better than us in the United States as an example. And then some of the other topics are better understood by other countries. So we brought in holistic experts from different countries, but the majority of them, UK, US, Canada, few from India, the yoga, the breathwork.
Heather Shannon (16:34.049)
Interesting.
Heather Shannon (16:38.571)
Okay.
Heather Shannon (16:42.775)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (16:48.462)
the
Amita Sharma (16:50.192)
kind of things and some stuff and Australia. Yeah, so
Heather Shannon (16:51.2)
cool. Wow. Very holistic. Love it. Yeah. And how much does sex get brought up in your community? Like, what are some of the things people say about sex? Yeah.
Amita Sharma (17:01.292)
Sex is big, right? Because this is something women feel that they cannot talk openly. That's the problem. Like even in Facebook groups, I don't know, I haven't seen much of talk on this. I've joined God knows how many groups. Because I think Facebook kind of has this filter, if you use the word sex or menopause. Did you know that? Yeah, this answer.
Heather Shannon (17:08.014)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Heather Shannon (17:17.816)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (17:24.974)
Up 100 % yes, I get censored everywhere except for podcasts. Podcasts are the only place you can speak freely. Yeah.
Amita Sharma (17:31.084)
Exactly, exactly. They'll ban all the ads. They banned us. We were trying to do something completely. I cannot run any ads on Facebook using my personal account because they banned me. So we feel that we're trying to provide a safe, non-judgmental sort of space for women to be able to talk about anything. And I feel that the crust, the core is that...
Heather Shannon (17:49.804)
Thank you.
Heather Shannon (17:54.24)
or pool.
Amita Sharma (17:58.542)
relationship because you don't want your relationship to break, know, a couple of decades of marriage in most of the cases. And then the second thing that impacts is your financial, your career, because you're at the peak of your career in 40s. And suddenly this starts hitting you, bombarding you like little bombs every single day. And you don't know what to do. And I mean, exactly the same thing happened to me. I'm like, now, okay, I can focus on my career. My kids are a little bit older. I don't have
Heather Shannon (18:01.814)
Right.
Heather Shannon (18:13.645)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (18:27.692)
Mm-hmm.
Amita Sharma (18:28.58)
visit them and I can go into the next level or whatever, you know, I wanted to be on certain level in my product management. I couldn't do it because of what happened started happening to me. So.
Heather Shannon (18:42.062)
That's so cool though that you like took what was stressful and like created a solution for other women. I don't know. I feel like there's like lot of love behind that. To like take your own stress and help others, you know? So yeah, very cool that you did that.
Amita Sharma (18:45.296)
someone.
Amita Sharma (18:49.998)
Yeah.
Yeah, I wanted to help the younger women, like, you know, the women who are coming behind me. Right? Yeah. You know, people, women should not suffer the way, you know, and there's not much out there. So those were my inspiration to really help the younger lot that's coming. And now
Heather Shannon (19:00.278)
Yes, thank you. We need it.
Heather Shannon (19:10.733)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (19:18.316)
Yeah.
Amita Sharma (19:19.512)
if it's so important because all of us, especially they are all stressed. All of us are stressed and anxiety because we're working.
Heather Shannon (19:26.988)
know what also the world is like very insane lately on top of that. So yeah, we've got a we've got a lot of just general background stress that's kind of constantly there. I think for a lot of people has even come into the foreground. That's why I was like, how do people know if they're anxious because of the world or anxious because of their hormone? You know, like hard to tell. But
Amita Sharma (19:36.591)
Yeah.
Amita Sharma (19:46.128)
Yeah.
Yeah, this nurse was also talking to me this morning as I told you, she was talking about the mental health and the menopause can just kind of exasperate this whole situation. And some of them, if like teenagers, sometimes so much data we have everywhere in the world, the teenagers having anxiety or you have some other issues when you're growing up. Now, when you're reaching this payment of menopause, that's exactly what she was saying that becomes so complicated. And sometimes it's like you
Heather Shannon (19:58.561)
Yeah!
Heather Shannon (20:06.744)
Yep. Yeah.
Amita Sharma (20:18.034)
forgetting your keys, are you going this? Are you thinking, my God, I'm going to have dementia?
Heather Shannon (20:23.744)
ADHD already. This is why I'm like, I won't know when I'm in menopause. I'm already a little bit anxious, constantly bloated and forgetful.
Amita Sharma (20:33.272)
Yeah, that's exactly what you say. So many women, they even as a kid, they had ADHD. Now it's like, wow, ADHD menopause. I can't handle that.
Heather Shannon (20:43.414)
Yeah. Yes. I can't afford any more ADHD. I feel like I like to cap myself right where I'm at. That should be my max amount. So my question to you is I'm sure there's people listening who are in my situation where we're like, OK, we're in our 40s. I don't have any terrible symptoms yet, but my periods are shorter or a little bit lighter than they used to be, which honestly is nice. they are a little bit more frequent, a little shorter cycle.
Like, should I be looking into like treatments or options now or do I kind of wait until I have more symptoms?
Amita Sharma (21:20.066)
So I'm not the best person to answer this question, but I can just share with you that I personally haven't taken any HRT and I was talking to another woman.
Heather Shannon (21:23.618)
Okay.
Heather Shannon (21:30.2)
Okay.
Amita Sharma (21:31.766)
just after this morning and and she is in her late 50s she's near 60 and she and I was asking her I said do you take any HRT? says no I take a lot of supplements you know she showed me like 20 supplements every day and I do the same thing so it depends on you and I think you should consult with someone HRT or no HRT I think it's a very personalized individualized you know kind of a thing.
Heather Shannon (21:42.515)
Okay. my goodness.
Okay.
Heather Shannon (21:59.35)
Yeah.
Amita Sharma (22:00.698)
But typically in UK, what I can tell you is that they start prescribing HRT with their symptoms. Like in this case, this morning, I told you the nurse practitioner, was talking to me about someone has anxiety or mental health issues and that's typically happening because of the estrogen fluctuations, you know, and then they start prescribing some estrogen and progesterone, maybe some testosterone. So I think.
Heather Shannon (22:27.243)
Yeah!
Amita Sharma (22:28.376)
you need to see a medical practitioner because this is becoming very highly regulated. But HRT or no HRT lifestyle and dietary modifications and doing some of the holistic therapies, that's gonna help you out. And that's what helped me, I'm telling you. I was like a maniac here trying to change my daily routine on a single, every single day.
Heather Shannon (22:44.621)
Yeah.
Amita Sharma (22:53.196)
All kinds of food you can think of that needs to go in my body, exercise, using some Ayurvedic massage therapies, taking some herbs and spices, like so many things, getting my acupuncture done, essential oils. I fixed myself doing this. And that's what we are focusing on the self-care part, the self-care meaning, you become your own advocate. And then the next part comes into the personalized, the individualized,
Heather Shannon (23:10.318)
Okay. Wow.
Heather Shannon (23:15.489)
Okay.
Love it.
Amita Sharma (23:23.09)
the HRT will also come, but HRT literally depends on what you are going through, your blood work, and I mean, it gets regulated, right? It's medical now. It's prescription.
Heather Shannon (23:32.642)
Right, right. And I think people know what HRT is, but just in case they don't, it's hormone replacement therapy. So it's more medical, like you're saying.
Amita Sharma (23:38.252)
Yeah, yeah.
Correct. It's more medical and match-up ethic doctors. Like I said, I've interviewed quite a few of these ones. They believe in bioidentical hormone therapy. So that is going to be completely individualized and personalized based on what you need. And that is another thing. So within the HRT and the BHRT, it's quite a puzzle. It's a spaghetti.
Heather Shannon (24:06.592)
Okay.
Amita Sharma (24:07.49)
it needs to be unraveled. So I think it's a good idea when you are in your 40s to consult with a naturopathic doctor as someone who understands menopause, perimenopause, right? It's not a bad idea to get your hormones kind of checked, maybe get a test done, so understand your baselines and understand that.
Heather Shannon (24:13.528)
Mm-hmm.
Heather Shannon (24:28.462)
Yeah, I've been like paranoid getting my estrogen tested. So I have my physician assistant. I know. I'm like, Eric, is this because of estrogen? Eric, can we test it? He's a physician assistant. So I just call him Eric. But he's great, you know? you know, when he's like, he's like, it's still normal. It's still normal. I'm like, OK. I'm like, I wish. I just feel like I have to be ready for when it's not normal. We need like a plan.
Amita Sharma (24:32.672)
I know me too. I get so like, my god, what are they going to find inside me?
Amita Sharma (24:42.712)
Yeah, yeah.
Amita Sharma (24:47.48)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amita Sharma (24:52.874)
Yeah, well, it's going to happen, right? It happens to everyone. It's going to start going down, going down. And you just want to be proactively making sure, you know?
Heather Shannon (25:02.414)
Yeah!
you. So like once once people start addressing the hormones, whether it's the HRT route, or whether it's a more naturopathic route, or even a combination, does that tend to take care of low libido, or vaginal dryness? Or do they kind of just need to accept, I might need more foreplay, or I might need to use lube ongoing? Like what do see with people?
Amita Sharma (25:27.674)
Mm-hmm.
Amita Sharma (25:31.204)
You know, I think it depends on person to person, but a lot of women do talk about the low libido that happens to them. I think it's not just the physical part. I'll tell you what. From the women that I've interviewed, most of them said they put on weight and it impacted their body image and the confidence.
Heather Shannon (25:39.852)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (25:50.367)
Okay.
Amita Sharma (25:51.564)
So I think this libido is not only the physical part. We women are very emotional. We need to connect with someone with emotion level before we engage in the physical part of it. So I think it's a lot to do with the body image that you can just kind of lose confidence and you don't feel attractive enough. All of these things can lead to lack of a loss or desire, so to speak.
Heather Shannon (26:10.21)
Okay.
Heather Shannon (26:17.79)
Yeah, I mean, big time. I think, personally for me, bloating is my biggest turn off. So like, if I'm feeling bloated, it's just like the least attractive feeling ever. Like, I could wave the same, I could look the same, but if I'm not bloated, I'm like, woohoo, okay, I'm open to sex. But if I'm like, I'm like, okay, my stomach is literally like distended. Like, I just don't.
Amita Sharma (26:23.146)
Yeah.
Amita Sharma (26:28.11)
Yeah, exactly.
Amita Sharma (26:33.392)
you
Amita Sharma (26:39.224)
Yeah. Yeah.
Heather Shannon (26:39.362)
I just don't feel good, you know? So I think there's that. then yeah, body image can go with that, with the weight gain, with the bloating, with even just aging in general. But it's also its own separate thing, you know?
Amita Sharma (26:47.034)
Hmm? Hmm?
Amita Sharma (26:54.126)
Yeah, exactly. Bloating can be, I get the same issue, but then I have to literally see sort of like what are the foods that I'm eating is causing bloating. So I've nailed it, I've nailed it. Yeah, and that's what you have to do. just need to there must be some type of food that you're eating is causing the bloating or maybe sometimes there's inflammation inside the body, right? Because we are.
Heather Shannon (26:55.682)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (27:06.861)
Nice.
Yes.
Heather Shannon (27:19.628)
Yeah, absolutely.
Amita Sharma (27:21.802)
so many insecticides, pesticides. So what I end up doing is when I'm having that, I go on three days of mono diet, sort of like a very simple soup base, really soup base, lentil soup, and some bread in it. And I go into that for three days, cleanse myself inside out, believe me, it does wonders.
Heather Shannon (27:29.806)
yeah.
Heather Shannon (27:36.246)
Okay.
Heather Shannon (27:44.974)
could see that it just gives your body kind of a break. makes it a little easier to digest. Yeah.
Amita Sharma (27:48.098)
Yeah, it just cleanses your body. And that's what Ayurveda talks about. You need to cleanse your body twice a year so that you take the toxins or the accumulated toxins out of your body. So you reset it. It's like a reset, right?
Heather Shannon (27:59.852)
Yes. Yes. I love this. Yeah, I'm doing a detox ongoing now because I think I have some mold toxicity. So I'm taking zeolite powder every day, which is a binder that favors mold toxins. But they say, even if you're healthy, do one scoop a day. If you're struggling, do at least two. But I was like, that's a good point because I was really reflecting on
Amita Sharma (28:12.653)
Okay.
Amita Sharma (28:20.856)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (28:26.766)
I have the same genetics now that I had when I was 20, right? So what's the difference in some of the symptoms or how I feel? And I think a lot of it is, some of it's cellular health, some of it's toxicity, some of it is, but we accumulate these things and we store that, a lot of the toxins are stored in our fat cells too. So if you are carrying extra weight, that could be part of it.
Amita Sharma (28:44.847)
Mm-hmm.
Amita Sharma (28:49.104)
Yeah, yeah. Inflammation is something that I think all of us have, most of the women have this issue. That's right. So that
Heather Shannon (28:54.882)
Holy.
Yeah.
Amita Sharma (28:58.56)
All those reasons can be bloating or some of the other issues. I I know that if I eat lighter foods, like for the week and my bloating is gone and I feel light and I feel athletic. So, but the problem is, you can't do that on a daily basis. I mean, I look at the pizza and I'm like, my God. You know?
Heather Shannon (29:07.575)
Mm-hmm.
Heather Shannon (29:11.767)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (29:19.598)
Right, we're not exactly eat the pizza sometimes, you know, enjoy your life
Amita Sharma (29:25.996)
Yeah, exactly. What are you doing? You can't be a hermit here, you know, science is completely on us, living on a mountain in the Himalayas. Unfortunately, we can't do that.
Heather Shannon (29:32.791)
No.
Heather Shannon (29:36.142)
It's a scandal.
It's true. I mean, and I also think that like, we have we have to work at body image and we have to work at some of these health things. But it's also finding that balance between not treating ourselves like we're broken and continuing to enjoy our life in the process. You know, we don't want it to be like, I have to put my pleasure and joy and connection on hold until I have checked off all these boxes, you know. And so I'm guessing your community also helps make them more doable.
Amita Sharma (30:04.336)
Yeah, because most of the women think that their life, they pass their prime when they're 50. Right? today's day, I mean, you kidding me? Right? You know, I said most of the women feel that they pass their prime when they're when they turn 50 years old.
Heather Shannon (30:09.238)
I know I hate this.
We say that again?
Heather Shannon (30:22.114)
I know. That's crazy. I mean, yeah, it's like, we live so much longer beyond 50. Like, you don't want to spend the whole rest of your life thinking that you're past your prime. And I mean, I've seen on the sex therapy side that there's a lot of biases about, like, sex is for young people. Or like, now we're past our childbearing years. And I think there's often a lot of grief around that. Like, this is actually something I've learned from my clients is,
Amita Sharma (30:45.36)
Mm-hmm.
Heather Shannon (30:51.796)
even if you didn't want to have children, which I didn't really want to have kids. I went through phases where I was like, maybe I do. And I was like, I don't know. But there is still sort of this grieving of like, my god, yeah, I passed my childbearing years, which means I'm all washed up, and I'm old, and I'm past my prime. So I think even if you look the same, there's a real self-concept change that happens, think, with menopause. And I think it also happens with male
Amita Sharma (30:54.234)
Bye bye.
Amita Sharma (31:10.704)
yeah.
I'm.
Heather Shannon (31:19.788)
reproduction as well, because that also declines. People don't talk about that as much. So I think that the self-concept, I think, is really important. It's like, let's stop thinking about sex as being something that's just for young people.
Amita Sharma (31:23.556)
You guys want to come in?
Amita Sharma (31:34.338)
Yeah, but it's hard to get the brain wired, you know? That's the problem. I talked to OBGYN some time back, like think a couple of years back, and I said, hey, what about HRT? She says, HRT, why do you want HRT? I'm like, you know, whatever. And she said, no, HRT is only if you want to be sexually active. Why do you want to be sexually active? I'm like, okay.
Heather Shannon (31:38.39)
I know, we gotta rewire. Yeah.
Heather Shannon (31:46.21)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (31:58.095)
Which is said that to you my goodness
Amita Sharma (32:03.856)
I'm not kidding you. I was like, was shocked. I'm serious. was like, but what the point I'm trying to bring here is lack of knowledge, lack of whatever.
Heather Shannon (32:09.452)
Such bias, wow.
Heather Shannon (32:15.245)
Yeah.
Yes. Right.
Amita Sharma (32:19.464)
you know, like education and how it can impact the general public, general consumer people like us, which, you know, luckily we are, we've done so much research, but if you talk to an average woman out there on the street and ask her, I mean, I'm telling you, I was clueless and I'm sure every other woman over there is clueless and they don't know anything better.
Heather Shannon (32:38.838)
Yeah. No, no. So it's, yeah, it sounds like really like when people get to the point I'm at basically, they should start talking to their medical provider at least and finding out where is my estrogen or could some of these symptoms be related. And I'll also mention to people that, you know, both estrogen and testosterone tend to support a healthy libido. So
Amita Sharma (32:50.842)
Yeah.
Amita Sharma (33:03.681)
Mm-hmm.
Heather Shannon (33:04.802)
Like you said, people might replace estrogen, but they might also replace testosterone. So everyone's makeup is different. Everyone's genetics are different. But if you are experiencing lower libido or vaginal dryness or vaginal atrophy, we didn't even talk about that. The skin can get very delicate too. Yeah.
Amita Sharma (33:20.458)
Yeah.
Yeah, and there are also physical therapists, pelvic floor therapists now. There are so many of them. So that's another one. You know, we are going to bring pelvic floor therapy as well. okay. Yeah, because I think that that could be very good. And also some of the other techniques that women can use that can help you basically want the blood to flow in that region, right, that part of the
Heather Shannon (33:29.506)
Yes!
Heather Shannon (33:35.586)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (33:39.319)
We had one on the show recently. Yeah, she was great.
Heather Shannon (33:52.634)
Yes, I think that's the thing that becomes more important is the blood flow and like the use it or lose it. know, if you're not going like blood flow is how nutrition is delivered to your tissues, you know, so if you're not stimulating your genitals to some degree in some way, they will atrophy.
Amita Sharma (34:04.656)
And
Amita Sharma (34:11.372)
Yeah, yeah. And then so even the simple breath work, you know, some of the breathing techniques. Yeah, and also some of the yoga poses that could be very, very helpful in that part of the world.
Heather Shannon (34:17.015)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (34:21.42)
No.
Amita Sharma (34:24.976)
area, so to speak, I'm saying that, and also some meditation, you know, there's a lot of data behind it, that it can help you. And stress, anxiety and stress, if you lower that down, you know, you basically more calm and composed. All of these things help and losing weight, you some women end up putting on a lot of weight, you know, it's not easy to lose weight, because you suddenly, like,
Heather Shannon (34:26.819)
not.
Heather Shannon (34:34.764)
Yeah, absolutely.
Heather Shannon (34:41.943)
Mm-hmm.
Amita Sharma (34:53.232)
feel because of the hormones or whatever. So, but it can be done. It's just, be very kind of carefully your diet and your everything has to come together. And now there's a lot of people that are taking GLP one and all these things. Yeah, but you know, me personally,
Heather Shannon (34:54.84)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, absolutely.
Heather Shannon (35:02.456)
him.
Heather Shannon (35:07.424)
Okay, yeah. Which is ozempic for people who don't know. GLP-1 is the same as ozempic.
Amita Sharma (35:13.616)
Yeah, exactly, Uzembek. So, I mean, there are lot of options, whatever works for anyone. I personally put on weight, I'll be honest with you. And then I actually did my diet and lifestyle and exercise and I was able to take it off. So it can be done. It be done. know, it just needs a little bit
Heather Shannon (35:15.416)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (35:30.606)
Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. There's a lot of factors. It is very holistic. So I mean, I love the idea of people having a supportive community. tell us a little bit more about Nourish Docs. So if people are in the community, sounds like it's kind of customized to like where they're at in their journey, and they get some education. Do is there are there like calls or like a community forum? Or like, do they get how do they get to interact with people?
Amita Sharma (35:56.368)
Yeah, so the idea was to offer them the self care which I explained earlier and also give them the tools on a personalized level that they can monitor some of the symptoms. We have lot of
symptoms that they can monitor, simple gratitude journals, stuff like that, know, with tools, so to speak, what we call them tools. And then there's the community part of it where they can interact with other women. We are also going to make it culturally sensitive if women want to interact because the menopause is different for as for different cultures, believe it or not. So the community part is definitely a very integral part of the whole thing. yeah, so the idea
Heather Shannon (36:16.097)
Okay, cool.
Heather Shannon (36:20.43)
Mm-hmm.
Heather Shannon (36:39.083)
Yeah!
Amita Sharma (36:41.942)
to not only educate what I talked about the self-care tools which we have over 40 plus programs but also give them personalized tracking tools or to speak right track you or whatever so many things and then also give them the community support like peer-to-peer at the same also give support from the experts because if I want to say I am having whatever
Heather Shannon (36:52.866)
from here.
Heather Shannon (36:59.414)
Yeah!
Amita Sharma (37:06.932)
to a pelvic floor therapist as an example, I should be able to do that. So trying to put all these pieces together and then bring it to, you know, yeah, it's exactly a one-stop shop, so to speak, a platform where you can go and ask all these questions without being judged, without being scared, you know, and also
Heather Shannon (37:10.126)
Right.
love that. Yeah. Yeah, like the one stop shop for men at
Heather Shannon (37:30.263)
I'm ready.
Amita Sharma (37:33.27)
get your peer-to-peer as well as your expert support. So it's both ways. You need both. I think you need both, right?
Heather Shannon (37:37.612)
Yeah. I agree. I agree. was having a talk with a client yesterday who's going through a lot. And we've been working together and have a great relationship. But I was also like, do you have friends you could talk to about this? Because it's different. And I agree. You need both. You want the more outside, professional, objective point of view.
Amita Sharma (37:46.051)
Mm-hmm.
Amita Sharma (37:52.432)
Yeah.
Heather Shannon (38:00.75)
But then you also want the point of view of people who know you more in your day-to-day life or who have gotten through similar things and can speak more to the personal side. Yeah.
Amita Sharma (38:09.52)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think because having support of your friends, family on an ongoing basis, or talking to someone, you know, there's a lot of data that talks about how the anxiety goes down, all those things, and it helps a lot. And that's what, you know, when I was talking to the nurse practitioner, she was telling me that most of the clients that she sees, they complain about it, that we don't have anyone who can listen to us.
Heather Shannon (38:16.134)
huh.
Heather Shannon (38:21.614)
Yes!
Amita Sharma (38:35.982)
And most of the doctor appointments are in and out. They don't have time to listen, right? They just go, okay, I've got five minutes. They have seven minutes, seven minutes, that's it. So what do you do when the medical fraternity is not listening to you? They don't have time to listen to you, right?
Heather Shannon (38:39.18)
I Yeah.
Heather Shannon (38:45.057)
I that.
Heather Shannon (38:51.958)
Yes. Right. Well, and this is why I think solutions like yours and like, I no longer participate in the insurance system as a provider or as a patient for the reasons you just laid out because it's very problematic, I think, and they don't treat providers or patients very well, if you ask. So, so yeah, that's part of why I don't participate. But then I think it does lead towards, you know,
Amita Sharma (39:03.002)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Amita Sharma (39:12.624)
No, no.
Heather Shannon (39:20.46)
people like us being a little bit more innovative and like, okay, how else can we help people? know, what are solutions that are gonna work? Yeah.
Amita Sharma (39:27.147)
Yeah, exactly. And at the end of the day, have to make sure the human, you're serving the human part of it, right? The wellness. it's very, very, oh my God, it's a huge responsibility that, you know, so what can you do the most? What can you do the best, right?
Heather Shannon (39:36.302)
Absolutely.
Heather Shannon (39:42.05)
that.
Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for just sharing about your journey, kind of personally and professionally and about the NourishDoc platform. And if people are curious to either connect with you or if they want to join your platform, what is the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?
Amita Sharma (40:04.048)
Yeah, right now the best way is to go to our website, www.narishdark.com. We are, like I said, you know, the app part is coming out end of August, but yeah, it's very exciting. And so just go to our website for now.
Heather Shannon (40:07.022)
Okay.
Heather Shannon (40:16.032)
Exciting.
Heather Shannon (40:22.498)
Okay, I love that, Nourishdoc.com. We'll link to that in the show notes as well. But yeah, thank you so much for being here, Amita, it was a lovely conversation and I can tell just how genuinely passionate you are about this subject. thanks everybody also for listening and we will catch you in a couple weeks on Ask the Sex Therapist. Bye everybody.
Amita Sharma (40:29.434)
Thank you.