UNKNOWN: 0:00

Bye.

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Welcome back to Future Lab. Denise, Trevor, how are you? Good.

SPEAKER_02: 0:06

Yeah, good. Good today. Yep, I'm okay.

SPEAKER_04: 0:09

I got the jacket on because I'm from the Gold Coast, you know, and for people that aren't from Australia, that's actually quite warm. It's like saying I'm from Florida.

SPEAKER_00: 0:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 0:17

And we're here in Melbourne, which is like saying we're here in New York.

SPEAKER_00: 0:20

Well, you're looking like Neo at the moment with that jacket. It is. It's the

SPEAKER_04: 0:23

brown, it's the earthy version of Neo, but I actually had a puffer on and Denise goes, can you put that other jacket back on? It looks cool. So, you know, I'm

SPEAKER_02: 0:31

trying to be- some fashion stuff

SPEAKER_04: 0:33

I'm trendy Trev Hendy this morning but it's beautiful to be here and middle of winter and we've got a great guest

SPEAKER_00: 0:41

we do we're going to be talking about stress hormones and how that relates to longevity and well-being can I just say one thing really

SPEAKER_04: 0:48

quickly I had my fourth grandchild at 3.24am this morning I didn't personally have that my daughter Christelle did congratulations little Ziggy J arrived into the world so yeah so it's been a big couple

SPEAKER_00: 1:01

of days that's a big day Yeah, beautiful. So that would have involved a little bit of stress leading up to that. Yeah, tension. And

SPEAKER_04: 1:07

even the fact that when you get, like as a grandfather, it's this feeling of, okay, and this is going to sound weird, but another responsibility. Oh, right. It's not a negative. It's more like, okay, bring him, like your arms get wider and your wings get bigger and you're like, okay, there's more in the fold now. So there's a little part of me that's enjoying and there's another part of me going, okay, I've got another little part of the nest that I've got to

SPEAKER_00: 1:31

look out for. Yeah, but that sounds like a good sort of stress. It is. It's actually a beautiful stress. So I think what we'll do is I think Carrie will really help us in terms of distinguishing the different types of stress. So let's introduce Carrie. She's over in the States. So Carrie Jones, she's a naturopath and from what I read in your bio, the queen of hormones. So you're all about stress and hormones. I'll tell you what, I'll leave it to you. The queen of hormones.

SPEAKER_04: 1:56

Hang on, that doesn't sound good on the wrong day,

SPEAKER_02: 1:58

does it? I know Carrie very well and I'm sure many of the listeners that tuning in probably do know who Carrie is too, and she actually is the queen of hormones in the sense that if you want to know about hormones, you're going to look up Carrie. You're going to talk to Carrie. She has been in this field for so long. She's definitely the expert, but you can tell us all about it, Carrie. Yeah, give us a bit of background. Welcome. Why are you the queen? I know why you're the queen of hormones, but for the listeners that don't know you, please tell us.

SPEAKER_03: 2:23

Well, first of all, let me just say this is the greatest intro I've ever had.

SPEAKER_00: 2:28

Was the queen of hormones big? Because that could have gone any way. I'm

SPEAKER_03: 2:32

glad that I mean, just the whole, your whole banter back and forth. I was just over here laughing hysterically. So I'm honored to be a part of the show. Thank you for having me, first and foremost. Yeah. And I got into, I mean, I'll start with, I got into hormones because way back a long time ago in school, my introduction into hormones was taught by the football coach. What we have in the United States is the American football, right? And so he was like, here's your intro to health. And I thought, I didn't learn anything. This is terrible. And when I went into medical school and got into hormones, I realized how much I didn't know and how much I wanted to focus on hormones, mostly because of a selfish point of view And so many people, men and women, don't really know what's going on with their body, let alone the hormonal aspect. I had so many women that would say, I didn't know that. I didn't know that's what was happening with my body. I didn't know that's how it affected it. I had a lot of women who were like, I had no idea about my menstrual cycle, how I got pregnant, anything, menopause. And so that kicked off a 20 plus year search and education into hormones. And I think that's probably probably why I got the wonderful moniker of the queen of hormones because that's what I'm just sort of like immersed myself in yeah selfishly and now I like to tell the world about it

SPEAKER_04: 3:56

so what do you mean selfishly what why for you personally did you really want to know about what were you going through what were you experiencing what what brought you from a personal passion level to it

SPEAKER_03: 4:07

when I got into medical school my mentor who was the time was in her 40s and struggling with perimenopause and I thought what is this thing she's going through. Even though my mom had gone through menopause, watching my mentor do it also up close and personal, I'm like, why don't women know this? Listening to friends with endometriosis, women who'd been diagnosed with PCOS, women with breast cancer, women trying to become pregnant. And there was always this, I don't know. I went to my doctor. I was told I was fine. I don't feel fine. I was offered the birth control pill and no other option. I got lab work done. I Nothing came back and I don't understand. And so selfishly, for good reasons, I thought there has to be more to this. Well, self-interest. Hormones keep coming up. There has to be more.

SPEAKER_00: 4:55

But you've got a very different approach though. So where the doctors seem to fall short and cause frustration, you seem to take a different approach and as a result seem to have gained some success there. So what are the differences in your approach?

SPEAKER_03: 5:09

Well, so personally, I will say, because I have to start with this, is that one, I like Well, I call it gossip. I like gossip. I'm really nosy. And so it became this, well, how does that work? And then how does that work? It became peeling back the layers. And so I got really into hormones and the level of hormones in my patients because I just couldn't take the superficial answer of, we don't know or there's nothing wrong with you. I'm like, no, there's clearly something wrong with you. Let's dive deep. Tell me all the things. I want to hear it. And that just perpetuated patient after patient after patient. But on a broader, grander scale, my approach as a naturopathic doctor here in the States is to take that whole person personalized approach and to understand hormones are impacted and affected by all the systems of the body. You cannot talk about hormones and only relegate it to reproduction. You can't look at a woman and only think reproduction because we know her hormones impact her immune system, her neurologic system. Right. Her cardiovascular system, musculoskeletal system, et cetera, et cetera. And so by only looking at it as a reproductive bent, we've done her a major disservice. And so once I realized that and being a woman, I was like, whoa, I need to protect my brain, my immune system, my bones, and I need to protect that of all my patients and helping to serve them appropriately instead of the conventional route, which does well on the screening tests, the acute, the emergent. But once they're beyond that, they don't have the time for it, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00: 6:51

Yeah. Well, look, we definitely want to cover hormones in great detail, but we want to also focus on stress as well and perhaps how that feeds into our hormone system. And to discuss stress, I think that when people think of stress, it's this sort of general feeling that people have in their mind, but there are different types of stress. And particularly, I'm thinking chronic and acute, so short-term and long-term. What are the different types of stresses in that sense, and how do they impact our hormone system in particular and our general health more widely? I

SPEAKER_03: 7:26

feel like the answer to that is just a resounding yes, like full stop yes, even though you asked me multiple questions in there. When we think of stress, stress is a couple of things. Stress is emotional. Stress is physical. Stress is environmental. Any of those categories, those buckets, can impact our system. Stress can also be actual. You're actually stressed out. You actually got an upsetting text message. You actually got in a fight with your significant other. You actually are going through something. Stress can also be anticipated. So the stress isn't actually there, but you're anticipating it be there. The response is the same in the body. And stress can also be imagined. So if you are a person who always goes to the worst case scenario, if you're already imagining the stress happening, even if it doesn't actually ever happen. If you're making things grander or blowing them up and they don't maybe need to be, your body doesn't know the difference. It's responding. Now, when it comes to levels or layers of stress, acute stress is usually something that's in the moment and it's to protect us and save us. If you are driving your car and you almost get in an accident, somebody swerves in your lane, I want my stress response to react immediately. Save me, give me cat-like reflexes and help me get out of that situation. If there's actually a tiger in front of me, I want my stress system to react. If I'm actively fighting a virus, I want my stress system to react. The problem is when things like that become more chronic, repetitive, either one thing is chronic, it's an ongoing issue, the same issue, or every day it's something that is sort of putting you over the top. That is, your bucket is overflowing. You just feel stressed out, burned out and overwhelmed all the time, that's when we can get into problems. And I fully recognize that stress can be for the good. Trevor, you just said you had a grandchild. Stressful, but it's a good stress. Weddings, hopefully, cross your fingers. In the end, it's a good stress, right? There can be really great job interviews. Very stressful, but in the end, hopefully, you got your dream job. Good stress. We want to stretch the body, stretch the system, but I don't want to do it in a negative manner all day, every day. with no downtime, no recovery, because that's when we get into

SPEAKER_00: 9:48

problems. So what you're talking about is a good stress planning for a wedding or going for that job interview is you get stress leading up to that event. It might be stressful during that event, hopefully not the wedding, but then the event's over and the stress dissipates as opposed to chronic stress where we just seem to carry that and it just doesn't go away. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 10:11

And I like the way that you did different between stress because I know when I was recovering from my autoimmune condition, and I'm sure this happens with many of our patients and possibly some of the listeners, you start to get scared of stress because we know it is a cause of hormonal imbalance, autoimmune, chronic disease. I know when I'm stressed, my skin flares. So I do a lot of public speaking and international travel. And I remember one day just about to go on stage and I just thought, I can't do this anymore this is too much stress for me it's making me sick and it's actually not it wasn't actually that event because I love what I do absolutely love it and there's a high when you come off but it is really nerve-wracking but I really had to teach myself about the good and the bad stress and not be scared of life and I think that's what we need to teach people as well is that yes chronic stress like we said the ongoing not coping with things or having that system on all the time but these little stresses where like you said we should stretch ourselves, that actually, that engagement in life, that, you know, getting to those next goals, I think is really important.

SPEAKER_00: 11:22

It almost contributes to our growth, doesn't it? Exactly. That is growth. So

SPEAKER_02: 11:26

stress is growth. Yes. And, and, and actually helps

SPEAKER_03: 11:29

us. Yeah. Right. Think of exercise. You, you, you go to the gym or your workout at home and hopefully gradually over time, you get better at whatever you're doing. So it's lifting. You can lift more reps or more weights. Like it's this, people forget the act of exercise is a minor stress to the body. We're stretching the muscles, we're stretching the brain, we're stretching the system, the bones to do better. And so it's a good thing, unless you overexercise, then it's a bad thing. But it's a good thing in these little bursts. And Denise, one of the things you said was realizing not to be afraid of stress. And I think when we think of the nervous system, safety is a big part of it. So feeling stressed, but also feeling safe in your environment is really in your body, in your relationship, in your job makes a big difference. If Trevor was talking about his grandchild being born, but he was not feeling safe in his body, not feeling safe in his relationship, then the thought of a grandchild is dreadful. It's adding to everything. It's adding to the lack of safety. But if he felt really good in the rest of his life, this little bit of stress is exciting and stretching and good for the body, And I think people, we don't get taught that. And if we were taught that at a young age, it would make such a

SPEAKER_04: 12:50

difference. I'm loving this conversation, Carrie, firstly. You said at the start, and this really blew me away, because I'm big on awareness. You can only really be negatively affected or taken out by what you can't see, what you don't understand, what's snuck in. So you said stress is emotional, physical, environmental, actual, anticipated, and imagined. Do you to name a few what I love about that is that people can say straight away oh this is something I need to understand I need to get clarity on because I'm clearly affected at all these different levels but some of it's good some of it's bad some of it can be managed some of it I've got to stop and remove myself from or you know confront so and

SPEAKER_02: 13:31

some of it's not real by the way it's not real it's imagined you're causing a stress response for something that's not even

SPEAKER_04: 13:37

anticipated based on something I've experienced before so we know you know I know I would say I'm a big student of this so a lot of my questions are going to come from I'm passionate about understanding this but you know I know for example if someone's attacked by someone wearing a red hat you know they can walk around the corner 10 years later if that hasn't been fully resolved and understood the trauma of it someone walks around the corner with a red hat and they'll get this stress response so there's this memory mechanism in the body there's this so then there's this anticipated or perceived or imagined thing that's not real so the body's incredible because it's picking up on all these cues but the cues can start to get skew-iff. So I suppose my question is, firstly, so we can work our way through this, is what are the hormones that are produced when we're in stress? So what are the things that are good in the right amounts and at the right time? And I'm thinking about, I went through a while back, I went through financial difficulties, financial challenges, financially tight, passionate and enthusiastic in other areas, but financially tight. So if all of a sudden I got like a speeding fine or something or something came across the desk that was like another$150 or I forgot insurance has to be paid now. That number on that page would make me go, it would just drop me into this dread because I was aware in the back of my mind, I could see the bank balance floating around the back of the mind and owed money by this and that. So everything was hyper intense and anything could knock me over. It was like my resilience was way down. So what in that moment and any other moment like that people have with their health or their children's behaviors or whatever it is. What hormones would I have been producing too much of? What was I stuck in when I was in that moment?

SPEAKER_03: 15:26

Yeah, you were stuck in fight or flight is what you were stuck in. So we have two sides to our nervous system. We have what's called the sympathetic, which is what we think of the survival, fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. And then the other side is our parasympathetic. So that's our rest, digest, repair, heal the And we go back and forth all day long. That is natural and normal. But when we were in the fight or flight stage, the two major hormones that get made are adrenaline, which is called epinephrine, and cortisol. Your body stores adrenaline to be dropped within milliseconds. When you get the speeding fine for$150 and you have the sense of dread, the hormone released immediately is adrenaline, epinephrine. because your body doesn't know that you're just looking at a piece of paper with numbers on it. All it feels is the immediate emotional response, dread. And it's like, holy Moses, I have got to drop some hormone quickly in case they need to run, fight, do something to save themselves, save the body.

SPEAKER_00: 16:32

So you're physiologically, your body and your brain, your primitive brain doesn't know the difference between that parking fine or that speeding fine or a lot. It's that same physiological response. This

SPEAKER_04: 16:47

amazing system is confused based on the way we're perceiving the situation and I'm in the inappropriate hormone.

SPEAKER_03: 16:54

And can I just say, I'm sorry, it's primitive. It's a primitive response. So we biologically have caught up to the modern day age of text messages, emails, Zoom meetings compared to lions and tigers and bears. Oh my.

SPEAKER_01: 17:07

And

SPEAKER_02: 17:09

I think it was wonderful that you shared that, Trevor, because you talked about your resilience coming down and Carrie, you may not know Trevor but he was a world famous iron man and as someone told me at the airport just yesterday the fittest guy in the world in the 80s and I would say you're still extremely fit and you're resilient and you take very good care of your I mean I've been working with you now for a few months I see the way you eat in between podcasts running around you know exercising in the morning so you're someone that does a lot of these things that would be building resilience but still you had that emotional and stress response

SPEAKER_04: 17:43

so I needed to upskill myself on my understanding in this area a few years ago. That's why I say I'm a passionate student about it because the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system, once I went, what? Oh, right. So I'm over there, but I don't have to be over there if I recognize where I am and how I got there and recognize the inappropriateness of it. I can use methods to bring me back, which we'll ask Carrie

SPEAKER_00: 18:05

a little bit later. So that experience, so the financial issues that you were trying to address, that's an example of chronic stress. Now, it sounds like it was limited, so it didn't carry over for years and years. But there are situations where people carry chronic stress for years and years. And when you talk about cortisol and adrenaline, what are the downstream effects of that? What are the health implications of that for someone who experiences that?

SPEAKER_03: 18:33

I'll give you a couple. So the first thing you think of right away is it affects heart rate, blood pressure, right? So in acute situation, Trevor's heart rate and blood pressure probably went up. But if you were experiencing adrenaline, cortisol often in your day, then it's now maybe you've been diagnosed with a high heart rate or high blood pressure. High blood sugar is another big issue because both adrenaline, epinephrine and cortisol, their main jobs, main mate, like if they had a resume, their their resume the first thing would say i increase glucose so i increase blood sugar because the body says i need it in my brain right away and i need it in my skeletal muscle right away fight flight think it through like attack that survive is what it's doing now acutely that's normal that's totally normal but long term now we're looking at somebody with a blood sugar regulation issue maybe they're flipping between low and high levels so they're hangry and then the body compensates. And then eventually maybe they're pre-diabetic where they're fully diabetic. It's contributing to that diabetes picture. So does that mean... Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00: 19:43

You go. Just with that diabetes picture because that's interesting. Is that independent of diet? Could you contribute to the onset of diabetes, have the best diet, but be chronically stressed to affect your cortisol levels and therefore how you're metabolizing sugar? Is that something that... Yes. Yes? Wow. Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 20:02

So I was I was literally just, this is so good. I was literally just talking with a very fit, um, bodybuilder. He competes in bodybuilding and his diet is pristine. Obviously he has a whole bodybuilding plan. And he said, my blood sugars every day are in according to us standards, either pre-diabetes or, or like I hover in that range. And I said, how's your stress? What's going on? He said, Oh, I own my own company. It's a 10 out of 10 all the time. I have a lot going on. I know it's stress. I wake up in the morning, immediately feel stressed out. I take my blood sugar. I do the finger poke. It's high and it's high through the day. And I'm like, okay. And he has a great diet and he exercises regularly. But

SPEAKER_00: 20:47

that's the cortisol releasing sugar from muscles. It

SPEAKER_02: 20:51

triggers the liver, gluconeogenesis. Is that correct? So you're taking your energy stores. Glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis. So you're taking that and you're making, even if you had a low carbohydrate diet, you would then still take from your energy stores and your liver can then be making it so I actually see this as well Carrie and some of my patients I get them to wear a continuous glucose monitor and we can then determine is it food related is it stress related because it can be really helpful for them to go oh wow this is how my stress is actually affecting me so that's

SPEAKER_04: 21:23

for a period of time like

SPEAKER_02: 21:25

maybe two

SPEAKER_00: 21:26

weeks but you can determine whether their blood sugar issues are stress related or food related correct that's amazing can I just pause and say,

SPEAKER_03: 21:34

let me give you a great example. I, and I tell this story all the time. I personally had a continuous glucose monitor on and I'd gotten a text message. I was on my way out the door to get in my car, run errands. And I'd gotten a text message that made me very bad. So I happened to swipe my, um, or at the time we swiped now it's just Bluetooth connects, but I swiped my phone on my continuous glucose monitor and I was in normal, very normal range. Got the text message. I'm pissed. I get in the car. I have the conversation in my head out loud the whole time. The whole time I'm driving to where I need to go, I am formulating my response to the text, and it's very angry and full of four-letter words. When I got to where I was going, I

SPEAKER_04: 22:17

checked my blood

SPEAKER_03: 22:17

sugar again, and it had jumped up like 30 points, which is a huge deal. Because my brain was like, tiger, clearly a tiger. She's yelling. She's swearing. There's got to be something that's going to threaten her survival. And it was just a text message. And it was the biggest wake-up call to me on handling stress and emotion and what it was doing to my blood

SPEAKER_00: 22:40

sugar. So how did you– well, sorry, did you want to say

SPEAKER_02: 22:43

something? I think when I saw you just last month, were you in Vegas? You were wearing a blood glucose monitor. I was. Yeah, I saw that. So, yeah, very recently I saw you wearing yours, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 22:55

So having recognized that, that your blood sugar levels were being affected by your stress, how did you choose– to manage that? What strategies did you take to actually manage that? I do

SPEAKER_03: 23:07

the best I can. I

SPEAKER_00: 23:09

still sometimes go

SPEAKER_03: 23:11

off.

SPEAKER_00: 23:13

Well, have you managed that to the point where you can improve that response?

SPEAKER_03: 23:17

Yes. Yeah. Now that I know it's aware, I'm very careful. I'm much more careful now, especially about my stress response. It's emotionally triggered for me, for a lot of people, obviously. And what emotions are coming up? What do I feel about this? Taking a breath. Just, you know, stepping back for a second. Do I really need to react like this? Why am I so heated all of a sudden? And how does that affect?

SPEAKER_00: 23:41

So being present in the moment and being aware of yourself, bringing yourself back to center. Yeah, it was a huge wake-up call for me. I

SPEAKER_03: 23:47

didn't realize it would jump 30 points. I mean, I was ready to fight anyone apparently, according to my blood sugar.

SPEAKER_04: 23:54

Yeah. I love this model. Carrie, I also do a lot of like holistic life coaching and help people understand things. So that's why I'm passionate about learning it. too but I love the model of at the base level of understanding which is our victim level we think everything's happening to us like that text message happened to me that person said that I was I'm in this financial situation it's because they didn't pay me this you know it's happening to me and at that level I'm down in those responses I'm in a negative place I'm telling a story to myself a story about myself as well that I'm not capable of why does it always happen to me I'm spiraling around in all sorts of hormones that you could touch on perhaps but But as soon as I, like you said, with that situation, it was a wake-up call. For me, I actually had to start to realize, okay, this is not happening. At one level, it's happening to me. But at the next level up, it's happening for me because it's showing me my blind spots, things that I didn't understand. You know, as Denise said, I'm an athlete. I've been able to do this. I could win that. I could conquer this. And all of a sudden, I'm like shivering in the corner wondering about how I'm going to handle the situation because there's a few zeros in this bank balance that are missing, whatever it is. But all of a sudden, I had to recognize that this is happening for me and work through it from a place of, okay, there's a gift in here somewhere. There's some sort of perfection in this because I'm learning about something that life hasn't taught me yet. And so as soon as I embraced it that way, and you could probably tell me, I imagine I was producing different hormones and different chemicals when I saw it as something that I could rise to or I could actually look at. And to go a long story short is I got through that scenario and created a whole better life out of it and I rose to it but even just yesterday I'm in the middle of moving house so I move when I get home from this Melbourne trip I move you know the very next morning 7 a.m. and my garage I'm an old surfer and it fits either eight cars in it this old garage or three cars and 150 surfboards and that's basically how I had it configured right so and paddle equipment and everything and my wife kept saying to me oh my god Trevor we've been here for seven years how are you going to move all that stuff I'm like it's okay it's okay I'm right that's not there's not as much anyway I've done all this work and I'm looking and I've packed this whole trail I've got it ready to go and I'm looking around the garage and I'm going please can I see some corner of the garage where I can see progress where I can actually see that I haven't got as much to do as I needed to do three days ago when I've been working for three days can I see a gap that's opened up in this thing and I had to train myself to go now look for the gap and see it because I now understand that you have to see the progress you have to actually see fire up and say I'm making progress here and then we produce a different set of hormones so can you perhaps run us through because I think this is so important for so many people it's such a blind spot for so many people because their personal thoughts about themselves are based on all these things that they're going through but it's actually not a problem with you it's just you're not understanding where you are what you need to do and how you rise to it can you explain to me what I went through in perhaps in that financial thing or even the garage what what was the difference when I recognized that was happening for me. Why did that make a change in my world? Why is it a better world since I've seen it that way? Hormonally.

SPEAKER_03: 27:09

Well, I was going to say a lot of it obviously is emotional, right? So the emotional, your emotional trigger has completely changed. You went from a fear-based emotional trigger to a more patient, compassionate, love-based emotional trigger. Like acceptance. I was in acceptance. In the emotions, acceptance. So when you have the fear-based, you're going to go into the fear-based protective hormones, I should say. So we've been talking about adrenaline. We've been talking about cortisol. But when you have a more loved base where you're like, look at me, I'm so proud, how much I've done in the garage, how much I've done in this movie, these are different hormones. So these could be hormones such as oxytocin, which is our connection, love, our, what's a good, like cuddle hormone, I guess a lot of people, bonding hormone. We can have GABA. GABA's our calming hormone. It's the neurotransmitter in our brain that's very calming. Serotonin, which is more or balancing as opposed to maybe something excitatory like glutamate or dopamine. Now those may play a role as well, but if you're leaning into more of that like I'm so proud, look how far I've come, this is great, go me, then we're probably leaning into those calming sort of cuddle love type hormones. And if we were to test in the moment, I would imagine your adrenaline and your cortisol was probably not reacting it wasn't doing the thing and so remember too we can get stuck in a cycle if your adrenaline kicks off and your heart rate goes up and you feel those emotions you can get stuck in that like it can perpetuate itself

SPEAKER_04: 28:45

chronic

SPEAKER_03: 28:45

whereas if you're the other way i'm feeling good i'm really happy i'm proud of myself go me i'm not a victim i'm taking accountability chip you know one step at a time that can perpetuate itself as well

SPEAKER_04: 28:58

i'll share something really curious and that is that i love what you just said because I sat there and I looked for I looked for the progress and I went come on you need to see the progress where is it and there's this one shelf I'd removed and packed up and I went look at that I went see what you see your progress don't see what you've still got to do and I actually could feel myself changing and you know it's really funny within five and I sat in the garage I pulled a chair in the middle and sat there and looked and went calm down you got this you know and then five minutes later the first thing I did was I rang my wife straight away and I said I love you I'm so excited about our move so the very you just said it exactly then it shifted everything and i went into the cuddly love state straight away i just went i love you i love you i'm so excited about a move all of a sudden i could see the horizon and it felt beautiful before that it was like ah the move's gonna kill me you know it's like there's such a polar opposites those two experiences and then she got the benefit from that went oh my that but with the next morning she was saying i can feel us being there you know it's i'm so excited again we're half like a half a day before that she's saying i'm so excited I don't even know if I want to move. Our well-being and our life force and our behaviors and our relationships are so affected by all these things.

SPEAKER_03: 30:11

I mean, it's affected by everything, right? It's affected by men's testosterone levels. If your testosterone was low, it would be harder for you to get into that positive space, that positive vibe, that look for the positive. When a woman is getting close to her menstrual cycle and her hormones are generally low, estradiol and progesterone are generally low, she's getting just like him, she's she's getting less stimulation up in the brain, so she's gonna lean more towards the negative. She's not feeling as compassionate, she's not feeling as love-based, and a lot of women report that as they get close to their cycle, but that perpetuates the stress cycle as well.

SPEAKER_00: 30:47

People feel more stress. Well, how does stress fit into those hormones? So when we experience that chronic stress, we spoke about the adrenaline and the cortisol, but what about the other hormones that you just mentioned?

SPEAKER_03: 30:57

Yeah, so chronic stress can absolutely, we'll start with women, that's a big one. So when we think of the female system, whether she wants to or not, the female system does sort of revolve around reproduction. She may not want to reproduce, but that system is like, hey, every single month, if you are getting your cycle, I got you. If you want to get pregnant, we can do it this month. But what can happen when she has chronic stress or even a big acute stress is that the brain says, ooh, that's scary. I don't like that. That's stressful. And it's been going on a while. This is not the most ideal time to reproduce. So I'm going to alter your hormones, whether I alter ovulation or I alter the production of certain hormones like progesterone, because this is not the month. Even if she doesn't want to get pregnant, the chronic stress can affect those hormones. So now we have an altered progesterone or altered estrogen or both, and they also play a role in all the systems of the body. So now she has low progesterone. So now she can't sleep. She can't feel calm. When she does get her period, it's heavy. She has terrible PMS. Her cramps are bad. And so we get this cascade of effect. The same can happen for men. Epinephrine or adrenaline can impact the way the testicles make testosterone. So in chronic stress, and now he's not sleeping, and men make testosterone generally through the night, which is why they get the big spike in the morning, it's going to impact his testosterone production. And when men have impacted testosterone it impacts everything their mood their muscle mass their motivation their heart their brain their bones everything and so you can see it's been relegated to quote it's just stress it's just stress there's nothing wrong with you you're fine it's no big deal i don't see what the problem is but what we're looking at it's the downstream let's say health span we're going for i can see your future and it's not great we have to fix We have to stop this train, turn it around.

SPEAKER_02: 33:04

Yeah, and I think the lesson in all of this, and we'll obviously get to more of the strategies and what we can do, but it is just being aware of what is triggering us, like your text message, like in the garage, and again, another speaking event, because obviously I love the speaking, but it does cause me a lot of stress. But last year, I may have mentioned this on another podcast, I was in London at the end of last year and I was doing a full day workshop, speaking for an entire day, which is a lot more stress than doing a one hour gig and I really didn't sleep on the plane on the way over and then I didn't sleep that night before and I thought I actually had my first hot flash haven't had another one like that but I woke up in the night and my pyjamas were soaking wet I was like holy shit is this menopause and tomorrow I've got to do a full day workshop I haven't slept in the morning I was in a tizz I was just and I almost went into a deep dark spiraling out of control going I haven't slept how am I going to do this and then I just had to stop and go Denise You asked for this. You wanted to do this workshop. I've been doing this stuff for 20 years. It's like even if I haven't slept, I am here to share a message. And I just talked myself out of it, did a couple of yoga poses, had a breath. And in the morning, the first, you know, I did stumble a few words. I was a bit tired. But I was there in a place of love, probably the oxytocin. I connected with everyone. It was the best workshop. It went so well. I haven't had another hot flash, by the way. everyone so don't know don't know what that was about

SPEAKER_00: 34:35

you might be lucky

SPEAKER_02: 34:35

I don't know what that I don't know maybe Carrie you can tell me can you have one and then not have another one for six months because I haven't had one since but it was just such a weird night and honestly I just I know I actually felt the change just in that 30 seconds of breaking the thoughts as I said a couple of downward dogs I don't even do that much yoga but I was like what can I do right now did a couple of yoga poses had a breath and was like I can do this you know It's okay. But I really almost got myself into a very anxious place.

SPEAKER_03: 35:08

And Denise, you're well-trained. So imagine somebody listening to this who's not well-trained. I mean, they're identifying, raising their hand, nodding along going, oh my gosh, that's completely me. I didn't realize what was going on or what to do with it. Our society doesn't, we acknowledge we have a any weight to it. It's like, of course you're stressed. Everyone's stressed. It's almost blown off or a badge of honor. Well, of course you're stressed. The last four years have been ridiculous. Of course you're stressed. You're a mom of two kids under the age of four. Of course you're stressed. You own your own company. It's like, whoa, yes. And we have to look at all the, we have to look at the downstream. We have to really address this. We have to assess the whole person versus just blow it off or assume just because it's common doesn't mean it's normal

SPEAKER_00: 36:05

now Carrie you mentioned just in your previous response that you can tell or you can get a picture of someone's longevity based on these hormones that you're looking at in an individual now this program is very much about longevity and health span so I suppose my question is are there hormones or what does an endocrine system look like that is geared towards longevity Is there a picture that you can see that's very different to the three stressed out individuals that we've been

SPEAKER_02: 36:38

describing? Dan hasn't downloaded his stress yet.

SPEAKER_00: 36:43

If you listen to a few other podcasts, you'll get to hear the story. Well, you mentioned sleep. Sleep is my issue, but I thought, look, you touched on sleep. We could be here all day if we discuss sleep. So let's talk about the good picture. How do we live a long time? What does that hormone picture look like?

SPEAKER_03: 36:56

Resilience. Trevor said a great word. Resilience is probably one of my most favorite when it comes to stress. And we talk Talk about stress. We'll start there. When we're looking at that system, we call it the circadian rhythm. You've probably discussed it on other episodes, right? So cortisol is like the sun. It goes up in the morning when you wake up and it goes down at night. It should. That's the pattern it should follow. We call it a circadian rhythm or diurnal pattern. Melatonin is the opposite. It's like the moon. Melatonin comes up in the night and goes down in the morning. This is our circadian rhythm that we do every 24 hours. That's ideal when it comes to cortisol. If you are dysregulated, have a lot of stress, if you wake up super tired but feel wired at night, you get a second wind, can't sleep, or you're waking at 3 a.m. with your mind going, stressed out, then I know right away you have a dysregulated circadian rhythm, and that's what's going to impact lifespan and healthspan. If you're doing the normal up-down of cortisol, you're feeling pretty resilient, you're feeling pretty good, you get minor stresses or major stress, but feel like you can bounce back, that's what I look for when it comes to healthspan. Because somebody may have a really long lifespan. For example, my family tends to live a long time. We tend to live into the 90s, the 90 years old. And I want my healthspan to match that. I don't want to have a long life that's not quality. So I even personally evaluate this. Now, when it comes to hormone, the other hormones and the endocrines system. If she's cycling, I'm looking to see, are your cycles regular? Do you have PMS? What are your periods like? Do you know if you ovulate? If you've been pregnant, how hard was it to get pregnant? Are you looking to get pregnant? And if she's beyond that, then I'm like, well, how is your menopause? How is your perimenopause? What's happening for you? And for men, I'm asking about testosterone production. How is your energy, your motivation, your mood, your morning erections, Do you have erectile dysfunction? Sexual health in both people. So these are the kind of things that I'm asking. It's the down and dirty questions because that's really ultimately what's going to tell me about your health span versus, unfortunately, in conventional medicine, they have about six minutes with each patient. That's not enough time to get into this down and dirty. It's great for the acute, but we need more than that in our society to really evaluate this for the health span. So that big picture That's what I'm looking for when I'm evaluating both lab work and symptoms for those hormones.

SPEAKER_04: 39:38

You've used this word downstream and I love this word. I've used it a lot in the last six months. It's really, oh, what's downstream from what? And it would appear that in some examples that our emotional state is downstream from the hormones that are flooding through us. So my emotional state of saying to my wife, I love you and I can't wait to go to the property with you. was after this shift in hormones and but was also downstream from a shift in a mental attitude about the situation so rather than being in resistance i was in acceptance and i was embracing the situation and i was looking for the positives so there was this mental change which created a hormonal change which created emotional change but i imagine then from that emotional change when i share that with her that and she reciprocates me too then then i've got another hormonal change so is it just cycling backwards and forwards is it like a pendulum is Is there a downstream? You know, does one affect the other? Are they all, is it floating from one rock to the other all the way down the stream? Like where does this fit in or is it everything's connected?

SPEAKER_03: 40:42

Everything's connected, right? The hip bone is connected to the thigh bone. We can't silo out any section of the body. And everything you said is true. Your emotions can affect the downstream hormones and then hormones can affect emotions. So as an example, For example, let's pretend you were in a great hormonal state. Your blood sugar was great. Your stress was great. Everything was great. But then something tragic happens. Somebody dies or you suddenly lose your job. Something you weren't expecting. That's an emotional state. Then it becomes chronic, can downstream affect your hormones. Now, on the flip side, if your hormones have been affected from other reasons, there are a million other reasons that our hormones can get messed up, then the hormones will then have an impact on your emotional state. emotional state as well so you can't which comes first the chicken or the egg well it depends it depends they both it flows both ways

SPEAKER_04: 41:41

that's powerful to understand that yeah

SPEAKER_02: 41:44

and can I ask you you said there's obviously we don't have time for a million there's a million things that can affect your hormones because we've talked a lot about obviously the emotional stuff things that affected you and me but hormonally what are those things that you said could affect you know hormonally which then sort of obviously results in you know, the lower resilience.

SPEAKER_03: 42:04

So everything from, we talked about the stress, of course, but everything from, so like think stress, think environmental. So environmental toxicants, endocrine disrupting chemicals. Think of things from like viruses and bacteria. If you've been sick, chronic illness, you know, there's like long COVID, those types of things can impact. If you haven't been sleeping for whatever reason, whether you can't sleep and you can't figure out why, or it's induced, you stay up late, you're addicted to the show. So So you're a gamer. You're staying up till 2, 3 in the morning playing video games. That's going to impact how your hormones are produced. What you eat can absolutely impact what your hormones are doing. Even things like allergies, histamine can impact what your hormones are doing. So you take a piece of that or a bunch of those and put it in the bucket, the endocrine hormone bucket, and then it can impact your hormones.

SPEAKER_00: 43:00

You mentioned endocrine disruption. is what are they?

SPEAKER_03: 43:01

Think of, so we're talking about the endocrine system. So the endocrine disruptors are chemicals that act like hormones and disrupt your hormone system. So think of your plastics, your parabens, your phthalates, fragrance, synthetic fragrance. You know, people like to burn candles or have plug-ins, certain incense, perfumes, colognes, that synthetic fragrance can really play a number on your endocrine system. in the body, on the skin. And we see it everywhere. We see it in detergent. We see it in skincare. We see it in candles. And as I said, cologne, perfume. So it can be topical. It can be something that you breathe in, that you wash with. They're everywhere, aren't they? And they're starting to do more research on this.

SPEAKER_00: 43:52

Pesticides as well. So the pesticides on our food. Aluminium.

SPEAKER_04: 43:56

Pesticides. Aluminium that's in the atmosphere. And also, what was the other one I bought? like fluoride is obviously one that's been argued about a lot. Yeah, with thyroid hormones. It's really effective, thyroid and pineal gland, et cetera. And Wi-Fi has got some really interesting studies about it and the frequencies and the 5G frequency that's being introduced has got some very, very smart scientific people going, this is what it does. So we're surrounded by what we think are modern conveniences that ultimately to our body they are becoming and many are being seen now as stresses, right? They're actually creating disruptions to the endocrine system, which is a very important part of our regulation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 44:35

Even think of like smoke, your air quality, your water quality. Absolutely. I mean, where I live, we have a lot of forest fires. Unfortunately, we're coming up on forest fire season and, you know, it's not something I can control, but will absolutely impact my immune system, my respiratory system, and that will downstream affect my hormone system. I mean, it's global.

SPEAKER_00: 44:56

So did you want to say something?

SPEAKER_02: 44:58

I don't know if we have time because I guess we want to get to the like WACA can we do to balance our blood sugars? And I want to ask you something totally different about, you know, increasing dopamine for brains that bounce all over the place for focus and stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 45:09

That's my ADD brain.

SPEAKER_02: 45:11

Yeah. So many questions, Carrie, and I just know you're a wealth of knowledge. But very quickly, you mentioned about histamine. I have so many clients and patients with allergies. You know, it's a common thing. People come to me and go, oh, I take an antihistamine every day. It's preventative. My doctor told me to. Can you make a comment about that and just explaining a little bit further about that relationship between histamine and hormones and for the listeners when we say histamine think of allergies and hay fever this is a histamine response or sometimes it's a food response rashes skin things you know hay fever that kind of thing is a histamine response

SPEAKER_03: 45:48

and it absolutely goes hand in hand i'd say the best example uh is with women so um estrogen and histamine kind of go back and forth so if you were in a high histamine state a lot of allergies it can impact estrogen and so i often and You probably do too, Denise. I have a lot of women that say, gosh, an allergy season, my PMS is terrible. My periods suck. They don't put the correlation together, but it's like, hey, Denise, my allergies are bad. And then in a separate sentence, they're like, my periods are a lot worse. My PMS is bad right now. And it's like, oh, histamine plays a role there. Estrogen can slow down the breakdown of histamine and histamine can cause problems with estrogen. Histamine can also worsen cramps. So think of your endometriosis who, while hist is not the cause, can worsen. It can worsen cramps with the menstrual cycle. So they're talking about their allergies and you ask them about their menstrual cramps and they're like, yeah, they're actually really bad right now. Well, they can go hand in hand and cause problems.

SPEAKER_00: 46:45

So that histamine, which may be caused by their allergies, could contribute to their menstrual cramps. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_03: 46:52

Remember, nothing's in a silo. So even though histamine is associated with, of course, allergies and all the antihistamine medications or the commercials on TV, we don't talk about the crossover that happens in all these molecules in our body and how they cross-interact. I mean, our body is like a spider web. If you touch one end, the whole thing vibrates. If you throw a pebble into a puddle of water and the rings go out, out, out, it's the same in the body. If you mess with histamine or if you get too high of histamine, that molecule is gonna send out vibrations through the body. It's gonna impact a lot of things.

SPEAKER_04: 47:30

Yeah, sure. I want to, Kerry, I want to summarize while I've got you here. You're amazing, by the way. You're such a breath of fresh air. And thank you on behalf of all humans for what you're doing. All

SPEAKER_00: 47:42

humans, by the way. All humans. As representative of planet Earth. No, but I

SPEAKER_04: 47:48

can just feel, I'm a feeler. And I feel how deeply people will appreciate this conversation because it's like, oh, thank you for pointing to something that I thought I was bad or wrong because I couldn't get right. But it's actually just something I need to understand. So thanks for being passionate. about it right from the start because you are clearly infused with spirit and purpose and passion so firstly that's that i've loved this but um i just want to summarize my understanding and correct me um where i'm wrong but also i want to put a question on the end of it so basically we have the sympathetic nervous system when we're in that we have a vagus nerve which is activates us to go into sympathetic or parasympathetic when we're in sympathetic we we're predominated in the the amygdala portion of the brain which is so we're in fight or flight so good bad right wrong win lose success failure good enough not good enough acceptable unacceptable all these things that create chronic emotional states we're producing cortisol and adrenaline to try and get out of that but it can be chronic and we can get trapped in it we end up with a vague vagus nerve and we can't switch out of it we get stuck in it when we're in that state what i've learned and understood and this is what i'd love clarity on if you feel the same our breath can get caught up you know we're in this survival breath mode On the other side, when we're in parasympathetic, in acceptance of the situation, we're open to what's going on, we're in the prefrontal cortex, we can see the horizon, we can perhaps see the progress, we can be producing oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine from the reward perspective. We're not in fight or flight. We're now in rest and recovery, rest and repair, rest and restore, et cetera. And when we drop into that, our breathing naturally drops into... I'm here. I'm present. There's no fight. I don't have to tense up. I don't have to hold this tension inside him. I'm not about to get attacked with a sword or fight a tiger. So I've kind of summarized what I understand. But the reason I've done that is one, for any clarification. And number two, what I'm beginning to find that is really powerful, people, is that you can reverse all that by understanding the role that breath can be downstream or upstream. So you can actually stop and go, all right, stop. Stop thinking. concentrate on my breathing breathe into my belly my chest my head breath three parts I love Andrew Huberman's work where he says the two-part breath because you've got the two-part breath it's a bit like after we've had the cry at the end of it all but that tells us if we've got time to breathe twice or even three times in it tells our whole system that we're not in danger and then we breathe out slower than we breathe in that's what I've been learning and what I've been understanding it's been hugely helpful for me can you correct me on any of that from your understanding or tell me what you understand about breath now and how that can be a powerful tool for people going forward.

SPEAKER_03: 50:39

I would even add when it comes to breath, because a lot of people obviously don't realize that they are breathing that way because our breath is not something we generally think about. I

SPEAKER_02: 50:48

just heard you do a really big breath. Sorry. I just heard

SPEAKER_01: 50:52

Dan. You

SPEAKER_03: 50:59

know, how many times Has somebody made a comment about, are you taking shallow breaths? Like take a big breath, do a big sigh. And when you do it, you're like, oh gosh, you're right. I was doing this shallow breathing, but it goes for other body postures. Many a times when I lecture, I will talk about the fact that so many in the audience have their shoulders up at their ears. And I'll say, sit up straight and drop your shoulders. Even just the act of putting your shoulders up and dropping, just, and I've had a lot of people say to me, I didn't realize how tight I was holding my body. I didn't realize I was clenching everything. You know, like I walk around or I try to go to sleep and I'm clenching, like unclench. So we're holding our physical,

SPEAKER_04: 51:44

emotional, mental states to ourselves.

SPEAKER_03: 51:47

Yes. Yes. And when you bring that awareness, it's almost immediate where people go, oh my gosh, I didn't realize I was doing that. I feel so much different because you're now, if you're clenched and you're up here, I mean, this is like fighter's position right to have your shoulders up your hands up and clenched so the body

SPEAKER_00: 52:04

says and you're protecting your neck I mean if you're talking

SPEAKER_03: 52:06

about

SPEAKER_00: 52:07

being attacked by a tiger the first thing you do is raise your shoulders protect your neck and that's what it's all about the old sword

SPEAKER_04: 52:13

thing as well the hips down by that you know protect the ribs and the heart and all this sort of stuff and then you know

SPEAKER_03: 52:20

so even just paying attention to those little things of how you're sitting your body posture definitely your breath are you your hands what are your hands doing can give You mentioned the amygdala. The amygdala in our brain is one of our fear-based centers, and it's very quick to react. This is where resilience comes in a lot, because when the amygdala feels threatened, it immediately runs to our hypothalamus, a part of our brain that kicks off the stress system. And unfortunately, it doesn't have checks and balances. It doesn't go to the front part of our brain, which is the executive function, to go, should I freak out? Is this real? What do you think? Can I think this through a little more? Is this scary? It just is like, I'm scared, react. I'm taking over. And our stress system kicks off. Now, it's a good thing. I always give the example because there's some people listening that if they came across a tiger and their amygdala didn't react, they would say, I love cats. Cats love me. Come here, kitty. Come here, kitty. Meanwhile, they're dead. So we need the amygdala to knock some common sense into us also to say, no, that's a tiger. We need to be afraid. However, However, what we don't want is what we call the neuroplasticity of running to fear base. So when you see on a sidewalk or a grassy area where people have walked so much that they've created their own path, think of that in your brain. So if your brain is always running the same path, that groove is going to be deep. And so we're trying to reel that back, build some resilience, remind yourself you're safe, unclench, get your breath going. So we can go down different pathways instead. Don't pet the kitty.

SPEAKER_00: 54:05

Okay, well, we think we've got a bit of a picture of what a chronic stress person looks like and the things that they should be aware of. But when someone like that comes to you, what are some of the tests, the diagnostic tests and the assessments that you would use to assess an individual and where they are hormonally as well as, I suppose, in terms of their stress levels, understanding what you need to do to help address that?

SPEAKER_04: 54:28

And what do you prescribe to them?

SPEAKER_00: 54:30

What do you do? Hello,

SPEAKER_02: 54:33

Dr. Carrie Jones, who is the testing hormone expert of the world. I learned, I do all my hormone testing from a test that you taught me about and have been for the last 10 years. Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 54:43

Well, so when it comes to stress, when it comes to cortisol, there's a few different ways you can test it. One is you can do a blood test for cortisol. The problem with that test is it's what's known as a total cortisol. So it is how much is free and available plus how much of your cortisol is bound up. Hormones are like children. They cannot be unattended at any time. So your body puts them on proteins that are like buses, like strap them in with a seatbelt and drive them through your body. So when I look at total cortisol, I'm like, how much is free, which is a very tiny amount, and how much is on this bus driving through your system? That's not very helpful to me because I want to know the difference. I want to know how much is free and available and affecting you, and then how much do you have in the reserves if you need it? So the blood test is hard because we can't decipher that. So then along came saliva testing. Saliva testing is literally what you think. You spit in a tube or suck on a cotton swab and you could do it through the day. And that way I could tell you what your morning, your noon and your night look like when it came to what your available cortisol was. Then we advanced into urine testing, which sounds crazy, but what we advanced into was a spot urine testing. So urinating on a strip of paper a few times through the day gives us the rhythm How much cortisol are you making at these different points? But also gives us more information. It gives us information on what's called metabolized cortisol. So how much are you making and clearing? So it answers questions for me. How much are you deactivating? That's called cortisone. And how much do you have active and available? So it gives me a broader picture to assess, can you not make it? That's a problem. Are you deactivating? That's a following the right pattern are you higher in the morning lower at night that's what we want or are do you have something that's flipped reverse something that's you know kind of going crazy

SPEAKER_00: 56:40

who wouldn't be making

SPEAKER_03: 56:41

three options i can decide what's best for you

SPEAKER_00: 56:45

who wouldn't be making cortisol or why would that be the case

SPEAKER_03: 56:49

So what can happen? Here's what's interesting. If you go to the extreme, there's something called Addison's disease. Addison's disease is an autoimmune where you don't make cortisol. You really struggle and have to go on cortisol. However, let's say it's not Addison's, but it's an insufficiency of cortisol production. So it's not zero, but it's not great. One of the most common reasons is high cortisol over time has a feedback loop, meaning a light switch that turns off. The brain goes, this is a lot of cortisol. Over a long period of time, this is annoying. I'm going to tell the adrenal glands to slow it down. Stop making so much cortisol. And it goes down, down, down, down, down, down. And this is what we call adrenal insufficiency. They get this low level of cortisol kind of eking out of the body. And they often feel it. They're tired, depleted.

SPEAKER_02: 57:38

We see this, right? This is chronic fatigue. I see this in fibromyalgia. A lot of my autoimmune people come to me and they are truly burnt out. Sometimes I see burnout and they're in the acute, really high cortisol but often the long-term, they are flatlining. You know, we're not seeing that pattern of cortisol through the day.

SPEAKER_04: 57:55

And that'd be more regular with what's happening in society now, right? You're seeing that more often?

SPEAKER_02: 57:59

Yeah, people are, it's chronic stress, right, Carrie? Like that chronic stress is then having an actual effect on that cortisol. Can I ask a quick question just because, you know, talking about all these different types of cortisol, I don't want to get too stuck in the weeds because it might lose the listeners, but obviously there is the cortisol, cortisone, maybe you can tell us a bit about that. But I was recently told that if someone has high free cortisol, but low metabolized cortisol, that's a marker of a really sluggish metabolism, whether it be hypothyroid or just their metabolism is really slow. Is that true? Because I just heard this recently.

SPEAKER_03: 58:49

the liver to metabolize or break down cortisol is free T3. So the thyroid hormone T3, but the free form of it. So free T3. So if I see somebody with low metabolized cortisol, then low free T3 is the first thing I think of. And what happens is they can't metabolize or break down their cortisol. So then it stays as free cortisol and just sort of comes through the urine because it can't get metabolized. So metabolized is low, but the free part is high. And it's really unfortunate. A lot of practitioners don't run a free T3. So they may run a TSH, a thyroid stimulating hormone, and they'll say, you're fine. Your numbers are fine. Not realizing it's the free T3 that can be very low regardless of what a TSH is. So yes, that is, and that's a great marker because again, what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Is it a thyroid problem? Is it a cortisol problem? It's a both problem most likely because free T3 is generally created out in the periphery including the liver. There's probably a lot of things going on. Stress is high. Inflammation is high. A lot of things are not great. Sluggish liver. It's one of its other survival modes.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:00

Probably some gut issues, maybe a high level of toxins, so many things. And I guess that's what we do. We look at that whole person.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:06

So just getting back to the picture then of this person, what other tests might you consider? We've looked at cortisol. You've mentioned thyroid, free thyroid. Are there any other hormones that would be at the top of your list as a must look at and what type of tests would you use for that?

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:23

Well, first of all, for sure, some of the ones we mentioned earlier. So glucose, glucose and insulin, hemoglobin A1C, because that plays such a big role in metabolic health, cardiometabolic, and of course, stress. And then the testosterone, total and free testosterone in both men and women. Estradiol, which is E2. It's one of the active estrogen. Progesterone. And specifically in women, if they're still cycling, I want to make sure I'm catching that at a particular time in their cycle. I want to make sure I'm testing them after ovulation. So around day, let's say 19 or 20, 21 of their cycle, because I want to see if they're producing progesterone that tells me.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:03

So it sounds like what you're doing is what would be a traditional blood workout, but you're looking at not just a snapshot in time. You want to see how hormones ebb and flow over time and then look at their specific forms, whether they be free or whether they be metabolized, because that's That gives you a much more full picture of actually what's going on in that individual rather than a brief snapshot in time.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:28

Because people are complicated, they have a lot going on. And I know sometimes getting this much either blood work or saliva or urine testing can feel overwhelming. But I'm like, look, I understand. Usually the cases, they've had some blood work with their practitioner. They've been told everything was normal. They don't know what to do. I'm like, we need to... to keep going. We need to peel back the layers of the onion. It is going to require some additional testing or maybe they just didn't do any testing at all. Like we have to do something. Let's evaluate what's going on. And so, yes, so I am looking at a lot more complex of a system of markers than maybe what's traditionally accepted because people are complex and they're coming to me and you all with complex issues that aren't being resolved elsewhere.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:16

So what are the most classic and common things that you're directing people towards or that you're prescribing that you're doing for them that are coming up most often? And what's the end result? What do people feel when they start doing these things that you're directing them towards?

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:32

One of the big things, and actually, Trevor, you mentioned this earlier, I feel like, and Denise as well, one of the things when you look at more functional, personalized type medicine is we end up doing a lot of therapy, a lot of counseling. We do a lot of education and explaining. And sometimes for my patients, just Just understanding this information so they could recognize it took a huge weight off of them. If we're talking about just because it's common, it's not normal. We're going to dig deep. We're going to turn over some rocks. Here are the ways that stress can impact your body. Here's what I need you to recognize. No one's given anybody these tips before. These were not taught when we were younger in school. Our parents didn't talk about them often, usually. So just to get these key things are really helpful. The next thing we talk a lot about when it We'll never be in a stress-free environment, unfortunately. But how are we handling stress? And what can we do with the stress presented to us? The way we respond, our emotions. Do we imagine a lot of stress? Do we need to work on that? And then what are the key ways we are making our body feel safe? So you mentioned the vagus nerve, Trevor. So the vagus nerve is predominantly a nerve that is parasympathetic. So the rest, the digest, the heal. And according to some experts, there's various branches of the vagus nerve that have to do with safety. Do you feel safe? Do you feel safe in your body and your surrounding? So it's a big area. I tell people, do you have a community that you love and feel safe in? Whether it's a community of one, your significant other, or a bigger community, your family at large, your friend group, your work, your church, whatever it is. Do you feel joy? Healing happens at joy. Do you find ways to have joy? Do you remind your body daily, often, that you're safe, you're happy, you're healthy? Even in the little micro moments. It may not be all day you feel safe, happy, and joyful, but in the micro moments, pointing that out to remind your body. And Denise, I love what you said about having to relearn that not all stress is bad. Some is for the good. And again, immediately going to the worst case scenario. Oh my gosh, it's going to bring my autoimmune back again, like re-evaluating how we approach those thoughts when it comes to stress. So as a baseline foundation, a lot of it is mental emotional, believe it or not. Because most people, I don't blame them. They're like, well, what pill can I take? Carrie, what herb can I take? Well, there

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:06

are a lot of great herbs out there. I do do a lot of that. I do prescribe a lot of herbs and supplements and I think it can be helpful. But I think what you're saying, Carrie, is very true If these foundations are not right, those supplements that we give, they're really not going to give the lasting effects. They might take the edge off a little, but really we need to get the foundations and then those things can get us out of a really sticky situation and actually bring us back to that place of thriving and setting us up for that health span. And I wouldn't mind just on that, can you share with me, if you are comfortable do so, what is your rate obviously it's going to be personalised depending on, I know that you, as you disclosed when we were in the US last month, going through menopause, showing your Dutch results, me too, like I think it's starting for me, I'm 45, we're actually almost the exact, you obviously said your birthday, you're the same age. So what are you taking right now, you personally, and also maybe some tips for some people that maybe, you know, just hormonally, you know, some of the top things that we can do from that supplement nutrient perspective

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:20

absolutely and i do stress support myself because even though i'm working on the foundations uh i'm human it happens my sleep isn't always great i don't always hydrate like i'm supposed to i don't you know blood sugar sometimes isn't perfect and in but i work on those and then just as you said denise i add in the extra stuff so one if i had to be on a deserted island and i could take one supplement in the whole world it would be magnesium now it's funny as people are often like you wouldn't take vitamin d i'm like no i'm on a deserted island like Maybe the sun. I would get that. I would take magnesium. I feel that humans are largely depleted in magnesium. It's involved in over 600 enzymatic reactions in the body, and it plays a huge role. You need magnesium to bind to ATP, so cellular energy, to make it active. And a lot of people, when they're stressed out, they don't feel that they have cellular energy. They feel like they're functioning by candlelight as opposed to full spectrum light. And they feel like their body is failing them. So magnesium helps activate ATP. And then if we choose our form, so for example, I do a lot of magnesium glycinate with a G. Glycine as an amino acid is calming. And I want the calming and I want to be able to sleep. So I do a lot of magnesium glycinate as an example. I also do take a combination of what we call adaptogenic herbs. So it has ashwagandha in it. It has a luthrococcus in it and it has rhodiola as well as some nutrients such as vitamin C. Humans are one of few mammals who don't make their own vitamin C. It's a terrible design flaw that for some reason biology got rid of in us.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:05

Yeah, there was a mutation. Evolutionary, we've had a mutation and now we are not making it. And actually, not only do we not make it, there's also a snip in one of the, you probably know this too, I know you're pretty familiar with genetics, but one of the vitamin C trans It's very rare. We had it in our profile. Very rare to have this SNP. Less than 10% of the population might have a heterozygote, not many a homozygote as in duplicate, but then we don't transport vitamin C as well to the tissues and absorb it. So there's a very minor percentage of the population that actually needs even more vitamin C if you've got that genetic SNP.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:41

And if you're stressed and we know the vitamin C, you need to make adrenaline. Yeah, for our adrenal glands,

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:46

exactly, yeah. It's heavily... concentrated in the adrenal gland. The act of making hormones is stressful to the body, believe it or not. Well, I mean, you three know this, but the act of making hormones in the adrenal glands, in the testicles, in the ovaries, we create a lot of what are called reactive oxygen species, which are not good. Reactive oxygen, meaning like negatively reactive, they can cause damage. So the body's smart. It puts antioxidants there to combat it. Vitamin C in the adrenal glands is one of them, except we don't make it inherently. So we either have to eat it or take it as a supplement. So I I do add in extra vitamin C, especially when I am stressed out to help make up for that. I do. So, and it's in this, it's in this stress response, adaptogenic support that I take. I take sulforaphane, which are from broccoli sprouts. So sulforaphane is a major phase two detoxifier. My absolute favorite that I learned. I was obsessed with it. Then I met researcher Christine Houghton when I was there in Australia and fangirled over her and continue to take it. sulforaphane or eat broccoli sprouts if people prefer the food route. I do take a B-complex. I find in my genetics and just how I feel, an extra B-complex seems to play a big role for me. I am currently experimenting with short-chain fatty acids, butyrate, because of, again, 47 perimenopause gut issues change as our estrogen changes for the worse. And butyrate being a big support of the large intestine. So I am playing with butyrate and prebiotics fiber. I'm playing with both given my age. And then like, what else do I take consistently? Well, the three of you probably can relate to this. I feel like in my pantry, I have more supplements and tea than I have food. I

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:41

have a whole cupboard and I actually have to go through every now and again and go, that one's expired. Why didn't I take it? I've got to

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:46

say my life is better. from that though like the more I see what I put in as actual all it's food whether it's food or supplement it's nutrition it's something my body needs and the more I've understood it is like you wouldn't put diesel in a Formula One car you know like you are you calling yourself a Formula One no I'm calling you that but basically yes yes I am I am I would like to operate like a Formula One car thank you or a fighter jet but but I my life has improved when I've understood these things so I know it's a supplement because the very word supplement is supplementary you know but my life has improved since i understood magnesium and you know my beautiful crazy chiropractor buddy you know who's a healer he's incredible magnesium mate magnesium magnesium and it's just i actually went through a long period of detoxification just constant phlegm and he said spit it out get rid of it don't swallow it back you know get rid of this is your body getting rid of all these things you build up over years i'm 56 i can go and ride big waves run around do all sorts of different things I can squat down I can do the you know change my feet change my shoes with you know on one foot all that sort of stuff no problems at all because of these things I've added in because it's just I don't see myself as superhuman that doesn't need anything I see myself as needing assistance I want to say something to Carrie I had an aha about 10 minutes ago when you talked about safety and I'm really grateful for it because it's staring me in the face but obviously when we're in fight or flight we don't feel safe You know, it's so obvious. It's like right there. Well, you're in fight or flight. So you must not feel safe to actually go into this reaction of I've got to be safe. So if I'm in chronic fight or flight, I'm chronically not feeling safe. And it just was like, you just slapped me in the face with it before. It's like, okay. So in the situations in the last 10 years, we're running big organizations and doing things. Oh, every time I felt stressful, it's like a deck of cards just opened up for me. I didn't feel safe. It's almost like the most common thing when I'm in a fight or flight. I didn't feel safe. Either people didn't understand what I was trying to do or where we were going. I was being criticized, attacked. Every time I've had these reactions, the one common thing is not feeling safe. So what I got out of that was, oh, okay, my family, my friends, the people I mix with, the way I talk, if I can cultivate safety, if I can give it to others, if I can appreciate it and embrace it and not think I'm so strong I don't need it, then I'm probably going to bypass a lot of the things that I've experienced in a long period of time. So that aha made me have the tingles. I felt emotional. And a lot of these podcasts, I find there's one thing in particular that I came to understand. And I think that was it. You just made me realize that when I feel safe, I'm a good, strong, contributory human that makes a difference in the world. I'm a good person to be around. I love my life. I exude joy, passion. When I don't, I go into a cascade of things that as I've got better, I I've managed and worked out how to get back to that place, but I've just got, oh, I have to actually just check in. Do I feel safe right now? And what can I do to change that? And I think that might help a lot of people to hear that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:59

And not feeling safe can manifest as a lot of different emotions. I mean, it can manifest as anger. And you might think like, no, it's not fear, it's anger. But we know fear is often what's underneath anger. It can manifest as overwhelm. It can manifest as depression or anxiety. Anger is considered a secondary emotion.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:17

Yeah. Of

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:18

emotions you don't know to recognize as ultimately, do I feel safe? Am I in a fear-based state? And emotionally that's happening, but think of your actual cells themselves. The last two supplements I didn't get to mention, I either take omega-3s, fish oil, or I've been starting to take the newly discovered fatty acid C15. I just happened to interview Dr. Stephanie Van Watson, who is a is the veterinarian epidemiologist who found it. She's the coolest person. It's the coolest story. It involves dolphins. So I highly recommend looking it up. That's

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:56

me. I'm one of them.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:57

I know, right? So she talked a lot about cellular fragility, like the outside wall of our cell. If it's fragile and weak and holy, then the inside of our cell isn't going to do that well either. And that includes whether we make energy with mitochondria, whether you're making a hormone and So emotionally feeling safe, but then are our cells safe? Are the outside walls of them actually safe and not allowing, quote unquote, bad things to get to them and come through? And

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:30

you're saying C15 contributes to the cell wall structure itself?

UNKNOWN: 1:15:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:35

The cell wall are made up of phospholipids. And so by doing, adding in the omegas fish oil, now they have a lot of other cool research on anger and depression and ADHD and on top of membrane health, apparently this C15, this new odd chain

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:59

saturated fat. Is that simply because the carbon is, is this just C15 literally meaning there's a carbon on it? at the chain at position 15 of that fatty acid. Is that what this means? We're literally talking about the chemical structure? Cool, yep.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:11

I'm not even going to ask

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:12

you to try and explain that in layman's terms. We'll just trust you. It has a very big one, something, something, something, moic acid. Yeah. Don't ask

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:18

me to say it. I have got so many more questions listed here, but we really have come to the end. Podcast number two. And we will do a podcast number two. And he's

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:27

trying to cut me off because I've got like 50,000 questions or not. No, I won't. I'd

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:30

love to continue that. I love that you got back to cellular safety with that C15 thing because of just having disappeared. about safety and how it feels. It's really powerful.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:38

But look, traditionally, we all have our last questions. So we've got three more questions for you. Mine's about the supplements.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:47

And I think you just did such a great job. We're on some similar things. When I travel, I always travel with vitamin C. A quick story about magnesium. When I saw you in the US, sometimes when I fly, I get blocked. And I hadn't used my bowels in a couple of days. And I don't often get bloated, but I was getting bloated. I was really uncomfortable. So at the conference, obviously, supplements went and asked for some magnesium. I was downing that magnesium, these gummies that were so yum. Not only did I sleep better, felt better, bowels got going, I kept taking that magnesium more than what I usually would. My cycle, so I've always had a fairly normal cycle, but now I guess this perimenopause, they're getting a bit shorter, a bit heavier, a bit of pain. I had no pain. Women say this all the time. Magnesium is so good, not just for perimenopause and, you know, calming, but also getting rid of the pain to the point where sometimes I'm waking up at night knowing I've got my period because it actually hurt It's cramps. It's like, man, this didn't happen my whole life. Now I'm in my mid-40s. I mean, I should be grateful I didn't get what some women experience throughout their lives. But the magnesium, it's the only thing I can put it down to is I was having a lot more magnesium and I just had a very, yeah, no pain. A good time. A good time with that cycle, if you can say it like that. All right, so I'm stopping talking. We love you.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:57

Bye. My question, Carrie, I'll ask this one. So beautiful, amazing, Carrie. I love talking to you. You really are incredible. You're a force of nature, so thank you. What you're working on, what we're all working on is this collective wisdom comes together. If it's able to give you 10 years of extended wellness in your life, like 10 years in your 80s, 90s, that you're just living an amazing life with your full faculties available and all your wisdom, et cetera, that you gain, why would you want that? What would you do with it? What would you do with that? Why and what would you do with that extra 10 years? So

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:33

what's interesting is that my My husband and I were talking with essentially our tax guy and the guy who manages our money. He said, what age do you want to retire? I thought, retire? I love what I do. Maybe slow down at some point? Absolutely. I have this feeling that I'm going to continue in the wellness space and in with education and following the research for a very long time and just continuing to beat the drum on getting this out to the public because, as I said right from the get-go, it is not taught to us at a young age. And imagine how much better society would be if we understood some of these basics In our teens, in our 20s, even in our 30s, it would just make it so much easier for us. So being able to have 10 more years of wellness, healthspan, which is the plan already, I think I will probably keep doing what I'm doing, quite honestly. Except I'm going to do it by an ocean. I don't live by an ocean. I mean, in the United States, I'm in the Pacific Northwest. It rains a lot here. And I'm like, nope, I need palm trees. We need a change. We need oceans. So I will find my ocean escape

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:54

route. And come live near Trev. He's got palm trees and oceans.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:56

Come to me in

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:57

Noosa,

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:58

yeah. The follow-up part of that is that impact that you're talking about that you could have educating like that, why is that important to you? What is it in you? Why is that so important to you to have that impact?

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:11

Because when I see on social media specifically, when I see the dread, the confusion, the fear, the depression, the anxiety in the comments, in the DMs of people mostly women because women is who I generally educate to that they're so frustrated and they're so upset and they don't feel well their body is failing them their mind is failing them nobody can help them and I'm like there's a lot you can do I know we talked a lot about stress and the downstream effects and it seems sort of overwhelming and then there's this like we 180 it like now that you understand what it can do let's make all the changes to help it not do that and there's a lot we can do and not have it feel overwhelming or cost a lot of money. And so when I see day after day in social media, the frustrated women reporting and men too, I just don't generally work with men. That's what motivates me to keep doing this because we needed, like I said, we needed to learn this a lot younger and we didn't. And it's a total disservice to society not to have this information out there.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:17

Absolutely. Thank

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:18

you. And there's so much more that can be discussed and we will be sure to have you on again as a guest. My last question is a lot much more direct and succinct. For people that do want to learn more from you, from people that want to reach out to you, for whatever reason, how can they contact you? How can they find you?

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:35

Well, that's the easiest question. Yeah, my website is drcarriejones.com. So D-R-C-A-R-R-I-E jones.com. I'm also on social media, predominantly Instagram at dr.carriejones. And those are the two big places I hang out all the time. And I have a ton, mostly all free information That's

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:55

powerful. To

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:56

just hand to people, e-books and blog articles and social media posts because it's important to me that it's out there.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:02

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Carrie Jones. That has been more than informative and we'll be looking forward to having you on again as a guest. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:11

Thank you. Thank you. Bye.

UNKNOWN: 1:22:14

Bye.