In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Lara Briden - a world-renowned hormone expert. She's here to share her expertise on how to repair your hormones and your period.
 
Dr. Lara Briden is a naturopathic doctor and author of the bestselling books Period Repair Manual and Hormone Repair Manual. She has more than 20 years of experience in women's health and currently has consulting rooms in Christchurch, New Zealand, where she treats women with PCOS, PMS, endometriosis, perimenopause, and many other hormones and period-related health problems.
 
Whether you're struggling with PMS, menopause, or any other hormonal issue, this episode is a must-listen! Dr. Briden shares her top tips for balancing your hormones naturally, as well as what to do if you're dealing with a more serious hormone issue.
 
If you're ready to get your hormones back on track, tune in now! You won't regret it.
 
You'll learn:
- How to repair your hormones and your period naturally
- What to do if you're struggling with a hormone issue
- The top tips for balancing your hormones naturally
- How to get your hormones back on track
- Types of treatments might be offered to women in traditional and modern medicine and naturopathic medicine
 
So what are you waiting for? Press play and join us on this exciting episode of the Hormone Prescription Podcast!
 
[01:14]  She has a very kind of global evolutionary view of hormonal function, which really matches mine. So I love talking to her. She's a big thinker and she likes to help women to understand what their hormones mean on a bigger picture than just every day, regulating their period and, uh, producing reproduction. 
 
[02:15]  We met recently when we did the event with Dr. Cabeca and I have looked at your beautiful book, hormone repair manual, which I love, and you have some really unique concepts that I know everybody's gonna really appreciate hearing about. 
 
[03:12]  I came to just discover that women's bodies and women's hormones respond so well to nutritional interventions, even more so than I had been taught to expect when I went through naturopathic college. So out of that, well, some of my first work was in Canada. 
 
[04:38]  And you call Perimenopause the second puberty.
 
[04:58]  If you're 41, 42, 43, you are in the territory of perimenopausal second puberty, and it's the, our hormones winding down, although as we'll talk about they don't do so in a, you know, quiet quietly kind of way.
 
[05:56] Very off the early phases of per menopause is actually high levels of estrogen spiking up to three times higher than we had in our twenties and thirties. And that's that kind of high estrogen exposure combined with low progesterone. 
 
[07:09] When you say primarily neurological, what kinds of things would women be experiencing? 
 
[07:19]  Other neurological symptoms include sleep disturbance. That's a big one in our forties for some women and migraines. 
 
[08:38] And that kind of lack of stress tolerance and stress resilience I find is so subtle and so pervasive. And that we, women, tend to blame ourselves. It's almost like the price that men go through where they kind of lose their edge, but we go through it usually a decade or even more, but ahead of time.
 
[09:16] So there's a lot going on, and it's understandable that you might think I've just, I'm doing too much and that's, that's a factor, but there is also this hormonal factor and this brain rewiring factor.
 
[10:04] Can you talk a little bit about what types of treatments might be offered to women in a traditional medical practice for this time of life or these symptoms we've just talked about and why that might be a good idea or a bad idea?
 
[10:32] So, you know, the conventional approach is just to shut that down. I would argue, and I know you and I are on the same page about a lot of things like this is not the time to be shutting down the ovaries.
 
[11:17] You're including bone health and brain because our female hormones are quite beneficial