Hormageddon™: When Hormones, ADHD, Stress, and Life Collide

0:00 Any health-related information on the following show provides general information only. Content presented on any show by any host or guest should not be substituted for a doctor's advice. Always consult your physician before beginning any new diet, exercise, or treatment program. For centuries, ancient cultures knew the secrets to longevity, vitality, and healing. Now, modern science is catching up. Ageless Blueprint is a podcast that will reveal the modern secrets of better health and a better life. Join Dr. Eldred Taylor here today and every Wednesday at 9 a.m.

0:42 Eastern Time on W4HC Radio at W4HC. com as together we discover the secrets to better health through science and spirituality. A better life with Ageless Blueprint starts now. Here's your host, Dr. Eldred Taylor. Hello, good morning. It is Wednesday, it's 9 o'clock, so it's time for the Ageless Blueprint. And we have a guest here today, and the reason why we call this the Ageless Blueprint, because I think there's certain things that have been happening since the beginning of time. And one of those is women, reproduction, menstrual cycles, pregnancy. these transitions into perimenopause and menopause. And that's been happening for a long time. It's been happening for thousands of years. And I still think that there's a lot of confusion about these life cycles. And today we are going to talk to a special guest who has written a book called Armageddon.

1:49 She wants to talk about, she has a book that talks about hormones, ADHD and stress and when life collides. And a lot of times I'm an OBGYN by trade, and I've talked to a lot of women. And I'm married to one of these women. And I know what happens in this perimenopausal and menopausal state. And I see it all the time. And I know that women are confused. And some, they're just not knowing what to expect. And so we have Janie Rendell. If you can bring her up, Rebel. Hello, Ms. Rundell. We had a conversation a few days ago. I know you're in Australia. What time is it there?

2:29 It's a little after eight here in Australia. But we're a day ahead of you, so I can see into your future and it's going to be good. Okay, well, great, great. So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? I know that you kind of hit a certain part of your life and you were like, wow, what's happening? And you had to kind of do your own investigation to try and figure out what was going on. So why don't you Why don't you tell me the story about where you were and how you got to this point? Sure. Well, interestingly enough, I was in tech sales for many, many years. I was excited about my job. Things were going really well. And I was good at what I did.

3:11 As far as selling, I was a top performer. And then I went into around 39, 40. I started noticing some different things happening. And I moved into a really... a new role, very stressful role. And all of a sudden it's like, what's happening here? And I knew something was, nothing was wrong, but something was off. Right. And so a friend of mine says, girl, you've got ADHD. I said, what are you talking about? That's for little boys. And what are you talking? I had no concept of what ADHD looked like. Sure enough, went to the doctor. Did you have ADHD? I'm like, it finally, it was an explanation for what I was going through. And then, of course, I had a very stressful job and I was in a stressful relationship. And so I'm like, great, now I can figure this one out. I can live in my zone of genius and put strategies in place.

4:05 And off I went until I didn't. I had never even heard the word perimenopause. A friend of mine told me something about perimenopause. I'm like, well, what is that? Is that like some disease or something? Back then, this was over a decade ago, I had no concept of what perimenopause. I was excited about going through menopause because I wouldn't have any cycles anymore. Wouldn't have to deal with that every month. Right. What I wasn't expecting was when brain fog, I mean, if you have ADHD already, you have already had, you know, short-term executive function challenges, things like that, workarounds. But when perimenopause really came with a vengeance, it was around 50%.

4:47 There was a game changer. And I'm like, I learned on these strategies. Now, what the heck is going on? I just figured this out. And I remember sitting in a meeting one time, a meeting I'd been in a hundred times. And I knew the content. I knew the people. I could not find the words. And that's not an uncommon experience for many women that I've talked to as well. So that was my journey. and figuring this out, but it was a, it was a, it was a journey for sure. And I had to, what I now talk to people about is become the detective of my own life, but it didn't happen overnight. It was quite, quite the journey there. And that's what I, that's the reason I wrote the book, navigating Hormageddon is I want to help people find out the clues for their life. Right.

5:35 Right. So tell me what clues you found and what you found was helpful. So how did you navigate it? I think that's, I guess that's what we want to know is, you don't have to tell us everything about the book, but give us, give us a tease. Yeah. So for me, I, I, I made it personal. I thought there must be just something wrong with me. Why can't I figure this out? Because nobody in my circles were talking about it. And so I knew that I would, you know, I knew that things were not moving in the right direction, but I thought, you know, what's, what's happening. And I made it a character flaw. And then I started, someone told me about HRT. I'm like, great. What is that?

6:20 And where do I find some? So, so sure enough, I went down that track. I worked with the naturopath and then somebody came back and says, Oh, you can't take that. It'll cause breast cancer. I'm like, Oh crap. And I'd been really good up until that point. Now I'm not saying HRT is right for everyone. I'm just saying for me, It made all the difference in the world. And so then I got this big scare. It's going to cause breast cancer. And I went off and the same thing started happening. I'm like, oh, oh, I'm not liking this. So I went back to my naturopath or to my integrated doctor, GP naturopath. And he said, I have women in their 90s living quality of life. I said, well, I'm going to live a quality of life rather than go through this. Because when you talk about changes in yourself physically, it's changes in relationships, changes in how you show up at work, changes in how you feel about yourself.

7:18 So that was a big game changer for me. So I started looking at those pieces and saying, all right, well, maybe it's not just me, you know? And I started having conversations. Well, this is what I would tell you. I talk to women all the time and they don't understand perimenopause and menopause. And I think it's a shame because you're a highly intelligent woman. And what I hear is that no one ever taught you, that your mother never taught you and so on and so forth. So I'm on a crusade to try and teach women that this is a part of life. Now, will some people... through it with no problems, but I would agree that, hey, when you increase your stress or when stress accumulates, you know, you said you had all these stressors, that it throws off all of your body system. And we wrote a book called The Stress Connection because stress, you know, it affects your gut, it affects your brain, it affects your hormones.

8:17 And so I think that's what that collision course is because usually by the time you're 50, you've got He may have, I'm not saying you, but some women have been divorced. They're dealing with kids and they're going around and taking them to soccer practice. And then they gotta, they're working from home and then they work until midnight. So all of those things add up and it is a collision course. And the one thing I would say is that when you talk about ADHD, no doubt about it, it's a no doubt about it problem. But when you really look at it, you're talking about attention, deficit, and hyperactivity disorder. So it's describing the symptoms, but I like to call it, it's a dysregulation in the nervous system.

9:02 You know, it says you've got too much fight or flight, not enough rest and digest. And so if you look at it in that point, then it helps you to explain it, that that stress gives you a lot of epinephrine and norepinephrine, and that causes you to have all of these scattered thoughts. And then if you can increase your serotonin, dopamine, and GABA, and those are what we call arrest and digest, then if you can balance out that part of your nervous system. And what kind of strategies have you used to try to balance that out to try and help what you call ADHD or nervous system dysregulation, however you want to call it? What methods have you discovered that you're trying to share with your audience?

9:48 Well, first of all, Understanding is a big part of it. And when you talk about ADHD, and we talked about this previously, is when you go into perimenopause, a lot of women are diagnosed with ADHD during midlife doesn't necessarily mean it's the right diagnosis or not, but that's when the masks start falling off. And there was a study here in Australia with Monash university, and they talked about the impact of, of women who actually have ADHD and, The impact of perimenopause, 97.5% greater impact of the effects of perimenopause. I'd like to be one of those women that says, oh, I just skated right through that. That wasn't me. You can combine the two. And I think the first thing is awareness. And what I always say is go be the detective of your own life.

10:43 Research. I mean, I intruded ADH fashion. I went down the rabbit hole hard. I was like, I got to figure this out. Because I wanted answers. The answers for me and the strategies that I put in place, you know, around scaffolding, around the right, you know, again, HRT. And I do take ADHD medication, but that's not right for everybody. So finding that. And on top of that, it's all the life skills around that. Because if you've had problems in your relationship, instead of saying, well, maybe it's just me, or maybe it's my husband, let's look under. underneath what's the biology i'm not trying to be cranky i don't want to be cranky i don't understand what's happening and if i can't understand what's happening i can't even articulate to you what's happening and you go to the doctor no disrespect dr taylor if you go to the doctor if they don't understand hormones they'll just say oh you're depressed you have anxiety let me give you some depression medication yeah and that's not the right medication because that's not what's happening so right it was a big trial and error. I talk about it being a big science experiment, you know, big trial and error.

11:56 Well, this is, this is what I would say. If I hope some of the people know me or whatever, is that my whole, my whole premise is that, yes, you call it harmageddon. I call it hormone confusion. I call, you know, you can call it a hormone clarity, but you're right. It's the confusion. And this is, this is my little discovery. And I think we talked about it a little bit. I think the real problem is we don't ascribe to a testing model that helps you to figure it out. If you have high blood pressure, you take your blood pressure and you say, oh, I got high blood pressure. I use, and I've been using for 25 years, salivary testing to help me to balance out hormones and also to look at cortisol that can cause this nervous system dysregulation. And that's what I, so those are my two, those are my two goals is to educate so that you know that, Hey, look, I will tell you right now, perimenopause starts when your ovulation becomes irregular.

13:04 And then that throws your hormones off. And that starts around 35. And then at 50, when you stop ovulating off, that's when the big changes start. So I'm, I'm trying to, I have Asia's blueprint. I've been doing this for two years, trying to, trying to get women to, the information so that they can understand. And once you understand it, it becomes a lot less stressful because you know what's going on. You know how to correct it. You don't think it's an only you problem. And when the doctor says, oh, you're just depressed and all that, I always talk about is that everybody is confused. I was confused until my wife started going through this. And then that's when I really understood it. And that's when we talk about relationship problems.

13:49 So tell me, is your book, is it published? How can you get your book? Well, it's with the publisher now. So we are putting the final steps. Late October, early November is when I hope to have it released. But I'll put that on my website with a wait list. But if I can add one more thing to that. Yeah, go ahead, please. Yes, this is what you really want to get across. The one thing that I really admire about the talk that we had previous to this is that instead of saying, what is wrong with you to your wife, you said, what's happening? Let's work through this together. The highest divorce rate, we call it a midlife crisis, is women over 50.

14:39 It impacts careers. It impacts the relationships. And you think about identity. It impacts the entire family system. So these hormonal changes... Oh, by the way, if you're midlife, you have children going through their own hormageddon. Yes. Imagine. And potentially a husband who's going through, you know, commonly called andropause. So you have hormones raging in your house and you wonder... what's wrong with one another. Right. So that's, that's a big key point. Yeah. I want to make the other thing too. There's a difference between depression and menopausal depression.

15:19 Yeah. If you understand as a doctor, if, if, if a doctor doesn't understand that, then they're not treating the right type of depression. If that's the case. So let me, yeah. So I will, I will tell you this about, uh, depression. Uh, Remember I talked about the non-excitatory neurotransmitters called serotonin and dopamine? I mean, serotonin, dopamine, and GABA? Well, you know, serotonin reuptake inhibitors, they help serotonin. But let me tell you what increases GABA and what you lose in perimenopause and menopause. It's progesterone. Progesterone makes something called allopregnenolone that binds to the GABA receptor. So you lose that when you go through perimenopause and menopause.

16:03 So therefore, that's when your moods kind of get crazy because you don't have that calming effect. So that's what I've been trying to teach that for 20, 25 years. And I did a podcast called Gray Divorce. And I used that same statistic, is that it's women over 50, it's gone up 35%. Because like you said, it's that men and women, they don't understand. And let's talk about the puberty and the perimenopause, I used to give a lecture and I said, these are those, these predictable cycles. In puberty, a woman, a girl is trying to transition into being reproductive. In perimenopause, you're transitioning out. And anytime there's a transition, there's always turbulence. And I would say turbulence, I would say tornadoes and hurricanes, that's turbulence. So a man who has a pubescent daughter and a perimenopausal wife, he is in a storm every day. I call it the collision. Yeah, it's a collision. And then you have a perimenopausal mother dealing with a pubescent daughter, and then they're arguing. And so he's trying to break those up.

17:17 So what I'm saying is all of this is predictable. Transition in and transition out. That's when you hit this collision. And so if you can expect that and say, oh, now I know what's happening. Yeah, but it's this and and also the scare of HRT and the scare of HRT and cancer, if you can test it appropriately, you can take away some of that fear and you're not waiting till you get breast cancer and then say, oh my God, I shouldn't have been on HRT. So those are all of the things that I talk about, but I will make sure that I have your contact information when we publish this so that they can get in contact with you Get on the wait list for your book.

18:02 And maybe we'll win this release. Come back. Let us know how things are going. And and, you know, we can if you want to talk more about how I can give you some information about how to maybe understand this better so you can help more people. That's what I'm trying to do is to get people who are who have an audience or who are trying to create an audience to help them even better understand. so that they can help more women. So that's my goal. So I appreciate you being here and give you, you can give us one more final final say, and then we'll, we'll end this little segment. I always end with become the detective of your own life. Nobody's coming to save you, but you have the answers, but become the detective of your own life. And those answers will come.

18:48 And I used to give a lecture to say, I will, I can make you an honorary gynecologist. if you just understand a few key things and you do have to be your own advocate, I totally agree with you. So thanks again, Mr. Rundell. I'm sorry we got you up so early, but we appreciate it. And we'll, we'll stay in touch. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for joining Dr. Taylor today. If you missed any part of this show, Just check out the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Angel's Blueprint is every Wednesday at 9 a.m. Eastern Time on W4HC Radio at W4HC. com. Together, we discover the ancient secrets to better health through science and spirituality made for modern times.

19:37 Until then, feel free to check out Angel'sBlueprintPodcast.com and taylormdformulations.com for more information.