Two Misunderstood Hormones: Cortisol and Progesterone

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, everybody. It is Wednesday, and it is, well, it's really 904, 905. We had a little bit of miscommunication between Rebel and myself. We weren't sure if we were doing this podcast this week. Morning. Last week, I will tell you, we didn't go live because I had a little issue in my home. We actually had a little bit of an electrical fire that caused a little bit of a problem. It didn't do anything serious to the house, but life happens. And, you know, it's just sometimes you have to take care of things.

1:35 And so we're going to talk about how life happens. And we're going to talk about the two hormones that are most misunderstood here. And I hear this all the time about how you want to lower your cortisol and cortisol is bad and you don't need progesterone if you don't have a uterus and nobody even knows about progesterone. So we're going to talk about those two because cortisol is not your enemy and you don't always need to lower it. Cortisol is actually not always bad for you. It actually can be good just like anything else if it is in the right place and the right time. And that's the same thing with progesterone. Progesterone is good when it's there and it's balanced with estrogen and all those things. So that's what we're going to talk about.

2:21 But I want you to really understand this. And when you understand these two, it'll help you to fill in the gaps. So Rebel, let's get started. I know we started a little bit late, but we're going to keep going because this is my mission in life and we're going to get women and men to understand this. All right. So the three things I want to talk about today is that cortisol helps you to adapt. Okay. Cortisol is not the problem. It's the stressors that are the problem, like the things that are happening in my house. I actually want more cortisol so I can adapt to it. Okay. The reason why we have survived when other organisms have gone extinct is our ability to adapt. Okay. So We want cortisol. It helps us to adapt to situations, to time zones. It does remarkable things for us. But again, we don't want it to be too much. Now, how these two are connected is because stress can disrupt ovulation.

3:23 It's not necessarily the cortisol. That's a byproduct of it, but it's the stressors that tells your body that it's not safe to have a baby because And so it cuts off ovulation. So that's why I'm telling you that these two are connected. And the problem is that both of these are not tested correctly. So that's what causes the confusion. Because routine tests are not going to show the timing or the recovery patterns. So that's what we want to talk about. We want to talk about cortisol. We want to talk about progesterone. And we're going to want to talk about proper testing. And even if you don't test, I want you to understand the patterns so that you can go to the doctor or you can just do your own research. And also, you know, we're going to help you to do the research, too, because I need to do this. I want to make sure that you subscribe to my YouTube channel. It's AgelessBlueprint1. com. please subscribe to the podcast, which is Ageless Blueprint Podcast. So I need you to subscribe. I need you to subscribe and tell other people about this because this is important.

4:31 So I just want to have that commercial right here in the middle, all right? So now let's look at the patterns. So early stress symptoms, what can they be? Headaches. We all know that when you're stressed, you feel like your head is tight. You have these tension headaches. You have stomach problems. We know we have butterflies in the stomach. We have eating problems. Some people stress eat and some people don't stress eat. They actually, because they have the butterflies, they don't feel hungry. So you can have this both ways. Fatigue. When your body is under stress, it is getting ready to run or to fight. And when that's on constantly, it can tire you out. Okay. So fatigue, physical fatigue is a stressor. Skin rashes. Usually skin rashes are usually a manifestation of gut problems because the skin is one of your detoxification organs. So a lot of skin problems actually come from the gut and a lot of times the gut is disrupted because of stress. So you can get chronic mild illnesses because stress and the cortisol are really stressed. It suppresses your immune system. And then you can get sexual dysfunction because both men and women have have to be relaxed in order to have and enjoy sexual intercourse or sex. Men, when they're tense, they get performance anxiety. So they can have premature ejaculation or have erectile dysfunction. What is it caused by? It's caused by stress stimulating the sympathetic nervous system, which is the fight

6:03 or flight. And your body is saying, this is not the time to have sex right now. So it suppresses that. Now, not only do you have physical problems, but your body and respond to things that haven't even happened, okay? So you can get psychological and behavioral stressors, anxiety, irritability, depression, accidents, domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, workplace violence. All of that has to do with stress stimulating the sympathetic nervous system to fight or flight and suppressing the rest and digest, all right? So a lot of these are problems with resting and digesting. And then the other problems is with fight or flight. And that's why we see this road rage and all of these things, because your sympathetic nervous system is turned on. It's not necessarily the cortisol. That is a byproduct of this dysregulation of the nervous system.

6:58 So that's why you see all of this stuff about nervous system regulation, because that is really the problem that's causing the manifestation of it in cortisol. But that is even a little bit downstream. All right. So here's the problem. The problem is popular thinking. So the problem with popular thinking is that it doesn't require you to think at all. It's easy to do what other people do and hope that they thought it out. That's the big problem. And that's what I see on Facebook groups. And I see these Facebook groups that have thousands of members and they're all talking about what's popular right now. And what's popular right now is pellets, estrogen, and testosterone for energy. All of those things are popular. But you're hoping that these people on Facebook, you're hoping that they have thought it out.

7:46 But most of them have not thought it out. They're following someone else. They're following someone else on another Facebook group. So if you deal with the basics, and that's why I talk about ageless blueprints. There is an ageless blueprint. You don't have to go with popular thinking. If you know the basics, you can determine, you can discern what is true and what is not true based on what you know is the basics. Okay, can you elaborate on ED and sexual dysfunction problems? Okay, I'll be happy to. So save that, put that in one of the questions. I'll get to that, all right? So popular nine diagnoses. So because we're so confused, we have these diagnoses for you.

8:30 We talk about chronic fatigue. What is chronic fatigue? Chronic fatigue means that you came in and you said, hey, I'm tired all the time because chronic means all the time and fatigue means tired. Fibromyalgia, what is that? That's aches and pains. All my muscles hurt. Well, why do all your muscles hurt? Because if you send energy to the muscles and you get ready to fight or flight, then all of that lactic acid builds up and it causes pain. You hold tension in your muscles. And I was just looking for, there was talk about tension relief, where I'll tell you, we're going to talk about this animals. Animals get rid of that tension out of their muscles. And I'll show you why. But because we don't do that, we end up with fibromyalgia. Well, why do we get depressed? Well, how do you diagnose depression? Someone says they're depressed and we give them an antidepressant. But a lot of times that depression is due to an imbalance in fight or flight and rest and digest. So you end up being depressed because serotonin is not being made because you're making the stress hormones. So irritable bowel, we talked about how when you're under stress, you have butterflies in your stomach or you may have diarrhea because you have this GI upset.

9:46 And then you have these changes in emotions and we call it bipolar. But really, it can be an imbalance in either sympathetic and parasympathetic, or it can be an imbalance in sex hormones. estrogen and progesterone. All right, so let's go to this. So why don't zebras get ulcers? I talked about how animals, they get rid of their tension. And you have to understand, genetically, we are not far apart from actual animals, all right? So we have a lot of these natural instincts. So why don't zebras get ulcers? You know why zebras don't get ulcers? Because they rest and digest all day long. You just sit around, they graze.

10:28 But when a predator comes, when they see that they're not safe, fight or flight comes on, all right? So the reason why zebras don't get ulcers is because they know how to use the stress response because cortisol gives them the energy to survive. Your body is always trying to see, am I safe? Or am I in danger? All right. So the cortisol gives them the energy to remove themselves from danger and get to safety. Now, once they get to safety, they rest and relax again. They recover. They get rid of the tension. And you know how they get rid of the tension? They shake it off. Okay. They shake it off. So we say shake it off. That's getting that tension. And that's why exercise works. Okay.

11:11 Because it relieves that tension that's in your muscles. A lot of people go after work and they go work out. That helps them to relieve the tension that built up because all day their body was thinking they were in fight or flight if they were in a stressful situation in the office. So zebras don't get ulcers because they know the stress response is for acute situations. Hey, I have a predator. Now let me tell you the other thing. Zebras are unable to have a long-term stress response. The reason why hunters and gatherers could get animals because we are built for long-term stress, okay? So while the animals can only run at full speed for maybe five or 10 minutes and they have to recover, they are forced to recover. Well, people, they could keep chasing the animals until they tired them out. So that's why zebras don't get ulcers, because they cannot maintain a prolonged stress response.

12:09 Because let's see, if they don't get away from the predator, what's going to happen? They're going to get eaten, and the stress response is over. So whether they get away or they don't get away, they don't have prolonged stress responses. All right, so here's how, this is cortisol. Cortisol is what wakes you up in the morning and cortisol is what tells you to go to sleep at night. So cortisol gives you the energy to wake up. So if you don't have enough cortisol, you're going to have difficulty getting out of bed. All right, now, if you have too much cortisol at night, you're going to have trouble going to sleep because the natural circadian rhythm is action, recovery, action, recovery. That's what the zebra is doing. Action, recovery. Our problem is we have all action and no recovery. That's the problem.

12:57 So cortisol is not the problem. It's because we push ourselves and we never have proper recovery. We don't sleep. We're taught to grind it through and all of these things. But cortisol is not the enemy. Cortisol tells you when to wake up. It tells you when to go to sleep. And remember I told you cortisol is the adaptation hormone. And so remember how I told you it wakes you up in the morning? Well, when you go out into California, I'm in the Eastern time zone. When I go to California, the first few days or maybe weeks, I'm going to wake up at seven o'clock Eastern time, even though it's four o'clock there. Okay. But if you stay out there long enough, what happens? You will adapt to that time zone.

13:40 How does it do that? Cortisol shifts to that time zone. So it's all about adaptation. All right. So cortisol helps you to adapt to your environment. And when cortisol is low, you have a decreased ability to adapt. And even to adapt to normal situations that you used to could handle easily, you can't adapt back to that. You can't get back up to that level. And I'll show you that. And it's easy to see if you test. So let me see what my time is here. Okay. So we're good. Okay. Okay. So how much time do we have? It's 1444 over there. So I'm not seeing that, but anyway, let's keep going.

14:21 All right. So this is the problem right here. This is the problem. Okay. Stress or cortisol is not your enemy. If you don't have enough, you're going to be inactive and bored. You need to have a reason to wake up in the morning. And that's why I'm seeing this information on YouTube. I look at YouTube all the time and they were talking about how when men retire, they, end up deteriorating. They don't last very long. Why? Because men especially, and women too, women, I think their drive is taking care of their family, taking care of their home. That's their reason to get up. And I don't mean to be sexist. I'm just saying generalities. But if you don't have anything to stress you, you won't necessarily get out of bed. That's why I say the worst thing you can do is to be comfortable. You need to be challenged, okay? So you get a healthy little tension.

15:12 And then when you get really into your purpose, you really get motivated and focused. But here's our problem. We don't recover. We keep pushing. We keep pushing, okay? We got stress at home. We got stress at the job. We got stress with family members. We got kids trying to get them through college. We've got parents we're trying to take care of as they get older. So we have all of these things. So we're pushing, we're here, but then all these other things take us over here to fatigue because we don't have enough cortisol or energy to get through that. We get exhaustion because we keep pushing. Then you get panic, anxiety, anger, burnout, and then breakdown.

15:53 So this is the problem. Stress is not the issue. We overexert ourselves. We push ourselves too hard. That's the American way. Work grand through. Don't, don't, resting is called laziness. That is our problem. So stop talking about you want to lower cortisol, okay? Because this is what low cortisol looks like, okay? When you have a chronic stress like this, a threat, you get biological response, continuing threat. But this is what I want to show you is that when you have this continued stress, Everything is disrupted, okay? Because at the time, just think of a zebra. If you've got 15 minutes to get away from a predator, you are not worried about reproduction. You don't care what your hormones are doing because you know it's a life or death situation. You definitely don't want to store energy, okay?

16:45 You want all of that glucose into the bloodstream. So that's why it can cause insulin resistance. Because it's thinking that you need this glucose right now. All right. It slows down thyroid function because the body wants to be controlled by adrenaline. It doesn't want thyroid to be using energy. All right. When you digest food, it takes a lot of energy. Okay. So you get decreased GI absorption. That's why you can get diarrhea. You get heartburn. You get all of these because your absorption, your GI tract is slowed down. Because it takes too much energy, you're worried about fight or flight, okay? You don't want to waste water. You can get high blood pressure because you want to keep all the fluid in your bloodstream because in case you get injured, you don't want to bleed to death too easily, all right? Your immune system, your immune system takes a lot of energy. It's trying to protect you against your environment, against the, it's trying to protect you against things that could kill you in a year or two.

17:46 Your body doesn't care about that. It's like, I've got to live right now. So forget the immune system. And then the last thing you'd want to do if you were running from a predator is to go to sleep, right? So now you can't go to sleep because you sleep with one eye open. What I'm saying with one eye open, you don't get any deep sleep because your body wants to make sure it can hear anything that might cause danger. I will tell you one thing. Mothers who have babies at night, Their nighttime cortisol does not go down all the way because they need to hear the baby if it is in trouble. Men don't have that instinct. And I hear it all the time when women have children.

18:27 My husband, he doesn't hear the baby at night. I think he just is too lazy and doesn't want to get up and feed the baby. No, he just doesn't hear it because he has not adapted. He has not adapted to hear that sound. you are adapting to hear that sound, all right? Hey, Rebel, do we have, I know that ED one we wanted to talk about. Do we have any other questions? Yes, I'll pop them up on the screen for you. And the next one is this one. Okay, all right. So let's talk about ED, all right? All right, so in order to have an erection, the arteries have to relax to let enough blood come in there, all right? So when you are in fight or flight, your body is saying, I can't waste blood and energy going there. It has to go to the muscles. So what happens is you don't get that blood going there because it's being diverted. Your body is saying, we don't need to have this right now. So what you have to do is you have to somehow turn off energy.

19:30 that response. Okay. So I don't know how you do it with meditation or you just need to understand it. And that's why men will wake up in the morning with an erection because they are in that parasympathetic rest and digest state. And in the middle of the night, they may have erections, but then when they're up and they're anxious and thinking that it might not work, that's the anxiety that shuts the whole system down. So that's what you have to understand is that you have to be relaxed. And women especially have to be relaxed in order to have sex because when they're tight or tense, everything tightens up, if you know what I mean. And so it can make it uncomfortable for them. They can't relax, so they can't enjoy everything. So that's what screwed up, screws up your sex life. And now the other person was talking about chronic fatigue. What was that one? Okay, can anyone get the chronic fatigue or is it after a certain age? No, you can wear out this system at any age. I see these kids who are in school And they're trying to get the best grades so they can get into the best college and do all these activities so it looks good on their application. And those kids can be burnt out too. All right. So it's not after a certain age. I've seen 13, 14, 15-year-olds have to drop out of school because they have chronic fatigue because there's so much pressure on them or they put so much pressure on themselves. because they're worried about something that might happen in the future. They might

21:02 not get into the right college. They might not be able to have the right career. So that is the problem. They're anxious about things that might happen, and they may never happen. They may get into Harvard, but they spent two, three, four years worrying about it. So that's what we've got to understand, is that it's not what's happening. It's what we imagine will happen. And just like you can imagine the worst, you can imagine the best. Let me tell you, we had this miscommunication rebel and I was worried. I said, no, I'm not going to imagine the worst. I'm going to imagine the best. And what happened? We were three minutes late, but we're on because I did not let my imagination run away with me and caused me a lot of stress where I couldn't be able to put on the podcast, all right? So chronic fatigue at any age, okay? What can we do to restore the balance and energy? Well, that's what we're going to talk about. At the end of this, I'm going to talk about, we have a whole course on why don't I feel like myself again?

22:05 I mean, why don't I feel like myself anymore? And how can I feel like myself again? And so to restore the energy, we have to try and build up that adrenal gland. This is the adrenal gland. So let me show you this. So the adrenal gland is what makes cortisol, all right? Now, you have two diseases that are attached to this. You have something called Cushing syndrome, where you have way too much cortisol, and it causes the breast, the back hump. It causes overwhelming elevated glucose and hemoglobin A1C, so it's just pouring out all this glucose. Then you have Addison's disease. Where Addison's disease is when you don't have any cortisol because cortisol also regulates your electrolytes like aldosterone. And even President Kennedy had Addison's disease.

22:55 But you see that big gap between those two? There's a lot of gap between having these two diseases. And that's where I coined the phrase is that people keep telling you, doctors keep telling you you're not sick. They're telling you you don't have Cushing syndrome and you don't have Addison's disease. But you know you're not well because if you used to have this much cortisol and this much energy and you have this much, you know there's a problem. Or if you have this much and you used to have this much, you know that there's something going on. OK, so if you test correctly, you can see that in between because those two tests are done by blood. But when you want to see functionality of hormones that are fat soluble, you have to look in the saliva. And this is what it looks like in saliva when you don't have enough cortisol. This is normal.

23:43 There's a green line. Remember that circadian rhythm? Well, this is looking at cortisol, and this is where it should be. When you wake up in the morning, you have a lot of energy. It goes down at lunch. You eat, you get more energy, then you go to sleep, and then you recover, and you come back again. But you see how this cortisol is going up at night? I'm sorry, let me go back. See how it's going up at night? That means you're probably not going to get deep sleep. You're probably going to wake up at two or three o'clock in the morning, or you'll wake up at three or four and you can't go back to sleep. And therefore you'd never recover. So this keeps going down further and further. So cortisol is not the enemy. The lack of cortisol, now too much cortisol can be a problem, but the lack of cortisol can also be a problem because you cannot adapt. You can't recover. So you never get that morning surge. So this is usually how it starts.

24:32 You have too much cortisol. You have all these stressors. You're pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. But eventually you can't keep that up. Can't keep it up. Just like athletes. They can't keep up that ability after a certain age. So the lack of cortisol or too much cortisol, both of those can be a problem. But If you test it, it gets very clear. It's very clear once you test it. You can see, oh, wow, I don't want to get rid of my cortisol. The reason why I'm anxious and all this is not because of the cortisol. It is because you can't adapt to those stressors or you didn't adapt to these stressors. And this is another one. It can be severely disrupted. So this person does need less cortisol.

25:18 And we have a supplement called Serine Comb. It has phosphatidylserine in it. And phosphatidylserine can help reorganize this cortisol curve so that it can be more normal. Also, adaptogens like ginseng, rhodiola, cordyceps, all of those things can help to normalize that curve. Now, also, what helps you better adapt to stress is when you intentionally put yourself in stressful situations. And they say, if you go to the stress before the stress comes to you, you'll be able to better handle it. Remember talking about adaptability. That's why people get into these cold tubs. That's why they will go and hike. We actually hiked up this mountain because you want a little bit of stress. Taking cold showers, that gives you a little bit of stress every morning to exhilarate you. It's not all bad. You want to have some good stressors to stimulate you but you don't want too many stressors that's going to deplete you. This is what I was talking about. It's not the cortisol, it's the stressors. So I want you to see, I had to put my glasses on to see this, but see, these are all of these stressors, toxic exposure, life cycle disruption, food intolerance, temperature extremes, trauma, glucose dysregulation, chronic infections, pain, lack of sleep, dietary imbalances, excessive exercise can be a stress, chronic inflammation, serotonin and GABA, so neurotransmitter problems, And then

26:49 mental or emotional strain, anxiety, depression, alpha-adrenergic stimuli. All of these stressors are stimulating this. And cortisol is trying to come around and help. But you can exhaust this system. So now all you have is epinephrine and norepinephrine. That is adrenaline. And that's what you're feeling, okay? It's not the cortisol that's the problem. It's the epinephrine and norepinephrine. Now you're just running off of adrenaline. You don't have cortisol to help you better adapt. And so now everything is stressful. Everything is stressful because you don't have cortisol to help calm that fire. All right. So that is the problem. So we have to get rid of the stressors.

27:33 So if you haven't heard this before, here are my four stress relief steps. One, try to remove the stressors. Okay. do the testing. We do GI testing. We do food sensitivity testing. We do all of these tests to try and find these hidden stressors so we can turn off that sympathetic nervous system. All right. So if you can't get rid of the stressors, like you know, your parents are sick or your kids trying to get them in college. You have to change how you respond to those stressors. Okay. You have to get help, you know, with taking care of your parents. You have to try and figure out, you know, what's the best way to get my kids through school or whatever the stressors are. How can I change my response to these stressors that I cannot change?

28:19 And then you want to repair the damage caused by the stress. You want to repair the gut. You want to repair the nervous system. Give yourself time. The amino acids so you can make serotonin and dopamine to feel good, the rest and digest type of neurotransmitters and not those sympathetic epinephrine and norepinephrine. So that's how that works. I think it's time for a break. Is that correct, Rebel? Yes, we should go on a break. OK, so let's go on a break. And when we come back, I'm going to show you how you can tell if you're sympathetic or parasympathetic is dominating you. And then we're going to talk about that second hormone, progesterone. And you're going to see how these two connect. All right.

28:59 How a disruption in cortisol and stress can lead to a problem in progesterone and sex hormones. All right. So we'll do that when we come back from break. We are going to a quick break, so stay with us as we explore the ageless blueprint right here on W4HC Radio and Talk4TV, an ancient secret with a modern twist for better health and vitality. Dr. Taylor will be right back. Taking care of your health shouldn't mean taking a handful of pills every day. At TaylorMD Formulations, they create doctor-developed supplements that combine the best natural ingredients so you.

29:42 Get the results you need with fewer pills. TaylorMD Formulations is backed by science designed for real life with real results. Less pills, better health, doctor approved. Shop now at TaylorMDFormulations.com and discover smarter supplements for smarter health. That's TaylorMDFormulations.com. We are back for more of Ageless Blueprint. Once again, let's join Dr. Taylor for more insights and research on the ancient secret to better health and a better life in modern times. Here's your host, Dr. Eldridge Miller.

30:42 I need you to tell somebody else. I hope you think that this information is helpful. I hope you think that this information ends some confusion for you and for some other people. So please subscribe. Subscribe to the Ageless Blueprint podcast. Okay, that's another one that you can subscribe to. Also, you see down at the bottom, I have school.com forward slash ageless. I'm going to offer a course there. Why don't I feel like myself anymore? We have a community there. I would love for you to join that. That is where you can really get to understand this information. So I'm really pushing this. I've done this for a long time. And now I see that my problem is distribution. I need you to help me to distribute. distribute this information.

31:25 If you subscribe to my YouTube channel, you'll get a notice whenever we're doing a live broadcast here and you'll be able to see the replays or you'll be able to see whenever you want to. So anyway, so I want to get to this and then we're going to go. So let me tell you how you can tell if your sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous system is on. Most of you guys have watches or rings that look at heart rate variability. OK, so I'm going to get to all these questions you guys keep putting in at the end. I promise I'm answer. So heart rate variability. You probably have it on your on your phone or whatever. And I want to make sure you know what that means. All right. So heart rate variability. Every second your body is making changes. OK. And so if it sees something out of balance, the sympathetic nervous system turns on, raise your heart rate for a little bit, takes care of that, and then you're supposed to rest and digest. So this is happening every second. So how you can measure that is the distance between heartbeats. So even if you have a heart rate that's, I'm sorry, even if you have a heart rate that's 80 beats a minute, not all of those heartbeats are separated out at the same space. OK, if something is out of balance, it's going to go for a minute. So anyway, you should have this constant variability, sympathetic, parasympathetic, sympathetic, parasympathetic.

32:40 And what this is doing is measuring the heartbeats, turn them upside down at me. I'm sorry, turning them this way, 90 degrees. And the long ones means that there was a long space between the heartbeats. And this means that it was a short space, okay? So if it was a short space, that means sympathetic. Long space means parasympathetic, all right? So look at this. You see a lot of long spaces and a lot of short spaces. Then we ask people to stand up to see how they respond to a stress, which going from sitting to standing is a stress because your blood pressure has to change. All of these things have to change because now you're working against gravity. So now you can see the sympathetic. The lines got short, but then you recover. And now the parasympathetic comes back again. When you are under chronic stress, this is how that looks. There's no variability. So if you have low heart rate variability, you're running strictly off of sympathetic. That is a problem. You can't do that forever.

33:34 And then eventually, that's going to disrupt your cortisol. So if you really want to understand what's happening, you need to look at your heart rate variability. We actually have a separate app that helps you look at that, but you can use your ring. But you need to understand what that is telling you. So look at your heart rate variability, and you can tell whether or not you're in sympathetic or parasympathetic. All right. You want to enhance that parasympathetic activity. All right. So now let's get to the second thing. Okay. So why am I saying cortisol and progesterone? Because when you're under stress, remember I told you it disrupts, it disrupts your hormones. How does it do that? It stops ovulation. It says you can't make an egg. You're under too much stress. We can't have this.

34:18 And you'll see this, uh, when people are going through the infertility workup, a lot of times while they're going through the workup, because it's so stressful, they have to time their sex and ovulation, all that stuff is so stressful. They don't get pregnant. Once they say the heck with it, this is just not meant to be. I'm going to turn it over to God or whatever. You just, you let go. A lot of times that, brings on the rest and digest. You ovulate. Oh my God, I got pregnant. I've been trying for three, four years. I'm not saying that happens all the time, but you probably know people that's happened to. So that's why I'm saying stress, cortisol. Cortisol, again, it's your inability to adapt that's causing the problem. The stressors are causing you not to ovulate It's not necessarily the cortisol, all right? So cortisol, it can be. Now, when cortisol gets too high, like we showed, that can be a problem. But this is what I want to show you, and I'm going to show it to you.

35:12 And I'm actually going to have a download for this. All right, so this is what's happening, all right? When you have a menstrual cycle, the lining sheds, estrogen comes around to regrow that tissue. It regrows the tissue, and it stores fat. Why would it store fat? It's storing energy, so in case you get pregnant, you can have enough energy to maintain that pregnancy. You've got to think. There's people in all of these countries that are so poor, but they still have children. How is that? Their body will store fat the first part of the cycle, and they'll try and have that for the baby in case they don't get food or whatever the next day. So that's a survival technique. So you have to understand that.

35:57 So that's why estrogen causes growth of tissue and it stores fat. Well, you always got to have a balance. What does progesterone do? It slows down the growth and it burns fat for energy. So you need those two in balance. When you don't ovulate, you don't make progesterone. When you don't make progesterone, you don't have that balancing. So what happens? This is what happens. When you don't have enough progesterone, see how you have these follicles develop and these follicles are making estrogen. And when you It's two times. When you don't ovulate, then you're going to make a lot of estrogen that's going to cause a lot of growth and a lot of fat storage, and you won't have this balancing part over here. Also, estrogen is action, growth, all that, okay? So it stimulates you.

36:49 Progesterone is calming, okay? So in those two weeks prior to your cycle, if you don't have progesterone, you're not going to be calm. You're going to have anxiety. You will have irregular heavy bleeding because ovulation is the menstrual timekeeper. 14 days after ovulation, you should either be pregnant or you should have a menstrual cycle. When you don't ovulate, your body doesn't know when to have a cycle, how long, how much, all of that. So these happen a lot of times in puberty because your body is still trying to regulate its ovulation cycle. And it also happens in perimenopause.

37:29 It can happen there because your body is trying to get out of the reproductive cycle. And a lot of times that causes a, I say every transition causes turbulence. So when you're transitioning in or transitioning out, it can be very turbulent. And also when you have PCOS or you have an ambulatory cycle, even if you're 15, 16, 17. What PCOS means is that you make a lot of cysts that are making a lot of estrogen and you don't ovulate and so you don't make progesterone. So what do you get with PCOS? You get all of this stuff. You get anxiety, you get heavy bleeding, you get fibroids, you get all of these things because you did not ovulate.

38:09 Why didn't you ovulate? Because you probably had stressors. Those stressors causes the cortisol to either go up too high or too low. Either way, it's still going to cause a problem. So that's what I need. And this is the reason why I don't, because we talk about popular thinking. I can't tell you how many people I see on that come to me. And on Facebook says that you don't need progesterone if you don't have a uterus. Well, progesterone is for more than that. Progesterone influences more than just pregnancy and bleeding. It influences the brain. And we talked about how it's calming. It helps you to make serotonin and dopamine. It's calming. It actually makes something called allopregnenolone that acts like GABA. And GABA is very calming.

38:53 On the uterus, I told you it helps with controlling the bleeding and the lining of the uterus. But let me tell you also what it does. It is a smooth muscle relaxant. So it can help with the cramping that you may have when you have a cycle. Progesterone is needed. We talk about reproduction to make the cervical mucus be more inviting. It also affects the hypothalamus. Remember I told you about how progesterone helps you to burn fat for energy? You know what it does? It increases thyroid function. It lowers something called thyroid-binding globulin that can make thyroid ineffective. And estrogen actually increases thyroid-binding globulin and progesterone lowers it so you have more free thyroid hormone. Remember, now, also we are talking about estrogen in their bones. Well, estrogen...

39:41 helps you to not break down bone, but progesterone helps you to actually build bone. And this is one thing where testosterone is also important because testosterone can help you to build bone. But also I told you that progesterone is a part of your immune system also, and especially your breasts. So even though you don't have a uterus, you still have breast tissue. And that breast tissue needs to be protected with progesterone because also even after menopause, your fat tissue makes estrogen. So even after menopause, even if you don't have any ovaries, you can still be exposed to estrogen, but you won't see it in the blood because the blood only shows you what's coming from the ovary. And this is not coming from the ovary.

40:26 It's coming from fat tissue. So that's why progesterone is so important. But sometimes we would rather be comfortable than correct, and we'd rather stay in a routine and make changes. And that's what happens in medicine. And unfortunately, most people would rather live with old problems than new solutions. So, you know, the new solution is, hey, you can test with saliva and it'll give you a better information. The new solution is not following popular thinking. Let me understand this on my own. And that's why I'm I'm asking you to join the school group. If you're already a member, you can open up the classroom and you can select the course and you can unlock the course. If you're new to Ageless Blueprint, you can join for free. You can open the, and I'm going to have all these links in the description below. But I really want you to think about coming to the course. It's a self-paced course.

41:18 And I'm going to have a question and answer. at on September the 15th from eight to nine o'clock Eastern time. And when you go into the class, you'll get the zoom link. You'll go through the class. We'll talk about it and you'll be so informed that you'll be able to teach other people what I'm teaching you. And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to help you to see one, do one, teach one. That's what we did in medical school. See one, do one, teach one. And that's what we're trying to do here. So, all right, let's, let's have some questions. How much time do we have for questions? We have about five minutes. Okay, so let's go. Would this work for everyone or do different things work for different people? When you say, would this work for anyone? Now, I would tell you anyone can identify those stressors, okay? If you identify those stressors, you can try and relieve yourself of those stressors. You know what happens when you leave a job that's stressful, you feel the relief. You know what your stressors are.

42:13 And if you can't get rid of the stressors, you're going to have to change how you respond to those stressors, okay? And then just like with everything else, I will tell you, hey, look, what you want to do is you want to try and repair the damage caused by the stress if all possible. And then you want to prepare for future stress because somebody's talking about what products would work for who and where do we get the products. At Taylor MD Formulations, which you just saw the commercial for, we have something called Cortisol Reset, that has adrenocare glandular and has serinecom in it. If you go to TailMD Formulations, we have all kinds of products. We have all kinds of information so you can understand what the product does and why you may need it and why the symptoms may point toward that. But I'll tell you, if you're waking up at two or three o'clock in the morning, you have one or two issues. Low progesterone, low progesterone at night because progesterone helps to calm you down so you can go to sleep or high nighttime cortisol, which wakes you up at two or three o'clock in the morning. All right.

43:19 So during the course, we can answer those questions. I can tell you more when we're in a private setting. So yeah, please. That's what I'm saying is that, I do all of this, but I really want it to help you. And this is not, again, you need to talk to your medical doctor, all this, but I'm just trying to get you to understand the patterns and for you to ask different questions when you go to the doctor. Hey, could it be cortisol? Have you ever heard about saliva testing? Hey, look, I know a lab that can, so I need you to help educate even your healthcare provider if they're not attuned to this, because I think everybody needs to understand this because I didn't understand this until I started researching myself.

43:59 So can chronic stress disrupt your cortisol rhythm? Yes, that's the whole idea. Chronic stress is the problem, and that's disrupting your cortisol rhythm. It's all about rhythm. Remember how it was this, it's all about cycles. I have a lecture called Cycles, Balance, and Transitions, okay? Because everything runs in cycles, estrogen and progesterone, your menstrual cycle, your cortisol curve, everything runs in cycles. And those cycles have to be balanced. You have to have enough action and enough recovery. They have to be in balance. And whenever you're transitioning from one age to another, so it's like this ageless blueprint.

44:40 Whenever you're transitioning from one stage in life to another, there's always going to be turbulence. Okay, so that's the stressor. Change, why do people hate change? Because it causes turbulence. When should cortisol be tested? At any time, it's a daily rhythm. What you do is you, You collect four vials at different times of the night. And all we did was connect the dots. If you look at those, we just connected the dots. I'll try and show you. It's just connecting the dots. Okay. So you tested four times a day, any day, and you'll get this because remember how I told you it takes time for your cortisol curve to shift. If you go from New York to California, well, it takes time for this to move too. So just because you have one stressful day, this is a pattern. that is repeated. And you know that this stress, it repeats that feeling every day. So you can be tested on any day because this is a curve that is stable.

45:39 It doesn't move day to day. It moves by what is this situation I need to adapt to. Because if you just go out to California for a day and come right back, it doesn't bother you. But if you go out there long enough, your body will adapt. So that adaptation is crucial. And that is due to this rhythmic cortisol curve. Okay. Are we, I can't see this time up here. So we got like two more minutes left, right? Three. Three. All right. Any other questions? If not, okay. When should cortisol be tested? So Rebel, does this help end some confusion? Is that, hey, look, stop talking about lowering cortisol. We really need to be measuring cortisol and we need to understand that we don't need to be measuring those two extremes, Cushing's and Addison's. You got all of that middle ground there.

46:33 And that's where functional medicine is involved. We're not looking for diseases. We're looking at where is the dysfunction? hey, you're supposed to be at this level of cortisol and you're either over here or over there, that is what we're talking about, is that we want to understand what is these minor changes that can cause major problems when they keep recurring day after day. So please, again, I need you to subscribe. I would love for you to join school. The community is free. I usually try and post something there two or three times a week. And I will inform you when we're having a podcast. So please join the community. And I want this community to be a beacon of truth. Join these Facebook groups. See what they're talking about on there. And maybe you can interject some real information that could help them and could take them away from popular thinking. and take them into functional thinking and pattern-based thinking and not just popular thinking.

47:38 So if you understand these basics, you're going to be able to move away from popular thinking and you're going to be able to be able to discern what pattern you're in and how can you change that pattern. So I hope to see you guys next week. And I hope I'll see you in the school community. I hope I'll see you on the question and answer on September the 15th. So please, please, please, you know, take this information, absorb it yourself and share it with somebody else. All right. So Rebel, that should just about do it, right? Absolutely. Okay. So any parting words for you, Rebel? I would just like everyone to really listen to what Dr.

48:20 Taylor's telling you. Try to find a medium balance in your life to where things could be happy and you won't be too high or too low on anything. And remember to join us back here next week. All right. All right. So see you guys. Thank you so much for your time. And look, just share this with somebody else. It's just easy. Copy, share. Hey, listen to this guy. Okay. So anyway, we'll see you next week. 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.

49:02 Together, we discover the ancient secrets to better health through science and spirituality made for modern times. Until then, feel free to check out agelessblueprintpodcast.com and taylormdformulations.com for more information.