173 Personal Growth and Self-Discovery during Menopause

Join me and Amita Sharma in our real and heartfelt conversation about personal growth and self-discovery during menopause.

Amita Sharma, co-founder of NourishDoc, discusses the importance of addressing perimenopause and menopause in women's health, and in this conversation, we talk about:

🌱 Cultural Differences and the Experience of Menopause

🌱 The Impact of Menopause on Work and Personal Life

🌱 Embracing a Holistic Lifestyle during Menopause

🌱 Personal Growth and Self-Discovery during Menopause

🌱How NourishDoc came to be.

🌱 The Importance of Open Conversations about Menopause

🌱 The Benefits of Ayurveda in Managing Menopause

🌱 The Rainbow Diet and Gut Health

🌱 Feeling Energized and Healthy

🌱 Sleep, Self-Care, and Negative Thoughts

So, if you’re ready to be educated and inspired, tune in now!

Amita’s Links:

Website: www.nourishdoc.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/nourishdoc

Instagram: www.instagram.com/nourish_doc

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nourishdoc

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nourishdoc/

Personal Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amita-sharma-nourishdoc/

Sally's Links:

[Free] Relaxation Hypnosis Recording:  https://bit.ly/relaxationwithsally

How to Create Phenomenal Self Esteem [£47]:  https://www.sallygarozzo.com/selfesteem

Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

Cold Water Therapy Practitioner [£127] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/cold

Transformational 30 Day Rewire (Includes RTT) [£447]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/rapid-transformational-therapist

Transformational Trauma Informed Coaching [From £197]:  https://www.sallygarozzo.com/transformational-coaching 

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/sallygarozzomindmentor

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallygarozzo/

Send me a voice clip via What’s App - https://wa.me/message/FTARBMO7CRLEL1

Transcript

Sally (00:01.39)
So my guest today is Amita Sharma and Amita is the co -founder of NourishDoc, a global holistic wellness platform for women to manage their hormone transition from PMS to postmenopause. Inspired by her perimenopausal journey and working in the high -tech world, she felt the need to bring the taboo topic of perimenopause, especially in the workplace, out into the open for a discussion.

Amita Sharma (00:02.417)
Thank

Amita Sharma (00:23.548)
to bring the fitness health care code.

Sally (00:31.148)
So Amrita, welcome to the podcast today. How are you doing?

Amita Sharma (00:35.41)
Great, great, I'm super excited to meet you. I really admire your work. So yes, absolutely. Beautiful morning here in San Francisco. So thank you for having me.

Sally (00:46.25)
brilliant. That was going to be my next question, actually. Where are you phoning in from? But San Francisco, I love that. I've never been and I definitely want to go. So I'll come over and say hello to you when I pop over.

Amita Sharma (00:48.304)
Yeah.

Amita Sharma (00:57.562)
Absolutely.

Sally (00:59.564)
So I'd like to start actually by just getting you to explain what is NourishDoc and how can it help women going through the menopause. I know you've been working on it for a long time and I know we've had, I came on your Facebook group, didn't I, and did a little talk about hypnotherapy and I think you were just building it at the time. So tell us more about what NourishDoc is.

Amita Sharma (01:14.129)
Yes.

Amita Sharma (01:17.809)
Okay.

Amita Sharma (01:23.634)
So Nereshtak is a platform to help women going through the hormonal transition. So the idea is, you know, this whole hormone transition that happens in our, you know, in our life stage, starting for when we start the puberty and then moving on to perimenopause is not well understood, right? And, you know, specifically the perimenopause, the postmenopause stage of a woman's life, I think we understand the fertility well.

and even the puberty well, but not the other states. So I feel the need to support women, specifically the mid -aged women, in a platform where they can come in and get whatever information and education awareness they can get from around the world that is evidence -based. So that's what I have done in the last three, four years, gone around the world and talked to almost 3 4 ,000 experts, including yourself.

to build this so that women feel confident that they're getting the right information and they can start taking the steps towards helping themselves, right? It's a self -care. Initially, it's a self -care, very affordable platform that we are going to offer to women around the world. And that really is the idea behind it.

Sally (02:44.246)
Lovely, I think that's going to be so useful. So is it an information app or is or can you have coaching on the app? What else can you get on the app?

Amita Sharma (02:55.122)
Yeah, so starting with would be a basic self -care, super affordable, less than $10. You can do it yourself. Then you can upgrade to get coaching. Most of the women would need coaching, some kind of whatever is happening in their bodies, physical, mental, social, psychological. We know the stage is not only about physical health. So coaching would be available. And then the next step could be a personalized concierge team.

you know, that could be a naturopath doctor, a hypnotherapist like yourself, a dietician, you know, a yoga therapist, a mental health counselor. So it starts very affordable. Then it starts going up depending on every woman's need. And the other thing what we are building, what we built is culturally sensitive. You know, we know that menopause is different for women coming from different ethnic backgrounds and different

countries for that matter. So that is also something that I want to bring it out, that knowledge that the symptoms that I might have would be different for someone like you or someone else. So it's not just one pill or one size that would fit every woman.

Sally (04:14.732)
Yeah, so, so important to have that differentiation. What different symptoms have you seen in people of color and minority groups? What sort of, how are the symptoms different? I'm so curious about that.

Amita Sharma (04:21.051)
Thank

Amita Sharma (04:31.369)
Yeah, so I can give you some examples. So first of all, let's start with the age part, right? The age of the menopause we know is 51, 52 for an average Caucasian woman in America. These are US stats. And then for Latino and African -American women, the age is about 47, 48. It's younger. It's about two, three years younger. Now, the other women of color, let's say,

women in India, not necessarily in United States, the age is about 46, 47, much younger again. Then women, Muslim women in Sudan is again in their mid 40s, younger. So now the menopause, if it is happening younger in women is not good. We know that, right, from stats. Now coming back to your question on the symptoms.

Latino, Latino women and African American women, have more aggravated hot flashes as an example than other women. So because of the lifestyle, you can say because maybe their obesity level, so many things are in deploy, right? And then if you look at Indian women, they have more musculoskeletal pains, know, I think sedentary lifestyle as an example.

or maybe the women are a little bit subservient culture, although things are changing all over the world. So now, for example, Japanese women, don't get as much hot flashes because of the diet that they have been right, eating soy based soup based, but they have other issues like joint pains, you know, maybe loss of libido, things like that. the symptoms are can be different, know, it's of course, the different person has different symptoms, but on a

higher level, these are symptoms based on an ethnic group overall lifestyle, dietary, you know, what kind of diet that they follow. And so age and the symptoms differ.

Sally (06:34.998)
Yeah, so interesting because it just goes to show that we, it's not just about hormones, it's not just estrogen, progesterone, testosterone that affects our menopausal experience. It's so much more than that, isn't it? It's so wide, it's broad, it's like, it's culture, it's family, it's maybe even the temperature of the place that we live in. It's, did I say family?

Amita Sharma (06:48.722)
Mm

Amita Sharma (06:58.319)
Yes.

Sally (07:02.868)
It might be the work that we've done. It might be our childhood trauma. It might be the predominant diet that we have eaten. There's so much else to menopause that's not hormone related. And it's so good that we've got people like you really going into that kind of cultural narrative as well and the cultural differences. So important. So thank you so much for that.

So I am interested to know what your menopausal experience was like. What was it like for you going through perimenopause and through menopause? I'm not sure where you are now, but maybe you'd like to clarify that.

Amita Sharma (07:42.034)
Absolutely. So I started actually my was very normal in the sense like the age point of view what I just described you Maybe because of my lifestyle and diet it could be But my penny menopause journey was kind of erratic and I did not even know that the word penny menopause at that time until I started having these embarrassing symptoms in public

So that is kind of when it started leading me into this something is wrong that's happening, you know to me and and I had actually very pronounced hot flashes in public and sitting in meetings and sweating like really sweating and and the flow was bad and then I always had a brain fog because I couldn't sleep at night properly. So it was not just one symptom that happened to me. It was like all four or five symptoms right as a

the results of not sleeping at night, hot flashes, then I would have anxiety and not depression but borderline I could say depression because I was working all the time I didn't have time to get depressed right so all those things it happened to me I was like and then fatigue my god the fatigue was crazy I could not get up in the morning so and I

Sally (08:51.32)
Yeah.

Amita Sharma (09:03.036)
Honestly, I did not know what to do for years. You know, I struggled and I did not know who to go talk to. I was ashamed. A lot of women are like, my God, who do I talk to? You feel ashamed about like something is going on and you feel like age discrimination can happen right at work. I was worried about that. All the things that you read about, I was like, my God, if I go talk to someone.

You know, they might judge me that I can't do my work properly and I'm having these strange symptoms and which I could not place it to being in perimenopausal state, right? So a lot of confusion, of kind of like muddle in my head, could not focus at work, productivity went down as a result. know, as a result, I actually ended up quitting my full -time job and taking up contract positions because

I felt that I could not handle myself working so hard, 24 by 7 and high tech. I needed to take breaks in between. So it impacted my entire life, if you think about it. My professional life, it was very important at that time. My financial, because the money is different, and also my personal, my physical health. So it just engulfed me.

Sally (10:03.299)
Yeah.

Amita Sharma (10:20.688)
It completely engulfed me and I did not know what to do with myself.

Sally (10:25.066)
Yes, and I hear this story so much actually where there's just not enough awareness of the menopause in places of work and you are not, you think like it's your fault that you're not strong enough, you're not capable enough, you're broken, there's something wrong with you, nobody gets you, if only I could just lay down in the afternoon but there's no capacity to be able to do that, to sort of restore yourself.

Amita Sharma (10:34.738)
Thank you.

Thank you.

Sally (10:54.478)
You know, people might think I'm weak or I've got big deadlines ahead of me and I need to kind of keep going and crack on. Actually, what I really need is to rest in the afternoon. things like I'll go to bed earlier or whatever. What for you, what was the big message in all of that? Because I don't believe that symptoms just kind of come out of nowhere. I do think that they are screaming at us. They're trying to tell us something, aren't they?

perimenopausal symptoms. So for you, what was the gold that you garnered, that you took from all of this sort of upheaval?

Amita Sharma (11:36.186)
Yeah, so, you know, the message for me was to embrace a holistic lifestyle. I did go to my GP and, you know, the usual route and given a medication, I didn't want to be on medication at the time, right? And I had no clue about HRT, to be honest with you. Nobody told me about HRT at that time, right? So maybe if I had been given some education,

right education for that study, I wouldn't consider it, but you know, I didn't know. I did not know. So for me, the only option was to embrace a holistic lifestyle, to really change my diet, to change my life, exercise, to exercise properly, take care of myself. And so at that time is what I really started going into acupuncture, Ayurveda, yoga, know, diet, all of the things, because those are the only avenues that I thought.

I had available to take care of myself. So I started going deep into it and embracing whatever I understood. And that was a turning point, right? For me, entry into all this. Not that I did not know about Ayurveda before, Ayurva massages and stuff. I always thought Ayurveda is a massage, a kind of, okay, you get your massage done, right? And that's about it, but it's more than that. So I think...

Sally (12:41.751)
Hmm

Amita Sharma (12:59.716)
In hindsight, such aggravated symptoms led me to start looking deeper into the holistic therapies, which I personally would not have done so deep. I would have done a little bit, but not so deep into it.

Sally (13:16.15)
Yeah, yeah. Were there any kind of behavioral shifts that you needed to make to make menopause, to have an easier time of menopause alongside the holistic therapies, which I think are brilliant, you know, the acupuncture, the massage, the Ayurveda, the, I don't know, mindfulness, meditation, yoga, all of those things. And I want to talk more about that. But were there any behavioral shifts that you felt you needed to make?

Amita Sharma (13:19.472)
and we'll see.

Amita Sharma (13:24.383)
Mm

Sally (13:45.566)
internally to kind of like almost sort of re -identify yourself or just change your personality slightly kind of now adjust to this menopausal lifestyle.

Amita Sharma (13:54.418)
Mm.

Amita Sharma (14:00.47)
Yes, yes. So I was a bit of an introvert, a shy person, I would say in my younger, younger me, if you think I say so. And I had to become a little bit more confident at that time to tackle this beast suddenly that just was coming at me and be presentable at work to be able to work properly. So I think my entire personality changed and I became more confident and I started looking inwards.

as to looking at my strength rather than looking at my weaknesses, right? So I had to, I had no other choice. And so I think it was a transformation that didn't happen overnight. I would say that it took me years, but more like I literally started looking into, okay, what is my strength? Now I am into that stage of heavy menopause. I'm going to reach menopause soon, at that time.

What is the strength that I have? And I didn't want to retire. I didn't want to be seen as someone, you know, getting old, which I think most of women ask the fear about that. It's the honest truth. And I didn't want people to, let me put it this way. It wasn't like the fear of getting old so much. It was the fear of not being relevant in the society, in the community, right? For me, that is very, very important. I want to be relevant. I want to contribute something in the community. I don't want to be

kind of like, just as being on the sideline and being like dismissed, or someone, know how you sometimes in some cultures, someone retires, he's retired or she's retired, and they're dismissed. I didn't want to be dismissed. So how do you become relevant? What do you do? So you need to go internal and look at your strengths and look at what are the weaknesses, know, work on your strengths. So I think I worked very hard trying to discover myself during that

phase of my life and and bring out the the strength of me and trying to become very confident about who I am. Right? So I think that that transformation happened to me more in this stage than it happened when I was younger.

Sally (16:06.028)
Yeah.

Sally (16:14.314)
Yes, I hear it so much. menopause is this invitation, isn't it? It's like this, this energetic spiritual awakening in a way of, of an opportunity that exists to really start to live, live our lives more authentically, to come home to ourselves, to embrace who we are, who we've become, who we are becoming. But also there's a shedding, a real sort of shedding of the layers, the stuff that's not really needed.

The thoughts about ourselves that are not needed anymore, the insecurities. I don't know, perhaps if you've been through a journey, I know I have, where I felt really, really insecure and I've had to, in a way, rebuild myself to feel more confident on the inside. And despite all of the things that I don't particularly like, it's like I'm having to make them okay.

like the brain for like my brain is slowing down, like my needs are changing. I've reconciled to the fact that I am a highly sensitive person and I don't really like kind of loud concerts anymore. I don't like loud music. I used to go to concerts all the time and I'm like, I just don't want to go anywhere near that. Like I would much rather go and have a sauna, go and have a massage and just sort of work on that.

that self -preservative, things that are really yummy, things that really feel nice to my body. You know, that's kind of how I've had to sort of reshape myself. So you mentioned strengths, focusing on your strengths. What do you feel your strengths are now?

Amita Sharma (18:00.198)
I think to be able to myself, to really present who I am, I was not presenting myself before. I was very always worried about what others think of me. I always wanted to please others, right? I wanted to fit in into some kind of a group, whatever group it could be, it doesn't matter. So I always try to do what others want me to do, right? In the sense, in a very kind of subconscious mind.

and never presented who I was. And what now what I do is that I present myself, who I am. You know, I express my opinion, which I was scared to do earlier when I was younger with the thought of, I might not fit in or they might exclude me. So what has happened is I am who I am, you know, and I need to get rid of all the insecurities. I need to present myself

without fearing whether I'm going to be included or not. And that is, I think, the biggest thing that has happened to me in a positive way of going through this whole process, right? Going through this whole stage of life that I have come out in a way that who I am, right?

Sally (19:21.718)
Yeah, so there's a maturing, there's like a, well, it's like that cocoon metaphor, isn't it? Perimenopause is like the turning to mush element of the cocoon. And then we emerge, we re -emerge out of the other side. Do you think that setting up your nourished doc business has had something to do with that internal shift that you've been through, that confidence re -emerging?

Amita Sharma (19:33.937)
Yes.

Amita Sharma (19:50.61)
Absolutely, absolutely. Because see what I experienced and I realized by talking to so many experts around the world, including you during that time, I talked to about 3 ,000, 4 ,000 women, experts, all kinds of people. was like crazy. And I realized that I was not the only one who was feeling like that. I always used to think that maybe I'm the way I am, but

Sally (20:07.47)
It's amazing.

Amita Sharma (20:20.558)
millions of women feel the same way that I, the way I felt. And I, at that time, you know, I, when I think, Maristop wanted to be, I wanted to be a holistic wellness place, some platform. Wasn't sure if it should only focus on the women, this stage of life. But the more I talked to women, the more I realized that this topic, this, this whole stage of women's life needs to come out in a positive way, not in a dismissal way, right?

And it's much more beyond the only the physical health we talked about. And I knew my experience, but when I talked to so many other women, it gave me so much confidence and reinforcement of the fact that this has to be done in a way that women feel very confident about this stage of their life. So this whole experience absolutely including me talking to

So many people, international people, about 3 ,000, 4 ,000, it impacted my whole experience of, yes, the Nreshat has to be done in a way that it impacts women around the globe.

Sally (21:31.086)
Yeah, it really does. It's like having having these conversations every week that I do with people. I've been doing it since 2020 now. It's quite such a long time. Had a little blip in the middle where I was only putting episodes out once a month, but now I'm really getting back into it as I'm especially as I'm seeing the link between trauma and menopause. But speaking to people every every week is has just been so enlightening and

Amita Sharma (21:33.072)
It's just like how you see it. How you see it.

Sally (21:59.99)
One of the things I've realised is there's no right way to do menopause. You have to do menopause on your own terms. And in that sense, that is the beauty of menopause. It's like an, it's so individual. It's an individualistic spiritual awakening. Every individual woman will go through it differently. They'll experience it differently. Their needs and requirements will be different. And that's why these conversations never get boring because

Every person who I speak to has a slightly different take, a slightly different slant. There will be common threads, obviously. You know, I've experienced it myself, that people pleasing wound. You don't want to say the wrong thing. You don't want to mention menopause at a dinner party because you're worried about how it's going to be taken. But I tell you what, though, when you do, people really want to talk about it, even the men. I don't know if that's a cultural thing, but...

Amita Sharma (22:48.658)
you

Sally (22:55.986)
in the cultures and circles that I've been in, there's a real like, yeah, let's actually talk about this. A fascination, which I find so refreshing, actually. I don't know how you have found it in your kind of family and friends circles.

Amita Sharma (23:12.05)
No, actually, I'll be honest with you. I am amazed and surprised how many men want to talk to me and interview me. And I joked with them. said, wow, I never thought that I would be interviewed by men, younger men, in the 30s. And I asked them this question and they said, well, you know, are not living in isolation. We have girlfriends. We have my mom's sisters.

And we want to learn about this topic and you help it make, know, the awareness, the awareness. So yes, I found this similar kind of experience, which I honestly am very happy that men are also talking about it.

Sally (23:57.058)
Yeah, it's brilliant, isn't it? So, okay, I'm just trying to think what question to ask you next. Let's go into a little bit more about holistic therapies. So you have a lot of holistic therapies which you promote on your site. Which one of the ones have you found to be the most useful for you and why?

Amita Sharma (23:59.374)
Thank

Amita Sharma (24:21.65)
So I think Ayurveda as an example has for me personally has been the most useful. The reason being is that it has it's a complete medical science right. Yoga is also part of Ayurveda. A lot of people don't know about that and breathing yoga pranayama all those things right. Even medication Ayurveda talks about all of that. So they're all together a single umbrella.

So the reason I think Ayurveda and yoga and all this whole umbrella is because it's a complete system. You don't need to do, okay, let me do this from here, this from there, this from there. The only thing is people don't understand it very well. So it needs to be told in a very simple plain English, right? Because a lot of complicated, sensitive words, even hypnotherapy is part of Ayurveda yoga because when they're talking about the meditation, right, they are actually talking about that.

So for me personally, I have embraced Ayurvedic principles of a daily routine. They talk a lot about that. And also they talk about seasonal routine, like simple cleansing. So I embraced that as well as they're talking about in the yoga, the breathing techniques, all those things, the medication, the mantra chanting. So I've embraced not every single thing, but I've embraced enough to make a difference in who I am.

for my physical health and mental and psychological health, right? So we personally, I with has worked that, you know, the diet principles all of the above that I actually have embraced and I follow that on a daily basis. And I can give you.

Sally (26:05.144)
So what does your day look like when you're following Ayurveda? What sort of things are you doing in the morning, after breakfast, in the afternoon, in the evening? What does following an Ayurvedic lifestyle look like?

Amita Sharma (26:19.77)
Yeah, so I don't follow each and every little thing, but I'll share with you what I am doing, right, or what I follow. So for example, are you the talks about in the morning drinking some tea like herbal tea? So I do that in the morning. You know, it's basically turmeric and ginger. We know we there's so much research on turmeric and ginger, right? And putting some cumin seeds and the ajwain seeds and also some lemon and some herbs.

which is great for digestion as an example. I even put a little bit of ashwagandha, which is great for anxiety. So I have that tea in the morning, first thing. Ayurveda is talking about having bowel movements early in the morning. So that is very important. are excreting all the toxins away out from the body, right? So that's important. And scraping your tongue, taking the gunk out from the tongue. That is something. And then squishing your mouth with.

coconut oil to keep your oral health good. That is something that I do, right? And then massaging yourself, as I put in push. So massaging yourself every day. I do that every day and believe it or not, it has helped my joints. You're talking about the knees. It will go away. So I massage every day by myself, self massage, so to speak. So I do that in the morning. And then

doing simple surya namaskar, sun salutations. I don't do like for 15 -20 minutes, I do it for 5 minutes, but I do enough on a regular basis, the consistency. So that's, I don't do meditation, not big of a meditation person, but I do the sun salutations. So this is like the morning routine, right, which me personally do, but they also talk about the meditation, the breathing exercises, if you can do in the morning, right, the perneal.

the deep breathing, the alternate nostril breathing. It helps calm your system, the nervous system. So then the breakfast is very important. What Ayurveda is talking about is that diet should be a rainbow diet. You need to eat all kind of colors. And I think even in Western, if you look at the plant based or some of the other diet dishes, they talk about that, that they eat everything. And then Ayurveda also talks about eating

Amita Sharma (28:42.364)
taste according to taste six tastes you should have every meal if you can so that is something not that I've I try to follow it but I'm not sure if I'm doing it right you know it takes a lot of commitment but usually the breakfast is protein and healthy fats I make sure I do that very consciously like protein is very important we know that healthy fats are very important it talks about taking ghee every day

I don't do it every day, but I do it every other day. Ghee. You know, I put ghee in maybe lentil soup as an example or something like that. Then I will also take amla, Indian gooseberry. It's a vitamin C. It has more vitamin C than anything else in any vegetable plant or anything you can see. It's amazing for women specifically because of the vitamin C and it has all, it has five tastes. We talked about the six tastes earlier. That fruit has five tastes.

Sally (29:39.649)
And what's the name of the fruit again?

Amita Sharma (29:40.036)
So it's Indian gooseberry. Amla. So you don't get the fruit here in Western hemisphere. You get it in India. But here I will buy frozen or I'll buy dried. You get powder actually here. You get a powdered form, capsule form, Amla oil is very good for your hair growth. It has a lot of evidence research.

Sally (29:43.562)
Indian gooseberry okay.

Amita Sharma (30:09.17)
The other thing I do is I oil my hair at least two times in a week. With amla oil, which I just told you, and also some other oil called bhringra as well. Because you know, our hormones are going down, hair thinning happens to lot of women. It's just a fact of life. So I try to nourish my hair and I kind of do massage, scalp massage. And that's what I use at the talks, what you need to do, massage your hair really well and you know, use...

these oils. So these are some of the practices just in the morning. As I told you, it takes me quite a bit of time to do all this. And then the most my diet is plant based. You know, not that I don't eat meat or fish, maybe chicken or fish, but only once a week or once, that's it. But the most of the time I'm eating plant based diet, you know, breakfast, I

Sally (30:46.83)
You

Amita Sharma (31:06.95)
very heavy mixture, have all the right components, protein, carbon, healthy fats. then typically lunch is fairly simple. Veggies, lot of plant -based, again, veggies and lentils. And then evening, and then what I do is in the afternoon, I go for a walk almost every day just to get myself moving again, right?

And then in the evening I exercise. So I have different types of exercises. So from an Ayurvedic point of view, the things that I am taking from Ayurvedic is the morning routine, which I just explained you the whole thing. The eating part, the diet part, they talk about including the taste, including ghee, including the nourishing foods. And they also talk a lot about eating according to your constitution, right?

So I don't follow it to the last degree, but I try to follow as much as I can. And then the massage part, I talked about that. I talked about the breathing. I talked about the yoga. So all these things, if you even follow a little bit in your daily routine, it will start making a difference, is what I'm saying.

Sally (32:06.84)
Yeah.

Sally (32:20.622)
Well, you've really inspired me actually to up my self care practices there, especially in the morning. I think I'm going to start doing that, especially now as the season's changing, we're in September, we're going into autumn. I can definitely feel that need to almost like detoxify. And the sense that I'm getting with Ayurvedic practices, especially in the morning is that it's like...

getting all the gunk out, like let's detoxify. We have our bowel movement, we clean our teeth, we scrape our tongue, we do our breathing, that's detoxifying as well, and our movement to get the liver going and the organs going. And then as the day goes by, maybe in the evening, I don't know what it's like for you, but maybe the exercise is a little bit calmer, a little bit more like, you know, bringing everything in. But I like the idea of an afternoon walk.

I think I'm going to do that after we've recorded our podcast. I think I'm going to go for a nice brisk walk. Actually, something that you said about the tastes was really fascinating. And I know this may be slightly off topic from menopause, but guess it's a lifestyle thing and just an interesting. But well, I don't know if you know this, but why are tastes important for us to have those? What was it? Seven different tastes per meal?

Amita Sharma (33:40.882)
Six, six, six different tastes.

Sally (33:43.852)
Yeah, and what are those tastes and why and how does that affect our health?

Amita Sharma (33:50.226)
So the concept what they're talking about is the bitter taste. And actually there's a lot of research on bitter taste, right? Bitter foods, you know, when you look at the things. Bitter foods are good for the digestive enzymes. We know that, right? We know that as a fact. So they're talking about including all these things to make sure your digestive system. So for Ayurveda, the gut health is the most important thing. What they are talking about is all the diseases.

Sally (34:02.828)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amita Sharma (34:19.366)
germinating from the gut, bad gut. So they are so focused on the gut health, keeping your gut health right. And what the concept of gut health, we're talking about the agni means basically the fire in the stomach, you know, the acid that it is, when the food you take, it should be digested properly, should be assimilated and excreted. So they are so focused about that. And that is when they're talking about the variety of different tastes that the gut to feed the gut.

bacteria feed the microbiome, right? We're talking about the same thing on prebiotics, probiotics. They are talking about the taste and when the fact that, for example, you take the salt, you take the sour, right? You take the sugar, the, sorry, the sweet. I talked about the astringent, pungent and bitter, right? The bitter taste. So if you include the foods, think about it's another way of saying, including all types of different foods that I was talking about, rainbow color.

If you take a quantity of taste, are going to different kind of foods and you are going to feed your gut bacteria and the more healthy your gut bacteria is, the more healthy you are. So that is really where the concept of this whole taste and food and everything is germinating from the fact that your gut has to be, your gut is the center of your health. The health of your gut is center of your health. That's what Ayurveda talks about. And it has been proven now, right, in research.

Sally (35:42.902)
Yeah, that makes...

Sally (35:48.972)
That makes so much sense. It really does. And the ancient wisdom, I love how it's been around for, you know, thousands of years as an intuitive way of preserving our health. You know, like we must eat a rainbow. We must eat all the flavors, making sure we've got all the flavors in every meal. And I think, I'm sure you probably agree with me, but the idea, we probably have too much sweet in the Western world and not enough bitter.

foods and I've started to really increase the amount of bitter foods that I eat and now eating and I find actually that when I eat more bitter foods I don't get a strong dopamine need for dopamine in my brain you know like I think the more sweet food we have the more we crave sweet food and when we have more bitter foods like I'm eating 100 % dark chocolate at the moment which is really hard it's really hard to eat

Amita Sharma (36:19.548)
Yes.

Sally (36:46.637)
but I finish every meal with a little bit of 100 % dark chocolate, which is bitter, and it stops my need to eat more food, to have pudding or to like keep picking. And I just think that is remarkable. It's just so powerful and such an easy fix. It might be unpleasant, but actually, first of all, we get used to it. And second of all, well, if it's gonna stop those cravings, like I'm up for it, let's do it.

Amita Sharma (36:54.533)
Yes.

Sally (37:15.598)
Doesn't matter if it's painful, it's not painful but slightly unpleasant, yeah.

Amita Sharma (37:22.404)
Yeah, that's the thing and that's the magic. So the moment I start thinking the bitter food, which is, which are not very yummy, you know, like bitter melon is not, I need to figure out how to make bitter melon so that it's palatable, right? Things like that. So, but then it stops my craving and that's, that's really the beauty of it. Otherwise I would keep craving for sugar and I don't know, some chocolate or something. I don't know what I need, but I, I

keep nibbling, right? I keep nibbling all day and then that's not good. So I try to rearrange my entire thing. I eat properly three times a day and then in between you can have a snack. So I try to do a snack in the afternoon, like three o 'clock or four o 'clock before I go for workout. So if that whole routine has actually helped my metabolism, I eat very healthy, knock on wood, I eat well.

You know, most of the women you will find, they will talk about when they're going through perimenopause, menopause, that, they stop, they start, not stop eating, but they start dieting, which is so bad for you, right? You need to nourish yourself during this time. need, you know, because they're afraid that because of the weight gain, that starts happening and then it's going be on the tummy. So there's so many other things, but if you eat right, you will feel the difference.

Sally (38:45.134)
Yeah, yeah. So what health benefits or how different do you feel? Like what's changed in your body from all of those perimenopausal symptoms to how you feel now as a result of adopting this Ayurvedic lifestyle and other things that you've learned through having conversations with 4 ,000 people, how do you actually feel now in your body?

Amita Sharma (38:56.64)
Thanks.

Amita Sharma (39:10.618)
I feel amazing. I feel great. You know, I actually in my 30s used to have issues with my liver health a little bit and my liver never used to detoxify itself very well and I would always feel fatigued and tired in the morning. I would have a lot of problems waking up in the morning. And I told you my perimenopause journey as well, what was happening. So I wasn't the healthiest person in my 30s and 40s, but I'll tell you.

I feel so energized, so amazing, so full of energy, so full of doing something really good that I have not felt when I was younger. And it's incredible, honestly. I feel great.

Sally (39:56.158)
that's brilliant. I'm so pleased. I'm really pleased. I hope it's inspirational for, you know, younger people listening to this podcast episode that might think, you know what? Actually, yeah, I really do need to get my health going on a little bit more here. So, OK, here's another interesting question for you. If you could turn back the clock and give your younger self a piece of advice, what would you say to her?

Amita Sharma (40:12.838)
you

Amita Sharma (40:26.204)
So believe in yourself. I never believed in myself when I was younger. I always paid so much attention to what others, other people think of me and never listened to my inner voice, right? So I think my younger self, I would say if I'm given another chance of going back, the clock, starting from whatever 30s I would say, I would say believing in myself, being more confident of myself, of who I am. That's what I would.

I would tell myself.

Sally (40:57.484)
I love that. And I think so many of us feel that as well. I know for me, I think I would have, I just give her a big hug and say to her, you know, you are enough. You don't have to try so hard, just relax. You're lovable and all of those lovely things just sort of help her feel a little bit more just comfortable in her own skin like I do now a bit more. Yeah, so that's great.

Amita Sharma (41:15.396)
Thank

Sally (41:27.94)
yeah, sleep. That's what I wanted to talk to you about, sleep. So you said earlier that you struggled with sleep and I know that hot flushes and night sweats can really play into disrupted sleep. How is your sleep now and do you have any advice for women who are struggling with their sleep?

Amita Sharma (41:30.18)
Thank you.

Amita Sharma (41:44.55)
you

I sleep very well. Really, I had to an alarm clock to wake up today, 7 .30. My time was your podcast. sometimes, you know, I sleep so well that I don't wake up until 7, 7 .30. So I have to remind myself that I have to wake up early in the morning. I sleep really, really well. So I think the reason why I sleep well is because of the routine that I explained to you.

And also at night, you know, I'm doing exercise. Exercise helps. We know that. I eat a very light dinner. I eat at least two hours, to three hours before I go to bed so that my stomach is not heavy because every time you eat late, you're going to have problems with sleeping. And then I also use some, you know, simple aroma therapy, like essential oils at night, you know, simple lavender, or I'll just put a little bit of a clary sage or different oils to just.

So I of calm myself at night. And then I also write journal, simple journal writing, just to put my thoughts. So I think the evening routine can be very, very important. Eating right, eating light, eating earlier during the evening time, maybe doing some relaxation. things that women can do at night is simple pranayama exercise, for example, bee breath.

breath is you you hold your kind of thumb like this and you go like this and you chant om. That helps you you know you go like this like this right. So simple even pranayama exercises breathing exercise and in the evening can help women go to the sleep. You know even simple like you know I'm not suggesting any herb supplements or anything I'm not a medical doctor but

Sally (43:22.264)
Mmm.

Amita Sharma (43:40.394)
We know that melatonin, magnesium can help as an example. talk to your doctor if that's happening, if you need to have an herbal supplement. But I do take quite a few supplements, as I told you earlier, like ashwagandha, that helps me with calming myself down and maybe helps me with my sleep as well. So to tell the women, having a simple routine in the evening is important.

Eating a lighter dinner is important. Doing some grounding exercises or simple breathing exercise in the evening is important. Sometimes I even massage, not my body, but massage under my feet with simple oil. can be fragrant oil. That helps me calm down. So if you follow a simple routine in the evening, it will help you sleep. Now, if someone is having heart flashes, there must be something going on in the body, right? Because the body's heating up.

that is a little bit more, not as serious, but something more involved, right? You need to now go back and change your diet because heart flashes are all the kind of things that an inflammation that has built over the years in your body that needs to come out. So that could be more detailed or involved. But if you are not, if you're having just general symptoms like normal, then if you follow this routine, this should help you. And this has helped me.

Sally (45:07.318)
Yeah, yes, simple things, isn't it really simple things that sometimes we take for granted or sometimes we think, they're too simple, they're not going to help. But actually, it's that I think it's the intention behind it, which is also, you know, I'm a hypnotherapist, I'm always thinking about suggestions and thinking about how the mind is working and how how the mind is influencing our patterns, our behaviors, our sleep.

Amita Sharma (45:18.84)
is.

Sally (45:35.242)
and our mood and things like that. And I think that even just setting the intention for relaxing, a little bit of self care, a bit of breath work. I love the idea of massaging your feet. I'm so gonna do that. I have tuning forks and sometimes I will bang the weighted tuning fork and just place it on my head or place it on my heart or my solar plexus, wherever I'm feeling like I've got a lot of energy that needs to be broken up.

Amita Sharma (45:50.406)
Mm

Sally (46:01.582)
especially if you've got a lot of energy in your head that can stop you sleeping in the evening. So the tuning fork is a really lovely, quite wacky idea, absolutely brilliant and rooted in physics and I love that. But I think also the idea of self -care at Menopause, I'm sure you found this, our self -care needs really go through the roof, don't they? I think like literally I could not work at all and be...

and my diary be packed full of self -care things that I'm doing all day, every day, even just like connecting with friends, going for a walk, know, preparing food, self -massage, oiling my hair, all of that stuff. I absolutely love it. But even if you can just do a little bit of that, you're setting the intention that, or you're telling your inner self that you care about her.

And when she, the inner version of you, knows that she's being tended to, she's gonna relax, she's gonna calm down, there's gonna be less anxiety. So think, know, self -care is such an important fundamental part of menopause. I'm so glad you've really brought that up for us today, so thank you.

Amita Sharma (47:05.082)
Thank

Amita Sharma (47:18.482)
The other thing I want to add is get rid of the negative thoughts. And I think all of us have some kind of negative thoughts or something our younger self could have, would have done better or some conflicts. I know I had quite a few of that, right? So I had to train myself to get rid of the negative thoughts and thinking slow about me in the sense not thinking high about me, right? it was my fault. We women have that habit of blaming us.

blaming ourselves all the time for something that must have happened 20 years back and we say, it was my fault. You need to get rid of that because that bubbles up when you're in this stage, right? Pennyman -Boss -Manipal stage, it kind of comes sometimes, it could be a trigger, emotional trigger that can happen. So I think it's important to somehow maybe go into hypnotherapies. Amazing to get rid of all these negative thoughts.

Sally (48:15.746)
Yeah.

Amita Sharma (48:16.49)
from your mind. That's important, very, important. And you'll see better.

Sally (48:19.598)
I'm so glad you brought that up. I really am. like, yeah, she said it. Yeah, think our, because of the hormone changes, our inner world gets flagged up. So whatever was going on in our inner world, whether that's the insecurity, the people pleasing, the coping strategies, the avoidance, the controlling, they're all coping strategies that we can use in our twenties and thirties, but when menopause hits and the hormone changes start.

It's like being given a truth serum, isn't it? It all comes up. But in that is a real opportunity to do some deep work, to do some real clearing out of stuff that is no longer serving us. Like you say, the negative thoughts, the disempowering ideas of who we are, the disempowering ideas of menopause as well. And I love that Nourish Doc is all about empowerment.

all about helping women to feel good about the change, about the transition that they're going through. And it's not just this kind of medicalised, pathologised thing that is, that narrative is so rife out there and I just can't be doing with it. It's missing such a vital piece of menopause, which is the spiritual awakening. And I'm sure you found that as well. You know, it's a real coming home.

to the self and I found that as well and I still continue to find it every day the more and more I lean into menopause. It's not an easy journey, you I'm saying all of this, it's not an easy journey. It's definitely slapped me around the face quite a few times, but there is gold in that. So yeah, thank you for bringing all of that up. So how can people find out about you?

Amita Sharma (49:43.207)
Thank

Amita Sharma (50:10.268)
Hmm.

Sally (50:12.246)
Amita, where are you most active on social media?

Amita Sharma (50:16.668)
Well, we are active on pretty much all social media, like Instagram, even LinkedIn, as well as Facebook, and even YouTube. But our website would be the best way, www .nerish .com. We are coming out with the app soon, within this month, hopefully. So when we come out, we will be posting it on all of our social channels. So stay tuned. The idea is to really help women come together.

and be themselves. So that's how you can find me.

Sally (50:49.88)
that's so brilliant. I'm sure it's going to be a really worthwhile business for yourself, but also for the people that join the membership. It's going to be so useful. So thank you so much for sharing your story today with us, Amita. Everyone, go and check out NourishDoc. Go and check out Amita's socials as well. Get on her socials and absorb all of the wonderful resources that she's got. So thank you so much, Amita.

Amita Sharma (51:19.483)
Thank