# Dr Libby on What Women Need to Truly Thrive

An episode of [The Cyclist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1799823350), 3 Jun 2025, 1 h 09 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/101bd2764/podcast/play/103580016/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-5-3%2Ff776c1c2-4567-f704-39c8-5b4955ab46dc.mp3

This week we’re diving into the emotional and physicaldrivers behind women’s health. We’re joined by nutritional biochemist, bestselling author, and women’s health expert Dr Libby (@drlibby)to talk about stress, hormones, and iron, and how it’s allconnected. We unpack the impact of chronic stress, the role emotions play in hormone health, and why so many women are unknowingly iron deficient. Dr Libby also shares insights from her latest book Fix Iron First and her new supplement Iconic Iron, designed specifically with women in mind. Follow & Connect:✨Instagram: @wearethecyclist✨Website: www.wearethecyclist.com We’re so glad you’re here - hit play, subscribe, and let’s learn to cycle better together.

## Transcript

[0:06] This is The Cyclist, the podcast that finally talks about your
[0:10] reproductive health the way your group chat does.
[0:12] No awkward silence, no sugar coating, just the real messy.
[0:16] Holy shit why did nobody tell me this convos about your body?
[0:20] I'm Jess. Quinn, and I'm Catherine
[0:22] Douglas. We've been where you are,
[0:24] confused, dismissed and left figuring it all out on our own.
[0:28] So we're gathering the information we wish we had.
[0:31] We are the cyclist, your cycle. Decoded.
[0:41] Hey Kat, I wanted to jump straight in about a more than
[0:44] that happened this morning where I was so grateful for my aura
[0:47] rang because back when I was trying for Mala, I was tracking
[0:51] my ovulation all the time. And you have to put the bloody
[0:53] thermometer in your mouth every morning.
[0:55] And I remember having instructions from my naturopath
[0:57] that it's like, even if you move, you've missed it.
[0:59] Like you just have to put it in straight away.
[1:00] You can't go to the toilet and then check your check your
[1:04] temperature. But with the aura ring, it just
[1:06] cheques it for me. And it's like you have ovulated
[1:08] or you haven't ovulated or fertile or not fertile, which is
[1:11] so helpful because at the moment needing to do this gut test and
[1:15] the gut, sorry, the hormone test and the hormone test you have to
[1:18] take at a very particular time of the month just after
[1:21] ovulation. So it's really helpful to have
[1:24] that giving me a little insight into what's going on inside of
[1:27] my body. And it got me thinking about it
[1:29] more because in this conversation that we're having
[1:31] today, we chat a lot about ovulation.
[1:32] And it was something that I realised a while ago prior to
[1:36] having aura ring, I didn't really understand when I was
[1:39] ovulating when I wasn't. So that was my random preamble
[1:42] about temperatures or rings and. Ovulation, yeah, I think it is
[1:47] quite interesting. It's very easy, obviously track
[1:50] when your period is and that type of thing.
[1:52] But the ovulation piece can be a bit of a, a dark art because I
[1:56] was like you, I just could not remember to put my basal
[1:59] temperature in my mouth. You know, do it a couple of
[2:01] days, but then I'd forget One day I would have gone to the
[2:05] toilet, half sleep and then it's too late.
[2:07] Um so I can understand, I haven't actually been able to
[2:11] use my Ora ring for tracking my ovulation yet cause I've been
[2:13] pregnant, but I can imagine how helpful that will be.
[2:17] Because it's so nice. I was using that as a form of
[2:20] contraceptives as well as tracking my ovulation.
[2:23] And then so I used to have to have these big windows around it
[2:26] because I just wasn't 100% sure a lot of months.
[2:29] And I remember also doing the Dutch tests and having it for
[2:33] about 3 months before I can do it because I kept missing when I
[2:37] was ovulating and the timing of that is quite important.
[2:39] Well, I'm on my 4th month of having not done the test when I
[2:43] thought I was supposed to because I had, I explained last
[2:46] week I had the stomach bug and I had a few things.
[2:47] So I'm like, I cannot miss this this month.
[2:50] So yeah, it's it's very helpful to have that kind of insight.
[2:54] And as you say, to use it as contraceptive, I use it with
[2:56] natural cycles. So it's just so nice to have
[2:58] that all in the one place. And it reminds me that when I
[3:01] was on the pill and I knew when my period was coming because you
[3:04] know, like sugar pills coming, coming, you know, when your
[3:06] period is coming, it's nice to just be like, okay, my period is
[3:09] coming on this day. And the little cues as well.
[3:12] I'm grateful for my ordering at the moment because it's
[3:14] reminding me to go and get ready for bed.
[3:17] Spent time because being pregnant otherwise I end up
[3:20] asleep on couch. I've never been until I was
[3:22] pregnant, someone who falls asleep on the couch and it's all
[3:27] over when that happens because it's really hard to get up and
[3:29] then motivate yourself to go and do all of your ablution.
[3:34] Yeah, I agree. Very grateful for my oranges.
[3:37] That was just the random tidbit that I wanted to add in this
[3:39] morning. But today I just, I am so
[3:42] excited about today's guest. We are joined by Doctor Libby.
[3:46] I saw a couple of we're saying that out loud.
[3:48] That was a goal we had really early on and we're still early.
[3:52] On. Santa and she wasn't she just
[3:55] the best human? I loved this chat so much, I
[3:59] could have spoken to her for hours.
[4:01] I've been a huge fan of her work for a long time, which will come
[4:03] through in the episode. To see me fangirling, yeah.
[4:07] But it was definitely a highlight for me as part of the
[4:11] cyclist journey so. Far.
[4:12] Yeah, I still can't believe it. So for those of you who don't
[4:14] know, Doctor Levy is a nutritional biochemist and the
[4:18] woman who coined the term Rushing Woman Syndrome.
[4:20] We talk in this episode a lot about the powerful link between
[4:23] emotions and health, why so many women are low on iron and how we
[4:27] can better understand our bodies as females.
[4:30] We feel really, really honoured to have Doctor Libby with us, so
[4:33] we really hope you enjoy this episode.
[4:36] Hi, Libby. Welcome to the cyclists.
[4:38] Thank you so much for having me join you.
[4:41] We are so incredibly excited for this chat.
[4:44] We always like to kick off every episode with a Christian, which
[4:47] is actually probably something you've dedicated your entire
[4:51] career too. So I'm very interested in your
[4:53] answer. But what is one thing that
[4:55] you've demystified about your body that you wish you knew when
[4:59] you were younger? That long term sustained change
[5:04] comes from kindness and caring, not from deprivation and being
[5:08] harsh and critical. And I wish that we could all
[5:13] live more in awe of our extraordinary body because I
[5:17] think we look after what we care about.
[5:19] And when when I was younger, I very much came from, you know,
[5:24] just dedication, do this, do this.
[5:26] And there was a real fear there. There was a fear of developing
[5:29] chronic diseases. There was a fear of what might
[5:32] happen if I didn't. And I can now see that it's a
[5:36] very different life when you focus on doing things because of
[5:40] from appreciation and from or I'm in awe of the human body.
[5:44] You know, every 2 1/2 we make two and a half million new red
[5:47] blood cells every second. You know, I've got all these
[5:51] facts that I love to rattle off when I speak to groups of people
[5:53] to see if we can just get us all a little bit more in touch with
[5:56] how extraordinary it is. So that would be the thing I
[5:59] wish I knew that early on, and I wish I lived more from that
[6:01] place of genuine deep kindness and appreciation for my earth
[6:05] suit way sooner than that actually started.
[6:08] Earth suit. I love that.
[6:09] That's such a great phrase. It's very cold.
[6:12] I think that's so relevant to so many of us as.
[6:14] Well, definitely, definitely. We were talking about this
[6:16] before we started recording, but sometimes it takes going through
[6:19] something for us to really appreciate our body because
[6:21] we've learned more about it and we have to understand what it's
[6:23] doing fighting for us behind the scenes.
[6:25] You know, sometimes it does take that moment.
[6:28] You're someone who, through your career, has had a huge impact on
[6:31] helping women understand their bodies.
[6:33] What ignited your passion on that topic and what continues to
[6:36] drive you? I can't bear unnecessary
[6:38] suffering and I see that every single day.
[6:43] And some things with Women's Health and women's bodies are
[6:46] really complicated. There are also, there's also a
[6:49] huge amount that is not complicated that we could better
[6:53] support each other with and have better education around.
[6:56] So that action was taken sooner. I'm all about prevention like
[7:00] that. That is, that's always been a
[7:02] driving force for me to prevent things from unfolding.
[7:05] But it seems almost sad really, that it often takes a huge
[7:10] amount of suffering before we seek more information or before
[7:14] we act on that inner knowing that we already have about how
[7:17] to better care for ourselves. So it is that unnecessary
[7:21] suffering that drives me. And I would prefer to prevent
[7:24] it. But unless we have suffered, we
[7:27] often aren't prepared to change. And it's fascinating, I guess,
[7:31] aspect of human psychology, isn't it?
[7:33] And you know, I wish it was different, but that's what
[7:36] drives me is to prevent unnecessary suffering.
[7:39] That sings so much to me. I've grown up in this very
[7:42] pharmaceutical world where basically people address things
[7:48] at the bottom of the Cliff, and my big focus is how do we get
[7:52] into more of that preventative space and stay well rather than
[7:56] address it when we're unwell? But you're right, it's so hard
[7:59] to motivate that. And Wellness, it always strikes
[8:02] me. Wellness, when you really get to
[8:03] the crux of it, is actually quite simple.
[8:05] They're often things that we all know how to do, but for some
[8:07] reason we really struggle to do them.
[8:12] Well, I developed that third pillar of my work, which is the
[8:14] emotional pillar, which is where I was really seeking for us all
[8:19] to understand why do we do what we do even though we know what
[8:22] we know? Because there's not a lack of
[8:24] knowledge that would lead someone to Polish off a whole
[8:26] tub of ice cream after dinner. No one does that thinking I'm
[8:28] gonna feel so fabulous when I do that.
[8:30] We do it. We don't understand why we do
[8:32] it. But that's not a lack of
[8:34] knowledge. That's there are emotional
[8:36] drivers that that lead us to behave like that.
[8:39] And that's always fascinated me as well.
[8:41] So very on board with your mission, Cat.
[8:43] Yeah. So that leads us.
[8:45] We were actually going to ask you a question around your 3
[8:48] pillars of health. Do you want to sort of tell us
[8:50] what they are in a high level sort of summary and how did you
[8:53] land there? That's such a lovely question,
[8:56] thank you. So I went to university for 14
[8:59] years, which I know makes me sound really thick and like I
[9:01] failed everything, I had a bit too much fun, which all of that
[9:05] is true, but I very much love learning and I still do.
[9:08] So I originally studied nutrition and dietetics and then
[9:10] did honours and then did a PhD in biochemistry.
[9:12] So there's lots of science in my background.
[9:15] But since then I've worked with people one-on-one for about 25
[9:18] years now, and that's where you get to see what really makes a
[9:21] difference in people's lives and also what doesn't.
[9:23] And so I combined my uni years with my clinical practise
[9:27] experience to create those 3 pillars, biochemical,
[9:30] nutritional and emotional. And the biochemical is to help
[9:33] people understand the inner workings of their body.
[9:35] So to understand that to create energy, there are all sorts of
[9:39] metabolic pathways that biochemical pathways that need
[9:42] to operate efficiently. And then that's where the
[9:45] nutritional pillar comes in. Because for a biochemical
[9:47] reaction is where one substance gets converted into something
[9:50] else. So let's say substance A gets
[9:53] converted into substance B, that's one biochemical reaction
[9:56] then becomes CC, becomes D and on, on, on.
[9:58] The cascade of change continues to go.
[10:01] But for every reaction inside of us, nutrients are needed.
[10:04] And so for A to become B, let's say you need iron, vitamin C and
[10:10] essential fatty acids for that to literally be able to operate.
[10:13] If we're deficient or have insufficient amounts of that
[10:16] going in, there may not be enough of that nutrient
[10:19] available to make that particular biochemical reaction
[10:22] operate. And the body works incredibly
[10:25] efficiently. It's always sending what needs
[10:28] to the resources that need to be sent to where it has to be
[10:31] prioritised for our survival. And so as we as people become
[10:36] more nutritionally insufficient or deficient, then these
[10:40] reactions don't run as efficiently as they once did.
[10:42] And we then experience symptoms as a result of that.
[10:45] So the biochemistry and the nutrition kind of come together.
[10:49] We're, we're not taught to look at our health like that.
[10:51] You know, if, if we feel tired, we, you know, it's, we're not
[10:56] thinking immediately of nutrition usually.
[10:58] And I've, I've tried to change that.
[11:00] And then there's a third pillar, that emotional pillow to help
[11:02] people understand their emotional landscape more and to
[11:05] help them what, help them understand what actually drives
[11:07] behaviour And they, from where I'm sitting right now.
[11:11] And I feel like this is always evolving in my understanding of
[11:14] things. Our beliefs and our values drive
[11:17] our behaviour as I think our beliefs.
[11:22] We're really good at knowing what we believe about things
[11:24] outside of us. So we know what we think about
[11:26] that environmental policy or the family that lives in that house
[11:29] down the road. We're not so good at knowing
[11:31] what we believe about ourselves. Our beliefs are slippery.
[11:34] We, you, we state our beliefs in our language, but we don't
[11:38] actually hear them as beliefs. I'm trying to listen for it so I
[11:42] can hear people express what they actually think about
[11:45] themselves. We all can do that.
[11:47] But that when the person's expressing it, we don't hear
[11:50] that. That's a belief and a story
[11:51] we've made-up to try to understand our environment.
[11:54] So they drive behaviour and so do values.
[11:55] And when I say values, I don't mean ethical preferences like
[11:59] generosity or kindness. I mean, what is your life?
[12:01] Demonstrate your value. So what do you think about, what
[12:04] do you research? What do you spend time on?
[12:06] What do you spend your money on? Our life is a demonstration of
[12:10] our values. And that's why when I've worked
[12:13] with people, if I was to sit there and say, ohh, tut, tut,
[12:16] stop eating or drinking XYZ, well, that won't work long term.
[12:22] It might work, it might not work at all, but it might work for 5
[12:24] minutes or five days. But it won't stick until there's
[12:29] a deeper understanding about why the person's doing that, but a
[12:33] deeper understanding about those beliefs.
[12:35] And if I can help health or wellbeing come higher up on
[12:38] their values list, that person is a lot more likely to care for
[12:41] themselves. Which is why I said a moment
[12:43] ago, if we, we, we look after what we care about.
[12:48] And so if my work can get people just a smidgen more in awe of
[12:52] themselves, I think that that those choices would become far
[12:55] more effortless rather than ohh, I feel like I've gotta follow
[12:59] this big list of things and it's overwhelming.
[13:01] You're doing it for yourself because you have those beliefs
[13:03] and those values that I think are so important to know that.
[13:06] And I think a part of that is also intuition, right?
[13:08] Learning to slow down and actually listen to what your
[13:10] body is saying. And can you explain?
[13:13] From your lens, the importance of listening to your body and
[13:15] how women can best get in touch with that, because I think
[13:18] that's something that I think we can all really benefit from.
[13:20] Yes, so I this could have been the answer to your first
[13:25] question actually about what I wish I'd known.
[13:27] I truly now believe have lived experience of our bodies, our
[13:31] absolute best friend. It is right there.
[13:35] It it it's trying to to wake us up to become, I think even more
[13:39] of who we are. And it whispers at us.
[13:43] It gives us feedback when it wants us to take a nudge in a
[13:46] bit of a different direction. And we so often don't listen or
[13:52] we block that out because we don't like what it's saying.
[13:54] And then eventually, if we ignore it for too long, I think
[13:57] the body will, will roar at us. And it's to to understand that
[14:04] it's a, a vehicle of communication.
[14:06] I think is it shifts your relationship because over the
[14:09] years I've had very sadly and endless amount of women say to
[14:12] me, I just feel like my body betrays me everyday.
[14:16] And to so to shift that perspective to it's, there's,
[14:20] it's full of information, it's feedback.
[14:23] And when we're uncomfortable or sad, then we can choose to see
[14:30] it sometimes or all the time as a nudge to do I need to eat,
[14:35] drink, move, think, sleep, breathe, believe or perceive
[14:40] something differently. And so instead of feeling like
[14:43] it's working against us, if we can be open to learning what it
[14:48] might be communicating, it can end up sending us off in a
[14:51] direction with our life that we wouldn't have otherwise
[14:54] anticipated. I've had many people initially
[14:57] think, right, I need to get really structured or rigid with
[15:00] food, for example. And if we shift that more to
[15:04] caring rather than fear based and they and and a person then
[15:07] really starts to take care of their food intake and what they
[15:11] allow to go into this most magnificent structure, their
[15:14] earth suit, allsorts of other things open up.
[15:17] It's almost like food. And for others, it's fitness.
[15:21] But but that that caring about their Wellness often opens up an
[15:24] entire new pathway in their life.
[15:26] I have seen that, I would say thousands of Times Now.
[15:29] So it's sometimes not about the thing we enter it wanting to
[15:33] learn about or focus on. Yeah, it's it's it's a
[15:36] breathtaking journey. And yeah, and I've listened to
[15:39] your stories and you have both been so incredibly generous
[15:42] sharing your stories and bringing this experience to life
[15:46] for women to make such a difference.
[15:48] And I can imagine there will be moments where you thought, ohh,
[15:51] didn't think that was going to happen out of this little
[15:54] curiosity I had or that conversation.
[15:57] It's really breathtaking what unfolds.
[15:59] And this is some of the magnificence that comes from and
[16:01] I think where we can more. I think you, I distinctly
[16:05] remember I came to one of your talks in Melbourne and you were
[16:08] talking about, you mentioned anything that's showing up on
[16:12] the outside of your body that you don't particularly like is
[16:14] probably your body trying to tell you that something's wrong.
[16:17] And for me at that time, it was adult acne and it was the first
[16:20] time that I'd had this aha moment of I actually need to
[16:24] address what's going on inside. I was trying to fix it with all
[16:26] these external cleanses and facials and treatments of that
[16:29] type of thing, and going inside was what got on top of that.
[16:34] And that was such a pinpointed or sort of cascading moment of
[16:40] let's get in touch our bodies, no matter what it is, you know,
[16:43] it could be your hair spinning. It could be Cellulitis and any
[16:48] of those sorts of things, but I think there's so much power and
[16:52] watch our bodies are telling us. And it's also what I love that.
[16:56] Thank you for sharing that. It's, it's what that then evokes
[16:59] in you. And so the roads that that leads
[17:02] you to then explore just from something that you're
[17:05] uncomfortable with. And I would encourage all women
[17:09] of all ages to get curious about that.
[17:11] Sometimes the answers aren't immediately forthcoming, but to
[17:14] just bring curiosity rather than judgement to the things about
[17:18] ourselves that make us sad or frustrate us.
[17:21] If we can be way more curious rather than just the minute we
[17:24] judge, we go blind to any kind of insight and learning because
[17:27] we're just stuck in that. It's a it's such a different
[17:31] vibe to I'm really uncomfortable with this.
[17:34] I wonder if it's really here to serve me or it's really it.
[17:37] It's offering me something. Wonder what that could be.
[17:40] Is there something here I could learn or Or is there a different
[17:43] choice I could make? It's such a.
[17:44] Shame that we naturally just jump to that negative emotion,
[17:48] though, and we judge ourselves when we could see it as a what
[17:52] he's trying to tell us something.
[17:53] But I do think for people, it can be a really complicated
[17:55] place to start, right. It's like, OK, maybe my body is
[17:57] telling me something, but where do I go with this?
[17:59] You know, it's like, how do you find those those answers?
[18:02] But it is it does break my heart a little bit that we do jump to
[18:05] judgement for psychology and an ugly because I have this thing
[18:08] showing up. You know, we just, we attach
[18:09] these negative emotions to it which aren't true, you know?
[18:13] And I think to the, the little nudges, it doesn't have to be,
[18:17] it can just be a curiosity. You might not get the answer
[18:20] straight away, but it's just an openness to, I wonder what this
[18:23] might be because sometimes the answers aren't forthcoming
[18:26] immediately. And that can feel really
[18:27] frustrating as well. But it just might mean that you
[18:30] make a different choice. I don't know.
[18:33] Instead of sitting at the computer all afternoon hunched
[18:35] over, you think, Oh my I'm going to stand up from my laptop and
[18:44] go outside for three minutes and look at the sky and have a
[18:47] moment of appreciation before I come back in and finish my work.
[18:50] And that takes all the attention away.
[18:52] Or it certainly decreases it. Just little prompts like that.
[18:55] We have this most magnificent inner knowing and I feel that as
[19:01] women, we've been so cut off from that and we don't trust
[19:04] ourselves anymore and we forever look externally for information.
[19:08] And I'm not saying that doesn't have its place.
[19:10] Of course it does, particularly if people have very specific
[19:13] conditions that need really specific advice.
[19:16] But in our heart of hearts, in a general sense, we actually know
[19:19] how to look after ourselves. It's we don't always do it or we
[19:24] don't do it. We shouldn't.
[19:25] I don't. Perfection, I think is a mask
[19:27] for fear. This is not about doing anything
[19:29] perfectly. It's about what we consistently
[19:31] do that creates our health and trusting that voice of it's time
[19:36] for bed or it's time to go for a walk now you've been sitting for
[19:40] too long or have a drink of water.
[19:42] We all know what we need to eat for lunch, but we tend to
[19:45] outsource a lot of that or so and so said I need to do this.
[19:48] And it's partly where I think this world of confusion is also
[19:52] coming from for for lots of people, they feel a bit
[19:54] overwhelmed with health messaging, I think sometimes.
[19:58] So it's there's of course a place for experts, but I want to
[20:02] help people get back in touch with that inner voice that
[20:04] actually knows how to look after them.
[20:06] Yeah, that inner wisdom. And in your work, you talk a lot
[20:11] that stress. You've got a book we're called
[20:13] Rushing Woman Syndrome, which goes all the way into it.
[20:16] How much would you say that stress actually impacts our
[20:20] ability to tap into this inner wisdom or inner.
[20:22] Voice, yes, such a lovely question.
[20:24] So I think it can really mask it, veil it and trusting that
[20:30] inner wisdom. So stress can be really helpful.
[20:34] It's when the stress is relentless that it can be quite
[20:37] damaging. And not very long ago in human
[20:40] history, the only time we made adrenaline one of our stress
[20:43] hormones was when our life was literally in danger.
[20:46] And adrenaline as a result of that moves the blood supply
[20:49] that's normally fantastic to digestion away from digestion to
[20:53] our arms and legs, because that will power us to get out of
[20:55] danger. And our brain function is very
[20:57] much focused on survival. So we're not so much in touch
[21:01] with our, our, I guess our inner truth or our knowing in those
[21:05] moments. But now we're very fortunate
[21:08] that we are thankfully relatively safe.
[21:10] And so instead of adrenaline production being the way it used
[21:13] to be, which was really low and then a threat to our life, we'd
[21:15] spike it. And then hopefully we run away
[21:17] from the tiger and back down the adrenaline and we goes and we
[21:20] keep living our life. Now it's sort of like we, we
[21:24] wake up, hopefully we think of some things we're grateful for.
[21:26] But then quite often I think what flies into our head as
[21:29] women, and I wrote about this in Rushing Woman Syndrome, our To
[21:32] Do List kind of flies into our head and there might be 65
[21:35] things we didn't get done yesterday that need to pop onto
[21:38] today's list. And there's already no space in
[21:40] today. And then we open our laptop and
[21:43] see that there's 600 emails have come in overnight and we don't
[21:45] know when we're going to get the chance to do those.
[21:47] So adrenaline's just climbing even though we're safe, but
[21:50] adrenaline's climbing with those experiences.
[21:53] And then at that point in our day, we're not actually getting
[21:56] anything done or we're doing is thinking about how busy we are
[21:59] and how much we have to keep the pace up.
[22:01] And so we think, ohh, just get a coffee.
[22:04] Surely that will help things. And then that makes us make more
[22:06] adrenaline. And then let's say then we get
[22:08] back to our desk and we make some progress.
[22:11] And then over the last couple of years, lots of people started to
[22:15] work from home. And when I talked to people, I
[22:18] asked them to give me, you know, real world examples of their
[22:22] everyday stresses. So not, you know, they're
[22:25] there's very real and genuine stress going on in the world
[22:27] right now and there's very real and genuine stress going on in
[22:30] people's lives. There is also a huge amount of
[22:33] stress that we create for ourselves because of how we
[22:35] think. And that's what I'm interested
[22:38] in is because we can change that the big stuff, we may not be
[22:44] necessarily be able to change or even impact, but we can change.
[22:48] We can become aware of all the thoughts we think that deprive
[22:51] ourselves of happiness. So, and this was a really great
[22:56] example over the last couple of years.
[22:57] Someone it's but say, tell me about your real world stress and
[23:00] someone would say, I've got a phone call from a colleague who
[23:04] said where's that work? I needed it yesterday now, and I
[23:09] would encourage listeners to pause and think.
[23:12] Would that stress them out? Because when I speak to a live
[23:15] audience, I will sometimes use that example and ask the room to
[23:19] raise your hand if that would stress you out.
[23:20] And about 3/4 of most rooms raise their hand.
[23:23] Hmm. And then when I say if put your
[23:26] hand up, if it wouldn't stress you out, the other quarter of
[23:29] the room put their hand up and they can't understand each
[23:31] other. But that's also how you know
[23:33] it's not real. That's how you know it's coming
[23:34] from your thinking cause your life isn't actually threatened.
[23:37] And So what what I can see happens is we don't actually
[23:41] hear what someone says. We hear what we think they
[23:43] meant. So for the people who find that
[23:46] request for the work stressful, they've heard the requests for
[23:48] the work, but what they've also created in their own mind is
[23:52] some sort of judgement or disapproval coming from the
[23:54] colleague that the work's not already done.
[23:57] So they perceive that the colleague thinks that they're
[23:59] inefficient or not a hard worker, not a team player, not
[24:03] contributing. And that's where the stress
[24:05] actually comes from. So I'm, so part of where the
[24:10] stress stops us being in touch is because we, when we, when
[24:13] we're producing an endless amount of stress hormones, we're
[24:16] often not in touch with, with that voice of listening because
[24:21] we're silently or consciously or unconsciously worrying what
[24:24] other people think of us. For example, we're very focused
[24:26] on how much pressure and urgency we perceive is in our day.
[24:30] So yeah, I, I wrote that book Rushing Woman Syndrome in 2011.
[24:35] And I, I was really naive because I honestly just thought
[24:39] it was a bit of a glitch in the matrix.
[24:40] I thought it was things that just momentarily sped up and we
[24:43] were going to go back to a bit more of a chilled pace and I was
[24:48] so wrong. We've gotten faster.
[24:52] Yeah, yeah. I distinctly remember picking
[24:55] that book up and not thinking much about it and then not being
[24:59] able to put it down. I was on a boat trip with my dad
[25:02] and he's like, what the hell are you reading?
[25:05] It was so good. And so many learnings that are
[25:08] still so relevant today. And I think that's a big part of
[25:11] my learning is I used to constantly think, ohh, once this
[25:15] thing's done, life's gonna go back to sort of a normal pace.
[25:18] And now I'm trying to move into the acceptance that life is big
[25:22] and busy. And I guess that is that
[25:24] mindset. And you've got to be comfortable
[25:27] being uncomfortable and not allow that sort of stress you
[25:30] out and sort of find ways to manage within that.
[25:33] And I think there's so much that you can take from that book.
[25:36] Thank you along that way. Thank.
[25:38] You in 2019, I wrote somewhat a follow up to it called The
[25:43] Invisible Load. And in that body of work I kind
[25:46] of took it further. Prior to that I ran focus groups
[25:50] with women of all different ages and the youngest group was aged
[25:53] 18 to 25 and I asked them for their top three stresses.
[25:58] And by far and away for that age group, their top 2 stresses were
[26:01] body image and social media. And when I share that with older
[26:05] audiences, they don't understand how social media can be a stress
[26:09] because they use it to keep in touch with friends and family.
[26:12] In the UK, for example, I watch wombat videos.
[26:15] I think wombats are hilarious creatures.
[26:17] So, so it's it's entertainment for me.
[26:21] That's I would never label social media as a stress, but
[26:25] our stress can be the most glorious teacher if we allow it
[26:30] to be because our stress will show us where we are allowing
[26:35] others to judge us. So for that younger group, they
[26:40] social media is a mechanism through which they seek
[26:42] approval. That is part of it.
[26:44] It's it's use. And when you think about when
[26:48] you're growing up, how many people did you care what they
[26:51] thought of you? I've done this exercise myself.
[26:53] It's about 9 or 10. Whereas now for so many people,
[26:57] they care what thousands of people think of them.
[26:59] And most of them they've never met.
[27:01] And we're human. We're always gonna care what
[27:03] others think. But I want to encourage people
[27:05] to really TuneIn, to do they deserve to be in your heart?
[27:08] Cause that's probably just gonna be a handful of people whose
[27:12] advice you might take or who, Yeah, you know, they, they've
[27:17] shown you their extraordinary character and you're aligned
[27:20] with that. So it makes sense for them to
[27:22] have an influence or an impact on you.
[27:24] Yeah. So that for the older group, for
[27:27] 35 to 55 year old, one of the biggest stresses was running
[27:30] late. Now running late doesn't stress
[27:32] everybody out. But, and again, when we run
[27:36] late, it's not the running late that stresses out.
[27:39] That's usually what the person who's going to be on the
[27:41] receiving end of our running late might think of us.
[27:42] That's why it's a bit stressy. And so again, we can play with
[27:46] this. We can get really curious about
[27:49] our stress. So instead of, let's say, stuck
[27:51] in traffic, you're late for a work meeting, we could just sit
[27:54] there and go, I'm so stressed, I'm so stressed.
[27:56] Then you're going to burst into that meeting late with
[27:58] intensity, disrupt the energy of that meeting.
[28:01] Whereas if we became more aware or responsible when we're there
[28:06] and stressed, you could think, ohh, I'm really stressed.
[28:09] Okay, Am I worried what someone's going to think of me?
[28:12] Yeah, that colleague or my boss, and so you can either giggle it
[28:15] yourself or you might think I'm gonna grab them afterwards and
[28:18] have a quick chat. So you grab them and say hey,
[28:20] sorry I was late. Allsorts of chaos broke out at
[28:22] home this morning. I do my best to not let what
[28:24] happens at home impact my punctuality did today.
[28:27] So sorry about that. Please no, I value my job so
[28:29] much. What are they gonna say?
[28:31] Ohh, you're fired. No, they'll be like thank you
[28:34] for caring so much. And also you've then spoken the
[28:38] elephant in the room, which is that you're essentially worried
[28:40] that they are. They might be disapproving of
[28:43] your think badly of you. And it's just it's a bit of a
[28:47] game changer when it comes to the everyday stress that we
[28:51] might experience and reducing that.
[28:53] And the the way I explain it in the invisible load is I call
[28:56] them forward words. So it's a great exercise to do
[28:59] is ask yourself, how do I need other people to see me?
[29:02] And it will be different for different people.
[29:04] The way you you want your dad to see you is different from how
[29:07] you want your daughter to see you, for example, or your best
[29:10] friend. So it's really fascinating and
[29:13] rushing women. When I've done this exercise
[29:15] with them, I'll say, how do you need other people to see you?
[29:17] Kind, thoughtful, selfless, but the top words that come out of
[29:21] the traits the character states that they really desperately
[29:24] need others to see in them. And I want all women to know
[29:27] that we are all of those things. And we are also at times, the
[29:32] opposite of those things. And it's about being flexible
[29:36] with how we can handle other people seeing us.
[29:39] And I feel that that's that's been a part of my own personal
[29:42] growth, but also what I've, yeah, written about in my work
[29:45] in the hope that it, yeah. Can make a difference in those
[29:48] everyday stresses because we lose touch with that inner voice
[29:51] when we live in that stress response all the time.
[29:53] Hmm. I find that so relatable stress
[29:55] or something that I find very fascinating and I think I sit
[29:59] between those two, this group. So I feel like social media and
[30:01] being late that for me, something that I've, I've done a
[30:06] lot of inner work on on stress and how I respond just from all
[30:09] the things that I've been through my life.
[30:10] And, and for me, it's learning how to respond to the stress.
[30:14] You know, the stress is gonna be there regardless of its thing
[30:16] that outside of my control, like the traffic or something that
[30:19] I've been through, you know, but it's, how can I respond to that?
[30:21] And I think it's not a quick fix.
[30:23] It takes tuning into that narrative constantly and
[30:26] catching yourself in the moment where you're not responding
[30:28] correctly. It's not, and they're not
[30:30] putting judgement on that. And God, ohh here responded, you
[30:32] know, let's just say it's okay that that one tomorrow I will
[30:35] respond better, you know, and, and trying to change that in the
[30:37] dialogue in a narrative, I think.
[30:39] Love that and wholeheartedly agree, Jess.
[30:42] And it takes practise and it also takes for us to be patient
[30:45] with ourselves because we've run the old stories, you know,
[30:48] pretty much up until this point in time.
[30:50] And then as we become aware of that, that response that is kind
[30:55] of patterned, we get, we have to practise a different response.
[30:59] So being really patient and understanding with ourselves as
[31:01] I think really important as well.
[31:03] Correct. What would be your number one
[31:05] hack for calming the nervous system?
[31:07] I feel like the nervous system's another buzzword at the moment
[31:09] and a very important one I think that we all understand.
[31:11] But what would be your number one to?
[31:14] Extending the length of the exhalation.
[31:16] So we, the part of our nerve at the autonomic nervous system has
[31:21] two branches. And I'm sure most of your
[31:22] listeners will be across this. The sympathetic nervous system,
[31:25] which is that vital flight response and the parasympathetic
[31:28] nervous system, which is that rest, digest, reproduce some of
[31:31] the nervous system and they both have their place.
[31:35] We need both. And when we're really, well, we
[31:37] just flip between the two without a problem because of the
[31:40] time where SMS activation is really important and necessary.
[31:44] And there's things that inside of us that require that.
[31:48] But what in a broad sense, we can spend way too much time now
[31:52] with the parasympathetic nervous system not kind of driving our
[31:56] ship so much. And because it's part of the
[31:58] autonomics, we can't control it with our conscious mind.
[32:01] So we can't just sit there and think, ohh, just just chill out.
[32:04] You know, when we've got all these stress hormones zooming
[32:07] through our body, the only way we can communicate with the this
[32:11] aspect of the nervous system to pull back the sympathetic
[32:15] nervous system and activate the parasympathetic more is to make
[32:18] the exhale longer than the inhale.
[32:20] And that's the, the beauty of the body is, is it is seeking
[32:24] homeostasis at all times. It's seeking balance at all
[32:26] times. And that's why the inhalation
[32:29] actually activates the sympathetic nervous system and
[32:31] the exhalation activates the parasympathetic.
[32:34] So you can get a piece of paper or a book or draw a rectangle on
[32:38] a piece of paper or shape of your phone as a rectangle.
[32:42] And so inhale for four slow counts across the top, across
[32:45] the short side, and then exhale for six slow counts as you go
[32:49] down the long side and just go round the rectangle a couple of
[32:52] times. And it's, that's my hack for
[32:55] settling, calming the nervous system.
[32:57] And it's free. We can all do it.
[32:58] It just again, just takes practise, like we will sometimes
[33:02] encourage people if they've got, if they're a desk and they can
[33:05] see the time on the clock on their computer every hour on the
[33:08] hour. It's a good little exercise to
[33:10] do. Just go around a rectangle four
[33:12] or five times. What a great way to use your
[33:14] phone to, instead of just downloading invitation breathing
[33:16] out, we forget that we could actually just trace the shape of
[33:18] the bone. Yeah, that's a really good cure.
[33:20] We have never thought about that.
[33:22] And the beauty of it is you, if you do that enough, again, it's,
[33:26] it's a, it's a practise. If we do that enough, we then
[33:29] bring it into our life in a way more natural way.
[33:32] So you then you live like that more.
[33:34] So then when you come out of it, you catch yourself and notice
[33:37] that you've gone there. Kinesia rectangle or just extend
[33:41] your exhalation. But that lovely slow breathing
[33:44] is just so important. I love that that tip is
[33:47] something that every single person can do.
[33:49] It's not some fandangled tricky thing.
[33:53] It's literally stopping. It's quick, it's accessible,
[33:57] it's so powerful. What?
[34:00] What do you see the impact of living in this flight and flight
[34:03] mode so frequently and being not as good as getting into your
[34:08] rest no jest mode? What do you see the impact
[34:11] having on women's hormones and their cycles?
[34:14] So it can be a really significant disruptor to
[34:17] ovulation and as we know, ovulation is the main event of
[34:20] the cycle and it allows us to make that lovely big surge of
[34:23] progesterone, which is a very powerful anti anxiety agent, a
[34:27] diuretic and obviously plays a huge role in fertility as well.
[34:31] So when you, when we have consistently, I don't mean just
[34:35] a spike, but when we have that climbing sort of level of
[34:38] adrenaline that I was talking about earlier that we've sort of
[34:41] fall into now in modern life as sort of what I described in
[34:44] rushing woman syndrome. When we live like that most
[34:46] days. Because adrenaline not very long
[34:50] ago said our life was in danger. Not enough time has yet evolved
[34:54] in our time on the planet as a human species for our body to
[34:58] understand that adrenaline now can mean other things that we're
[35:01] safe and the stress can be more psychological than a physical
[35:05] actual threat to our life. So adrenaline, there's still
[35:08] saying to every cell in our body that your life's in danger.
[35:11] And that can be a big disruptor to the signals that are required
[35:17] for ovulation. And again, I don't want people
[35:21] to stress that, you know, if you go through a, if you go through
[35:23] a really stressy patch, it's normal, it's healthy, it fosters
[35:27] our growth. It's when we live like it for
[35:30] years on years or decades on decades that I think it can have
[35:34] this big cumulative effect. And unfortunately now the worry
[35:38] is that younger and younger girls are being exposed to I, I
[35:44] guess, comparative, you know, comparison or, you know, being
[35:49] encouraged through social media to pursue very unrealistic
[35:53] states of being or ways of living.
[35:56] And so the stress can start really early now, unfortunately.
[35:59] So yeah, it, it can be a big disruptor to ovulation.
[36:02] And then obviously the longer term effects of not, not that
[36:07] lovely cyclical ovulation. We understand it's so important
[36:11] for our brain, for our bones and our happiness on a day-to-day
[36:15] basis, but also in the future. So the more regular ovulatory
[36:19] cycles we can all have, the better our health tends to be.
[36:23] So that's it's actually been one of my motivators, if I'm honest,
[36:27] Cat. That's why stress has been such
[36:29] a focus of my work was because I saw so much unnecessary
[36:34] suffering with women with their reproductive hormone, even
[36:38] though I don't like almost to call them reproductive hormones
[36:40] because they have so many other biological functions as
[36:43] straight. That was a really big motivator
[36:45] for why I wanted to get to the heart of stress because I could
[36:47] see that yes, nutrition, hydration, movement, sleep,
[36:53] sunshine, all influence hormones, but stress is such a
[36:58] disrupter. And so I've always, I have been
[37:00] on a long term mission to sort of get to the heart of it for
[37:02] people as much or help them get to the heart of it as much as
[37:05] possible for and that's a big reason.
[37:07] Yeah. And I think that pulls together
[37:09] a few pieces of your work around.
[37:12] We're so like Jess and I try to talk a lot about how grateful we
[37:16] are for our cycles has been this monthly indicators like a free
[37:20] doctor's health check if you can learn to tap into the end of
[37:23] wisdom and see what it was talking to you about.
[37:25] We're trying to say what's going on inside and I think that link
[37:30] if there is something going on with some symptom in your cycle
[37:35] related to have a look at stress and think about whether that's
[37:38] impacting it and start simple with the breathing and trying to
[37:42] get. And I think really important
[37:43] distinction that you've made there as well around not all
[37:46] stresses bad cause stress does seem to get this.
[37:49] And then I find myself feeling St. you know, where my aura rang
[37:52] and I can see that I've had this stay of eight hours of stress,
[37:55] and then I get stressed about. Stress.
[38:00] But not all stress is bad, but it's it's making sure that we
[38:03] are getting those moments to get into back into rest and digest
[38:06] and breathing is a great way to place to start with that as
[38:10] well. Right, and I was gonna say
[38:13] tuning into our body as well in learning about cycle, sinking
[38:16] our cycle, which is something that kept and I have dived a lot
[38:19] into. For me, it took going through
[38:21] fertility challenge to actually understand as you speak to
[38:24] ovulation and things like that. It wasn't something I ever knew
[38:27] the signs for prior to wanting a baby.
[38:29] And I think of ovulation as that's something I only need to
[38:32] worry about when I want to try for a baby.
[38:33] You know, where is it such an important health indicator?
[38:36] And I think so look in the other phases of our cycle as well, but
[38:39] I don't think cycle thinking has become quite a buzzword
[38:42] differently on social media. What is your view on cycle
[38:44] syncing and and how would you encourage women to live kind of
[38:47] inflow with their cycle? I'm never going to put something
[38:50] down that helps someone, whether there's scientific evidence for
[38:53] it or not, if as long as it's not doing harm, I will never,
[38:57] you know, be ohh, tut tut, don't do blah, blah.
[39:00] If someone feels incredibly supported by it or they've got a
[39:03] lived experience where that's been incredibly beneficial.
[39:06] So right now it's very polarised as to whether it's even a thing
[39:10] or not. And some people swear by it and
[39:12] some people are saying that it's that there's no difference.
[39:16] There's been scientific research showing that there's kind of no
[39:19] difference with the different phases as far as what happens
[39:22] with muscles. But my overall message is
[39:27] probably my worry with it is that there will be some people
[39:30] who find that completely overwhelming and they won't
[39:34] move. I don't call exercise exercise.
[39:36] They call it movement because I want people to think about not
[39:39] just they are in the gym of weights or they are at yoga or
[39:45] the 20 minute walk they do. I want people to think about
[39:48] what they're doing for all the other hours and just as much as
[39:51] that's great, please exercise. But I think just regular
[39:55] movement is so important. So for for in in all my work,
[40:01] it's my message has always been to listen.
[40:04] And if we listen and the good thing about cycle thinking is
[40:08] now this gets a lot more airtime if we TuneIn.
[40:12] Will do you really want to hit the gym and do that really hard
[40:15] work out just before you're about to bleed or when you've
[40:18] just started bleeding And people, everyone's going to be
[40:21] different. Not not everyone, I think,
[40:22] responds the same. So my message is very much just
[40:26] TuneIn and it's where external voices of if you think you've
[40:30] got to burn a gazillion calories or you think you can't miss a
[40:34] day of training because someone told you that would be bad.
[40:38] You're not listening to what your body needs and you might be
[40:41] so pooped. You might be just ohh, you know,
[40:45] I know for me going to bed, sometimes 7:30 or 8:30 is
[40:50] exactly what I need. I'm not I I don't ignore that
[40:54] anymore. I don't push on.
[40:55] So to round back to your question, I think when we TuneIn
[40:59] and listen no matter what's happening, I think that's really
[41:03] important. One of my little worries
[41:05] probably with cycle sinking is that the nutrients that women
[41:09] are encouraged to focus on in the different parts of their
[41:12] cycle. I'm someone who thinks you need
[41:14] those all the time. So if you just focus on iron for
[41:17] this little patch, you're going to become iron deficient or and
[41:21] then there's the patch where you focus on magnesium.
[41:24] You need it everyday. So that's also my little worry.
[41:28] So I love the overarching message of TuneIn.
[41:32] I worry sometimes that that kind of specificity for for someone
[41:38] who's kind of not that interested in Wellness and they
[41:41] would just be way healthier if they ate some more vegetables
[41:45] and went for a walk each day and sat for less time.
[41:48] I worried that that kind of sometimes feels overwhelming to
[41:51] people. And so they think, ohh, I just
[41:52] won't start because it's too much.
[41:54] Do you know? But there's lots of people who
[41:58] love it and swear by it, and that's magnificent.
[42:01] But I also don't want it to be a block to someone starting to
[42:05] look after themselves because that feels too confusing.
[42:08] Yeah. But the ultimate message is
[42:10] TuneIn, isn't it? Listening more room, I think
[42:14] it's. Cycle into a Shannon instead of
[42:15] cycle thinking. We're going there it is.
[42:18] There it is. Just take that global chip
[42:21] that's. Beautiful.
[42:21] Ohh, there we gotta. And I think that point is so
[42:26] relevant, thinking about the nutrition at all times.
[42:30] So I've just come from my obstetrician, I was telling you
[42:32] earlier this morning and had my bloods done and I'm low in iron.
[42:37] You think this today? So you've just launched your
[42:39] book this week, 6 Iron First. Congratulations, it's you.
[42:43] Can you tell us a little bit about how this came to be and
[42:46] why you've put such a big focus on iron specifically?
[42:50] I'll try not to cry. So it's been a big deal.
[42:53] So I started writing a book about perimenopause at the start
[42:56] of last year, and I was 65,000 words into that.
[42:59] And the 1st 11,000 words though, were about iron.
[43:03] And it hit me that that was actually all I really wanted to
[43:06] talk about because I wanted to reach people, pregnant women,
[43:11] young children, teenage girls especially, and then athletes
[43:16] can very easily be iron deficient.
[43:17] And also women going through that perimenopausal transition.
[43:20] It was, it was decided Perry was to sort of even though I can
[43:24] talk about it underwater, but it was just, it was too narrow.
[43:27] I wanted to speak to iron. So it is the biggest nutritional
[43:30] deficiency globally, including in New Zealand.
[43:33] And up to 55% of women across the menstruation years are
[43:36] affected by it. Wow.
[43:38] Our demands in pregnancy are even greater, of course, because
[43:42] you're extraordinary body is growing a brand new human and
[43:45] creating an entire separate blood supply for them.
[43:48] So your volume, your blood volume has to increase
[43:51] significantly to be able. To 50% or something?
[43:53] Wild. It's it's just wild.
[43:55] And again, if we're not in awe already of our body, just pause
[44:00] and think about growing a new human that's growing a baby.
[44:03] It's just extraordinary. So yeah, our requirements across
[44:07] the menstruation is, are 18 milligrammes per day.
[44:10] That's just to prevent deficiency.
[44:12] And if we eat in a vegan or vegetarian way, we need to
[44:14] multiply the Rd. I by 1.8.
[44:16] So that makes it 32.4 milligrammes everyday just to
[44:20] prevent deficiency. And very few women are doing
[44:23] that. So it's an incredibly common
[44:25] nutritional deficiency and I think a lot of women understand
[44:29] that it's important for energy. And obviously the reason for
[44:32] that is iron facilitates the transportation of oxygen and the
[44:36] delivery of oxygen to all the cells and tissues inside of us
[44:38] that make up our earth suit, that make up our physical
[44:40] structure. But beyond that, we need iron to
[44:43] produce thyroid hormones. So to literally be able to
[44:47] construct a thyroid hormone, think that, think about it like
[44:51] the thyroid has a recipe for how to make T4 and T3.
[44:55] It's 2 hormones and the main ingredient in the recipe is
[44:58] iron. So if we don't have enough iron,
[45:00] you will produce fewer thyroid hormones than if you have good
[45:04] iron levels. And you also need iron to
[45:07] convert inactive thyroid hormone which is T4 into the active one
[45:11] which is 3. That drives metabolic rate and
[45:13] helps regulate temperature. Every cell in the body needs
[45:16] thyroid hormones. So iron deficiency symptoms kind
[45:20] of they don't miss anything partly through that thyroid
[45:24] mechanism as well. But then we also need iron to
[45:28] produce our neurotransmitters, dopamine related to motivation,
[45:32] GABA, which is the lovely calming chill pill kind of
[45:35] neurotransmitter. It's the anti anxiety and anti
[45:38] anxiety agent and serotonin which is really important for
[45:42] contentment. And there was a study published
[45:45] in 2023 called the psychiatric manifestations of iron
[45:50] deficiency. And the first thing the authors
[45:53] talk about is anxiety. And it's really concerning to me
[45:58] that people, but particularly women of all ages, including
[46:03] teenage girls, I wanna shout that from the rooftops because
[46:08] for so many teenage girls, they start to feel anxious for all
[46:11] sorts of reasons. And I'm certainly not saying
[46:15] that I am. Deficiency resolves things for
[46:17] everybody. But my worry is that when
[46:19] someone when a teenage girl's these days describes that she
[46:22] feels really anxious, we can be very quick to go down a
[46:25] psychological or psychiatric road and that might be the right
[46:29] Rd. for some people. Absolutely.
[46:31] However, if she's iron deficient, what if that anxiety
[46:35] is a symptom of iron deficiency and it's being missed?
[46:38] Because then no amount of psychological work will make a
[46:42] difference. Correcting the iron deficiency
[46:44] will be the thing that actually improves or resolves the anxious
[46:48] feelings that she's experiencing.
[46:50] So it's cause when, if you think to when across those teenage
[46:55] years, so much of our identity is forming.
[46:58] And if you create a story that there's something wrong with
[47:03] you, it can impact your choices from that moment forward.
[47:08] It might impact your belief in your own intelligence and the
[47:10] education you feel you're capable of getting jobs.
[47:13] You might apply for, the friends that you make and keep even in
[47:18] intimate relationships. You might connect with someone
[47:20] and they might treat you really poorly.
[47:22] But if you think there's something wrong with you, you
[47:23] might stay in that relationship under the false belief that no
[47:27] one else will ever care for you. So I don't say it lightly that I
[47:32] want every teenage girl in the universe to know that iron
[47:35] deficiency, sorry, that anxiety can be a symptom of iron
[47:39] deficiency and to have iron levels checked.
[47:41] And if it's deficient or low end normal, it could be a huge
[47:45] contributing factor that is relatively simple to resolve.
[47:49] So that's why I wrote all of that.
[47:51] And also actually, let me just add, perimenopause is having its
[47:57] moment right now. So probably six years ago, it
[47:59] was a word only health professionals used, and now
[48:01] everyone uses it. And that has a lot of benefit,
[48:04] but also has a couple of drawbacks.
[48:05] So the benefits obviously is that more and more women get the
[48:08] help and support that they need and deserve.
[48:10] And there's a much greater understanding of what's
[48:14] happening across that transition from regular menstruation
[48:17] through to being postmenopause. My worry is that one of the
[48:21] drawbacks I think of these heightened conversations around
[48:24] perimenopause is that when I talk to women, particularly in
[48:27] their early 30s, they're now petrified perimenopause.
[48:32] And it's so important that we understand that there are some
[48:35] women who go through perimenopause.
[48:38] The only thing that changes is their periods.
[48:40] They start to bleed a bit more frequently and then they bleed
[48:43] less frequently, but there's no suffering for other women.
[48:47] They suffer in a very mild way and other women suffer in a
[48:50] really debilitating way. So I feel that we need to
[48:53] createspace for all experiences and for those who are suffering,
[48:58] yes, we need solutions, support and a deeper understanding.
[49:03] But younger women need to understand that they really only
[49:06] hearing the voices who are having a hard time.
[49:09] And I'm not denying the importance of that cause it
[49:11] means that others who are suffering get support.
[49:14] But it's making younger women really frightened of this very
[49:17] natural transition. And it also, I, I also worry
[49:21] that, sorry, I'm on a bit of a rant, but I also worry that when
[49:25] we say, I have also found that sort of for women aged between
[49:29] about 38 and 55 right now, anything new they experience,
[49:32] they go, ohh, Perry. And it might be, but it also
[49:37] might not be. So when we say that something is
[49:40] happening because of perimenopause, we're essentially
[49:42] saying it's the changes in our hormones that are creating it.
[49:46] And of course, hormones can create all sorts of symptoms,
[49:50] some pleasant, some unpleasant or written books about that
[49:52] stuff. So I'm not denying that.
[49:54] But my worry is that if you're, for example, iron deficient or
[49:59] you've got fatty liver or you've got a thyroid problem that
[50:03] starts to unfold and you think, oh, it's perimenopause, you
[50:06] might not address those other things That could actually make
[50:09] a really significant difference to your experience through
[50:11] perimenopause. And I've found that so many
[50:14] women go into perimenopause having been inefficient for
[50:17] years, if not decades. And I'm trying to shine light on
[50:20] that. I mean, I've just learned much
[50:23] in the last few minutes. Have you explaining no iron?
[50:25] So I'll get something that I, I, I kind of know about loosely.
[50:28] And I imagine a lot of people are the same.
[50:30] And I've been told to take iron before, but I've never really
[50:32] understood its importance in the body in that kind of way.
[50:36] So I feel like, I mean, I'm definitely going to pick up that
[50:38] book instantly and read it because it's just interesting,
[50:41] these things that I've been caught in the track before where
[50:43] I've gone down a path of thinking it's something else
[50:46] when it is just something simple like a deficiency.
[50:48] But often, as you mentioned, these deficiencies do go
[50:51] unnoticed. Why are practitioners missing
[50:54] this foundation of health? I think there's lots of reasons
[50:56] for it. I also think when we, if we do
[50:59] go and have a blood test, so the normal range in New Zealand
[51:02] pathology labs for ferritin, which is our iron storage, that
[51:06] normal range is 20 to 220 micrograms per litre.
[51:09] That's very broad normal range and we have to have normal
[51:12] ranges cause it would be chaos without them.
[51:14] But in my clinical experience, if a woman's ferritin is less
[51:18] than 50, she usually is not experiencing really robust
[51:22] health or energy certainly can be suffering.
[51:24] So my clinical experience that bottom end of the normal range
[51:27] is too low because you imagine if you have a blood, if you
[51:30] suspect your iron deficient or your GP suspects it and you do a
[51:33] test, let's say you're ferritin comes back at 22, you'll be told
[51:37] it's fine, but you're right at the bottom end of that normal
[51:40] range. And for most women, I have found
[51:43] that that translates to certainly fatigue and there can
[51:46] be other things inside them being affected in a pretty lousy
[51:49] way. So I encourage women to pursue
[51:51] that iron storage, that ferritin a minimum of 50.
[51:54] But usually we feel much better when that ferritins at 80 or
[51:57] 100. So when we have a blood test for
[52:01] iron, there's four blood tests, it's called iron studies and we
[52:04] test iron transferrin. Transferrin is the bus that
[52:07] drives the iron around. So when were iron deficient
[52:12] transferring goes high and when someone sees that on their blood
[52:15] test, they can think ohh, transferent, that's an iron
[52:18] thing must have enough because it's high.
[52:20] No, no, your body's making more buses to try to pick up more
[52:23] passengers. The passenger's being the iron.
[52:26] So transparent, transparent saturation is another blood test
[52:29] in iron studies. And then ferritin, which is our
[52:31] storage and our liver is our main storage house our for that
[52:35] iron. So, but beyond that we have.
[52:38] So when I said earlier that every second your body's making
[52:43] two and a half million new red blood cells.
[52:46] So that happens in the bone marrow.
[52:47] So form there's another. So just let's, yeah, those red
[52:51] blood cells live for 120 days. And if you can imagine, imagine
[52:56] the outside, imagine a cell is a circle and inside a red blood
[53:00] cell circle is a little unit of iron.
[53:02] When the cell dies, the iron is still good and the body doesn't
[53:06] waste anything. So that iron from the dying red
[53:09] blood cells gets sent back to what's called our total iron
[53:12] pool. And then what we eat also then
[53:15] adds to that total iron pool. And that iron pool then decides
[53:20] where that iron needs to go. And one of the big priorities,
[53:23] of course, is to the bone marrow to make new red blood cells,
[53:26] because that's how oxygen gets delivered through the body.
[53:29] And we will die if that doesn't happen.
[53:30] So that's prioritised. So there's different stages of
[53:34] iron deficiency. There's iron depletion, then
[53:36] there's iron deficiency, then there's iron deficiency anaemia.
[53:40] And the anaemia is the most severe.
[53:42] And that's where we don't actually have enough red blood
[53:44] cells or we don't have enough red blood cells that are of
[53:48] healthy size. They've become small microcytic,
[53:51] it's called because there's not enough iron.
[53:53] So it's, and sadly too many of us are not found until we have
[53:58] full blown iron deficiency anaemia.
[54:00] And it's a longer we can recover absolutely.
[54:03] The body's extraordinary, but it's a much longer Rd. of
[54:05] recovery once we're anaemic. So I'm trying to raise awareness
[54:09] and to really elevate this conversation to what might iron
[54:13] deficiency or insufficiency be causing in us, in our earth
[54:17] suits. And let's stop it getting to the
[54:19] anaemia stage because the body's having a really hard time once
[54:23] it gets there. Can we all benefit from
[54:25] supplementing with iron, or should we all test before we
[54:28] supplement with iron? So I actually think it's really
[54:32] tricky for us across the menstruation is to eat enough
[54:35] iron rich foods. We can do it, but we need to be
[54:38] incredibly focused on it and unfortunately.
[54:42] So if you think about the attitude that we show up to eat
[54:46] with, I want to encourage women to eat for satiety.
[54:50] So you wanna eat, there's nourishment, it's satiety.
[54:53] You wanna eat so you feel great. But sadly there are still too
[54:57] many women who show up to that going.
[55:00] I'm going to eat as little as I can get away with.
[55:02] I'm going to skip that meal. I'm going to have coffee for
[55:05] lunch. There is no way we're meeting
[55:08] our iron needs when we show up with what I call dieting
[55:11] mentality because we just won't be able to eat enough.
[55:13] So we can eat enough across those menstruation years.
[55:16] But it takes real focus and it's why I am a big fan of iron
[55:20] supplementation. It, I won't say it's essential,
[55:24] but it's highly beneficial for, for a lot of us.
[55:27] It's, as I said, it's the most common deficiency for women
[55:30] across the menstruation is pregnant women and sadly also
[55:33] for children. So, and a test is the, the, the
[55:37] clearest way to know, obviously. And there is a condition where
[55:40] we iron can overload. So it's important to know that
[55:43] that someone doesn't have that. Usually women don't find that
[55:46] out until their post menopause until periods are stopped.
[55:48] Because for every 60 mills of blood we lose, there's about 30
[55:53] milligrammes of iron in that in 60 mills as a stock standard,
[55:56] kind of four tablespoons of blood that we would use in a
[55:59] stock standard period. But a lot of women have really
[56:02] heavy periods these days and they're losing a lot more iron.
[56:04] So that's why I'm a big fan of supplementation and yeah,
[56:08] something that I've been dedicated the last kind of 5 to
[56:11] 8 years of my life trying to develop through some research
[56:15] I've been doing so. Yeah.
[56:16] So can you talk us through that a little bit?
[56:19] Iron supplementation often has a bad Rep in terms of
[56:22] Constipation. So for a lot of women who do get
[56:25] told at some point that they need to start taking iron, they
[56:28] take whatever they can get on prescription, and then all of a
[56:30] sudden other things stop. Yeah.
[56:32] And it's not a pleasant experience.
[56:34] So I understand you've done some research and worked really hard
[56:37] on a formulation that addresses some of these may be perceived
[56:42] negatives of being on an iron supplement.
[56:43] Can you talk us through that a little?
[56:45] Bit yes, thank you so much for asking that cause it has been
[56:49] the focus of my world for years now.
[56:51] So by blends as my supplement company that I created in 2016
[56:56] and we make everything from food and all medicinal herbs.
[56:59] So there's nothing synthetic in it, and I've wanted an iron
[57:03] supplement right from the get go, and we haven't been able to
[57:05] do it. So we did try with some other
[57:08] plants and we actually did trials.
[57:11] I had 20 women whose ferritin was less than 30 and put them
[57:14] onto this other plant that I won't mention, and none of their
[57:19] iron status improved. Some stayed the same, but the
[57:23] majority got worse. So I can't put my name to
[57:25] something that doesn't actually make a difference in people's
[57:28] blood work. And obviously then how they
[57:30] feel. So that was a lot of time and
[57:33] expense. But back to the drawing board.
[57:36] And yeah, so wonderfully, ohh, I've now created iconic iron and
[57:41] the iron is in a completely different form and it's from
[57:44] organic peas and it's called ferritin iron.
[57:47] So little bit of high school chemistry to, to take a, to take
[57:51] us back in a way that's hopefully making sense.
[57:54] So I think sometimes when things are really relevant, we
[57:56] understand it better rather than just sitting in class, you know,
[57:59] trying to learn chemistry. So most iron supplements are in
[58:03] their ferrous form, which is FE2 plus or ferric form, which is
[58:07] FE3 plus. And when we swallow that, it's
[58:09] bound to something else's salt or what's called a chelate.
[58:13] And then once it reaches the, the guts sell itself, there's a
[58:18] transporter that sits on the surface of the gut cell that
[58:22] then separates the iron from whatever it's bound to, and it
[58:26] takes the iron into the cell. So the trouble with some of
[58:30] those old school iron supplements is that a gut cell
[58:33] gets flooded with exposure to what's called free iron.
[58:36] And when there's too much free iron, it's very inflammatory.
[58:40] It drives oxidative stress and it drives some of those really
[58:43] unpleasant symptoms you touched on, like Constipation or nausea
[58:46] or just general gut discomfort. And then that often leads women
[58:49] to say, well, I'm not going to take this, rather just behind
[58:52] efficient because I can't bear being constipated.
[58:55] But the difference with ferritin iron is ferritin is a cage.
[58:58] It's a protein shell that we humans naturally make.
[59:02] All animals make it and plants make it.
[59:04] And so the little peas make their make a ferritin cage and
[59:08] they pop all the iron inside that ferritin cage.
[59:11] And so then we've found a way to concentrate it and extract it
[59:15] from the peas and it then gets concentrated into iconic iron.
[59:18] So then when you swallow it and it reaches the gut cell wall,
[59:21] the entire thing is taken in. And so the gut cell is never
[59:25] exposed to the free iron. It's inside this beautiful, a
[59:28] little natural protein shell of ferritin and then is absorbed
[59:31] that way. So iconic iron overcomes all of
[59:34] the usual absorption hurdles and yet doesn't cause any of those
[59:39] side effects. So it's been a long time coming
[59:42] once we've paired it with what are called cofactor nutrients.
[59:45] So once the iron is inside of us, it needs other nutrients to
[59:49] be able to be delivered to the bone marrow, back to the iron
[59:52] pool, stored in the liver, pulled out of storage.
[59:55] There's other nutrients involved in iron metabolism.
[59:57] And coppers are really big. One vitamin, A beta carotene.
[1:00:01] So we've included sesame for copper and carrot.
[1:00:05] Beta carotene and vitamin A acerola for vitamin C, even
[1:00:09] though you don't need vitamin C to absorb iconic iron, it's just
[1:00:12] such a lovely antioxidant, something that most people
[1:00:14] benefit from a little bit more of.
[1:00:15] So pop that in. And then Kiwi fruit for its
[1:00:17] beautiful prebiotic and anti-inflammatory effects.
[1:00:20] So yeah, it was a long time in research and development, and
[1:00:23] the difference it's making in people's blood work is blowing
[1:00:26] my mind, so I'm wrapped. Amazing.
[1:00:29] And I would just like to point out for those of you who are
[1:00:31] listening as someone who is involved in formulating
[1:00:35] supplements, what Libby has done here is no easy feet.
[1:00:40] So actually having to go and develop something that hits your
[1:00:46] value. So you you're wanting know
[1:00:47] synthetics or plant based that actually delivers a result.
[1:00:52] I don't think people actually understand how much energy,
[1:00:55] effort, time and money can go into doing that.
[1:00:59] So I think my little as you can tell, I'm a bit of a fan.
[1:01:04] My little plug here is I believe that bio blinds is really a
[1:01:08] brand that you guys can trust and the supplement industry is
[1:01:12] full of a few Cowboys who don't put as much time and care in.
[1:01:15] And so if you are thinking about iron supplementation, I think
[1:01:20] this is one that you could really, you know, hand on heart,
[1:01:23] say is going to be a good experience for you and really
[1:01:26] high quality. And thank you for persevering
[1:01:29] through that because a lot of people start on the journey of
[1:01:31] trying to formulate supplements cause they've got great
[1:01:34] intentions and it all gets too hard, but you've kept pushing
[1:01:38] through. And I think that's absolutely
[1:01:40] amazing. And so grateful for people who
[1:01:42] are doing that in this industry because it's not easy.
[1:01:45] I'm so touched by your words. Thank you.
[1:01:48] Understanding and saying that it's been it's been a big
[1:01:50] journey. And when you see, yeah, it's it
[1:01:55] comes from the desire to change all of that unnecessary
[1:01:58] suffering. And I watch teenage girls
[1:02:02] especially just having such a hard time.
[1:02:05] And I know there's so much on their plates, but I just worry
[1:02:09] that some of at least a big chunk of it is coming from iron
[1:02:11] deficiency. And yeah, so the more we talk
[1:02:14] about in the 80s, it was talked about lots more and I'm old
[1:02:17] enough to know that. And I feel like it sort of fell
[1:02:22] off its pedestal, if you like, or it we we've made things
[1:02:27] really complicated and somethings need to be
[1:02:29] complicated, but some things like this are really simple and
[1:02:32] can make a real difference. Yeah, we, we've got a brand
[1:02:36] called Brave Face which focuses on anxiety and we have pushed
[1:02:39] into this sort of teen and childcare market.
[1:02:41] And one of our biggest findings was it's for kids.
[1:02:45] It's actually more often nutritional deficiency adults
[1:02:49] that can be that we've been vital flight for so long that
[1:02:51] that's having a whole lot of things like kids and actually is
[1:02:54] the basics of nutrition. I think that's such an important
[1:02:56] thing for parents who are dealing with kids because it's,
[1:03:00] I'm imagining, it's so scary. My kids are not teenaged yet,
[1:03:04] but having a child come home and saying they're dealing with all
[1:03:07] these mental health issues because we didn't have it so
[1:03:10] much when we were younger. We didn't have the language
[1:03:12] perhaps when we were young. We also didn't have social media
[1:03:15] and that type of thing. But new nutrition is a really
[1:03:18] fantastic place to start. And it sounds like iron should
[1:03:22] be #1 on the list. Yeah.
[1:03:24] So thank you for that wisdom and hopefully some parents listening
[1:03:27] to that. We're going to give you a couple
[1:03:31] of wrap up questions. What is 1 Wellness trend you
[1:03:34] would love to see left behind in 2025?
[1:03:37] Ohh my goodness, what would I pick?
[1:03:42] There are a few. You can ramble a few.
[1:03:48] Well, you know, I've I've I'm a little bit Switzerland and
[1:03:52] that's because so I don't I don't ever want to put things
[1:03:54] down like I said that people get benefit from I.
[1:03:59] Have. I've never really understood the
[1:04:03] cold exposure kind of message for women.
[1:04:06] And again, some if you feel great doing it, please keep
[1:04:09] doing it. But when I, I look to
[1:04:11] traditional medicines a lot for, I guess wisdom rather to sort of
[1:04:16] side step, not necessarily Mark I, we know we've gotta be able
[1:04:21] to discern between truth and marketing.
[1:04:25] And there's, there's absolutely benefit in stressing ourselves
[1:04:30] and our Physiology to a point. But when I, when I'm working
[1:04:35] with women and they are essentially in burnout, I want
[1:04:40] to it, my instinct is to wrap them up in warmth and blankets
[1:04:46] and hugs and touch and just sort of nurture and nourishment.
[1:04:51] And I feel, I've worried that with that message of, you know,
[1:04:55] doing extreme temperature sorts of things, I do worry that
[1:04:59] that's been depleting some women more and not really supporting
[1:05:04] them. So I feel that that's getting a
[1:05:07] little bit of airtime now that that might not be ideal, but
[1:05:11] it's something that never really made sense to me because I've
[1:05:14] looked at traditional Chinese medicine and they are very much
[1:05:17] all about warmth. So.
[1:05:19] But again, all of our physiologies are really
[1:05:22] different. Some women just naturally run
[1:05:24] hotter. So that cold is joyful and it's
[1:05:27] a relief, whereas other women are cold frogs, you know,
[1:05:30] they're throwing a jumper on before anyone else in the room.
[1:05:34] There's no way that jumping into freezing cold ice baths can be,
[1:05:37] I don't think good and that sort of Physiology.
[1:05:39] So I so to answer your question, that's probably top of my list,
[1:05:45] but it just harks back to what we've what a theme, I think
[1:05:49] that's come through in this chat of and, and it's such a theme of
[1:05:53] what you're sharing with the world is tuning in and listening
[1:05:56] to yourself and trusting yourself rather than listening
[1:05:58] to lots of external voices saying, well, the only way to be
[1:06:01] well is to go from, you know, these hot cold therapies.
[1:06:04] If that doesn't feel right for you, or you feel worse after you
[1:06:07] do that, then there's information in that your your
[1:06:10] body won't lie to you. I'm glad you said that because I
[1:06:12] don't really want to jump in a cold ice spark personally so I
[1:06:16] have permission out. On the train.
[1:06:21] What do you think we still get wrong about woman's health in
[1:06:23] the mainstream narrative? So right now I feel that there's
[1:06:30] every so much feels so polarised and where it's there's sort of
[1:06:37] two, there's lots of different camps and I feel that women feel
[1:06:40] like they've gotta pick one hormones or no hormones, cold or
[1:06:45] no cold or cycle sinking or not cycles, you know, there there's
[1:06:49] and there's really loud voices on both sides giving up all of
[1:06:54] us reasons to either do it or not do it.
[1:06:57] And so I feel that what, what we're getting wrong is we're I
[1:07:03] that phrase I used earlier, we need to make space for all
[1:07:06] experiences and all types like what's going on in our life,
[1:07:11] what's happening with our body at that time.
[1:07:13] Because the never ending feedback I get is why is it so
[1:07:18] confusing? Because I trusted this person
[1:07:21] and now this other person who I really like has come out and
[1:07:23] said the exact opposite. And I've been doing that.
[1:07:25] So then lots of people feel like they've been doing it wrong
[1:07:28] because they listen to this person person.
[1:07:30] And so I feel like that's kind of a bit of a mess.
[1:07:34] And as we're bringing more now wonderfully more conversations
[1:07:39] to the Women's Health space, I think there are some women who
[1:07:42] feel overwhelmed and really confused by I still don't that's
[1:07:45] great and I'm learning lots, but I still don't really know what
[1:07:48] to do. And so that's where I bring it
[1:07:50] back to. It's a journey back to listening
[1:07:53] to your own inner voice. But that's the that's what
[1:07:57] really knows, you know, deep in you already.
[1:08:01] So I feel that we're they're kind of the conflicting voices.
[1:08:06] It's I had to go for a message me the other day.
[1:08:09] Is this true that my brain is going to completely fall apart
[1:08:12] now that I've stopped menstruating?
[1:08:14] No, but she's really distressed cause there's so much fear being
[1:08:18] shared right now. So that's we're not, I feel like
[1:08:22] we're not making progress with the dampening down of the fear
[1:08:26] that we often have about our bodies right here, right now, or
[1:08:29] what might happen in the future with different hormonal shifts.
[1:08:33] So yeah, let's let's quell the fear.
[1:08:36] Watch that I. Love that.
[1:08:38] So I think that's perfect note to finish on.
[1:08:39] Thank you so much. Lovely.
[1:08:40] That was such an insightful conversation.
[1:08:42] Differently for both of us and I hope for so many women at home.
[1:08:45] It's a real honour to have you here.
[1:08:47] Ohh yeah, I'm so touched to be here with you.
[1:08:49] Congratulations on what on what you've created and for the way
[1:08:53] that you care for others and what you're doing with that
[1:08:55] care. It will be game changing for so
[1:08:57] many people so thank you. Thank you.
[1:09:07] Thanks for listening to The Cyclist.
[1:09:09] To join the community, follow us at We Are the Cyclist, Your
[1:09:13] Cycle Decoded.

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