E276: Is PMS/PMDD Sabotaging Your Marriage? This Will Help

Have you ever looked at your husband doing absolutely nothing wrong and felt nothing but irritation?

You know it's not really about him. But knowing that doesn't help when you're already in it, snapping at him for breathing too loudly, or crying and unable to explain why, then drowning in guilt afterward. Because you love him. Your hormones are throwing a very convincing party in your nervous system, and nobody sent you the invite.

Here's what this episode breaks down for you:

• Why your brain is literally in threat mode before your period, and why small things feel like actual emergencies 
• The serotonin and dopamine piece nobody explains, including why you can't feel satisfied even when he's doing everything right
• How cortisol piles on and why doing more actually makes the second half of your cycle harder, not easier

This episode won't tell you to just "track your cycle and eat more greens". It will give you actual context for what your body is doing - and more importantly, what it's trying to do - so that the next time you're in that phase and you feel like a completely different person, you have some language for it. Not just "sorry, PMS," but a real understanding of why your brain is scanning for danger in a safe marriage.

If you're a husband reading this: this one's for you too. It will help you understand what's happening on a brain and hormone level so you can stop taking it personally (as hard as that is) and start working together on it.

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Disclaimer: Nothing in this podcast is to be taken as medical advice, please take informed accountability and speak to your provider before making changes to your health routine.

This podcast is for women and moms to learn how to balance hormones naturally in motherhood, to have pain-free periods, increased fertility, to decrease PMS mood swings, and to increase energy without restrictive diet plans. You'll learn how to balance blood sugar, increase progesterone naturally, understand the root cause of estrogen dominance, irregular periods, PCOS, insulin resistance, hormonal acne, post birth-control syndrome, and conceive naturally. We use a pro-metabolic, whole food, root cause approach to functional women's health and focus on truly holistic health and mind-body connection.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we're sure you'll like ours too! 
Pursuit of Wellness with Mari Llewellyn, Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, Found My Fitness with Rhonda Patrick, Just Ingredients Podcast, Wellness Mama, The Dr Josh Axe Show, Are You Menstrual Podcast, The Model Health Show, Grounded Wellness By Primally Pure, Be Well By Kelly Leveque, The Freely Rooted Podcast with Kori Meloy, Simple Farmhouse Life with Lisa Bass

Transcript

[00:00:00] If you're not feeling like yourself physically and emotionally for a week or two out of your cycle, then it is affecting your marriage. And you know this if you've noticed yourself looking at your husband recently and feeling just nothing, just wanting to check out, not feeling connected or feeling nothing but irritation and anger and annoyance because he can't seem to do anything right in those phases, whether or not he's doing anything different at all.

If you felt this way, this episode is for you and for your husband. So send it to him and let's get into it. I want to start this episode off by saying that absolutely, if you have PMS mood swings, you already know if we're talking PMS or PMDD, you already know that it's affecting your relationships.

It's affecting your marriage and it's affecting your motherhood as well, because it's so hard when you feel truly just out of control of your emotions to be able to show up as the person that you want to be. So [00:01:00] this episode is to come alongside you and encourage you and help you understand why and what to do about it.

And so any shame or guilt, or especially if you're in this phase right now, just like anything that feels overwhelming, just try to push it to the side and let yourself have some clarity and some help. And for the husbands who are listening too, I am creating this episode as a resource for both of you so that you can understand what's going on in the woman's brain and body during this phase of her cycle where she's feeling so off so that you can work together to make some improvements in your marriage and in your life in general.

If you're here as a husband, I am just so thankful because I know that you care about your wife so much and you want her to feel better. And so that's where we can all come into this together. So I'm going to start with diving into, for the husbands especially who have not been listening to my podcast, I assume, [00:02:00] a little quick overview of what is normal and what is not for PMS and PMDD.

PMS is premenstrual syndrome, which is essentially a catch-all term for feeling not like yourself physically or emotionally for a week or even two weeks before your period starts. I will always say that There are going to be some shifts in emotions throughout a woman's hormone cycle, and they should be almost like these gentle waves versus these tornado or hurricane force winds that are, , coming and trying to knock the house down.

So we should have some small shifts throughout our cycle, and what I consider to be normal in that last week of the cycle is maybe feeling a little bit more tired or wanting a little bit more time by yourself or just needing a little bit of space. But nothing that is really obvious, to be honest.

Nothing that is a lot of anger, irritability, , blowing up easily, feeling [00:03:00] depressed, super sad, crying. All of those symptoms are signs that something is imbalanced under the surface that is causing hormones to be imbalanced. And so hormones are never the root cause of the problem. They are a symptom of another layer of issues in the body, and one of the biggest things that we can do to support hormones being balanced and staying balanced and mood staying balanced is creating more safety in the body.

That's the perspective I'm always going to be coming from. So if you, ladies, or your wife, if you're a husband listening, is not falling under this category and she really is having a super hard time during these weeks before her period, then this is something that you can make a difference in and something that can be fixed, and this is what we do all the time in coaching.

This is exactly what we focus on. So there is so much hope for things to feel better. Okay. With that quick disclaimer, thank you for those of you who always are here listening and already knew that. [00:04:00] I'm gonna dive into what is happening in the body on a little bit deeper level during those weeks so that you can understand there really are some big changes that are happening, and if they're happening in the wrong way, they can cause significant changes in the mood.

When you're noticing mood changes in the second half of your cycle- The last week of your cycle especially, typically what we see is that estrogen and progesterone are imbalanced. Estrogen might be higher than it should be, or progesterone might be lower than it should be. Progesterone triggers another hormone called allopregnanolone, which turns into GABA, which is a stabilizing mood neurotransmitter.

So if progesterone is imbalanced with estrogen, functionally low or low, it can directly affect GABA production. With that being said, when GABA production is [00:05:00] affected and GABA production is lower, it directly affects the ability to keep a calm and stable mood, and it also directly affects the ability to sleep well, which is connected.

If we are not sleeping well, we are not going to have a happy, stable mood. That's just really across the board. Most of us really need that. And when GABA and progesterone are low, the nervous system is going to stay in a state of low-grade threat. So what we want in the luteal phase is consistent signals of safety.

And if we instead have a low-grade threat rating going through your brain all the time, your body is going to stay - in an more of an unstable and reactive state. So a nervous system in threat mode can't feel safe in intimacy or connection. This is not personal. This really, women, does not have anything to do with your, what your husband did or didn't do in this phase typically.

There are [00:06:00] obviously times that that's not true, when something really big does happen. But if it's just the regular things that are happening, and all of a sudden they are making you actually crazy and making you ... I don't mean you're crazy, but just you are feeling like, "What in the world?"

"I cannot handle this," and it's just the regular things, then this is not the things that are happening. It is your nervous system in that low-grade threat mode where you cannot feel safe, and so you are looking for reasons to not be safe. You're looking for those threats at a higher level, and so that's why you notice the things that someone does, specifically your husband, that you especially don't like in this phase, because your body is wanting safety, looking for safety, but also looking for threats.

And so that really cuts down on the ability to really have full connection and intimacy in your marriage because you are looking for threats, and it's easy to find those little tiny threats and tell yourself, "Things are not safe. I have to put my [00:07:00] walls up. I have to stay, protected in this phase."

Now, another piece of this picture is that in the luteal phase- Serotonin and dopamine can also be lower if hormones are imbalanced.

So when serotonin and dopamine are shifting lower than they should be, they create that disconnected feeling that is really harder to explain, but can be just as disorienting as this feeling of, being really irritated or being really sad. And so in the first half of the cycle, estrogen is rising, and it directly supports serotonin production and the sensitivity of serotonin receptors.

These are neurotransmitters that make you feel good, just to be clear. So in the first half of your cycle, it's really... mostly, for most women, it's easier to feel good and motivated and social and clear-headed and also connected to your husband and also attracted to your husband. And [00:08:00] estrogen also supports dopamine signaling, which is your motivation and reward neurotransmitter.

So that makes you feel excited about things, excited about new things, wanting to make plans, pleasure and connection, and even, in food, like, having , food that sounds really good versus just, eh, not really interested, right? In the luteal phase, estrogen shifts and it decreases, and progesterone is supposed to be rising in that phase to compensate.

and if progesterone doesn't rise appropriately and estrogen dominance is present, then the inflammatory estrogen metabolites that cannot be detoxed well interfere with the enzyme that converts tryptophan into serotonin. I did go into this a little bit in the last episode. And so even if you are, hopefully doing things to take care of yourself, if your progesterone is not keeping up, then you are going to see that you have less serotonin in this second half of the cycle, which means lower mood, more emotional reactivity, [00:09:00] worse sleep, and stronger cravings, especially for carbs, because your body is trying to drive tryptophan into the brain through an insulin spike.

So you might have, not necessarily, the same excitement for life and things, like, even excitement for food in general as in the first half of your cycle. But you might still be really craving carbs during this phase of your cycle if your body is trying to make you feel good through food.

So it's not just you being a sugar girly. It really is you trying to balance your hormones and your brain neurotransmitters through food. And so this is something that you can meet with grace and with tolerance, and 20 cookies is probably not actually going to solve your problems. But meeting those carb cravings with really carbs that are going to help stabilize your body in a little bit better way and are a little bit more nutrient-dense is going to be really key.

So even just planning ahead to [00:10:00] have more carbs during this phase of your cycle, usually you need about two hundred to three hundred more calories per day in this phase of your cycle, primarily from carbs. This can help stabilize, and this is why. Because the body is trying to drive tryptophan into the brain through insulin spiking.

So when dopamine drops at the same time as serotonin, then nothing sounds good, right? Nothing sounds interesting. So you just can't necessarily receive, even if your husband is doing nice things for you, you just don't even notice them. if someone asks you, "What do you need?" or "How can I help you feel better?"

You don't know. you don't know what you want. and this is not something that is fixed through just trying to figure it out for yourself. It truly does have to do with your hormones and your progesterone specifically, and your brain's reward and motivation system is just not running at its normal capacity.

So the warmth and playfulness that [00:11:00] you want to feel, it's really hard to force during this phase of your cycle if your progesterone is not deriving these neurotransmitters in the way that it should be. And then we also talked about this a little bit last week, but I'm gonna give a little more context on this in context of marriage.

But cortisol on top of all of this is going to be the third layer, essentially, of how these different neurotransmitters and hormones all work together against-- I wanna say against you, but really it's not against you. Your body is just trying to, conserve and trying to balance in the best way possible when hormones are not being supported fully.

 When cortisol and progesterone compete for the same receptor, then cortisol usually is going to win. And when you have high cortisol in general because you are doing all the things for all the people, then cortisol typically does block pr-progesterone from binding to that receptor, [00:12:00] and you can even steal from your progesterone production to make more cortisol.

So this is why we have to prioritize safety in the body again and again to tell your brain that it is safe to use more energy to make sex hormones like estrogen and progesterone for fertility and for hormone balance and mood balance purposes than to make more cortisol. We have to be able to tell our brains things are safe enough.

You don't have to prioritize only cortisol production at this time. And When chronic cortisol keeps your nervous system primed for threat detection, when you are running on stress hormones consistently, then you are going to be hypervigilant. Your amygdala specifically becomes hypervigilant, and it's always scanning, like I said before, for things that confirm that things are not safe.

Okay? And so this is great if you are truly, like, in the woods with your kids and you're looking for lions and tigers. This [00:13:00] is so good, and it will keep you safe. In a safe marriage and in a safe family, it can be pretty dysregulating and maladaptive, essentially, because what you're doing is you are turning up that threat detection system accidentally, like, your calming system is turned down.

So threat detection's up, calming system is down, and all of the things that you are noticing around you in a hypervigilant way, something your kids do, like they drop their plate, or your husband doesn't come home as early as you wanted, or he says something that isn't exactly perfectly what you want him to say, all of these things feel like a threat because your brain is looking for threats.

And so it just causes more of an emotional response that is not proportional to the events. This is why typically the fight or the withdrawal or the crying or the whatever it is before your period that happens with your husband is [00:14:00] usually not about what's actually happening. And even you both know that deep down, but also there are deep reasons in your body that you feel this way, so it is not just something that you typically can talk yourself out of or snap out of, right?

This is a piece that I really wanna drive home here, is that this is not something that most of the time you can just talk yourself out of or say declarations over yourself and just, get yourself to change your mind. Now, with that being said, there are so many layers of how we can create safety in the body so that you start to make more progesterone, so that you start to balance these neurotransmitters, and you start to feel like yourself again.

And this is what we see over and over and over in coaching as we create more safety in the body to make and detox hormones well. But when you are looking at this as a big picture, I want you to both know that this is not her just making something up, and it's also [00:15:00] not something that can be fixed typically with even just, more conversation about it.

Now, if you feel more supported and loved and cared for in your luteal phase, that does provide some safety. But if this is within yourself, sometimes your husband can't fix it for you by just, being extra nice or giving you extra space because you still are feeling that even though you got that space that you wanted, even though you got to go take the bath, even though you got to go take the walk, even though, he is supporting you in every way he knows to do, it still doesn't feel like enough, and that's not on him, and it's actually not necessarily on you either.

It's not that you just need to decide that it's enough, or you feel that it's enough. But if your neurotransmitters are not responding in the way that they normally do, then you are not going to feel fulfilled like you think you should from taking these breaks or getting what you think you need. And I still believe it is absolutely so important to be doing something every day in this phase to fill your [00:16:00] cup because it will help you stay a little bit more balanced in this phase.

So that is really important. And if these neurotransmitters are imbalanced at a deeper level because of a hormone imbalance, because of a lack of safety in the body, then we have to go back to that piece about safety, and we have to create safety through making sure that nutrition is balanced, that blood sugar is balanced, that the gut and the liver are not causing more inflammation in the body that causes more stress, that they're actually able to detox hormones well, and that your energy in is not constantly less than the energy going out, so that you can have enough minerals in your body, so that you can tell your brain that things are safe over time, and you can start to see hormones balance over time so those neurotransmitters can balance.

So it really is a big picture thing, and there are true deep reasons that you feel like this. I [00:17:00] just want that to be really clear, that there are , two pieces to this. This is very real. It's pretty hard to talk yourself out of it, even if you're really good at talking yourself out of things. And there are true physical things that we can do to make a big change.

And so the way that we do that is in coaching, we walk through specifically for you, we do a deep dive conversation before we would ever start coaching, and just talk about what has been going on with you, what you've been noticing, and make a very clear, personalized plan that says, "This is what you need support on.

This is where you have gaps in your food." We do not ever have to change, make crazy big diet changes typically. It's really just specifically eating more at certain meals or eating more of a certain macronutrient or more antioxidants or things like that at your meal. So we focus on that first so that you can start to have these signals of safety in your body where cortisol is not spiking as often because of blood sugar imbalances.

This [00:18:00] does a lot for mood and energy right away. But then we also look deeper, often with labs, to see are there, is there depletion of minerals? Is the gut imbalance? Is there inflammation in the gut? And we do deep dive hormone testing that shows not only how you're making hormones, but how you're detoxing hormones so that we can know where the issue is, we can pinpoint it, and then we can focus for you in your busy life on exactly the things that are going to make you feel best first.

So this is why PMS is not all in your head, and there is so much that you can do about it. And when you have a supportive husband especially, it is so much easier to fix this. I just wanna encourage you that even if you feel like you're doing a lot of the right things and you're like, "Man, I'm eating clean.

I'm doing all the things. , everyone else around me is, doing all these things that are bad for them, and they seem to feel better," sometimes that's the case, and you are probably so close to where you need to be, and you just need some tweaks to make things [00:19:00] clear and direct. And if that's you, then just reach out to me.

You can email me, hello@leishadrews.com, or you can even send a text in the show notes. Make sure to put your phone number in it so that I can text you back. and just say one-on-one coaching or interested in coaching, and I will set up a time to talk to you, and we can decide if this is something that is right for you to work on in this season.

What I see is not only do you feel better, you start to feel like yourself again, but that absolutely just trickles over in a huge way into your marriage and into your family so that everyone can feel stable again and not feel like they're walking on eggshells. And that decreases your guilt and your shame so much as the mom and the wife so that you can increase your capacity and really invest in your family in the way that you want to.

So I'd love to help you with that, and hopefully this episode creates some clarity for you. So if you have made it all the way to the end, you haven't sent it to your husband yet, do that now. If you have sent it to your husband, but you [00:20:00] haven't sent it to your friend that needs it, also do that, and we'll see you girls next time.