Why you still have PMS after trying everything — Root Cause of PMS/PMDD Deep Dive - E282

What if the anxiety, rage, crying, and exhaustion before your period are not just “hormones being hormones,” but are actually showing you where your body needs support long before your period starts?

You’ve tried the supplements. You cleaned up your food. Maybe you’ve tried medication, tracked your cycle, worked on your mindset, and done so many of the “right” things. And still, one to two weeks every month, it feels like someone flipped a switch.

One part of the month, you feel like yourself - you can handle life, enjoy your family, and think clearly. And then the luteal phase hits, and suddenly everything feels heavier. You’re irritated, anxious, crying, snapping, craving carbs, not sleeping well, and wondering why this keeps happening when you’re trying so hard.

So, in this episode, I’m putting the whole picture together for you.

I’m walking you through what’s actually happening in your body with PMS and PMDD. You’ll understand why your luteal phase can feel so intense, why your symptoms are not a personality flaw, and what they are trying to show you about progesterone, cortisol, minerals, blood sugar, and the way your body is handling stress.

I want this episode to feel like someone finally slowed down and explained in plain language what’s been happening in your body.

Here’s what I’ll get into:

• Why PMS and PMDD can make you feel like a completely different person, sometimes almost overnight
• What your luteal phase is trying to show you about the rest of your month
• How progesterone, allopregnanolone, and GABA affect your mood, patience, sleep, and ability to handle normal life
• Why cortisol can steal from progesterone and keep your body in survival mode
• The mineral pieces most women are missing, especially magnesium, sodium, and potassium
• Why blood sugar, breakfast, and consistency matter more than the next hormone trend

Let’s be really clear for a second. PMS symptoms like irritability, rage, breast tenderness, bloating, acne, painful periods, and feeling like you cannot handle your life are common, but they are not something you just have to accept forever.

And if you’ve ever been told, “It’s just your hormones,” or “That’s normal,” or “Your labs look fine,” I want you to hear me. Your body is giving you information. Those symptoms are signals that something needs support, and once you understand the pattern, you can stop blaming yourself for it.

Your cycle is not just your period. Your period is the end of a month-long hormone conversation your body has been having. So when things fall apart in the luteal phase, that is not random. That second half of your cycle is showing you what your body has been carrying all month long, and sometimes even the month before.

One of the biggest pieces I talk about in this episode is progesterone. So many women think progesterone is the problem because they feel worse in the luteal phase, when progesterone should be higher. But progesterone is actually one of the hormones that helps you feel calm, steady, rested, and more like yourself.
The problem comes when your body is not making enough progesterone, or when estrogen is not clearing well, or when your brain is extra sensitive to the normal hormone shifts before your period. That is where PMS and PMDD symptoms can get really intense.

I also talk about cortisol, because this is where the “I’m doing everything right” woman can get stuck. If your body is getting signals all day long that life is not safe, from under-eating, skipping breakfast, running on coffee, over-exercising, not sleeping enough, emotional stress, or just living in constant go-mode, your body is going to prioritize survival.

And when survival is the priority, progesterone gets pushed to the side.

That is why safety is not just a cute nervous-system word. It is a biological requirement for making hormones well. Your body has to believe there is enough coming in before it will prioritize things like ovulation, progesterone, good sleep, healthy metabolism, stable mood, and smooth cycles.

I also get into minerals in this episode, because this is such a missing piece for so many women. Magnesium gets talked about a lot, and yes, it matters. But magnesium does not work alone. Sodium and potassium matter too, and they are deeply connected to your stress response, energy, blood sugar, hormones getting into the cells, and your ability to feel steady instead of overwhelmed.

Then there is blood sugar. If you are starting your day with coffee before food, skipping breakfast, eating something tiny, or going too long between meals, your body may be getting a stress signal before your day even gets stressful. And in the luteal phase, that matters even more because your body needs more support, not less.

This is why random supplements, diet trends, fasting, cold plunging, and trying harder usually do not fix PMS long-term. Your body needs consistency. It needs food, minerals, sleep, sunlight, emotional safety, and a plan that fits your life as a busy mom.

And I know that might sound simple, but simple is usually the part we skip because we think the real answer must be more advanced.

If you’ve been stuck in the cycle of trying random things, feeling better for a minute, and then ending up right back in the same luteal phase spiral, this episode will help you zoom out and finally understand what your body has been asking for.

So, take one step today that actually moves you forward. Listen to the episode, grab the breakfast mini podcast, or reach out about coaching so we can look at what is happening in your body and build a plan that makes sense for you.


MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Fix Your Breakfast, Fix Your Hormones Podcast Course

NEED HELP FIXING YOUR HORMONES? CHECK OUT MY RESOURCES:
Breakfast Guide
Nourish Tracker - Discount code: HAPPILYHORMONAL
Book a FREE Hormone Strategy Call with me
Grab your Happily Hormonal Quick Start Guide
Hormone Imbalance Quiz - Find out which of the top 3 hormone imbalances affects you most!
Join Nourish Your Hormones Coaching for the step-by-step and my eyes on YOUR hormones for the next 4 months.

Don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode, and leave a review. Your support helps us reach more women looking for answers.

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

E282_ Understanding PMS_PMDD Root Causes

[00:00:00] If you've been dealing with PMS or PMDD for years, you've been trying supplements, you've probably tried medication, cleaning up your diet, doing all the things, and doing all of them right, may I add, and you still feel like a completely different person one to two weeks out of every month, this episode is going to tell you exactly why.

We're going to go through specifically what is happening in your body and what has been missing this whole time. It's not gonna be a vague, this is complicated episode. I'm truly gonna walk you through the framework and root cause of PMS and PMDD because most women who find this podcast have already done a lot.

They're not starting from scratch, but what they're doing isn't working. So you are going to understand your cycle, your hormones, and the actual root cause of PMS and PMDD in a way that probably hasn't been broken down for you before because there's science, but in a way that's simple enough to understand while [00:01:00] you're doing the things in your day.

If you are finding me with this episode or it was sent to you by a friend, welcome. If you've been here for a while but really want the foundational breakdown of why your mood is a hot mess express one to two weeks out of the month, this is also for you. And so I am so excited to dive into this and really give you the big picture.

We talk about PMS and PMDD here all the time, and I've been really breaking down different areas of mindset and emotions, especially the last few weeks. We've talked about minerals over the last couple months. We're definitely always talking about progesterone and estrogen and all the things.

But I haven't put it all together in one episode in a long time, and so that is what we're doing here today. And the first thing that you need to understand to be able to understand your PMS, PMDD symptoms is how your [00:02:00] cycle is actually working every single month. So your cycle is not just about your period.

Your period is the end of a month-long hormone cycle that your body is having, and PMS... So specifically, let's be clear what's normal versus not normal. PMS, like irritability, anxiety, depression, moodiness, crying, sadness, literally not being able to handle your life, snapping at everyone, feeling like you are out of control of your emotions, and maybe some physical symptoms like, low energy, hormonal acne, breast tenderness, bloating, cramps with your period. All of those things are not normal. They are common, but they're not normal, even if your doctor says they are and your labs look fine and your sister and your mom have the same problems. They are a sign that your body needs help and needs support.

And This end of the cycle conversation that your body is having with the hormones [00:03:00] is a sign of what has gone on the whole month and even the month before. So in a typical menstrual cycle, no birth control involved, the first day of your period is day one of the cycle. And estrogen and progesterone are at their lowest levels during this time.

And estrogen and progesterone are going to be what shifts so much during the cycle and makes you feel differently. But in that first few days of the cycle, they're at their lowest levels, which allows your brain to be connected on both sides at a different level than it typically is throughout the cycle when estrogen and progesterone are fluctuating.

So this actually is a time where it's really good to be introspective, analytical, kind of go inward. and it's a time where both hormones are low. Nothing's really happening. Then about mid-period, so day four or so, estrogen starts to rise. And when estrogen starts to rise, it [00:04:00] triggers a couple of other hormones to prepare your body for ovulation.

So it triggers follicle-stimulating hormone, and it triggers luteinizing hormone. And once both of those hormones are triggered by estrogen and .. estrogen reaches its high point in the cycle, ovulation is triggered, and an egg is released from the follicles that have been developing, and growing over the last week, but really for the last couple of months.

And typically, there's one follicle that gets the largest and releases an egg so that you can get pregnant, and so that your body can produce progesterone. And then once that estrogen spikes and peaks, this is the time in your cycle where you notice, the, that kind of like ovulation high. Your libido is higher, your energy might be higher, your focus might be better, and you have cervical fluid.

That is a sign of fertility. Now, once it reaches that peak, it drops completely off, and progesterone rises within about twenty-four hours. And that little follicle that was holding your egg that was ovulated [00:05:00] collapses and becomes a temporary organ called the corpus luteum, and that is what produces progesterone for the second half of your cycle.

Now, I want to bust a myth right here that progesterone is a bad hormone. because women often have symptoms in the luteal phase when progesterone is highest, a lot of times women will think progesterone is the problem, and they think that progesterone just makes them feel bad. But what is actually happening when you feel bad in your luteal phase is that estrogen has dropped off, and when estrogen is present in your follicular phase, it supports your serotonin and your dopamine production, which makes everything feel more manageable, and it drives energy, mood, motivation, social connection.

When that drops off, if your progesterone doesn't pick up the pace and pick up the slack right away, you can start to feel some symptoms pretty quickly. So once progesterone is supposed to rise and balance estrogen, progesterone actually turns [00:06:00] a, another hormone, a precursor hormone called allopregnanolone in the brain to GABA, which is the hormone to support feeling calm, and settled and able to handle the second half of your month, even without that estrogen being on board supporting the serotonin and the dopamine.

Now When progesterone doesn't spike as well as it should, or estrogen doesn't clear out of the body as well as it should, this is where we see luteal phase symptoms. So the luteal phase is named for that corpus luteum, that cute little temporary organ that is so incredible and produces your progesterone.

I'm just assuming it's cute. I've never seen one on a microscope, but I just am assuming it's cute because it's a girl, organ that only girls have, so it would be cute. Okay? So this cute little organ produces your progesterone, but if you're not making enough progesterone or quickly enough, or your estrogen is out of balance, this is where we really see these symptoms.

So PMS and [00:07:00] PMDD are not a personality flaw. It's not you just being sensitive. You might have been told that as a girl. They are also not an inevitable part of being a woman. They are a signal. In your luteal phase, this half of your cycle after ovulation, is the most vulnerable phase of your cycle, which means it's a phase that tells you the most about what's going wrong underneath the surface.

So when you have symptoms show up in luteal phase, your body is telling you several things. Number one is there is not enough safety in the body to create hormones well, estrogen and progesterone appropriately, and to detox hormones well. And those are the foundations of having happy hormones and a smooth mood all month long.

This is possible even if it's never happened in your family, even if it's never happened for you, even if PMS, PMDD has become a personality trait. At this point, PMDD and PMS are disorders that in [00:08:00] PMDD specifically involves a hypersensitivity to the fluctuation of this precursor hormone, allopregnanolone, meaning even normal progesterone drops before your period can trigger an, a bigger neurological response.

Your GABA receptors would react abnormally. So this is why PMDD can feel like a completely different person showed up, and why it resolves almost immediately when your period starts. So it is in a sense worse PMS, but it has a little bit different mechanism of action when it gets to that level essentially.

So I'm gonna circle back to the foundations here for understanding why safety is the foundation of everything your body needs to make hormones well, and we're gonna talk about another sneaky hormone called cortisol. Now, I wanna say, six months ago, literally everything I saw on Instagram was about cortisol.

Now I feel like it's more like the nervous system [00:09:00] and, mouth-breathing kids, but that's just my algorithm. I know is a hormone that most of us have heard of. We know it's related to stress. We might even know that it comes from the adrenal glands. But what we don't understand is it's not just always that we're making too much cortisol.

There can be a cortisol dysregulation piece, and cortisol comes from a response in your brain that it is not getting signals of safety. And when your body is focused on making cortisol to help you survive, it is not going to prioritize making estrogen, and specifically progesterone, for conception, fertility, and happy hormones.

And progesterone specifically is incredibly important in balancing out estrogen in that luteal phase, in creating the GABA response that we want for calm, in supporting your thyroid and your metabolism and your gut health, and even your heart health. And so natural progesterone will never be [00:10:00] replaced by progestin, which is the medication form, or even by the bioidentical progesterones.

They do not have the same heart protective and thyroid protective and metabolic protective effects as making your own progesterone. So even though it's easy, easier to take a progesterone supplement or even Vitex, which is supposed to help you make your own progesterone, there is always a need to ask the question, "Why am I not making progesterone in the first place, and what can I do to do that better?"

Going back to the safety piece, your body, your brain is always looking around for danger and for safety and asking the question, "Do I have enough to thrive today or do I need to conserve and survive?" And when your body is getting the signal that there's not enough food on board, especially first thing in the morning, that you're running on caffeine fumes, that you're not getting enough sleep, that you're stressed the heck out twenty-four/seven, and you are [00:11:00] probably moving either too much or too little, your body is going to get the answer that survive is a priority.

And you're going to make cortisol as a priority over everything else. Now, - the sneaky thing about cortisol is that when you are making cortisol, progesterone and cortisol share the same precursor hormone, which is called pregnenolone. I know I'm giving you a ton of terms, but just think of this as a family.

Pregnenolone is the parent and cortisol and progesterone are the kids. Okay? And so when your body is under chronic stress, it routes pregnenolone, the parent, toward cortisol production and away from progesterone. So we have cortisol, the bad kid, getting all-- cortisol's not really the bad kid. We do need cortisol.

But let's just in this scenario, the bad kid's getting all the attention because you're in stress survival mode, and the good girl over here is progesterone. She's not getting any attention because she's being quiet. She's not causing any problems. But [00:12:00] in stress and survival, we're going to route towards the most, the loudest thing, right?

The thing that is causing the most, red flags in the body. And so your body is going to make more cortisol and less progesterone. This is called the pregnenolone steal and cortisol and progesterone also compete for the same receptor on the cell which is a glucocorticoid receptor and when cortisol is chronically elevated, it actually can block progesterone from binding properly to that receptor.

So it really is the bad kid in this situation because it's not only stealing the mom's attention, but it's also, blocking progesterone from getting into the receptors when it needs to. So when we have this chronic cortisol elevation from undereating, skipping breakfast, intense exercise, being stressed in general, all the things that I already mentioned that drive survival in the body over safety, you are going to deprioritize progesterone every single month of the year and you will have symptoms like PMS, mood swings, spotting [00:13:00] before your period, short cycles, irregular cycles, and most of all, just feeling like your hormones are on a hot mess express.

So safety is not just a nice concept. It's a biological requirement for progesterone production. So you can't willpower or supplement, I'm sorry, your way to better progesterone. You have to actually give the body the signals that it needs to know that it is safe so it can prioritize progesterone production and muscle building and weight loss and hair growth and skin integrity over survival and digestion, over survival and just keeping your heart and your lungs alive so that you don't die.

So that is the level of importance that safety in the body carries for your hormones.

Okay, so then let's talk about why progesterone and balanced estrogen are the keys to less PMS, and then we're gonna talk about how we actually get there in practice. Because you understand [00:14:00] that cortisol can be stealing your progesterone if your body is not getting signals of safety, which if you're listening to this podcast, your body is not getting signals of safety if you have these hormone symptoms.

That is truly, an underlying non-negotiable for hormone balance. And so this is not a, "I wonder if it's me," it's this is you if you're having these symptoms. so if you are having these signals in your body of danger versus safety, cortisol is stealing from your progesterone, then we need to understand why you need this progesterone so badly to balance , your PMS symptoms out.

So progesterone is the hormone that is made in the second half of your cycle only. So for people who are wanting to supplement with progesterone Again, it's not going to do the same things as real progesterone, but also you don't need to supplement it all month long, and that can happen too, where people suggest you just supplement it all the time.

It's really only made in the luteal phase for a reason. So progesterone in the brain converts to [00:15:00] another hormone called allopregnanolone and activates GABA. We already went over that a little while ago. And when that happens, when you make the right amount of progesterone, converts to the right amount of allopregnanolone, and activates the right amount of GABA, you feel calm, you feel patient, you can let things go, you love your husband, and you like him.

you're not constantly scanning for threats on high alert and just, like, all over the place with your brain. You can be present, you can be happy, you can be focused, and this is what it feels like in your brain to have enough progesterone. In your body, I already mentioned it supports thyroid function.

It supports sleep, so if you have trouble sleeping in the luteal phase, it's very likely from an inadequate amount of progesterone. It reduces inflammation, which is the cause of a lot of triggers in the body that mean your brain is getting signals of not safety. It counterbalances estrogen, so it helps your body actually push estrogen [00:16:00] out at the right time in your cycle, so it doesn't get out of range and have estrogen dominance, which you've probably heard of because that is a hot term in the hormone balance space.

But estrogen dominance can be from too much estrogen being made, or estrogen not being detoxed well, or just having too much in conjunction to not having enough progesterone. Progesterone also helps maintain the uterine lining properly, so periods are less painful and less heavy. So you really need progesterone to have happy hormone symptoms.

And when we look at estrogen, estrogen is not the enemy. We need estrogen. Actually makes you feel pretty dang good when estrogen is high in the right part of your cycle. but fresh cycling estrogen in the follicular phase is the kind that makes you feel great. The problem is estrogen that doesn't clear, and it's old inflammatory estrogen that's already been metabolized and recirculates and that becomes inflammatory.

So that's when your gut and your liver come into play, and if they are not able to move estrogen out or detox [00:17:00] estrogen well, then you can keep stimulating that system when it shouldn't be stimulated anymore and when progesterone should have taken over. And so when estrogen isn't clearing, progesterone isn't rising well and not adequate, then you get the classic PMS picture.

We've already gone over what those symptoms look like, and you're just not feeling like yourself. So the ratio does actually matter more than the individual numbers, but we want you to have normal estrogen and normal progesterone for optimal function in the body. And A blood test actually gives us incomplete information, and that's why I personally use a Dutch test, which is a hormone metabolite test, a urine test, so we can see not only how are you making these hormones, but how are you detoxing these hormones as well.

And it gives us a full picture of the adrenals because it seems like the cortisol picture probably makes a difference. And so that's why I love the Dutch test so much versus just a random day testing estrogen, progesterone in the blood. It just does not give us the full picture. And so what balance looks [00:18:00] like in your body with estrogen and progesterone is gentle waves, not a hurricane.

It's like the beach on a good, happy day where there are waves, things do change, things are constantly changing, right? But it's smooth, it's peaceful, it's rhythmic, it's something you can deal with. Versus on a stormy day, the waves are all over the place you don't know what to expect and you can't predict them, which is when we have imbalanced hormones.

And so the rage, depression, anxiety, complete personality shift, all those things can happen when there's a hurricane instead of a happy day at the beach. So Why would your body not feel safe outside of obviously emotional stress? But even, most of us can handle quite a bit of emotional stress, and so what are some of the other factors that would tell your brain over and over again that things are not safe?

number one is minerals, and minerals have to be balanced and enough in the body to be able to make and detox your hormones well. This is very [00:19:00] underrated. This is really not looked at most of the time, absolutely not by a typical OB doctor and even by functional doctors. Most of the time they're really not looking at minerals and not in context.

They might do some blood work for nutrients in the blood, but your body is going to keep nutrients in the blood balanced as long as humanly possible to keep you alive. that's why I like to look at an HTMA, a hair tissue mineral test, because it actually looks at patterns of stress in the body and how your body is managing minerals and burning minerals in stress so that we can see where it really needs to be replenished.

So this piece is really underrated, and it is something that I always look at in coaching. And your body cannot make hormones well, cannot detox hormones well, cannot regulate the nervous system, cannot produce energy, energy, that would be nice to have, right, without adequate minerals. So minerals are the spark plugs.

Everything else is the engine. So a perfect diet and supplements doesn't matter if the minerals aren't there to run the biochemical reactions in your body. So the three most critical for [00:20:00] PMS, and these do not exist without each other. They have to be in balance with each other. They have to be, added in primarily with food, in good ratios with each other and knowing what's already happening in your body.

So magnesium is number one. Most of us know we need magnesium and that we're probably depleted and might be taking magnesium. But did you know that if you don't have enough sodium and potassium, you actually are not going to use your magnesium very well, and over time, magnesium can deplete your sodium and potassium further?

Probably not. That happens a lot of the time. - A lot of us know we need to take magnesium, but we don't pay attention to sodium and potassium, or we take it in kind of like this general kitchen sink electrolyte supplement. So magnesium is directly involved in over 300 enzyme reactions in the body, including the ones that regulate cortisol, support GABA production, and help the liver process estrogen.

If any of that sounds familiar, it absolutely should. If any of that doesn't sound familiar- Rewind, start again, and come back to this point, and it will sound familiar. [00:21:00] So magnesium deficiency is one of the most consistent findings in women with PMS. Low magnesium means higher cortisol reactivity, worse sleep, more anxiety, more cramping, more moodiness, being...

And you are mostly, most likely depleted. stress burns through magnesium faster than almost any other nutrient. On a hair tissue mineral test, I typically see a high burn rate of magnesium. Sometimes you're also depleted, and so you really aren't even burning any magnesium because you've burned through all of your magnesium.

But this is really important to know whether or not that's you, and then sometimes we supplement topically, and sometimes we supplement orally based on, and like the, and making sure that the form is right for you too, based on your symptoms and your mineral patterns. Another super important mineral is sodium We have villainized sodium a lot because it can be the wrong types of sodium, like MSG, processed sodium, super processed table salt can not be super helpful for the body.

But it actually has been villainized a lot more than it should be [00:22:00] because sodium is honestly chronically under-consumed by women who avoid processed food. It sounds counterintuitive, but it really does happen. So sodium supports adrenal function, cortisol, blood pressure regulation, and the body's ability to retain and use other minerals.

So low sodium is a sign of adrenal depletion, and most of the time we do see that on an HTMA hair test. really, it would not show up in your body, in your blood until you are very, very sick in the hospital because low sodium in the blood is a neurological emergency. And we see it on a hair test much, much sooner when your body is depleted, you've been in a stress state, but we haven't gotten to an emergency yet.

Potassium is the other mineral that I wanna talk about. These three almost always need support in the women that I work with. So potassium works with sodium to regulate what goes in and out of the cells. So there's a sodium potassium pump. They're kinda like the gatekeepers letting things into the cell, letting things out of the cell.

And when-- the things that I'm talking about [00:23:00] are, hormones like thyroid hormone. They are, things like glucose that you need for energy in the cell. it's essentially the gatekeeper for cellular function. So when potassium is low, hormones cannot get into the cells properly. So when potassium is low at a cellular level...

Again, in the blood it's an emergency. At a cellular level, it is still something that needs to be supported, but it's not going to cause you to die right away, or have your heart start beating weird or something like that. When potassium is low in the blood, that would happen. So when potassium is low in the cells, hormones cannot get into the cells properly even if the levels in the blood look fine.

And so that's really tricky when you have, adequate insulin levels in the blood and glucose levels, but you're not getting enough in the cell or adequate thyroid levels in the blood, but they're not getting into the cell. And so low potassium contributes to fatigue and the inability to handle stress without feeling overwhelmed.

These things are so key, not only for making hormones well, but also for detoxing hormones well, but really for energy especially. And so mineral [00:24:00] deficiency is almost every time we see this in this kind of picture with PMS because stress depletes minerals faster than food replenishes them. And if you've ever been on birth control, birth control depletes zinc and B vitamins as well as these minerals.

Pregnancies and breastfeeding burn a ton of minerals, and our food supply is just less mineral dense than it was any time in the past. When we know this and we really focus on replenishing minerals on a daily basis, and especially in pregnancy, and especially postpartum, and especially in stress, then this is where we can get ahead of it.

But otherwise, you're probably behind if it's not something that you have paid attention to before. So minerals are really important, and you really are not going to be able to have the benefits of hormones being balanced in the body without minerals. Another huge stressor in the body that causes danger signals, that causes cortisol to be out of whack is blood sugar balance.

So blood sugar is a [00:25:00] huge trigger, and almost every woman that I work with also needs help with their blood sugar. This has nothing to do with being diabetic. It has everything to do with being too busy to pay attention to what you're eating consistently and to be paying attention to balanced macronutrients as well as eating habits that really can make a huge difference for blood sugar.

So when blood sugar drops from skipping a meal, eating too little, having too much caffeine with your meals or without a meal, and Eating too many refined carbs without protein, then you release cortisol to raise blood sugar back up. This is a true red flag emergency in the body when blood sugar drops too low, because you actually can die from that.

And so your body is going to turn on the emergency response, crank out some cortisol, save your life, and get back to business, which is beautiful and so needed, and it should not be happening multiple times in a day or week. And when it does, your body is especially getting signals that things are not safe and that absolutely not a good time to make progesterone when blood sugar is an issue.

And so [00:26:00] this is a survival mechanism and another sign that your body is not going to be prioritizing fertility. So the morning window is the most critical. If you wake up and you don't eat within 30 to 60 minutes of waking up, or if you drink coffee before food, or you have, a smoothie or, a bar for breakfast, something super small, then your blood sugar is already going to start this, spike and drop pattern before the day even really starts, and your cortisol has already taken off before you've done anything stressful.

So you can start the day in low-grade stress if you are eating the wrong breakfast and you are staying inconsistent with your food throughout the day. And especially in the luteal phase, blood sugar is actually even more of a factor because you have a little bit more insulin resistance in the luteal phase, and so you need to be eating the right things at the right times to keep your blood sugar balanced so you don't have those cortisol spikes, and then your body can feel safe enough to keep your hormones balanced and to make enough progesterone your whole luteal phase for your mood to stay stable.

So insulin and [00:27:00] serotonin also have a connection. Your body will drive tryptophan, which is another factor in mood and sleep and all the things, but tryptophan into the brain through an insulin spike. So carbohydrates spike your insulin, and then you crave more carbs before your period, so your brain is trying to make more serotonin.

So then it drives tryptophan into the brain to make serotonin. And so meeting that craving with nutrient-dense carbs rather than refined sugar actually gives your brain what it needs to stay more stable. and this is a piece of blood sugar stability, but also neurotransmitter stability, and it's just so helpful to know that you need consistency to balance your blood sugar.

You need to eat enough. You need to eat protein and fat and carbohydrates together, and you can't skip meals, especially in the luteal phase, but especially breakfast in your life in general. And I do have a place for you to start with this, and I have a breakfast guide, which is a mini podcast course that we will put [00:28:00] in the show notes.

It's just my mini breakfast course, and this will tell you exactly what to eat for breakfast to set you up for blood sugar stability and stress stability throughout the day. And then the very last thing that I want to speak to with PMS and the root cause of PMS is consistency versus trends. So all of the things that I have laid out, even though I've used, quite a few science-y words, I've thrown out quite a few different, body processes and things like that, it all comes down to the foundation of creating more safety in the body, and that is something you can only do over time and with consistency.

You cannot do this with a happy hormone supplement. You cannot do this by fasting your way out of it. You cannot do this through a diet trend. You cannot do this through, blue light blocking, or through cold plunging, or through exercising a certain way. You have to have the foundations of stability in your nutrients, consistent nutrients coming in, supporting mineral [00:29:00] replenishment, and understanding what your patterns are in your body of estrogen and progesterone, what's actually happening, where your minerals are depleted, and where your emotional stressors are driving this whole show, so that not only what your baselines are, what your triggering factors are, but how you can create safety in your personal body over time.

And then you have to stay consistent. Because I know you've tried things before. The difference with what I do in coaching and the difference with a foundational plan of safety and consistency is that we're not looking for a quick fix. We're actually looking for something that's going to turn these stress signals around long-term so that your body is consistently getting signals of safety more than it's getting signals of danger, and we're actually filling up your cup with minerals, with stability, with the ability to make enough progesterone long-term, so you can actually bank that progesterone and have better symptoms through perimenopause and menopause and down the road when you are [00:30:00] in that phase that is so common to be depleted.

And so hormones don't change quickly. They change slowly. It takes a few full hormone cycles to show meaningful change, which means when you take a supplement and you only take it for three weeks or you take it for a month and you don't see results, it's not necessarily because that supplement isn't working, but also you can almost really not out-supplement a stressful lifestyle and blood sugars being imbalanced and minerals being imbalanced.

You have to have the foundations of stability in your body and in your lifestyle, and getting sunlight and getting good sleep, and all of those things that we will prioritize for you in coaching so that you can have this long-term change that creates cycles that stay good. And so you, even when you start the Happy Hormone supplement and it kinda works and then it doesn't really work anymore and then you stop it, it's not the same when you are creating the stability and consistency in your body because your body is able to heal and balance and prioritize fertility when it [00:31:00] has what it needs.

So I just want you to really take away that even though this can be, feel complicated, it really does not have to be complicated. It can be simple. And the women that I work with are busy, they're high achievers, they're moms, they're doing all the things, and they can still follow a simple plan that works with their lifestyle and works for them, and they can see consistent big results.

And so if that's for you, you can email me, hello@leishadrews.com, and just say, "I'm interested in coaching," or you can book a call in the show notes and we'll talk about it. We'll see if it's for you. I'll come up with a personalized plan for you based on your body, your symptoms, and give you a clear plan of which labs and which coaching support would be most beneficial for you and why, and then you can decide if that's for you.

So I just wanna invite you to those things, and I also wanna invite you to send this episode to a friend if you haven't already because every woman should understand their body in such a deeper way and understand that if they have [00:32:00] PMS mood swings, it is not just in their heads. It's really not, and they're not stuck there.

And so just because it's not in their heads doesn't mean that's bad news. That means there's good news. There are functional foundational things that we can do to change it. And so you are not stuck in PMS. I would just invite you to take a step forward, whether that's listening to more podcast episodes, whether that's grabbing the breakfast mini podcast, whether that's - booking a call for coaching.

Do something to move yourself forward today that isn't a fad, that isn't an ad on Instagram, that isn't something that's just going to keep you in this pattern of, trying random things and not getting better, but something that's actually going to move the needle for your health long term. All right.

See you girls next week