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Speaker 1: I'm t T and I'm Zakiyah and this is Dope Labs.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore

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Speaker 1: science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.

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Speaker 2: Okay, t T.

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Speaker 1: Think back, how many times have you heard somebody say, Oh,

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Speaker 1: she's probably just on her period?

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Speaker 2: Like that explains everything.

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Speaker 3: Too many times? And I hate it. I really hate it, because, yeah, periods.

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Speaker 3: People use periods as an excuse for every mood, every craving,

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Speaker 3: and every decision. And folks say things like, oh, a

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Speaker 3: woman shouldn't be president because she has the nuclear codes

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Speaker 3: and she was star war and all.

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Speaker 2: These things like that. It's very annoying to me. Hey

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Speaker 2: not on my watch.

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Speaker 1: What's wild about all of that is that a lot

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Speaker 1: of people never really learned the full picture.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: I think probably middle school is when we get the basics.

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Speaker 1: You know, bleeding cramps, paths, and champs. That's it, that's it, period.

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Speaker 1: But what we don't learn is how cycles affect your

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Speaker 1: energy and your focus and even sometimes the way your

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Speaker 1: brain works.

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Speaker 3: I mean, so, whether you have a cycle, or you

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Speaker 3: know someone that does, or just want to understand the

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Speaker 3: science behind it all, this episode is for you.

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Speaker 2: So let's jump into the recitation. What do we know?

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Speaker 1: Well, I know that most people with the uterus have periods,

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Speaker 1: and I don't care what you say, periods.

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Speaker 2: Yes, amen, amen, amen.

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Speaker 1: And we know that there's a cycle that is about

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Speaker 1: a month and that our hormone levels fluctuate. We also

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Speaker 1: know that a lot of people don't know what's going

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Speaker 1: on at the chemical level or molecular lesson.

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Speaker 2: This is with I am people. I have no clue. Okay, well,

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Speaker 2: then what do we want to know?

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Speaker 1: I want to know a lot of things. I want

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Speaker 1: to know one why it's so hard for folks to

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Speaker 1: talk about periods. You would think that with so many

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Speaker 1: people who have periods every single month, that this would

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Speaker 1: be something that we would all feel comfortable with.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but we still had in tampons. That's the problem.

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Speaker 2: And I don't know why.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's like one end of the extreme or

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Speaker 1: the other we don't talk about periods at all, or

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Speaker 1: people like free bleeding, let it be all over your pants.

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Speaker 2: No, I think there's something. Okay, there is a middle ground.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, I want to see more there, more clustering there.

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Speaker 3: I want to know the hormones that are at play

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Speaker 3: the key. I know you know bodily things are your wheelhouse,

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Speaker 3: but we've talked about it, so I won't say I

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Speaker 3: don't understand at all, because you have trained me up, friend,

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Speaker 3: But I just want to understand more about the fluctuations

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Speaker 3: and like how all of this works.

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Speaker 1: And I think even just knowing generally what the hormones

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Speaker 1: are doesn't answer the question about how they are regulated

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Speaker 1: and how that's linked to like PMS and other menstrual conditions.

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Speaker 2: So I I want to know.

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Speaker 3: See all of those puzzle pieces together, yes, and I

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Speaker 3: want to know if there's anything that we can do

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Speaker 3: to have these periods go go easy on us, go.

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Speaker 2: Is sinking? Where's the deal? So we don't have any

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Speaker 2: more of that, let's jump into the recitation.

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Speaker 1: We brought in doctor Sarah Hill. She's a researcher who

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Speaker 1: spent years studying the science of periods and hormones, and

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Speaker 1: she's here to give us the real story.

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Speaker 4: I'm doctor Sarah Hill, and I'm a research psychologist and

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Speaker 4: author of This is Your Brain on birth control and

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Speaker 4: my new book, The Period Brain.

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Speaker 3: I loved the way the books started, and so that's

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Speaker 3: where I want our conversation is start with addressing the

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Speaker 3: elephant in the room and asking you, why does talking

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Speaker 3: about our periods make us so uncomfortable.

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Speaker 4: I think that for a really long time, women were

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Speaker 4: made to feel like lesser, like sort of inferior versions

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Speaker 4: of men because we have hormone cycle. And so I

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Speaker 4: think it makes everybody get a little bit queasy if

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Speaker 4: we start talking too much about the way that women's

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Speaker 4: hormones can affect the way that they experience the world,

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Speaker 4: just because it feels like something that could be used

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Speaker 4: against us.

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Speaker 5: And you know, and there's and I understand that fear.

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Speaker 4: I mean, it's like, this is a history of women, right,

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Speaker 4: It's like anytime we talk about anything that makes us

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Speaker 4: different from men, that can be turned on its head.

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Speaker 4: But the truth of the matter is that there's no

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Speaker 4: truth to that being a sign of weakness or problematic.

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Speaker 4: So even though all of us have been led to

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Speaker 4: believe that the fact that women have two primary sex hormones,

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Speaker 4: estrogen and progesterone instead of one like testosterone, that there's

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Speaker 4: something wrong with that, right, and that that means that

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Speaker 4: you're flaky and you can't be depended on because you know,

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Speaker 4: you're just whimsical and capricious. That's just simply not true.

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Speaker 4: It's like our hormones cycle, and so they're cyclical, but

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Speaker 4: they're not unpredictable. And one thing that I always tell

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Speaker 4: people is like, if you tell me a woman's age,

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Speaker 4: and you tell me I made the first day of

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Speaker 4: her last menstrual cycle, I can tell you with an

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Speaker 4: alarming degree of certainty what's happening with her sex hormones, right,

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Speaker 4: And the same isn't true for men because men's hormone,

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Speaker 4: their primary sex hormone, testosterone, is actually a little bit capricious,

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Speaker 4: and it responds to anything like if a man sees

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Speaker 4: a beautiful woman, his testosterone goes up. If he loses

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Speaker 4: an argument with a friend, or he loses a competition,

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Speaker 4: his testosterone goes down. If his favorite sports team wins.

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Speaker 5: It goes up.

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Speaker 4: If his favorite sports team loses, it goes down. And

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Speaker 4: there's even been research showing that men's testosterone changes if

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Speaker 4: they see a gun, right, So if men see a gun,

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Speaker 4: their tesosterone goes up. I mean, so it's like, whose

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Speaker 4: hormone is flighty and capricious?

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Speaker 5: Now?

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Speaker 4: And so I think that there's a tendency to get

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Speaker 4: a little uncomfortable about these things. But I think that

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Speaker 4: we need to stop stigmatizing these conversations because so many

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Speaker 4: women aren't ever taught anything about what they're you know,

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Speaker 4: they're like, oh, okay, you can get a period, and

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Speaker 4: you know, here's some you know, menstrual products, and then

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Speaker 4: it's just like right, you know, that's the end of

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Speaker 4: the conversation. But there's no larger conversation about, Okay, like

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Speaker 4: why is it that we have these cycles? What do

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Speaker 4: the changes in hormones do in terms of changing the

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Speaker 4: way that we think and feel, experience the world our

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Speaker 4: sexual desire or appetites or calorie needs, Like we're not

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Speaker 4: taught at any of that. Like I had to get

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Speaker 4: a PhD To learn that stuff, you know, and it

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Speaker 4: was just crazy. You know, you shouldn't have to go

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Speaker 4: to grad school to learn your body.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Hill, I want to pause and just stop for

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Speaker 1: a moment to talk about that complexity right now. What

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Speaker 1: you just said is recyclical, and that's been used against

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Speaker 1: us in mainstream media and in conversation around women, because

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Speaker 1: when I was thinking about it as you were talking,

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Speaker 1: everything we rely on is cyclical, the day and night

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Speaker 1: cyclical cyclical, all the calendar cyclical.

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Speaker 5: Okay, also cyclical.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, that's not reacting, like right, So I'm just saying,

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Speaker 1: let's all pay attention and reading is fundamental when we

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Speaker 1: think about the complexity in how the sexes are different.

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Speaker 1: I think in science and research, sometimes that's been flatten

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Speaker 1: and like people don't look at those differences. I want

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Speaker 1: you to talk a little bit about how different industries,

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Speaker 1: particularly the medical industry, feed into that or why they

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Speaker 1: may even want it to be that way.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, there is this tendency and people kind of talk

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Speaker 4: about it with medicine. You know, you hear about this

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Speaker 4: term like bikini medicine, which is just this idea that

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Speaker 4: doctors assume that men and women are essentially interchangeable except

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Speaker 4: for the parts of the body that can be covered

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Speaker 4: by a bikini. Right, And so it's this idea that

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Speaker 4: women's hearts and men's hearts are the same, women's lungs

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Speaker 4: and men's lungs are the same, women's brains and men's

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Speaker 4: brains are the same, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

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Speaker 4: But there's a growing body of research in all of

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Speaker 4: these different fields of science that support the idea that

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Speaker 4: this is not true, right, and that there's sex differentiation

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Speaker 4: in everything is you know, even these little tiny details

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Speaker 4: of our body, like the way that our bodies like

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Speaker 4: to deal with bacteria.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 4: Women's immune systems tend to deal with bacterial threats using

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Speaker 4: ones of mechanisms. Men's bodies tend to deal with bacterial

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Speaker 4: threats using a different set of mechanisms, right. And the

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Speaker 4: reason that this is the case is just that women's

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Speaker 4: bodies are wired for pregnancy and reproduction. And this is

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Speaker 4: true whether we want to have babies or not. It's

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Speaker 4: like our bodies were built for that. And what that

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Speaker 4: means is that our body had to come up with

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Speaker 4: a whole bunch of workarounds from everything from our circulatory

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Speaker 4: system tor metabolism to our immune system to be able

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Speaker 4: to support another human being living inside of our body,

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Speaker 4: you know, alien type form, you know, where it's like

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Speaker 4: we had to our body had to figure out what

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Speaker 4: to do with all that, and that's created for all

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Speaker 4: of these different systems workarounds that they've had to do.

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Speaker 4: And part of the sort of legacy of all of

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Speaker 4: that is that you get sex differentiation in all of

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Speaker 4: these different types of systems. And unfortunately this is inconvenient

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Speaker 4: for science, right because scientists would like to just be

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Speaker 4: able to collect data on a handful of people, right,

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Speaker 4: Men a little bit, some men's and women no different

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Speaker 4: and not have to worry about testing for sex different right,

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Speaker 4: because that means that they have to if they're going

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Speaker 4: to test for sex differences, they have to collect twice

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Speaker 4: as much data. And then with women, because they have

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Speaker 4: cycling hormones, they've got to deal with that. I think

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Speaker 4: it was like nineteen ninety three when the National Institutes

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Speaker 4: of Health required science researchers to include women in biomedical research.

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Speaker 4: And the way that researchers handled that wasn't by this

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Speaker 4: is wonderful opportunity to learn about women. Like let's collect

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Speaker 4: data on equal numbers of men and women and look

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Speaker 4: for sex differentiation. And since women have these cycling hormones,

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Speaker 4: let's measure them at different cycle phases to see whether

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Speaker 4: they respond to treatment differently depending on what's going on

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Speaker 4: with their hormones. No, Instead, what scientists said, like, oh, shoot, okay,

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Speaker 4: we have to include women in research, and they've got

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Speaker 4: these pesky hormones that cycle. So here's an idea. Let's

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Speaker 4: just include some women in our research, right, not enough

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Speaker 4: to actually test for sex differences. And for studying humans,

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Speaker 4: let's only study them when hormones are really low, so

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Speaker 4: in the early phases of the menstrual cycle. So that

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Speaker 4: way we don't have to worry about their hormones interfering

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Speaker 4: with the results.

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Speaker 2: Which is so crazy, because it's crazy, it's.

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Speaker 5: Crazy, I know, it's so a few days.

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Speaker 4: So they study women in this period of five days,

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Speaker 4: you know, and in non human animals. At anytime there's

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Speaker 4: a like a medical intervention that's new, like a new

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Speaker 4: drug or a new therapy or new treatment, it always

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Speaker 4: has to go through this pre clinical process first, where

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Speaker 4: it's tested usually on mice and rats. And the way

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Speaker 4: that they do this pre clinical work to include females,

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Speaker 4: what they do to manage their hormonal variation is that

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Speaker 4: they just pull their ovaries out, and so they're testing

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Speaker 4: on females with no sex hormones. And so they're like,

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Speaker 4: look at us, we're including females and research without recognizing

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Speaker 4: the fact that women are inherently hormonal, right, It's like

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Speaker 4: we are, like our hormones are part of who we are,

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Speaker 4: and as a hormone cycle that changes the way that

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Speaker 4: every thing acts in the body, and then then just

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Speaker 4: ignoring it, removing that is the source of things.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 4: So it allows us to include women as research subjects

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Speaker 4: in science, but it doesn't teach us anything about women

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Speaker 4: because we're studying them in this.

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Speaker 5: Little tiny corner of their.

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Speaker 4: Cycle when hormones are low, and we know very little

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Speaker 4: about them when they're in states when hormones are high.

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Speaker 3: Let's talk about hormones because that is that is the

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Speaker 3: piaced resistance, and this whole thing is our hormones. Can

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Speaker 3: you explain the period cycle from start to finish because

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Speaker 3: I feel like I just learned what the lutele phase

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Speaker 3: was like six months ago on TikTok, right, and somebody

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Speaker 3: told me about it, and I was like, do we

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Speaker 3: all have that?

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Speaker 5: Yeah? That's so funny, Like is it a just.

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Speaker 3: I was like, I've never heard of this, So can

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Speaker 3: you tell us what's happening hormonally through those different stages

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Speaker 3: and talk about estrogen versus progestion.

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Speaker 4: Absolutely, absolutely the menstrual cycle, Like the day you get

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Speaker 4: your period is the first day of your cycle, and

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Speaker 4: when you get your period, hormone levels are at their

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Speaker 4: lowest in the cycle. So even though women are oftentimes

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Speaker 4: given a hard time about being.

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Speaker 5: Hormonal, you know when they're on their period.

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Speaker 4: This is actually when we release hormonal and when the

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Speaker 4: brain notices that hormone levels are low, it will stimulate

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Speaker 4: the ovaries through the pituitary land. So it'll tell the

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Speaker 4: pituitary gland, stimulate the ovaries and let's start some egg development,

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Speaker 4: because it knows that if hormone levels are low, it

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Speaker 4: means that they're not pregnant and it's time to start

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Speaker 4: maturing egg follicles, so that way they can prepare for ovulation.

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Speaker 4: And the ovaries then will start maturing egg follicles. And

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Speaker 4: as these follicles begin to develop, they actually start releasing estrogen,

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Speaker 4: and so this is one of the primary ways that

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Speaker 4: the female body produces estrogen or estrodile from egg development.

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Speaker 4: So after a few days of these egg follicles starting

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Speaker 4: to mature, one will take over. It becomes it's known

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Speaker 4: as the dominant follicle, which ever one is like growing

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Speaker 4: the fastest and most robust. It's sort of the chosen one,

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Speaker 4: and then it continues to grow. The others dissolve back

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Speaker 4: into the body. And this is going to be the

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Speaker 4: egg that's going to be released at ovulation. Right now,

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Speaker 4: this egg is maturing and maturing and maturing. Estrogen levels

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Speaker 4: are rising and rising and rising, and then you're getting

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Speaker 4: to the period of ovulation. And ovulation is of course

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Speaker 4: when an egg is released, and during this time estrogen

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Speaker 4: levels are super high. So estrogen levels peak and you ovulate,

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Speaker 4: and the period about five days prior to ovulation and

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Speaker 4: then within twenty four hours of ovulation itself, this is

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Speaker 4: the period in the cycle that's known as the fertile window,

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Speaker 4: and this is when sex can lead to conception. And

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Speaker 4: so this is a time when women's bodies are very

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Speaker 4: much oriented towards all things attraction and sex. Right, so,

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Speaker 4: estrogen we can think about these first fourteen days of

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Speaker 4: the cycle as being all about getting all of the

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Speaker 4: pieces in place for sex to lead to conception. I mean,

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Speaker 4: it's all oriented toward attraction and sex. And so women

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Speaker 4: tend to feel sexier in this estrogenic phase of the cycle.

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Speaker 4: They tend to have more sex, they sound sexier, they

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Speaker 4: smell sexier, they move sexier. They're better able to discriminate

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Speaker 4: between high and low quality mates because their sensory neurons

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Speaker 4: are super sensitive to these fine tune differences between men.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so the first day of your period is day one,

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Speaker 3: and your hormones are at their lowest. Then your body

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Speaker 3: starts prepping for possible pregnancy, whether you want it or not,

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Speaker 3: and things start to get a little sexy. That's the

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Speaker 3: first fourteen days. What about the rest of the month.

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Speaker 4: Now, that empty egg follicle actually becomes a temporary endocrine

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Speaker 4: structure that lasts about two weeks, and it releases women's

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Speaker 4: second primary sex hormone, which is progesterone. This is that

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Speaker 4: luteal phase, right, that so few people know about. And

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Speaker 4: this is the last two weeks of your cycle before

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Speaker 4: your next period begins, And this is your body is

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Speaker 4: actually shifting during this time from a state where you

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Speaker 4: were optimized for sex and attraction, and it's shifting you

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Speaker 4: into a state that is optimized for implantation of an

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Speaker 4: embryo and pregnancy.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 4: And so these are two totally different sets of activities.

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Speaker 4: The things that your body needs to do to attract

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Speaker 4: a mate are very different than the things that your

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Speaker 4: body needs to do to maintain a pregnancy. And that's

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Speaker 4: why we have two primary sex hormones instead of one

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Speaker 4: is that our bodies have to do two things to reproduce,

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Speaker 4: and the result of these hormonal changes there again, they're

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Speaker 4: sort of orienting you toward this goal that has to

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Speaker 4: do with the reproductive process. And so it's generally instead

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Speaker 4: of being a time when women experience increase sexual desire

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Speaker 4: and they're feeling really sexy, instead women feel not sexy.

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Speaker 4: Their libido tends to decrease, and any sex they have

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Speaker 4: is less about and that they desire tends to be

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Speaker 4: less about a need to like scratch a sexual itch,

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Speaker 4: and tends to be more about like the need to connect.

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Speaker 4: So the meaning of sex changes because this is a

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Speaker 4: period in the cycle when sex cannot lead to conception.

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Speaker 4: I mean, you can't get pregnant from sex you have

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Speaker 4: during the last two weeks of the cycle, and so

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Speaker 4: it serves a totally different function during that time than

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Speaker 4: it does during the first. And it's also a time

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Speaker 4: when our because our body is remodeling itself and getting

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Speaker 4: ready for the possibility of pregnancy, our metabolism increases, our

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Speaker 4: calorie needs increase during the second two weeks of the cycle,

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Speaker 4: and of course we aren't ever told about that, and

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Speaker 4: so women feel really hungry. No, no, So we feel

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Speaker 4: hungry and then we're like, why am I so hungry?

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Speaker 4: And then we develop this bad relationship with ourselves where

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Speaker 4: we think that we have no self control because you know,

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Speaker 4: look at me, and you know eating all my sons

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Speaker 4: Halloween candy and just a hypothetical example gives me, James,

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Speaker 4: it's me, it was me. And as we have these

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Speaker 4: changes where our calorie needs increase, our respiration rate increases,

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Speaker 4: our heart rate increases, we become more sensitive to threat detection.

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Speaker 4: So any sign that there might be something wrong with

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Speaker 4: the relationship that we have, either with our extended village

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Speaker 4: or with our partners become more noticeable and salient to us,

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Speaker 4: because again, we're all about trying to protect ourselves and

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Speaker 4: protect the possibility of an embryo, and so we're vulnerable

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Speaker 4: to threats, and our the threat detection areas of our

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Speaker 4: brain become more interconnected with other areas of our brain

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Speaker 4: and make it more aware of threats. We tend to

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Speaker 4: be more inward facing. We don't want as much stimulation

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Speaker 4: because our body is doing a lot of work and

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Speaker 4: it's metabolically expensive. We're sleepier, and so there's this whole shift.

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Speaker 4: You know, this whole shift is our bodies preparing for

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Speaker 4: the possibility of implantation and pregnancy. And the reason that

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Speaker 4: so many women feel so terrible during the last two

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Speaker 4: weeks of the cycle is because a we're never told

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Speaker 4: about any of this, right, so we have no idea

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Speaker 4: what's going on, and it's like, I just feel really sensitive,

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Speaker 4: and then we blow up at our partner, right because

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Speaker 4: we're feeling like everything is a problem because it seems

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Speaker 4: like a threat because we're not told, like, hey, your

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Speaker 4: brain is literally more interconnected with the threat areas, and

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Speaker 4: just so you know, you'd be alarm bells might be

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Speaker 4: sounding more easily than they do in different parts of

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Speaker 4: the cycle, and having awareness of that is like so

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Speaker 4: helpful in terms of communicating within a relationship.

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Speaker 2: We've been grading ourselves against the wrong rubric.

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Speaker 5: You said it perfectly, and.

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Speaker 1: So then we're constantly like, why am I failing? Why

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Speaker 1: am I failing? I'm curious if you could talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit more about when there are differences in how

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Speaker 1: your cycle and hormones behave, particularly like with PCOS.

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Speaker 4: If you're somebody who has things like PCOS, it means

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Speaker 4: so generally women with pcos have high levels of androgens,

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Speaker 4: so they have higher levels of testosterone than women who

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Speaker 4: do not, and this can interfere with the obvia and so

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Speaker 4: if you're not ovulating again, ovulation is the primary way

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Speaker 4: that our body produces hormones, and so that generally can

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Speaker 4: lead to erratic hormonal patterns. And so, for example, some

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Speaker 4: women with PCOS, their body will start to stimulate egg

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Speaker 4: follicles like preparing, and I think that's part of how

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Speaker 4: the name PCOS right, it's the polycystic ovarian, So it's

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Speaker 4: like you're creating these little egg follicles that are starting

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Speaker 4: to simulate. Nothing ever, really in these contexts comes out

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Speaker 4: to fruition, and so you get estrogen. But then because

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Speaker 4: an egg never matures and is released, you don't get progesterone.

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Speaker 4: And having an imbalance of your hormones in this way

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Speaker 4: can lead people to feel kind of awful because even

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Speaker 4: though estrogen is a lot of fun and short little

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Speaker 4: bursts and it makes women feel sexy and alive and yes,

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Speaker 4: Lara Bryden, who's a naturopathic doctor, she described it best

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Speaker 4: where she said, it's like that eccentric friend of yours

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Speaker 4: who's like so much fun for like two days or

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Speaker 4: like a week, but then afterward you're just like, enough.

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Speaker 2: Yes, we don't want to keep the party going, we

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Speaker 2: need to take a nap.

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Speaker 5: It's like that's enough.

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Speaker 3: No, I don't want to watch the sun rise. No,

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Speaker 3: I don't want to lay in the grass. Can we please?

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Speaker 1: That's because I asked TT to stay up late and

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Speaker 1: watch the sun rise so we couldn't see it.

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Speaker 2: Oh there was a building glow.

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Speaker 5: No. No, oh, my gosh, that's so funny.

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Speaker 3: You touched on PMS a little bit, which you know

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Speaker 3: occurs in the two weeks before we start our period.

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Speaker 3: But not all PMS is created equal. I feel like,

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Speaker 3: as I age, it's agent Okay, my PMS is.

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Speaker 2: An old, older, angry lady.

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Speaker 3: Now can you talk to us about pre menstrual syndrome

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Speaker 3: or PMS.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so, PMS, it turns out, is really nothing more

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Speaker 4: than a catch all category that has been created for

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Speaker 4: experiences that women have in the luteal phase, some of

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Speaker 4: which are very normal. Right, So for example, being hungry,

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Speaker 4: you know, especially if you're not if you're being told, oh, well,

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Speaker 4: you need to eat two thousand calories of the day

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Speaker 4: without realizing that in the luteal phase, you might need

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Speaker 4: twenty two hundred calories a day. So some of it

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Speaker 4: is just things that we're experiencing because we've been given

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Speaker 4: bad advice or as you said, Zakia loved the idea

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Speaker 4: being graded on the wrong rubric. Some of it is

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Speaker 4: those experiences. Others are things that are happening on purpose,

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Speaker 4: but we haven't been given a language for so for example,

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Speaker 4: having the downshift in libido, or having a downshift in energy,

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Speaker 4: or having increased threat detection ability, so having what can

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Speaker 4: turn into anxiety. So some of that stuff is stuff

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Speaker 4: that's happening on purpose. Some of it is stuff that

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Speaker 4: is going sideways because we're great at using the wrong

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Speaker 4: rubric for our bodies and so we're creating disorder. And

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Speaker 4: then some of it is actual problems that we're having

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Speaker 4: because we're really sensitive to the hormonal changes.

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Speaker 5: So PMS sort of run of the mill.

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Speaker 4: PMS covers about everything, and in fact, there was a

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Speaker 4: research review that was done talking about the symptoms of

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Speaker 4: PMS and they noted that there's been more than eighty

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Speaker 4: five different symptoms.

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Speaker 2: Okay, if you're breathing, you have pmists.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well exactly, it's like it's like, I mean, the

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Speaker 4: idea that these experiences that we have and the reason

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Speaker 4: the second half of the cycle is the one that

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Speaker 4: women get the hardest hit on in terms of these

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Speaker 4: hormonal sensitivities is because the changes that happen in the

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Speaker 4: second half of the cycle are just ginormous relative to

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Speaker 4: what's going on in the first half. Progesterone actually rises

436
00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:32,040
Speaker 4: and falls at levels that are ten times higher than

437
00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:35,040
Speaker 4: that of estrogen, and so that takes a lot of

438
00:22:35,119 --> 00:22:37,800
Speaker 4: dexterity on the part of the cells in our body

439
00:22:38,160 --> 00:22:40,679
Speaker 4: to be able to quickly adapt, because the body is

440
00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:43,879
Speaker 4: sensitive to sex hormones and as they change, they have

441
00:22:43,920 --> 00:22:46,720
Speaker 4: to change what they're doing to adjust to Okay, is

442
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:48,280
Speaker 4: there a lot of hormone here or is there not

443
00:22:48,359 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 4: a lot of hormone here? And so you'll have receptors

444
00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:53,439
Speaker 4: of your cells up regulate and down regulate depending on

445
00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:57,280
Speaker 4: how much there is. And unfortunately, we live in an

446
00:22:57,359 --> 00:23:00,600
Speaker 4: environment where people don't have a lot of resilience to

447
00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:04,800
Speaker 4: hormonal changes just because things like inflammation and stress and

448
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 4: the inflammation that it tends to create also erode at

449
00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:12,600
Speaker 4: our cellular plasticity, and this is stuff that can make

450
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:16,240
Speaker 4: our experiences across the cycle worse, right, And so we

451
00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:18,720
Speaker 4: do tend to see that people who are in better

452
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:21,240
Speaker 4: health in general, so who do things like have a

453
00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:23,919
Speaker 4: community of people that they can help rely on for

454
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:28,040
Speaker 4: stress management, who eat whole foods, get enough sunlight, get

455
00:23:28,160 --> 00:23:31,560
Speaker 4: enough sleep, get regular exercise, they tend to have smoother

456
00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:35,240
Speaker 4: experiences across the cycle than people who don't and who

457
00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:38,040
Speaker 4: have more chronic inflammatory types of conditions, we tend to

458
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:39,640
Speaker 4: see worse PMS.

459
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:56,399
Speaker 1: Okay, so PMS is everything that happens when you have

460
00:23:56,480 --> 00:24:00,760
Speaker 1: your period, got it, And this is function of our

461
00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:04,879
Speaker 1: bodies reacting to the rising and following estrogen and progesterone.

462
00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:09,560
Speaker 1: But what about pre mistral dyspork disorder or PMDD, because

463
00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:10,880
Speaker 1: I've heard about that one too.

464
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:13,879
Speaker 4: PMDD it's kind of like you take all of that

465
00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:18,160
Speaker 4: and then you imagine the worst, ugliest form of it.

466
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:18,560
Speaker 2: Right.

467
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:22,440
Speaker 4: So PMDD is just it's a really heartbreaking condition. And

468
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:25,640
Speaker 4: it's heartbreaking because for many of these women, they go

469
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:29,480
Speaker 4: into the second half of the cycle and as progesterone

470
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:32,720
Speaker 4: levels are increasing, it's like they just start to feel

471
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:36,919
Speaker 4: just utterly hopeless. And so there's a tendency to have

472
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:41,920
Speaker 4: these extreme mood changes, and one of the defining characteristics

473
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 4: of women who have pmdd is that many of them

474
00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:46,760
Speaker 4: wish that they could just end their own life to

475
00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 4: make the suffering stop because they feel so awful. For

476
00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:52,119
Speaker 4: many of these women, this goes on for the entire

477
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:54,600
Speaker 4: last two weeks of the cycle, and then they get

478
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:57,400
Speaker 4: their period and they feel better. But then as soon

479
00:24:57,440 --> 00:24:59,919
Speaker 4: as you know they're feeling good again, they know what's coming,

480
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:02,199
Speaker 4: you know, they know what's going to happen again. In

481
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:04,480
Speaker 4: terms of the treatment options, and I'm sure that this

482
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:07,240
Speaker 4: is going to absolutely shock you, but there isn't a

483
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:12,720
Speaker 4: lot of research, and I know it's just shocking into

484
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:16,919
Speaker 4: like what the causes of PMDDR and like what different

485
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:20,400
Speaker 4: types of treatments are currently. The ones that doctors use

486
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 4: most frequently are the birth control pill, because this of

487
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 4: course prevents you from ovulating, and if you don't ovulate

488
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:28,359
Speaker 4: and don't have a cycle, then you're going to have

489
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 4: these flatlined hormones. And if you're somebody who's really sensitive

490
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 4: to hormonal changes, like women with pmdd R, then this

491
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:39,160
Speaker 4: can be helpful to them. Antidepressants are another one that

492
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 4: are frequently given what we know less about is like

493
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:46,240
Speaker 4: what the root cause is of this deep sensitivity that

494
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 4: would allow women to be able to find relief using

495
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:53,160
Speaker 4: something that to them would feel more natural. And there

496
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:56,440
Speaker 4: are some studies that have been done looking at cognitive

497
00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:00,440
Speaker 4: behavioral therapy and it's actually found to be fairly affective

498
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 4: in terms of helping minimize women's symptoms.

499
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 1: But that's just the emotional part of it, right, there's

500
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:09,920
Speaker 1: real physical pain. So we just interviewed a neuroscientist who

501
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:13,199
Speaker 1: studies pain, and a lot of what she said really

502
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:16,760
Speaker 1: overlaps nicely in ties with what you're telling us. And

503
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 1: she talked about like the expectation of pain, so if

504
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 1: you've had pain before, you know it might be coming again.

505
00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:25,879
Speaker 1: So I can almost imagine PMDD as a part of

506
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 1: like chronic pain, Like if you're having these really awful

507
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:32,119
Speaker 1: symptoms like clockwork, this is going to happen, and there

508
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 1: aren't many like treatment options. I'm curious though, One thing

509
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:39,440
Speaker 1: that you said is there is this sensitivity to hormonal changes.

510
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:45,679
Speaker 1: And I understand evolutionarily that we are primed for reproduction.

511
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 1: All species basically are, yes, but we've had some changes,

512
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 1: and I'm curious about some of the environmental factors are

513
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 1: some of these new things that are pushing us or

514
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: playing on some of that sensitivity or making us more sensitive,

515
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: And how we can kind of build some resilience to it.

516
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:02,160
Speaker 1: Is it possible?

517
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 5: One hundred percent, It is possible.

518
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:07,120
Speaker 4: I think that just doing things that help increase your

519
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 4: resilience to these changes, even if you have PMDD, it

520
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 4: might not totally solve the problem, but it will definitely

521
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:16,360
Speaker 4: help take the edge off. And as you noted, there

522
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:19,880
Speaker 4: are a lot of these environmental mismatches that are responsible

523
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 4: for the erosion in our cellular plasticity. And for example,

524
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 4: eating processed foods is something that unfortunately is very much

525
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 4: a mainstay culturally, and this increases inflammatory activity in the body,

526
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:35,639
Speaker 4: and it also erodes at the diversity of our gut bacteria.

527
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:39,920
Speaker 4: And all of these things help maintain our flexibility and

528
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:44,160
Speaker 4: our cellular plasticity and our resilience to hormonal changes. Even

529
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 4: just like cleaning up your diet a little bit is helpful.

530
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:49,880
Speaker 4: Other changes you can make. One of my favorites, because

531
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 4: it's so easy to do, is getting morning sunlight to

532
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 4: help set your circadian rhythms. And so for me, because

533
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 4: I'm somebody who's had bad sleep, and sleep plays a

534
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 4: profound role in your ability to sort of manage inflammatory

535
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 4: activity because getting not enough sleep is incredibly inflammatory in

536
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 4: the body, and people don't really appreciate the role that

537
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:16,719
Speaker 4: it plays. Also understanding that stress management is like so huge.

538
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 4: It's like that there's so many industries that would disappear

539
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:24,479
Speaker 4: if women actually prioritize themselves instead of other people.

540
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:25,959
Speaker 2: T T. You heard it.

541
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: A couple of weeks ago, we say we were going

542
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:31,200
Speaker 1: to start doing our fifteen minute walks. I'm just saying,

543
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 1: your cycle will thank me.

544
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:35,120
Speaker 5: I think that we need.

545
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:39,720
Speaker 4: Yes, you should have a morning cycle support ten minute

546
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 4: walk club. I think that's awesome, and I mean honestly,

547
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 4: and even though it's like ten that helps. I think

548
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 4: that sometimes people are like, oh my gosh, like it

549
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:52,239
Speaker 4: feels overwhelming, you know what I mean, where they're like, oh,

550
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 4: I've run a marathon and like lift weights ten times

551
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 4: a week and mainline protein and it's really not that,

552
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 4: you know, you don't need These little steps really make

553
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 4: a difference.

554
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 2: Atomic habits.

555
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 4: Atomic habits exactly, habit stacking. I'm a huge fan.

556
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 1: So really what I'm hearing is is all the roads

557
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: lead back to education. Are you feeling hopeful that in

558
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: school systems they'll be learning more about how bodies function,

559
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 1: regardless of sex or gender.

560
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 5: I sure hope.

561
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,960
Speaker 4: So imagine how much better the world would be, I mean,

562
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 4: and for men too, right if we actually understood here's

563
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 4: the foods that nourish your body, here's ways to help

564
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 4: promote resilience to stress, here is how your hormones work.

565
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 4: And so, I mean, it's just, you know, I really

566
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 4: think that we need to revisit curricula in schools, and

567
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 4: I think one of those things would be understanding our bodies,

568
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 4: because it is completely absurd that I had to get

569
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 4: a PhD to learn about my body. And I mean,

570
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 4: it's also sort that so many women are having to

571
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 4: do this on social media. It's like we're trusting social

572
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 4: media to educate. We give the sexual education to our teenagers,

573
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 4: and it's cuckoos.

574
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: Like this person just did a dance, but they're gonna

575
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:08,760
Speaker 1: tell me that's so funny.

576
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 4: I had to get a TikTok account because of course,

577
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 4: you know, you have to be on social when you're

578
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:16,959
Speaker 4: a public figure. And my son was like, you, what

579
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 4: are you going to do? Do a dance about birth control?

580
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 2: Maybe are you going to dance with me? Asked the camera.

581
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a better question I should have had.

582
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 4: That's that's the next question, be like, yeah, we need

583
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:31,480
Speaker 4: to create a birth control dance and I would.

584
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 5: Love for you to choreograph.

585
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 2: Yes.

586
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:37,560
Speaker 3: What is one thing other than getting your book that

587
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 3: you think every person that has a period should know

588
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 3: about their body?

589
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 4: It would be learn who you are? Right, so, learn

590
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 4: how your hormones affect who you are. Share it with

591
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 4: a friend, Educate your partner. I think that there's so

592
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 4: much especially in relationships, like it's romantic relationships, where there's

593
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 4: so much ground for miscommunication just because and especially when

594
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:07,720
Speaker 4: talking about a heterosexual couple where you have a man

595
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 4: and a woman and women has cycles and the man

596
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:13,000
Speaker 4: does out of cycles, and there's just each one assumes

597
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 4: that the other one has a brain that works like

598
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 4: their brain does, and being able to communicate about and

599
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 4: actually have a language, because I think a lot of

600
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 4: times women know there's something happening, they don't have a

601
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 4: language to describe it, and so having a language to

602
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 4: describe it, which is one of the big reasons that

603
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:29,800
Speaker 4: I wrote this book was I wanted women to understand

604
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 4: how they work, and then also to have a language

605
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 4: to describe it so that way they can have better

606
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 4: communication with their partners. When I think that understanding your

607
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 4: own body and being able to communicate that information to

608
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 4: a partner is I think that it's like there's no

609
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 4: greater form of intimacy.

610
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 3: I love this episode and this book is so good.

611
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 3: I learned so much every chapter. I was like, I

612
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 3: was texting people like.

613
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 2: Did you know? Did you know?

614
00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 3: And talking to Jimmy like, hey, did you know that

615
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 3: this is this? Of course he don't know. Ment Okay,

616
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 3: some of y'all don't know really anything. But I feel

617
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 3: like this should be required reading for everyone, no matter

618
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 3: your gender.

619
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 2: You know. I think that's really true.

620
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 1: And I think if you want to write any kind

621
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: of book, any kind of thing with characters where it's

622
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: like oh this, If you want to write anything about

623
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 1: a period about anybody, read this verse. Okay, read this

624
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 1: verse before you make your character sit on the couch

625
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: eating ice cream and say she's so lonely and depressed

626
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: but it's her period. I'm tired of that truck ty.

627
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 2: Right.

628
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 3: We are out here existing and living and doing the

629
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 3: things that we got to do, even on our periods,

630
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 3: and yes, things are fluctuating, but things are fluctuating for everybody,

631
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 3: no matter what your sex is, and for the male

632
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:54,000
Speaker 3: sex it seems like it's fluctuating.

633
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:54,000
Speaker 2: A lot more.

634
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 3: And so we really need to be talking about y'all

635
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 3: the way that y'all talk about us.

636
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 2: OO want to run yeall into the ground book Man.

637
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:14,680
Speaker 3: You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope

638
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 3: Labs podcast.

639
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 2: Tt is on X and Instagram at d R Underscore T.

640
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:21,880
Speaker 3: S h O, and you can find Zakiya at Z

641
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 3: said So.

642
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media. Our supervising

643
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 1: producer is Keegan Zimma and our producer is Issara Acevez.

644
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 1: Dope Labs is sound designed, edited and mixed by James Farber.

645
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: Lamanada Media's Vice President of Partnerships and Production is Jackie Danziger.

646
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 1: Executive producer from iHeart podcast is Katrina Norvil.

647
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 2: Marketing lead is Alison Canter.

648
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 1: Original music composed and produced by Takayasuzawa and Alex sugi Ura,

649
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 1: with additional music by Elijah Harvey. Dope Labs is executive

650
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: produced by us T T Show Dia and Zakiyah Wattie.

651
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 3: Six two