Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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Tamsin Fadal, hello and welcome to I Weigh. How are you? Thank you. Wonderful. Thanks for having me. I'm so thrilled to have you here. I think your work is so important and I wish it had just arrived sooner for my mother's generation and her mother's generation. I can't believe how long it has taken for us to be able to start really speaking openly about the menopause. It really feels like something I've only heard in the mainstream in the last maybe nine months.
And your documentary and your work with your book is such a well-timed and explicit way to have this important conversation. And now that I'm coming to an age where this is something I have to be cognitive of, I feel immensely grateful for the...
Not just for the fact that you're putting it out there, but for the way in which you have packaged this information. You don't make this change that I'm going to go through that half the population is going to go through feel terrifying. Thank you. And I think it's the absence of information that makes it so scary because no one talks about it and everyone refers to it as, you know, the change and all these kind of... My dad, I think, clumsily once referred to it as men on pause.
So that went down like a fucking sack of shit, as you can imagine. Who got to hear that one? Yeah. And it's just something that feels...
Like I'll have no control and no agency and this terrible thing is just going to happen to me and no one's going to talk to me about it. And I'll have to suffer in silence and try to hide it. You know, even now I've got friends who are, you know, experiencing perimenopause and they apologize for their hot flashes. Still, even in 2024. And all these things freak me out and I feel less freaked out for having watched your documentary. So thank you. Oh, thank you for saying that. Because I know what you're saying. That...
That feeling of not knowing what's next or not knowing what's coming is the reason for it. Because how are we still saying something's taboo in 2024? I just...
I couldn't get my head around it. Something that impacts half the world. Yes. Half the population. If you're lucky enough to live that long as a woman, you will go through menopause, period. You might not have all other things, but you will go through that transition at some point. Everybody goes through it a different way and through it at a different age and different intensity. And I think that's what was so confusing to me because I had my own experience with it. And I
Had no one to talk to. I lost my mother at an early age. We didn't have the conversation. And when I look back now, I realize that
She had been going through it and it, man, it hit me when I figured that out and I found out all those times she was kind of laughing while she was, it gets me choked up to think about it, but when she was laughing, going through a hot flash, sweating and trying to kind of make light of it because I wasn't able to talk to him. She was suffering. And I made a commitment in all of this that that was not going to keep happening to women. 100%. And you were not really finding that.
the support you needed at work and made it your business to start advocating for yourself. Before we get into that, what was it specifically that made you decide to point your entire career in this direction?
Yeah, I mean, this was nothing I was thinking about. I'll tell you that. I thought menopause was something that happened to old people, you know, way, way far away and had nothing, anything that I needed to worry about for a long time. And it was November of 2019. And I was a news anchor for about 30 years. And I was sitting on the news desk like I do every night, giving the 10 o'clock news to New York City. And it was around 1030. We were in a commercial break. And I felt...
this immense heat just erupt from inside. And I've been feeling like off for a while with all different kinds of things. Off in what way? In what way? Often a lack of confidence because I couldn't remember things. I'd have a conversation and I'd forget in the middle of the sentence and I'd go...
Uh, so I, I just, it wasn't feeling like myself. I used to be the person that could ad lib off the cuff, not think about the, you know, talk. That's what I did. My whole career is based on talking, uh, telling stories, having a conversation. Uh, I was gaining weight and I was not sleeping and sleep was something that I was really good at. I was a journalist for a long time, was on all ends of the clock, early morning, late at night, didn't matter, uh, shifts that I worked and, um, I couldn't sleep for the life of me and it was making me feel like I was going crazy.
It was making me feel like I was so something is wrong and I don't know what it is. And when you're up at two and three and four o'clock and then you've got to get up the next day and repeat the cycle over and over again. And so that that was one thing that the brain fog, which now I know that's what it's called. I didn't know what it was at the time, but that was feeling off weight in different areas that I had not, you know, I didn't even understand why because nothing was changing. I was working out harder than ever.
And periods that were all over the place. A month long of bleeding, no period for six months. Panicked I was pregnant, a month long of bleeding, no period for three months. So now I understand those are all signs of perimenopause. Then I had no idea. So this one particular night I was on the news desk. I was feeling not great. This hot flash erupted. My heart was racing out of control and I thought I was either going to pass out or throw up.
So I said out loud, if I fall over, somebody catch me. And it was a studio full of all men, you know, like five men in the studio because I was half joking. I just didn't know what was happening. And I didn't want to feel like I didn't have control. And one of the guys said, I think you should get off of the news desk and, you know, and go to the bathroom. So he led me to the bathroom and I, I laid down on the floor, nothing I would do in my right mind.
About 20 minutes later, I was okay again. And then I set out to figure out what was going on. And menopause was the furthest thing from my mind. It wasn't even, you know, I didn't know what it was. Blood sugar, heart problems, you know, some other kind of issue I wasn't aware of. Well, also something that I didn't know until I watched your documentary is that it comes with
it can come with, obviously everyone has a different experience of the menopause, but that it can come with teeth issues, gum issues, heart issues, coronary issues. I didn't know any of that.
I didn't know any of that. I'm so mortified to admit that I've just sort of almost not wanted to look at it because what I witnessed in my mother's generation looked so fucking unpleasant and they didn't really talk about it. You know, it was this humiliating thing. So I just knew that they were very, very emotionally unstable and had hot flashes and felt not very fond of their partners. Right.
And that was all I thought it was. I had no idea that there are all these kind of comorbidities that, is that the right word? That makes it sound quite intense. But all these health problems that do come up alongside it. Why the fuck does that happen? Well, well,
Well, the funny thing is, is that no one not only talked about it within families, but doctors weren't talking about it. And I think that that's really where I went, wait a minute. So we have a lot of things that we need to deal with now. Now we've got to put the onus on women to walk into a doctor's office, track their symptoms, explain what's going on with themselves and kind of say like, I think this is what's happening to me. But when you go back and talk about all those things, a lack of libido, a lack of interest in sex,
hot flashes we know has been a ha ha forever. Right. And that's part of the problem is it's always been this, you know, laughed about kind of a thing in the movies. Right. And but it's not a funny thing and it can actually be a sign of a more, more intense problems health wise. So they're all things that we have to pay attention to and take care of. I mean, dry skin, dry hair, itchy ears, burning tongue. There are some odd symptoms that come with it. 34 plus
And when I did some research and looked into them, I went, what is going on here? It kind of affects everything. I think for me, the scariest was brain fog and confidence. You know, that was really a hard one for me.
Yeah. And also, I think my point about the fact that there are all those comorbidities means that it's also very easy to miss that what's happening is the menopause because you could think, oh, well, maybe the brain fog is down to the elevated blood sugar levels or the elevated cholesterol or all these different things. And
That to me is absolutely terrifying. I was having some issues with my period and my skin and my hormones last year. And my female gynecologist...
who's in her 60s, so would have gone through the menopause herself, just sort of glanced across. She's an excellent, excellent gynecologist. But glanced across my readings, kind of felt like they were okay. And then just said to me, and I'm 38, she was like,
I think maybe you're just going through perimenopause, which by the way, it's pretty early to be going through perimenopause, but then offered no follow-up information and didn't call and didn't make a follow-up appointment or offer me one. And I didn't hear from her ever again. So it's kind of like...
There was no aftercare as to what to do with that. There was no suggestion of what do we do now to alleviate your symptoms. And I was absolutely stunned. It turned out not to be perimenopause. I think I just had my levels of estrogen or something were too high. But the way it was just so matter-of-factly said to me, even by a woman who'd gone through it herself without any actual information, not even a leaflet,
was given to me. It's like, maybe you're going through perimenopause. Bye. Peace out. Good luck. Nothing we can do. Every woman goes through it. And that's the part though. That's what women hear or don't hear when they're in a doctor's office, making them feel that's where all this comes in. The shame, the embarrassment, the continuing to not talk about it, the taboo part of it. And I think that there's a lot of reasons for it. Some are that
It's not really being taught in medical schools. There's not a lot of education there. So they don't really have much to say about it or they're afraid to. Tell everyone how much time is spent in medical school talking about the menopause. This shocked me from the documentary. This is continued. Every time I hear that play over and again, I get shocked.
We had some doctors that got no training. We got some OBGYNs that got a month of training in all of medical school. Some got hours. Some did it because they thought they needed to go do it for themselves, other practitioners.
And that, to me, was stunning. But the reason is even more stunning. Women's health care has not been a priority. We haven't seen a priority when it comes to dollars. And this is global. A billion women will be in menopause by the year 2025. Basically now, you know, a billion women will be in menopause, half of the population. And we still don't have the resources to help them.
And so when we have doctors that aren't learning, we said, like, we've got to set out to help the women and then try to help the health care systems. However, we can just try to make it a little bit better so we can get these women shouldn't be suffering. They shouldn't be suffering and they shouldn't be afraid of this transition. And that's really where I the work that I do is is trying to make sure that it doesn't seem like this.
time where everything is over. I don't want it to seem like that because it can be an incredible time, but you've got to be able to deal with those symptoms and you've got to make sure you deal with them so you don't have long-term health ramifications.
I think that there's a lot that needs to be unpacked as to the emotional experience of going through the menopause and all the fear that comes with that and all of the stigmas before we get into the ways in which you can combat it. Because I think a lot of people feel so incredibly alone. One of the things you and I spoke about on the phone was the fear.
the fear you have of the narrative of a woman gets to a certain age and her husband leaves her you know for a younger woman and that coincides with being around the age that she would hit the menopause and become less interested in sex and deal with vaginal dryness and mood swings and feeling just general discomfort maybe her body's changing rapidly and that's making her feel less confident because we're in a society that teaches women to hate our own fucking bodies um
and feel as though we don't deserve love if we don't look a certain way. And so there is this terror that when I go through this change, will my partner stick around? And that's a conversation we have to have because that's real. That's real. And it's not like it doesn't ever happen. And I'm sure it's not because of the menopause. It could be all kinds of different reasons that create people separation. Sure.
But I can understand why people feel that fear because you feel so out of control of your body. You feel out of control of your body. You don't know what's going on. You know, we say have an open conversation, but you can't have an open conversation if you don't know what the hell is happening to you.
And so, you know, I think it's a fear that is a warranted fear. I get it. And I encourage women to have the conversation if they do know what's going on. And yes, there are things that come with it. There is bodies changing. There is a lack of interest in sex, painful sex. You know, a lack of estrogen causes painful sex. It just does. And
And I think a lot of women feel like this pressure to be this woman that they were at 20 and 30 years old. And that's just, it's not what we should put on women, but more so we should make sure that we normalize the conversation so that they know what they're dealing with. I'm encouraged by this.
I'm encouraged by the fact that the more that I talk to people, the more that I see men asking questions or identifying symptoms or saying, oh my gosh, my wife is going through this or my partner did talk about this or she feels miserable or what can I do to help?
that's where we have to get. I mean, that's like the whole second phase of this, but we've got to get there because it is a very real fear. There is a high divorce rate during this time. That's real. There's something that's been coined the quote, gray divorce, because we see a lot of divorces happen. That's not all menopause. Sometimes it's because women- Sometimes it's a midlife crisis that a man might have. It could be any. Of course. It's many of different things, yeah. It could be any of those things, but menopause hits in the middle of it.
But for a woman, it hits everywhere. It hits at the height of careers. It hits in a place where they are dealing with relationships. Maybe it's empty nest. Maybe they're figuring something else out with regard to what they want to be doing with their passion in life. It could be a hundred different things. But menopause is right in the middle of all of that.
And I think that that's why we have to arm women so they feel like they're in control of their bodies. They can kind of reclaim their health during that time in a big way. They know what to expect. They're not shocked by it and they're not playing whack-a-mole with their symptoms. And then, you know, the problem, what happens in the bedroom? Yes, there are solutions, but you have to know what you're dealing with first. Mm-hmm.
You mean hand jobs? Hand jobs. Perfect. Yeah. Okay. So... It's on my list. Yeah. It's on my list. So I...
I think it's also important for there to be more discussion around menopause also so that people don't take your behavior personally, right? Sure. So many men who don't understand it, and I especially saw this in my parents' generation, the way the men would speak about their wives' behavior was...
once everyone was getting to their 40s and 50s and the complaining and the feeling like, you know, because your kids, the adults tend to speak very openly in front of you thinking you have no idea what's going on. It's just kind of going over your head. But I remember it so vividly, the way that they would make fun of their wives' behavior. There was no
empathy in the way that they were talking because they didn't understand that this is a kind of it's a it's a kind of medical phenomenon except it's not a medical form it's a medical norm but it is a phenomenal medical norm that is occurring in someone and because they don't understand the suffering and because women don't feel like they can open up because it's not sexy or it's you know it makes them feel you know I think you spoke about yourself feeling you know afraid that you would be seen as like weak or old or frail you know if people thought of you as menopausal
And so it's this thing that there's no empathy then because they have no idea what is actually happening. And I think some of them feel rejected sexually as if like, oh, I'm losing my looks. I'm getting older. My testosterone is dropping. My balls are dropping. You don't want me. You're not interested in me. And so...
And we're not really also encouraged to even consider the man's perspective because the woman is suffering so much. But I think it's important to zoom out for a second and go, we all just need to have the fucking conversation. Because if doctors are fucking ignorant who are at medical school as to what's happening, the plebs among us, all of us,
Those of us who didn't go to medical school, what the fuck are we working with? They really don't know what we're going through and it leads to a tremendous lack of empathy. And I think that that would be massively improved. I think there are so many men who love their wives so much. And I've seen this with my friends who are having babies now.
There's more information than there's ever been before about pregnancy, postnatal depression, all these different things. Men are more prepared than I've ever seen them for what's actually going on. Men are more involved in going to baby classes, etc. And I have witnessed
conversations about how amazing the, the mother is and how incredible she's doing and more, um, you know, it's not perfect, but more care and empathy than I witnessed in the generation before. So I've seen firsthand, it does make a big fucking difference and we just need to blow this wide open. A huge difference. And I, and I've, and I've said that for a while now that we have to keep, we have to keep that men part of menopause for a couple of different reasons. Um,
even if you don't have a partner, even if you don't, you know, you're working with a woman, you might have a sister, you had a mother, you know, you've got somebody in your life that will be dealing with this no matter how they're dealing with it. And so they've got to be part of this conversation, whether they like it or not, quite frankly. But I've seen, I've been encouraged by men, but, you know, culturally we have watched that all along. We know what it's like. Women get older, we
Women get afraid of irrelevance. They get afraid if they don't have their youth, what do they have? Get afraid of being invisible. I did it. I was in television. I was petrified that somebody was going to find out that I was dealing with all of these things because I was supposed to stay young forever. And then when I finally started talking about it, I remember I was like, what am I doing? Am I about to blow up my career? What am I doing?
But I had to do it because I knew that the young woman that's standing next to me that was 35 years old needed to know about it. And I didn't want her to do what happened to me, you know, go through the same thing because then we keep perpetuating the same thing over and over. I'm thankful we're talking about it now, but we have such a we have such a ramp, such a long way to go.
It's incredible. Talk to me about the way that you approached it with your work, because I think this would be something that a lot of people would find terrifying. Yeah. Well, you know, I did find it terrifying and I didn't know if I was going to do it. It took me a while to do it. But I did. After this happened, I went into my HR department. It's no fault of theirs. Nothing happened that caused it. But I needed to have this conversation because I knew we're a media organization and
I knew that half of the people there were women. And if three fourths of those were women that were perimenopausal or menopause, that's a huge chunk of women. And so I said, we need to talk about some kind of policy in the workplace because I knew that the UK had a policy, a workplace policy, and they were starting to implement them in a few different workplaces. And they were doing things like some personal days off or a fan at the desk or a support group. And I said, no matter what it is, not a,
every workplace is different. Some people work, you know, in a classroom, some people working in an office, some people working at home. So we know all those are different. But what it did say is you have to have, we have to be able to have a support system or a conversation or someplace for women to go for resources. And then eventually we can get to a place where we can provide them help. But it,
We spend an exorbitant time at work oftentimes and to not have any help there. If you're in the middle of a boardroom and you need to like pull your shirt off because you're so hot, you think you're going to pass out or you have sweat trickling down your face or you're leaving your job because you don't think you can do your job anymore or you're not going through promotion because you're afraid that you just can't handle it.
And that's what I saw. That's what was happening to me. And that's what I've seen through a lot of women. And there's numbers that show that a lot of women during this time don't go for promotions or leave their workplace because of fear of not being able to handle it. And I think what broke my heart is the fact that, you know, I hadn't really considered until, you know, I was reading about what you're talking about that.
that is the age when regardless of your gender you are coming into your own in your career normally like that's really when you are starting to I mean you know I'd say almost across the board in most careers that
that that's when you've really proven yourself and you're able to start to see the benefits of all of those years of work and all of that experience. And so for that to be the moment that this strikes is so fucked and to have that debilitate your confidence just when you have earned it the most must be, I mean, it is literally something I will go through, but it must be really...
really devastating and it's so upsetting to me the idea that women check themselves out of the opportunity yeah if you are going through the brain fog and you are going through and pardon me if this sounds ignorant this is just the raw question from my heart to yours right but if you are struggling with memory loss you are struggling with the workload or you are going through the anxiety and depression which we are now learning can sometimes accompany um the menopause
Is it good to stay in your current working environment? Is that good for you or is it kind of different strokes for different folks? And I don't mean that as in like, is it good for the company? I just mean, is that a sign that maybe you do need a fucking break?
Well, look, I think that we all find that time when we need that break, right? I, you know, what I don't ever want the conversation to do with the workplace conversation, and this is where I've kind of balanced the two, is I never want it to work against women, right? Like, oh gosh, we don't want to hire her because she's going through the change. Like, I never want it to be that. I want people to realize like, actually,
Actually, women that are in this period, you see them reinvent. You see them stronger than ever. You see them make incredible decisions. And in a lot of cultures, wisdom and age is something that's revered. It just doesn't happen to be like that everywhere. And so, no, I don't think it's a time to leave the workplace, but I like that. I like the question because I think that it's not a question that we ask.
very often. But I do think it's something that we have to give women that support in. And I do think that women have to give themselves a little bit of grace because it's a time it's all coming together. There were quite a few people who I worked with on my time during The Good Place, which is a TV show that I wrote
I shot a few years ago and they were all at the menopausal age, all dealing with hot flashes and having to memorize a lot of lines. They did fucking fantastic. Sometimes they just needed that extra five minutes or a bit of extra powder or a bit of, you know, that...
extra ashwagandha in their fucking juice or whatever they they needed yes you know they had bigger sweet cravings or they needed a looser gown or whatever but other than that they came and they they did a fucking amazing job and i'm so glad that they didn't check themselves out of that situation i think i just also want to make sure that we create space for the fact that you're not a bad feminist so you're not letting anyone down if you do go i might know to take a break but you absolutely
absolutely should do it only if it's for your benefit rather than I don't want to be a burden on anyone.
anyone. Yeah, exactly. But I have watched women excel during this time. It's just a little bit fucking harder and we all go through shit. We all go through shit. This can be anything as we've learned post-COVID. People went through all kinds of things. People of all genders. I mean, brain fog is now something that no longer is just reserved for people who are menopausal. Everyone who had COVID, not everyone, but a lot of people who had COVID have struggled with, I think I had nine months of brain fog afterwards.
So, you know, we all deal with it. People who have poor diets, like poor gut health, have brain fog, so many different things. And the medications that come with depression. So it is very specifically something that we persecute women over. Hmm.
There's so many different reasons that you can have a brain that functions sometimes like in moments slightly less perfectly than it maybe did before. But we only fear it and punish it in women. Well, you're so right about that. And we mock it in women. And that's what I think I really have worked hard to understand.
You know, try to fight that narrative because that narrative is is bullshit. And I think it gets me very frustrated when I see people do that to women, especially women that are at this age and they blame that and make you look. We've seen it being made fun of for years and years and years and then not talked about. Women were called hysterical women. We have all sorts of reasons that we got here.
and didn't get beyond that and do the right research. Dr. Lisa Moscone is the neuroscientist that we talked to in the film. And she's just, you know, she started doing a lot of research on Alzheimer's and dementia. And then she realized what was happening in menopausal brains and really looked at like estrogen receptors in the brains and
and what happens during this time. And she has just some incredible research of like, you know, where you are, you know, premenopause or perimenopause, and then the dip that goes down, and then you come back up on the other side. And I'm like, am I on this side of it yet? Because I'm feeling the brain fog's going away. But it just really is where you see women thrive on the other side of some of these symptoms, which is symptoms not treated, but pretty incredible to see that in women. And the fact that there is real legitimate practice
uh, research and findings of what happens in the menopausal brain. Talk to me about the thriving. Yeah. I mean, look, I think we see it. We, we, I turn on something every once in a while and I'm like, oh my gosh, a woman at 73 that started a new career and ran a marathon or a woman that, you know, what we say, like she has no more Fs to give. I, I think that the truth of the matter is, is that we've just gotten beyond,
you know, all of that stuff that we've dealt with. We were worried about a lot in our 30s and in our 40s. 40s and 50s can be perimenopausal and menopausal. And on the other side of it, we see women starting new careers. We see women, you know, taking things by storm
running for office. We see women doing things that are just incredible on this other side with a lot of clarity and a lot of wisdom, a lot bolder, and to me, a lot sexier. I am excited and encouraged about what comes next. I'm not fearing it anymore. And I feared it for a long time, a
A long time. I think a lot of people need to hear that. And I also think, I mean, I can't wait to be on the other side of the menopause. Like, I don't fear a lot. We're going to get you there. We're going to get you there. I fear the Perry bit a little bit because I don't like anything unpredictable happening.
But the other side of it, you know, listening to the way that Gloria Steinem talks about, you know, being kind of postmenopausal, she talks about it as being truly liberated. And, you know, and also we're no longer being held hostage to this like monthly cycle that for some of us, you know, like
There was a good year where I was getting my period every two weeks. So I was just like on a fucking roller coaster. Imagining life without this quarter of my month every month since I was 11, knowing that that wouldn't happen. And it's not just that one week of the period. It's the luteal phase. It's the...
other phase that makes you like will you not be able to recognize yourself in the fucking mirror but the 19 personalities you have to contend with throughout every single month and I and I have the least PMS of anyone I know so I can't imagine what it must be like with like people like PMDD uh which is I think pre-menstrual dysphoria disorder or something like that um and so you know where they're dealing with horrific uh symptoms of emotional disruption before their period I can't
fucking...
I can't fucking wait. I was standing on stage accepting an award day before yesterday and I'm making the speech and I can feel myself bleeding through three pairs of period pants and my shorts that I wore to protect the dress and into the dress. And I'm just standing there and I can feel that I'm about to faint. All the photographs I'm holding, I'm holding my tummy because I'm like, if I don't apply pressure on this, I'm going to faint. I need a fucking... I actually really regret not taking a hot water bottle.
I'm just making that fucking statement. I really, now in hindsight, I really regret it. And the next time I have to go through a fucking amount of my period, I'm taking a fucking hot water bottle with me. But it was just like, I was like, no one knows I'm up here talking about how amazing women are. And I'm fucking, I still made it here. I'm in agony and I'm literally bleeding.
Women are incredible for that. And I can't wait to not have to fucking deal with that. Yeah. That to me, I just, I can't get enough of it. But that's how women get to that place of thriving. You asked me how they get there and what that is. That's that. It's freedom. That's that because they've all done it.
yeah, but they've all done it. They've all done these things and gotten through this and whether they're, you know, whatever they're doing in life, whatever their career looks like, whatever their day looks like, their home life looks like we've all got gone through these things and to get out to the other side of it is a beautiful thing. And I, and I know what you're talking about. Like I, uh,
when I was going through this, I was bleeding on the set, bleeding through everything, bleeding right through, right through. And I would go to the bathroom because this is the time when I was still hiding everything. And I would put a tampon in my bra and,
So I could run to the bathroom during a commercial break and no one would see the tampon, none of the men in the studio. And I would just make sure that I wasn't bleeding on the chair all the time. And that would last for two weeks. And when I think about it now, I'm like, why didn't I say something? Why didn't I say, look, look, I gotta take a break, but I had to be cool and I had to be composed. I had to be in control. And that's the narrative that we need. That's how we say we got to normalize it and shred the silence. Honestly, white chairs...
white chairs and white sofas are a hate crime against women. Are they joking? Are they fucking kidding me? What? A cream couch? It's cruel. It's cruel. Yeah. Yeah.
Honestly, it's a trap. I just want you to know I tuck my leg under me and that's what I do now. I just wear like 45 pairs of shorts. Like I'm just honestly, I'm dressed like Joey from Friends underneath all of my clothes all of the time. People are like, why do you always wear something so loose on the bottom? It's like because I'm wearing 900 pairs of underwear. There's a lot going on. Yeah. There's a lot going on down here. Fucking nightmare. Yeah.
Where are we going with the menopause conversation? Your documentary talks about the fact that we don't have enough medical information in medical school around the menopause. You are constantly lobbying for more care and more education.
rights for women who are going through this. What are some steps that you are seeing and would like to see? Yeah, you know, we talked about the workplace and I'd like to see movement there for sure. Just acknowledgement of it and support for women if they're not getting it somewhere else. What we did with the documentary is we didn't want it to just be a film, you know, and we wanted it to be a
education, you know, vehicle and something to help teach something to help teach women and then hopefully be able to use it for something else. And we actually got the film. Uh, we just, we just learned it this week, but we got the film accredited earning, um, continuing medical education accreditation to help educate healthcare providers, doctors, and nurses. You know, there are millions of doctors out there and the film is going to be able to do that. Um,
for continuing medical education in the U S which is a big deal, meaning that there's going to be a workshop set up. The doctors can go to it, they can watch the film and there's a certain number of credit hours they get because of what's in the film. And I, even though it makes just a little, you know, just a little bit, I,
I feel like it does something to help move this conversation forward because we have to. But it doesn't just move the conversation forward because it's not just mystifying the women, it's mystifying the fucking doctors. So it would massively help the doctors to actually look for, you know, instead of this relentless, especially in America, culture of just putting out fires, putting out fires, never looking for the cause of the fire, almost by fucking design because it's a business, let's be honest. And it's
For the doctors who actually really want to help the patient and don't want to just keep supplying different medicines for different symptoms. This is massively demystifying because it creates a kind of hub as to where all of this is coming from. So stabilize the hormones and
And change the diet and, I don't know, maybe lower the sugar or do all the different things that you need to do in order to combat some of the symptoms that you have. Exercise, all these different things that you need to implement. Protein, strength training. Proteins, strength training, all of these things. I've just started strength training in the last few weeks in preparation for all of this.
I love to hear that, though. I've become very, very obsessed with my older lady body now. You don't have an old lady body. No, no, no. My older lady body is because I'm preparing. I'm excited for her arrival.
And I want to prepare for her. And I want to make a nice home in my body for her when she arrives. And I, you know, I spoke about this this week in the awards ceremony. My focus of my speech was just to beg her.
to beg young women to not take their older selves for granted. If I could go back and talk to my 24-year-old self, I would beg her to understand the damage that she did to me and how I'm never going to recover fully from that damage. And now I'm paying so many prices for these momentary decisions that she made that lasted forever. And I would
I kind of want to go back and throttle her, even though I know she had a mental illness. But I am so deeply resentful. And I don't want 85-year-old me to resent 35-year-old me and 38-year-old me. So I'm now literally, as of this year, starting to really learn and educate myself about the
all the things that I can do to prepare for it, not just to cover it up and hide it from everyone. Women's lives are not valued. We are not encouraged to prepare. We are not encouraged to protect our bodies for later because no one gives a shit what happens to us later.
They don't give a shit if we're dealing with the ramifications of dieting or over-exercising or under-exercising or smoking or drinking or facelifts or Botox or fillers or all the different things that are a fucking problem to deal with in private and not bother the men with it. But with men, we tell them to build their bodies and their futures and their legacies, and I just can't fucking stand it. And so I have become deeply respectful of that older person, however old, if it's 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, if I should be lucky enough to get there.
And I'm now part of what I think drew me to your work is that this falls in line with everything that I care about. This is not something that we have to fear, but it is something that we have to fucking prepare for. Absolutely. I love that you say that because that's what it is. It's prepare for and not fear because we didn't even know it existed before, really. And now that we do, I feel like you're there in the conversation and you've got
I almost feel like it's half the battle. Yes, the symptoms. Yes, what happens. Yes, a changing body. All those things happen during this time. They do. But no one told us. Everybody told us it was this part. You get into your reproductive years and then women fall off a cliff. They're not there anymore. They're just not there anymore. There's nothing to take care of them from here on out. And that's really what my...
what I fight for every day. I wake up every day, like determined to fight this and synthesize the research and make sure it's understandable and actionable so women can take action. And they don't feel like they're relying on waiting for the next doctor's appointment to do it. I want them to feel like they can wake up tomorrow morning and start taking action. And it's important for me that women in their thirties and their twenties are preparing for the mindset.
They don't have to prepare everything. They don't have to be worrying about menopause then, but they have to just be aware of it and prepare for it. And we should be teaching that in schools. We should be teaching, you know, families should feel comfortable talking about it. The word taboo and menopause makes me so frustrated. I can't wait till we don't use that word when we talk about it because I don't know how something so natural in such a transition can be.
would be taboo and how we're okay and we've been okay with women suffering for this long in silence. We're only several hundred years away from women every month being sent out of their village every time they got their period because people thought they were being, well, men thought they were being punished and didn't clock that it's happening to every woman once a month.
They genuinely had them banished from society and considered them unclean and cursed. We're not that far away from when that happened. We're sectioning women for their premenstrual disorder. It's insane.
And so it's in being in the age of information also means we are in the age of misinformation. And so there is also a lot of fear mongering. And so I think it's great that what you're doing is trying to calm people down, educate them and show them that you yourself have gone through this and you've come out a bit stronger than ever, happier than ever, feeling sexier than ever from what I gather from what you're saying. And yeah.
You have a book called How to Menopause, Reclaim Your Health, Take Charge of Your Life and Feel Even Better Than Before. This is out March 2025, but people can preorder it now. So this book is a kind of more in detail guide as to what's coming and what that journey feels like. Yeah, I think it was really important to help women be prepared.
So I said, what's the best way to do that? We don't have a how to to menopause. We have a what to expect when you're expecting. We don't have a how to menopause. And I said, I'm going to help women figure out how to menopause. I interviewed 42 experts around the world. And I wanted to make sure to synthesize the information so it was clear, actionable, but not just talk about what happens in the doctor's office. Because to your point, we have to do a lot of the work ourselves.
And so I wanted to make sure that women have science-backed strategies to get the best out of their lives, to understand what's going on with their bodies changing, to understand nutrition, to understand what their story is going to be. If they want to look at style differently, simple workouts. It was important for me to make sure that women felt like they had a roadmap and it wasn't just a book explaining what was going on, but explaining what would be going on for that span of life.
And I think that's what's most important because I want them to come out the other side stronger. 100%. And also, I think cortisol plays such a huge part in this because the more stressed you are, the less supported you are, the more likely cortisol is going to throw off your insulin. Your insulin is going to throw off your estrogen. Your estrogen is going to throw off your entire fucking body and mind and soul and spirit. Belly fat, all of it. And so, you know, we see that...
you know, women who are in different maybe financial brackets maybe have more stress and women who maybe have more children or more mouths to feed or maybe aren't supported by a partner or don't have a partner or their partner has died. All these different factors massively contribute to the amount of symptoms. I was stunned to find out that black women experience more menopausal symptoms than anyone else. Do we know why that is?
You know, there's so much research that still needs to be done with this. And there are different theories on it. But the truth of the matter is, is they don't really understand a lot of this. I mean, this is...
Imagine this. We had a study in 2002, which was a women's health initiative that scared women when they stopped that study and women were afraid of hormones at that point. And that's when a lot of this research stopped. It was a study that was flawed. Data didn't support a lot of what they had indicated in the headlines of the study.
So no, we don't have a lot of that information. We don't have enough of that information, but we do know they go through much more, oftentimes, earlier menopause and much more intense symptoms, much more intense hot flashes. And the problem with much more intense hot flashes is that can be a sign of a bigger problem of longer-term healthcare ramifications. And that's why we need that research. That's why we need those dollars dumped into this. Can you explain to me...
the hot flashes thing because I actually don't know what's happening or what that is indicative of. I know very, very little.
about what's happening. Have you ever had one or no? No, I haven't had one yet. Yeah. So, you know, a hot flash is everything that's happening with menopause is this drop and this decline in estrogen, estrogen and progesterone. Those are the two things that we're talking about here and testosterone. But that hot flash, I'm going to tell you what it feels like. First of all, it feels like an absolute inferno in your body. Your body just feels like it's on fire. You know, the feeling you get when you are going to just before, I don't know if you've done this, but just before you pass out,
No, I don't think I've felt especially hot. But you know what? When I watch someone else go through it, it kind of looked like when someone's in an infrared sauna, it's coming from the inside out rather than the outside in. Inside, in an inferno. It's an absolute inferno. And it is due to changes in your estrogen levels. That's exactly what it is. And it just affects your body's temperature and regulation. And
Look, are they harmful? No. Are they disruptive? Yes. Do they affect your daily life? Yes. It's basically an inside inferno that spreads all through your body, your face, your chest, your neck, reddened your skin, makes you sweat. Chills usually come after that, which is what happens. So you've got a woman that is literally pouring sweat down and then the rapid heartbeat and the palpitations, and then it goes away. Some women get those.
several times a day. Some women get them once a week, but that's what that is. And it's how your hormones are being regulated by your body. And so you're saying that having regular hot flashes is indicative that there is an imbalance going on that then can cause chaos in your health.
There are research and there are studies that indicate that more hot flashes can possibly be a problem down the line. I mean, there's three things that we look at when we talk about hormone therapy. We talk about cardiac risk, we talk about bone risk, and we talk about brain. And those are the three things long-term that doctors talk about, that researchers talk about, that we're trying to do more research on to understand exactly what goes on in your body long-term with those.
And the saddest irony being that it is the group who are the most effective who are the least effective.
cared for in the medical industry. Black women receive the most negligent healthcare of anyone. So the idea that then they're also actually disproportionately impacted by this. And also we see people from Caribbean backgrounds and people from Indian and Asian backgrounds having higher cholesterol, more heart problems. I've had heart, like chronically high cholesterol since I was about eight years old. It's just genetic at this point. And for people of color, specifically black women to be overlooked and to have their
you know, heart attacks often misdiagnosed, distress, etc. It's just so incredibly sad and another reason why this work is so incredibly
And the fact that, you know, we didn't cardio, cardiac problems in menopause. I had no idea when I first walked into the space to really understand it and understand that we should be being monitored and we should be talking about those things. And we shouldn't wait until we have a heart problem to be talking to a cardiologist. But, you know, not everybody has access. That's one thing that we always have to keep in mind. And I think that that's really important.
You know, at the end of the day, when we have the research and then we're talking about spreading the message and this conversation and then trying to figure out access. That's why I feel like I wake up every day going, what do we have to do today? Because we have
We have a billion women that need help. What do we need to do today? We have a public health crisis that's hiding in plain sight. One thing you'll really like that I only just remembered is that I was on a film set not long ago where it was fucking freezing all the time in the trailer. And all the actresses and actors would come in and be like, oh, Jesus Christ, it's like a fucking morgue in here. And the head of the department of hair and makeup would just be like, all of us are menopausal.
So we don't want to deal with our menopause. Wear a fucking sweater. And they brought in blankets and shit for us. And they were just like, wear a sweater. Like you put on a jumper because I can't take off my skin and my flesh. And I was so inspired by that. I loved that so intensely. And I'm so glad that memory has come back, just flashed back to me. But I just thought that was so... And it was not...
an ounce of apology, nor should there be. And they all just looked at each other as in like, yeah, we're looking after ourselves. We've like, we're dealing with hairdryers and stress and speed and getting all of you lucky, you know, privileged bastards ready and we're not going to suffer.
But that's menopause in the workplace. You ask what menopause in the workplace is? I really loved that. It's great. It's great. I see women walking around. I mean, I have them all here. I give out fans all the time. I see women walking around with their fans just sitting right here, making themselves cool, not apologizing. And that's what we should be doing is not. Why would we be apologizing for a natural transition in life for something that all women, if they're lucky enough, are going to go through? We just haven't taught them how to do it yet. A hundred percent. Yeah.
if we're lucky enough. Do you feel as though the information you had meant that you had an easier menopause for it or did you not get that luxury? Did you any find this out afterwards? I found that afterwards. Yeah. I didn't know any of those years. I had gone through a divorce in my early forties and I attributed most of the stuff, hair loss, stress, knots. I attribute a lot of it to that because I went to a doctor and I was thrown on antidepressants. I was in perimenopause.
That's what was happening. But no one said that to me. I had endometrium polyps. I dealt with all sorts of issues. I never, you know, menopause is 12 months when you haven't had a period. But if you have other problems and I had, you know, endometriosis and endometrium polyps, I was bleeding all the time. I still do sometimes as a result of that. So I never had this clear mark
of a passage of 12 months without a period. And so I had no idea. And when I finally ended up at the OBGYN who I'd had for 20 plus years, I got a note in my patient portal and I was with my now husband in my late 40s and well, like 49. And it said, in menopause, any questions? And that was it.
It wasn't to schedule the follow-up. It wasn't to say, hey, why don't you come back? Because maybe we want to talk to you about some options for you now that you have no estrogen or progesterone or testosterone in your body. And I remember I was looking, it was my then boyfriend, and I was like, I'm in menopause. How can I be in menopause? I'm 49. Now, that was the average age, obviously, but I had no information at all. So I'm hopeful that
Look, has the postmenopausal part, which happens right after that one day, been easier? Yes, because I'm aware of what's happening to me. So when I have a hot flash, when I can't sleep at night, I'm not like, oh, you're awful. What the hell is wrong with you? Why can't you go to sleep? Or, you know, why are you so hot all the time? What do you do about the sleeping part? Wait, what are you supposed to do? Is it?
10 years of not fucking sleeping? Well, it's a lot. You know, I mean, I did go on hormone therapy eventually. I was very afraid of it. I lost my mother to breast cancer. I had a lot of misinformation. I lost my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at 44. She died at 51. Sorry. I had no idea. Oh, thank you. I, but I had no idea. She was, she went through a menopause. It was an induced menopause due to chemotherapy and surgeries and,
And so I had no idea that's what she was going through. And because I had such a lack of information about hormones and hormone therapy and how to take care of myself, I thought like, I can't do that. But I had such a debilitating menopause. I wasn't functioning. Like I wasn't functioning. Right.
Right. It was some bad years. So I wound up doing that and going on hormone therapy. I wound up getting married at 50 years old. I wound up, you know, leaving my career three years later and focusing on this. So do I feel like I had, I feel like I had a tough menopause. I wish I'd have known all this in my perimenopause years. It would have been great. I would have said like, here's what I do to go to sleep. You know, I make sure I go to sleep at the same time every night and get up the same time in the morning pending work.
Like I really try to be diligent about that. My room is black when I go to bed now versus how it used to be. I'd get up with the, you know, with the sunlight. I don't, I don't do that now. I go to bed and get up at the same time. You know, hormone therapy has helped me immensely. Magnesium helps me immensely when I go to sleep. I have
a clear self-care, give myself a little bit of grace routine to make sure that I, you know, I take care of myself. Amazing. Well, may we all be looking after ourselves, menopause, no menopause. Um, but may we all take this as a, as a message that it's time to start
educating ourselves, preparing ourselves and therefore having hopefully a much less bumpy ride. I really appreciate your work and I'm so excited for the release of your book. I'm excited for people to see this documentary. Where can they find this documentary? Yeah, the documentary is on PBS and pbs.org. It premieres October 17th.
And we're also giving it to women in their communities to be able to host screening parties for themselves. So we have about 85 scheduled for, you know, coming up in the next several weeks. And then we're going to be moving it out internationally as well so women can have
screening parties and watch parties with their own communities and they can have those conversations among themselves. They don't feel like they have to, you know, go into this big, you know, wait for it to be on television. We want it to come to us. Yeah, let's start throwing some men's parties. Let's start playing it at some men's and some gentlemen's clubs. Gentlemen. Yeah, exactly. We have a show for you. Yeah.
Thank you so much for coming on and talking to me about this today. Thank you for your work. And just in the last 48 hours, having seen your film, already feel genuinely less intimidated. And so I imagine that can only increase the more I gain knowledge on this subject. Absolutely. I'm so grateful. And lots of love. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. I Weigh With Jameela Jamil is produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finnegan, Kimmy Gregory, and Amelia Chapelot. And the beautiful music that you are hearing now is made by my boyfriend, James Blake. And if you haven't already, please rate, review, and subscribe to the show. It's such a great way to show your support and helps me out massively. And lastly, at I Weigh, we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. So if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments below.
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