Can Your Menstral Cycle Really Make You More Productive In Business?
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podcast for women who want to unlock the clarity needed to put your big girl panties on and rock your real estate career like the true boss you are. I'm Joanne Bolt, your host, and together we'll dive into the things your broker doesn't teach you in order to own your own truth, disown the things getting in your way to finding your place, and stop apologizing for the obstacles you have to overcome along the way.

Hey everyone, and welcome back to The B Word. I'm your host, Joanne Bolt, and I've got a super, super special guest with me today, Dr. Erin Ellis.

And let me just tell you all in advance, this podcast is not going to feature a real estate agent. Normally I have agents reach out to me, they want to be on the podcast or they recommend other agents like yourselves that are listening to be guests on the podcast. And I do a lot of listening to various stuff myself. And this lady here is one that I was like, oh my God, she's got to be a guest because her message...

to women is just too good to pass up. So Erin, I'm gonna hand it over to you. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Awesome. Well, thank you, Joanne, for having me. I'm really excited to be here and hopefully share some insight with women's health and menstrual cycles and all of those things. But I am a naturopathic doctor. I have a private practice in Gilbert, Arizona, and I've been practicing for a little over four years now. And being a doctor wasn't really my first career. I worked in the bars and restaurants for many years and didn't really...

I couldn't figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. It was really like the bottom line. And I was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in 2010.

really opened my eyes to health and wellness and really how, I guess, naive and uneducated I really was about it. And throughout my cancer diagnosis, I learned so much about health, wellness, making sure that we take care of ourselves and things that I just didn't know or really took for granted or just brushed off because I was like, whatever, I don't care. And

And after my diagnosis, I met a naturopathic doctor. And when I met her, I didn't want her to start talking because everything that she learned and was educated with in school was kind of aligning with how what I was doing on myself, I guess, educational journey as far as learning about health and wellness. And I knew nothing about naturopathic medicine and come to find out

There's a school that was about less than 15 minutes from where I was living at the time.

seven or eight accredited naturopathic medical schools in the U.S. and Canada. Like they're not on every street corner. Regular colleges are in every town. So the fact that there was one in Arizona and it was really close to where I was living was a sign that I should explore this. And back up a few years, I went to University of Arizona to be pre-med. And so I always kind of wanted to do something in health and wellness. But again, I still didn't figure that out. I couldn't figure that out.

until this cancer diagnosis. Anyways, kick cancer's butt, found, went to the school, found out that I really only needed two classes to get in because all of my pre-read classes from U of A, this is another sign, like this is what I'm supposed to do with my life. Like finally I got the answer of what I need to do when I grow up. And you know, I'm still asking myself that this day. Right? I mean, I think most of us are like, what do we do when we grow up?

Yeah, and it's okay. You don't have to figure that out right away. I didn't. And so I took those two classes and got into medical school and started in 2013. And four short years later, I graduated with my doctorate. Up until 2020, I was in a naturopathic urgent care, kind of like a residency type thing because I learned everything about everything, really, because I saw a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And I really...

Found out that helping women and specifically with their hormones and decided to take the leap of faith at the end of 2019 to open my own practice in 2020, right before the pandemic, like not knowing that was coming. But I have been busy and my practice is thriving and I really couldn't have asked for, you know, a better last couple of years. And over the last year,

two years, I've helped hundreds of women with their periods and really stand that a lot of their symptoms aren't normal. And they shouldn't dread their period every month. And they shouldn't live in misery for two to three weeks out of the month. So that's like literally what I love doing every single day is talking about menstrual health, because kind of like you mentioned before we started recording, it's like,

It was like the elephant in the room. No one talked about it. I was brought up like my mom telling me, oh, you're going to start your period and you're going to bleed and you need to wear a pad and you might be in a little bit of pain and it's going to happen once a month. That's literally all I knew. Yeah, that's all I knew. Right? I know that women that are like,

So I now teach women like about their menstrual cycle, how we can use our hormones to work for us and not against us, like when there's abnormalities and then what you can do about it because for control and surgery are not the only options, nor are they the best options. So your hormones can be balanced and you shouldn't, your period should come and go without any issues. So that's in a nutshell how I got to at today. I,

I love that. I mean, I was telling you earlier, I definitely grew up in an era where there wasn't a lot of information out there, probably out of just sheer mortification. My mom was not having a conversation with me about my period at all. And I'll be honest, like I grew up in the deep, deep South. Well, I'm still in the South, right? But the Bible belt, Aaron, I, it probably, I mean, I

For the first couple of months of having a menstrual cycle, I did not ever use a tampon. My mother would not teach me how to use a tampon. And because I was in the deep South where everything is related to, you know, a sin against Jesus, I really thought that the reason I couldn't use a tampon was because it somehow it like made me lose my virginity. And that was not okay with God.

And I finally figured out on my own, no, it was just because my mom was too horrified to like talk me through how to use a tampon. And so I'm so thankful for doctors like you that are...

And today's day and age are out there so that women, they don't have to grow up kind of guessing what in the heck this thing is that happens to us every single month. And we shouldn't dread it. And we shouldn't look at it only as a, oh, thank God I'm not pregnant, you know, at certain ages of our lives or, oh, crap, I'm not pregnant at other certain ages of our lives. Yeah. But one thing I heard you talk about recently was how to really understand your cycle and how to use it for your business. Yeah.

Can you dive into a little bit of that process? Yeah. So your menstrual cycle is really defined about the entire 28 days. We'll just say 28 days for a normal menstrual cycle. And then in between there, you have your menses, which is the days that you bleed. Then we also have a couple other phases of our menstrual cycle, which is, in my opinion, we have four of them. First is the menstrual phase, which is where we bleed. And then in that menstrual phase up until ovulation, that's called the follicular phase.

Then we have an ovulatory phase, which is where we would ovulate. And then the last half of the cycle before we menstruate again is the luteal phase. So throughout that entire four-phase cycle of 28 days for a normal period. Now, if your period is not 28 days and it's like 34, maybe 26 or somewhere around there, like that's not normal. So that's one tip right there. One clue. Yeah.

You, uh, our hormones are all over the place. So in the beginning half of our cycle, estrogen and testosterone are starting to rise. Progesterone is very, very low. Um, when we ovulate estrogen and testosterone are at their, their highest, um,

And then at the last half of our cycle is where progesterone is at its peak because that's what is produced after we ovulate. And it makes our endometrial lining really, really thick so that if we were to have implantation and pregnancy, that's essentially kind of where the baby will hang out, like the little cushion. And if we don't have implantation, we're not trying to get pregnant. We are essentially menstruating out this nice endometrial lining that

was stimulated by progesterone. So throughout those four phases, those key hormones, estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone, we can use them to work for us. So in the first half of the cycle is where estrogen and testosterone are starting to rise. And that's more of like the

The creativity slash planning phase of the cycle where you can make your to-do list or plan for the upcoming month, it's kind of like the beginning of the calendar month. So think of it as that. It's like you started your period. And again, everyone's is going to look different because we're all starting our periods at different dates.

times of the month, but this is where you can be like, okay, this is the beginning of my month or my cycle. And you can start your, your planning and creative phase. Now, once we hit ovulation, like usually days 14, 15, 16, like I mentioned testosterone and estrogen are at its peak. This is literally when you need to go network beyond podcasts, um,

Maybe ask somebody out on a date. Ask for a raise at your work. Like, this is where you should be bold, outgoing. Like, maybe speak at events. Whatever the case may be, like, get yourself out there because you're glowing. Testosterone, estrogen, like, you're going to ovulate. So this is the time where you're, you know, trying to mate, essentially, if you're in a pregnancy phase.

planning stage of your life. And then after ovulation, progesterone, the queen, as I like to call her, is starting to rise or should rise. And this is the, where I like to say, get stuff done phase. Like that's the phase that I'm in right now. And I'm like, Oh, I'm like so productive. Like you can cross those things off that you planned in the first half of the cycle. You can really implement the things that you need to get done because your brain is so rewound.

ready to just tackle things. And once we start heading into that almost menstrual phase, like the last few days, it's,

Give yourself permission to rest. It's okay if you're like, why am I so tired? If you understand your menstrual cycle and what's going to happen, you're like, oh, okay, I'm about ready to start bleeding here in a couple days. No wonder I'm exhausted. My body's about ready to go through a significant change, et cetera. And so understanding your hormones and what happens, I think, takes a lot of

shame, guilt, you know, beating up of us like we are we are terrible to ourselves. Like women are just terrible to ourselves. And so if you understand that, then you're like, oh, OK, I'm about ready to bleed tomorrow or maybe you're snippy. And it's like, OK, well, well, my period is going to start tomorrow. I'm really sorry for that, even though moods like that are not normal. We can fix that.

Um, second tip. Uh, so yeah, I think again, like if you understand what's going on during the 28 days with the hormones, you can definitely use them to work for you, but really to understand how you self sabotage yourself and feel worse about yourself because it's, it's literally your hormones. You're not crazy. It's your hormones. And you can't help it because this, I mean, we are women. This is how God made us. And, um,

It is what it is, right? Exactly. Let's loop back around to a couple of things because I know in the real estate world, at least, we talk a lot about time blocking and looking at your calendar and setting your goals for the year, the quarter, the month, you know, chunking it down and figuring out when you should and shouldn't be doing things. And no one has ever stopped and said, and oh, by the way, Joanne.

In the month of December, instead of planning that really badass client party on this and this date, when the reality is, you know, you might think that that's the best date for your clients, but you're going to be at your lowest energy of that day.

And you're not going to want to show up for your own party. And if you can't show up and put a good face on, your clients aren't going to have the best experience. Maybe I should plan the client event around that time period when I'm like storming and Norman and getting all the stuff done, right? Yeah.

Yeah, or even around your ovulatory phase where you're like wanting to mingle and get out there and network and put your face out there and just be more social. But yeah, it's so true because I've caught myself in that too. I'm like, oh, this is the worst time for me to plan this.

I'm, you know, I'm starting my period. I just want to chill. I don't want to do anything. I don't want to record. And I can even notice too, if I'm not planning around my cycle, like say I do podcasts or I have my own podcast and I'm recording for it.

Or I do videography. So I do video shoots. I'm like, oh my gosh, that was terrible because my words are all jumbled. Like I am just not on point, but it's like, okay, it wasn't just me and my words and fumbling over my words. It's like, okay, this is probably the wrong part of my cycle to do this because I wasn't at my best energy and my hormones weren't backing me up. So yeah, absolutely. That's where it's so important that you understand where you are in your cycle.

But back to the beginning, like no one knows about their cycle. It's like, oh, okay, I start bleeding. That's it. They don't even know there's, you know, four phases of your cycle. Oh, no, no one teaches that. No. OB never taught me that. You know, you go in, OB, they check you out, you do the thing, you know, they maybe give you some birth control pills and they send you on your way. Yep. So, okay, so what are some tips for,

As we're starting to learn our own cycles, how do you recommend that we track this so that we can start to shift our business around our cycles so that instead of it just being that time of the month where she's a raging B word, no pun intended for the podcast, how can we start as women to learn our own bodies and to really figure this out?

First step would be to get yourself a tracking app. There's so many free ones out there. Flow is a really popular one. You can even use the Apple. Apple has one built into their watch, I think, or the health app. I use one called Women's Log. I've just used it for years. And I would just start tracking. And you want to put in there like day one. Day one is the day you start bleeding, not spotting, like the day that you actually will need a product.

And then from there, you can track your symptoms. You can put in usually these apps like, how do I feel? You know, do I feel bloated? Do I feel crampy? You know, how heavy is it?

And then once you start tracking over time, your app is going to give you an estimate as to where you should start menstruating again. So then once you have that app and you have everything in there, then you can be like, okay, my next month, I'm going to have my period here. Maybe block that out in your calendar and be like, this is my chill time. I don't really want to have a big event during there. And then do all that for the rest of the phases of your cycle. So that's my first tip is to

really start tracking because you won't know what's happening, especially if you are one that has a super irregular cycle and you just don't know when it's coming. Again, that's not normal. We should know when it's coming and it should be regular, inconsistent. Outside of that, it's not normal. So make sure you reach out to your doctor to figure out what in the heck's going on. Yeah, but tracking is probably the first step. Okay, so my next question would be if, you know,

As real estate agents, we are our own bosses. See, now here I'm tripping over my words. Maybe I'm at, you know, a certain time of that cycle. We can't always control when stuff is going to happen. You know, I do a lot of speaking events and I can't imagine that if I'm going to be asked to go speak at a conference or an event, if I'm going to look at this tracker and be like, nope, wrong time of the month for me to do that. I'm going to be low energy. And I'm going to be like, nope, wrong time of the month for me to do that.

I can't ask them to reschedule that conference or that client event or, you know, that super important walkthrough or whatever it is we've got going on. What is your best advice if we are having to be at our networking best on a day when we're not our networking best? I think right there is just knowing that you're not...

hormonally backed up. So if you're aware of it, then you're less likely to be like, Oh my God, why do I just feel like crap today? And it's like, okay, I know that I'm not at my best, you know, go get them like best energy state, but I am going to do the best that I can. And I think giving yourself that grace is the first step because it's all about awareness. So if you know what's going on, then I think you're less likely to

you're more likely to have a better outcome because you know that you're not really at your best state. Or maybe you might be like, I need extra rest the night before because this is my really fatigued state or I'm going to be extra tired or not as energized. So maybe I need to get extra rest.

Fuel yourself with good foods. Make sure you have protein and fat and fiber and all of the good things that are going to fuel you. Maybe get a green juice to start your day. Kind of like support your body in other ways that you can because you're at that lower hormonal state. Interesting. Okay. What about just in general, you know, fatigue and burnout that we experience as women? Is any of that kind of related to our menstrual cycle or is that completely different? Yeah.

Oh, it's all related. That's the beauty of naturopathic medicine is we look at the body as a whole. So it's not just like looking at your heart or looking at your lungs or looking at your stomach. It's like I'm looking at you as a whole. So I'm looking at all of those things. And your sex hormones, your thyroid and your adrenals or your stress hormone are all on the same – they're all connected. And they're all on the same axis called the HPA axis or the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis. Okay.

So they're all connected. So if one thing is off, something else is going to be off. I kind of do the analogy like they all need to be orchestrating like a nice sounding band. And if someone is playing off tune, it's going to set everything else off. So usually I see an imbalance in one area that's likely throwing off another area. So whether that's starting with, say, your thyroid, your thyroid is a little butterfly gland in your neck here.

And it literally plays a role in your period. It plays a role in your mood. It plays a role in your energy. It plays a role in your sleep. It literally plays a role in almost every single organ system in the body. So that is one organ that can be completely off and throw everything else off in the body too. So in even stress.

Um, if your thyroid's off, your adrenals are going to compensate. That's when burnout happens because women, high performing women, they're just go, go, go, go. They're being chased by a tiger like every day, just operating at full high speed. Like your poor little adrenal glands are going to wear out and you've got to support the other parts of your body to your, um, all of the things. So,

naturopathically, like how I look at the female body and the hormones as a whole. Yeah. And as high performing women, I know that we oftentimes, yes, we're going to the doctor. You know, I'll go to the OB once a year because I grew up knowing that's what you're supposed to do. I'll go to the dentist twice a year because I'm told that that's what I want to, you know, or should be doing.

It's super hard to finally sit back and admit I am over fatigued or I have no sex drive or, you know, I'm a raging hormonal wreck. And maybe that's affecting my business life and my home life because we're just not taught that that's something that we should be speaking about. How do you find clients coming to you? Are they being recommended by the doctors that we feel like we have to go to or are they seeking you on their own?

A little bit of both. Or they've gone to the doctor that they think they should go to and they're not getting any answers. Or they're just handed a medication. It's like, okay, here, you need an antidepressant. Like, I don't want to take it. I'm not depressed. Or they're being told, like, you should just sleep some more.

Like little or you're just a mom, like a lot of women are just getting dismissed. And they usually leave feeling hopeless, like, well, that sucked. Like I went because I told him I don't feel well, or I my energy's in the toilet, or I have no libido, my marriage is on the line, etc. And they got nowhere. So I get those patients where they don't get any answer.

And then I also get the ones that are just really sick and tired of all of it, you know, at their, in their own way. And then they seek me out or they find someone that see me already and they're like, oh, she totally helped fix my problems. Go see her. And I think it's just because we, as naturopathic doctors, we get to that root cause and we don't give, you know, we don't.

Like I'm trying to figure out what in the heck is going on. Why are you so tired? Why are your periods crappy? Why do you have no libido? Why aren't you sleeping? Like I'm that nagging toddler that's like, why, why, why, why, why, why, why? Like, why is this happening? And I find the answer. That is awesome. And I love that, you know, we can give ourselves some permission slips as women to go to a doctor like you and say something isn't right. Right.

You know, we do have those natural mommy instincts in us that we know when something's wrong with our kids or we know, you know, we kind of watch our babies like a hawk, right? But we don't often watch ourselves that way. And we don't give ourselves the grace to kind of raise our hand and go, okay, I just, I think I'm batshit crazy today and I'd rather not be.

Well, moms notoriously are the worst because they have been taking care of everyone else for so long. And so they know that something's up. They know that they don't feel as well as they should, but they chalk it. I mean, I hear it every day. Well, I don't know if it's because I'm a mom or maybe it's because of my kids or I'm just chalking it up to motherhood. And I'm like, no, that's not normal. Like you should feel your best self regardless if you have kids or not.

And so then they find me usually when they're at their wits end and they're like, okay, I have to do something about this. Like I need to have the energy. Like I need to have the energy so I can go pick up my kids from school or, you know, hang out with them after dinner. Otherwise I'm just like crash in bed. So usually they, they know, but there's, they're so busy taking care of everyone else. And they just keep putting it off and putting it off and putting it off and putting it off until literally it's like the last,

Like, all right, I absolutely have to do something about it. So they usually find me at, you know, not necessarily rock bottom. The worst. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

All right. So women in the working and business world, you know, like a lot of the women that listen to this podcast, what is the number one sign that they should probably be watching for? And aside from tracking their menstrual cycle, just watching for in themselves to say, hey, maybe I should raise my hand and go see someone like Dr. Erin before I'm at my wits end and before I'm at that like final straw point.

I think the, well, one, if you're not sleeping, like that's a big thing. And yes, I understand if you have small children and they wake you up, like that's a different story. But if you don't have any interruptions in the night or shouldn't have any interruptions and you're not sleeping, that is a big issue. So we got to figure out why are you not sleeping? Or on the flip side, if you're sleeping great soundly and you're waking up

still exhausted. That is a big sign that something's going on hormonally. And then you can flip that in with your periods. If you're dreading it every single month, that's not normal. It can be fixed. Like I said, your period should come and go and it should just be more of a nuisance than anything. It's like, eh, it's here. All right, that sucks. I'll wear a pad or a tampon and be done with it. It shouldn't cause any- No white pants today. Okay. Yeah. It shouldn't cause any disruption in your life. So-

I am a huge advocate for, you know, your own body. That's how I knew something was wrong when I was diagnosed with cancer. I'm like, this isn't normal. Like something's off. I have this like lump in my groin. I'm like, it's not normal. So you are the, you're, you are your own boss and you know your body best. So if you don't feel right, there's probably something going on and don't let anybody else tell you. Otherwise, if you're not getting an answer, go find someone else. Keep asking. That's what I had to do.

And give yourself grace and permission to keep asking. I think a lot of times, you know, we want to kind of almost lurk, right? Like, let's go listen to a podcast. Let's go search it up on Google. Let's go see, like, maybe why am I not making it through the full day of work before I'm exhausted? And if we think we get an answer, we just stop. But we haven't really addressed the issue. 100%.

Awesome. Well, Erin, thank you so much. I mean, this is like, I mean, 25 minutes of jam packed menstrual cycle stuff. Is there anything else you'd like our listening audience to kind of be aware of or know about you or about your form of medicine or just being a woman in general? No, I just, uh, naturopathic medicine is still upcoming. I think in the last

year and a half with this pandemic, like a lot of people are starting to be proactive with their health. And especially for women, we're complex. We are not tiny men. We are not built like men. And it is important that even if you don't feel off, you should still get your labs checked and make sure that everything's in balance because so many disease processes can be prevented if you give tools and you know what's going on, but you're not going to know what's going on.

labs check to see. So I'm a huge person for being your own health, getting routine labs, even if you're not sick, you don't need to be sick to go to the doctor and you should live your best life and have the best health that you can.

Awesome. So Dr. Erin, how, or maybe I should say Dr. Ellis, I'm not sure which one you really prefer. Yeah. Listen to me. I'm like, you know, doing my own thing over here. How do people get ahold of you if they're not in the Arizona area? Can you talk to people in other areas? Give us some recommendations. In the state of Arizona, I can't practice medicine outside of

However, I do provide a lot of information on Instagram, social media, all of my information is on my website, hopenaturalhealth.com. I also have, if you're new to the period realm,

Oh, this is super fascinating. I do have a perfect period quiz. So you can take that to see if you have the perfect period, which is perfectperiod.hopenaturalhealth.com. So it's a free quiz you can take. It's a lot of fun. And at the time of recording, I still have not had a perfect period or anyone with a perfect period result. So you women need my help. But yeah, that is mainly how you can find me. And if you're in Arizona, I'd love to help with lab work and diagnoses and such.

I do have to tell you, I never thought I'd ever hear someone say the perfect period. I literally had one last month. I'm like, this is the perfect period. It legit came in it. It was there and it left. And I'm like, all right, I am practicing. I'm pre I'm practicing what I preached. I'm like, I perfect period. That's awesome. All right, ladies. So I hope you got a lot out of this today with Dr. Erin. She is amazing.

to listen to. I will drop a link to her podcast in the show notes so that you can click over into there and listen as well. I know since I first learned from her that you actually can use your period to work for you and not against you. It's really opened my eyes and I'm in my 40s. So hopefully

some younger generation women can also hear this and not have to go the next 20 or so 30 years of their life before they realize that this is not the curse that we think it is. It is actually beneficial to understand it more than just when it's going to start and when it's going to stop. Thanks for being here. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me.

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