Men, Women, and Perimenopause: A Shared Experience
Amita is the co-founder of NourishDoc, a global holistic wellness platform for women to manage their hormone transition from PMS to Postmenopause. Inspired by her perimenopausal journey and working in the high-tech world, she felt unsupported and a need to bring the taboo topic of perimenopause at the workplace for an open discussion.
This podcast episode delves into the critical topic of perimenopause, a significant yet often overlooked phase in a woman's life. We engage in a profound discussion with our guest, who shares personal experiences and insights regarding the challenges women face during this transition. It is emphasized that perimenopause can last up to a decade, encompassing a range of symptoms that can adversely affect both personal and professional lives. We explore the necessity of education and open dialogue surrounding this subject, aiming to dismantle the stigma and taboo often associated with it. Ultimately, our mission is to foster a supportive environment where women can navigate this journey with resilience and informed guidance.
This episode presents a profound exploration of the often-overlooked journey of women as they navigate the complex landscape of perimenopause, a transitional phase that precedes menopause and ushers in a myriad of physiological and emotional changes. The discussion is anchored by a guest whose personal experiences illuminate the intricacies of this phase, characterized by fluctuating hormones that can lead to unexpected and challenging symptoms. The episode serves as a clarion call for increased awareness and understanding, as the hosts underscore the significance of recognizing the impact of these changes not only on women but on their families and workplaces as well.
Central to the conversation is the acknowledgment that many women enter perimenopause without a clear understanding of its implications, often leading to feelings of isolation and confusion. The guest articulates her own journey, reflecting on the societal taboos that surround discussions of women's health, particularly in relation to aging and hormonal transitions. This dialogue is not merely informative; it seeks to empower listeners to engage in open conversations about these experiences, fostering an environment where women feel supported and understood. By shedding light on the symptoms associated with perimenopause, including irregular menstrual cycles, anxiety, and physical changes, the episode encourages an empathetic approach to women's health that transcends generational and cultural divides.
The episode culminates in a robust discussion about the proactive measures women can take to manage their health during perimenopause. The guest emphasizes the importance of lifestyle changes, including dietary modifications, exercise, and holistic therapies, as vital tools in navigating this transformative period. By advocating for a comprehensive approach that combines physical, emotional, and mental well-being, the episode not only provides valuable insights but also serves to demystify the perimenopausal experience. Ultimately, this conversation aspires to foster a cultural shift towards greater acceptance and normalization of discussions surrounding women's health, empowering women to embrace their journeys with confidence and resilience.
Takeaways:
- The discussion centers around the significance of understanding perimenopause, a phase that many women are unaware of, which can lead to various physical and emotional challenges.
- It is imperative for individuals to recognize the common symptoms of perimenopause, such as irregular menstrual cycles, hot flashes, and mood swings, in order to seek appropriate support.
- Education and open communication are vital in addressing the challenges faced during perimenopause, as societal stigma often leads to embarrassment and shame surrounding this natural transition.
- The podcast emphasizes the importance of lifestyle changes, including diet and exercise, as essential strategies for women navigating the complexities of perimenopause and menopause.
- Support from partners and family members is crucial during this transition; they must be informed and empathetic to women's experiences during perimenopause.
- The goal of the discussed initiatives is to create an accessible platform for education and resources on perimenopause, aiming to destigmatize and normalize conversations around women's health issues.
Links referenced in this episode:
Transcript
Well, Amita, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker A:How you doing today?
Speaker B:Great.
Speaker B:Great.
Speaker B:Thank you so much, you know, for including this topic, including me.
Speaker B:So I'm really excited to have this conversation.
Speaker A:Well, I like to shock my audience.
Speaker A:You know, if I always give them the same kind of content, they kind of get used to it.
Speaker A:So I like to kind of mix it up a little bit.
Speaker A:And you have an interesting topic as we talked about before we got on.
Speaker A:It's like, you may not be a woman, but you either have a woman in your life or in your workplace, and that's impacted by this topic.
Speaker A:And it's a good thing for us to learn more about how we can better understand each other.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And, you know, things will unfold as we start the discussion.
Speaker A:Good.
Speaker A:Let's start with my favorite question, though.
Speaker A:What's the best piece of advice you ever received?
Speaker B:You know, it was from a spiritual guru, and I used to be very kind of.
Speaker B:I was never a confident person when I was growing up, and she told me to believe in yourself and listen to your inner voice.
Speaker B:I think that's the best advice I've ever gotten.
Speaker A:That's good.
Speaker A:I like that.
Speaker A:Because a lot of times we ignore our feelings.
Speaker A:And God has a way of trying to connect to us through, I always say, various sources.
Speaker A:Sometimes it's music, sometimes it's friends, sometimes it's advice we get, and it's just a matter of tapping into whatever he's trying to communicate to us.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And sometimes things that are happening in your life that.
Speaker B:That you did not think it should have happened that way, or a person is behaving in a way and you try to blame yourself.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:How can I improve to please this person?
Speaker B:It's very hard to listen to your inner voice, that whatever is going on is not right.
Speaker B:So I think it's hard for us to do that.
Speaker B:We always get muddled up with voices that are telling us what to do, not listening to what your heart is telling or, you know, what your mind is saying.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:That's very true.
Speaker A:As you think about your journey in life and in your business, who are some people that served as a mentor or even to inspire you on their.
Speaker A:On your journey?
Speaker B:There hasn't been, like a mentor mentor.
Speaker B:But I am definitely inspired by some of the women in today's day and age who are trying to make a difference.
Speaker B:Like Melinda Gates is one of the persons.
Speaker B:I truly admire what she's trying to do.
Speaker B:She has the courage to stand on what she believes in, and she's trying to help A lot of women with her charitable organizations and the work that she's doing.
Speaker B:I think she's one person that I think I admire a lot for the courage.
Speaker B:It's not easy to leave the richest man in the world.
Speaker B:I don't know if I, you know, I'm thinking if I had been, would have been.
Speaker B:It's very difficult.
Speaker B:You know, the money clouds your judgment here.
Speaker A:I'm sure she didn't leave empty handed, but.
Speaker B:I know, I know.
Speaker A:That's a good point.
Speaker A:A good point though.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So tell us about your personal journey through perimenopause and how it inspired you to co found neurostock.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So you know, perimenopause is something which most of us are not even familiar with this term.
Speaker B:And so, and I was oblivious as well.
Speaker B:And the only way I found out, well, actually I learned about this term two, three years back when I started digging into what I wanted to do for Narayish Talk.
Speaker B:But at the time I started having strange symptoms at workplace, which were very embarrassing, which something I could not talk about.
Speaker B:And, and, and that is something.
Speaker B:And I didn't realize I was barely 40 years old and I did not realize at the time that I was entering these hormonal fluctuations and the term called perimenopause.
Speaker B:I was completely oblivious of that.
Speaker B:And, and, and at that time I did not think, one day I'll be sitting and we'll be talking about this topic and I'll be talking, you know, getting a company out of it.
Speaker B:I had never, I just wanted to survive.
Speaker B:It was so bad.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Survive my workplace, survive my life, survive my relationships.
Speaker B:Because everything went topsy turvy that I can tell you that.
Speaker A:So for, for being a man, not understanding it, maybe even women don't understand it.
Speaker A:Can you kind of define for us what is perimenopause?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So perimenopause at the transition years for women before they hit menopause.
Speaker B:So, so menopause is not a switch that happens for, you know, that cessation of periods for women.
Speaker B:Menstrual cycle stops at that time when a woman hits menopause.
Speaker B:And that's generally 51, 52.
Speaker B:That's the average age.
Speaker B:But most of us don't realize that the before our body hits that menopause, the body starts preparing a woman.
Speaker B:It could be a decade, it could be a few years, it could be up to a decade or more.
Speaker B:And that is the transition years when the hormones, the female sex hormones start behaving erratically and women start Getting irregular periods.
Speaker B:And like I said, it could take up to 10 years before the actual cessation of the menstrual cycle happens for a woman.
Speaker B:So this perimenopause, these transition years when there's women, you know, hormones are going all over and there are so many symptoms that come up unprepared, unpredictable.
Speaker B:All those things are happening during the.
Speaker A:Perimenopause phase as women are going through that.
Speaker A:What are some things you've discovered in your work to help them deal with this transition period?
Speaker B:So, so, so many things change for women.
Speaker B:See, we don't understand as women, even as a society or as a community all over the world is that so many things change for women when these hormone fluctuations are happening.
Speaker B:Like, like your gut microbiome changes, your brain changes, believe it or not.
Speaker B:So these are major changes that are happening.
Speaker B:So you have to modify your diet, you have to change your lifestyle.
Speaker B:These are some of the things.
Speaker B:This is like non negotiable kind of a thing if you want to survive.
Speaker A:Sure, yeah.
Speaker B:Navigate this journey, you know, without any, like.
Speaker B:And it's not just one pill that's the problem.
Speaker B:Like, you know, this morning I was, there's so many weight loss pills that are coming up.
Speaker B:You take a pill and boom, it goes.
Speaker B:Unfortunately for the perimenopause journey, you can't take one pill.
Speaker B:You can take one pill for the hot flash, but then something else would go wrong is what I'm saying.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So you have to change your diet, your lifestyle modifications, you have to bring in health, exercise.
Speaker B:These are the just fundamentals women have to do if they do not want to end up with a chronic conditions.
Speaker B:You know, when they're much older or they don't, they can have, you know, they can manage their perimenopause journey properly if they don't make these things.
Speaker A:What are some symptoms that women need to be aware of?
Speaker A:Because I think sometimes you said they're not aware it's happening.
Speaker A:So what should they be looking out for as per.
Speaker A:Menopause is beginning to happen because everybody goes through a different time, I'm sure, different ways.
Speaker A:What are some common things that they could say, hey, I think this is the beginning of something?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So the first thing is the irregular menstrual cycle.
Speaker B:That's the first sign woman would know initially in the earlier phase of perimenopause.
Speaker B:It's, it's kind of, it's not after 21 days or 20, 28 days, whatever, it's 15 days, it's shorter and then as a woman starts progressing closer to menopause, it goes further apart.
Speaker B:So as a result of that, some of the common symptoms are hot flashes, night sweats.
Speaker B:That's what I had.
Speaker B:And then as a part of that, you can't sleep at night.
Speaker B:Now as a lack of sleep in the morning, you're fogged up, your brain is fogged up.
Speaker B:You're not able to focus.
Speaker B:And because of that, you can get anxiety.
Speaker B:And because of anxiety, your gut health gets constipated and you can have mood swings, emotional outbursts.
Speaker B:Sometimes you feel like crying.
Speaker B:And then because of all this, because of the gut health is now kind of screwed up.
Speaker B:You tend to put on weight, specifically around the midriff.
Speaker B:The bloating.
Speaker B:The bloating starts happening.
Speaker B:It sometimes gets so bad that during the day you're kind of going like a balloon from one to another.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:And then hair thinning is another one.
Speaker B:So skin, there's so much.
Speaker B:It's, it's like everything, right?
Speaker B:And, and, and also for some women, loss of libido and, and pain, you know, so that can impact relationships.
Speaker B:So it's like, I'm saying it's not just one thing.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's like a multitude of so many things, but these are all common.
Speaker B:These are not uncommon, by the way.
Speaker B:There are, there's a lot of common.
Speaker B:Now the difference is it's different for every woman, and it's also different for, for women as per cultural and ethnic background.
Speaker B:That is the key, key determination here as well.
Speaker A:You say this could take up to 10 years for this.
Speaker A:To.
Speaker A:How in that process, how do you, how does your partner support you in that.
Speaker A:Cause that's, that's a long time to go through these mood swings, the changes in your.
Speaker A:So, but, so what are some things that the people in the life who are important can do to help support women as they go through this, this transition?
Speaker B:It's very important and I tell you why.
Speaker B:60% of women who are going through divorce are during this phase of life, perimenopause, menopause.
Speaker B:So certainly nobody has put the correlation, but certainly if someone has to do the research study, there would be a correlation of this right now, the first thing is the education.
Speaker B:We don't understand this phase.
Speaker B:That's the, that is the fundamental problem.
Speaker B:The perimenopause phase specifically is what I'm talking about.
Speaker B:Even as a woman, as men, we don't understand this phase.
Speaker B:So the first really is the education, the awareness of how it's lasting 10 years and what is it that you can do to educate yourself to changing your lifestyle?
Speaker B:If someone needs an expert advice, I'm talking about health expert advice, you know, seeking it out, being open communication, all these things would help.
Speaker B:But right now the problem is it's still considered a taboo topic.
Speaker B:There's a shame involved in this.
Speaker B:Sometimes there's a guilt factor.
Speaker B:You know, women are like that.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:They're trying to look the way they used to look when they were 20 years old, trying to do the diet part, not eating properly.
Speaker B:So the partner has to also understand these feelings a woman is going through.
Speaker B:And it's hard, it's not easy.
Speaker B:But the only way you could do that is by open communication, awareness of this topic, like you and I are doing now.
Speaker A:I love that you mentioned that there are so many different things that a woman is going through.
Speaker A:Her gut biome is off, her hormones are off, her hair is thinning.
Speaker A:There's a lot of change she has to make in her lifestyle and diet.
Speaker A:How do you know or what tests do women get during perimenopause that says, okay, here's the way to holistically approach this aspect of the perimenopause journey you're on.
Speaker A:Because there's so many things going on at once.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So typically I'm not a medical doctor.
Speaker B:I just have to put a medical disclaimer here before I.
Speaker B: But I have interviewed about: Speaker B:So typically what the medical doctors are saying is the Dutch test, It's a Dutch test is of like a universal test for hormone hormones.
Speaker B:And, but the problem is it cannot be.
Speaker B:Sometimes it, it, it's not accurate because of the fluctuations that's happening during day to day in a woman's life.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So let's say if someone says, okay, I'm going through perimenopause, I'm like two years in and I get this Dutch test that might not be accurate.
Speaker B:That's the problem.
Speaker B:So you almost have to have a baseline and you're normal, like you know, pre menopausal like before the perimenopause.
Speaker B:The other test they talk about is the gut microbiome test.
Speaker B:They can figure out, you know, if the gut health is impaired, they need to fix it.
Speaker B:So that's the other test that a lot of doctors end up doing, you know, and then they are also doing regular blood work to see any deficiencies, nutritional, you know, any deficiencies at all.
Speaker B:So these are all the things women should, you Know, I try to get on a regular basis to make sure that, you know, I have all, all the necessary nutrients.
Speaker A:Right, right, exactly.
Speaker A:So we talk about the relationship part of this.
Speaker A:What's it like in the workplace when women are going through perimenopause?
Speaker B:So workplace can be very embarrassing.
Speaker B:I mean it was for me because the thing was I did not understand that I was going through perimenopause.
Speaker B:If I had understood this is what I'm going through, I would have been a little bit better.
Speaker B:So I think most of women are like that.
Speaker B:They're just caught unprepared.
Speaker B:So suddenly you're sitting in a meeting and you start sweating.
Speaker B:It can be very embarrassing.
Speaker B:And you might think that something else is going on in your body and you might not relate this perimenopause because you're still younger or young.
Speaker B:Young enough, I should say that.
Speaker B:So I think the workplace is very important for the managers and the work the corporates to incorporate this.
Speaker B:The reason is 50% of the workforce is women.
Speaker B:Now whether we like it or not, that is the truth.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You know, so how do you support them?
Speaker B:And most of the women again at workplace, they don't talk.
Speaker B:I mean I never talked to anyone.
Speaker B:I was like, oh my God, if I go talk to someone like an hr, what am I supposed to do?
Speaker B:And they will judge me, you know, that I can't do my work.
Speaker B:So see, all these feelings start coming, right?
Speaker B:So I'm telling you my feelings.
Speaker B:I'm like, oh my God, people are going to judge me.
Speaker B:I can't do my work properly.
Speaker B:I can't even hold myself properly in front of the people.
Speaker B:I start sweating like a crazy person.
Speaker B:I don't know what to do.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So, so the women feel kind of embarrassed and, and, and, and just don't know what to do sometimes.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:It has to be normalized, Right.
Speaker B:This is not a disease.
Speaker B:See, we, we.
Speaker B:This whole perimenopause is not something someone has caught on a disease that it's not a chronic disease that you're going to live.
Speaker B:We never want to talk about it.
Speaker B:We need to normalize the discussion everywhere is what I'm saying.
Speaker B:Right, Right.
Speaker A:So tell us about what you do to help women through this period.
Speaker B:So our focus is step number one is self care.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:If no matter if you get on hrt, it's a hormone replacement therapy.
Speaker B:What a lot of doctors say women can do to help themselves.
Speaker B:But if you don't take care of yourself, self care.
Speaker B:When I talk about a self care I was talking about, you know, really incorporating holistic therapies.
Speaker B:What I mean is your changing of diet, your exercise, your yoga, your breath work.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Your hypnotherapy, your counseling.
Speaker B:Because mental health becomes an issue for women, a lot of them.
Speaker B:And then also your aromatherapy, your.
Speaker B:Some of the ayurvedic massage therapies, some of the acupuncture sessions.
Speaker B:These are the things that women can do themselves in the sense like if they learn how to take care of themselves.
Speaker B:Then of course the consulting or guided sort of with the experts is supplementation.
Speaker B:Right, Supplementation.
Speaker B:We don't recommend that you start taking all kind of herbs in your body now.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But the right type of supplementation with the right kind of consultation, these are things what we are talking about initially.
Speaker B:And then if someone needs an hrt, which is a hormone replacement therapy a lot of doctors want, so you should do that.
Speaker B:It depends on every woman.
Speaker B:Every woman is different.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So those are the things.
Speaker B:What we are trying to do is really starting with the basics of education, self care, then go to the next tier of guided with the expert and then the consultation with the expert and then whatever you want to do, hrt.
Speaker B:So I want to make it affordable.
Speaker B:I don't want to be this to be again, only for rich women or only for women who are privileged.
Speaker B:Right, right.
Speaker B:Again, we are going to have a disparity or inequity.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And that's not right.
Speaker B:That's not right.
Speaker A:No, it's not.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So share a success story of someone who you've worked with during this process.
Speaker A:We always like to hear success stories of how someone's managed to.
Speaker A:Because we need women to know that you will survive this.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So most of the people I've interviewed have been women who have, who tried a lot of different things and then they ended up doing what I'm just describing.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Changing their entire lifestyle and all that.
Speaker B:I myself, I can share my success story because I know it much better.
Speaker B:And like I was explaining you, I was a mess in the sense it, it kind of engulfed me.
Speaker B:It was like an octopus, you know, everywhere.
Speaker B:All my, my entire facets of my life were impacted and I did not know what to do.
Speaker B:So I had to end up changing my entire diet to becoming more cautious about, you know, not necessarily vegetarian, but letting go of red meats, alcohol, processed foods, eating fresh foods, loading up on the phytoestrogens because it already has estrogen, one of the hormone that starts going down for women when they get the perimenopause things like that, right.
Speaker B:And then taking care of my gut health very aggressively and putting some supplements like ayurvedic supplements or herbs, bringing it every single day, like triphala, like cumin, coriander, carom seeds, a lot of herbs and spices, like ginger, turmeric, these kind of things, Right.
Speaker B:So this is just common every day.
Speaker B:Everybody has it in the kitchen.
Speaker B:It's nothing new.
Speaker B:And then adding exercise, meaning yoga and strength training and breath work.
Speaker B:So important.
Speaker B:Adding strength training helps with the bones.
Speaker B:Our bones start going down and the breath work, if you learn how to do the breath work properly, helps you calm down.
Speaker B:There's a lot of research we all know with the meditation, right?
Speaker B:So all those things, I started incorporating simple meditation, nothing, sitting for like 10 minutes, even 2 minutes, 5 minutes, and using some simple breath work and simple yoga postures.
Speaker B:And then the third thing I started doing was incorporating some of the ayurvedic massage therapies that help you calm down.
Speaker B:So there was one called Shirodhara.
Speaker B:They put medicated oil on this right here.
Speaker B:Helps with your hair.
Speaker B:And, and also, yeah, amazing.
Speaker B:Helps with your hair loss, believe it or not.
Speaker B:Also helps with your, your sleep, anxiety, stress.
Speaker B:It has clinic research, clinical trials have been done.
Speaker A:And what's the name of it again?
Speaker B:Shirodhara.
Speaker B:S H I R O D H A R A.
Speaker B:It's a.
Speaker B:It's a very classic Ayurvedic therapy.
Speaker B:I don't know if it's offered in United States.
Speaker B:Maybe some of the ayurvedic practitioners are offering, but you kind of lie down and then they just start dropping a lukewarm medicated oil right here for 45 minutes.
Speaker B:And this therapy has the research, as I said, and then some of the other therapies in Ayurveda that I have been proactively using, some acupuncture and then hypnotherapy.
Speaker B:So all these things slowly, slowly.
Speaker B:If you start doing it and putting it on a everyday basis, you will see the difference.
Speaker B:Believe it or not, I, I feel more energetic now than I felt during my perimenopause years.
Speaker B:And, and, and you know, my hair is still intact, so so far, so good.
Speaker A:That's good.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:For people who want to know more, especially women, what are some places that can go get more research?
Speaker A:Because I know some people just like to know, where can I find out more?
Speaker A:And also maybe for guys too, who kind of have a wife or a mother going through it, where can they find more information about this, kind of help them Be informed about how to be supportive and helpful.
Speaker B:So that's what we've been trying to build.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:A platform.
Speaker B:You know, PubMed is a great source by the way, you know, research, but it's a lot of work right.
Speaker B:To find different research.
Speaker B:And then there are other.
Speaker B:I'm not sure if there's a single resource that you could say okay, I want to find out about menopause.
Speaker B:There are a lot of doctors who are doing practice of menopause as a, you know, there's not somewhere that could be affordable and I could say oh go, go over there.
Speaker B:But, but that's what we are trying to do at Nourish Doc is really to build these complete a huge library and, and the resource and keeping it like five bucks a month so that, you know, we can survive something like that, that, that people, men or women, can learn about this whole journey of perimenopause, menopause and some of the other things that go along with that.
Speaker B:All the symptoms.
Speaker B:But maybe some of the blogs have some resources, you know, but it's not very comprehensive.
Speaker B:I should say that, you know, there are some apps but they're kind of teeny bit here and there.
Speaker B:So everybody's trying to do a teeny bit information here.
Speaker B:Like more.
Speaker B:Most of the resources that I know are recommending hrt, more hormone replacement therapy.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And so it's not really one place where you can say okay, I can find everything.
Speaker B:It's hard.
Speaker B:And that's what we are trying to do.
Speaker B:We are trying to do that.
Speaker B:I'm not saying we are there yet, but we're trying to do that.
Speaker A:And you mentioned that you're going to launch things soon.
Speaker A:So tell us about when that's going to be online.
Speaker A:Everybody can kind of tap into what you're doing.
Speaker B:Yeah, within a month.
Speaker B:That's the hope.
Speaker B:We are just getting our content up.
Speaker B:The idea is to, like I said to.
Speaker B:We built a platform, a holistic wellness platform, what we call it, for midage women to help them with their journey.
Speaker B:The idea is to make it super affordable.
Speaker B:So we're going to price it like $5 per month per person so that they can learn about this perimenopause, menopause and all the symptoms that go along with that.
Speaker B:And, and there'll be also actionable insights that women can do to change their diet or exercise.
Speaker B:The things that I was talking about.
Speaker B:So probably in a month's time, within a month time, we are just uploading our content and making it available to general public in the month of May.
Speaker B:Hopefully I can offer it as a Mother's Day present.
Speaker B:Right, that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So what do you hope from your work, the work that you're doing and others that will happen in the future around women going through this hormone transitional period?
Speaker B:You know, I want to normalize this discussion.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I don't want it to be with shame and guilt and hush hush.
Speaker B:The way it is right now, we feel that, oh, we've done something wrong as women.
Speaker B:Oh, my God, I need to hide it.
Speaker B:I can't tell my family.
Speaker B:I'm going through this.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I mean, these are typical feelings.
Speaker B:And I thought, I'm the crazy person.
Speaker B: And when I interviewed: Speaker B:All of them were same.
Speaker B:I was shocked.
Speaker B:I was honestly shocked.
Speaker B:I thought I come from a culture which is a little bit subservient to women and, you know, but that's why maybe I am who I am.
Speaker B:You know, all those things in my head.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But it didn't matter.
Speaker B:I'm telling you, every single woman, no matter.
Speaker B:In America too, in the United States, I'm talking about Latino, doesn't matter.
Speaker B:Everyone had the similar feelings.
Speaker B:I'm like, oh my God, where did we go wrong in the world?
Speaker B:Exactly right.
Speaker B:So it needs to be normalized.
Speaker B:It needs to be normalized.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I love to ask my guests this question.
Speaker A:What do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker B:You know, I just want to make an impact.
Speaker B:I really want to make a social impact in improving people's lives.
Speaker B:I always wanted to do that.
Speaker B:I did not know how I could do it.
Speaker B:I had to make money to survive.
Speaker B:But really, my legacy, I really want to leave with making a social impact, in this case, women's life, on topics that are not being discussed openly.
Speaker B:So that's what I would like it to be.
Speaker A:Well, that's great.
Speaker A:So, Amita, where can people find you and your website and connect with you on social media?
Speaker B:Yeah, the best way is to go to our website, www.nourishdoc.com.
Speaker B:everything is connected.
Speaker B:We are very active on social media on most of the social media channels.
Speaker B:And when the app is up, hopefully by Mother's Day, there will be a link that women or men even can gift to their spouses or partners or who that they can start learning about all this topic.
Speaker A:Well, this is an important topic.
Speaker A:Like I said, so many people either are going through it or have someone in their life who's going through it and so having information so that we can be supportive of one another and more understanding and give women the support they need to help navigate through these trends because no one likes transition but to know to have the tools to be able to figure out what to do is always helpful.
Speaker A:So thank you for what you do.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:This is an important topic and the only thing I want to add is we as a society all over the world we focus more on the reproductive phase of a woman's life and we've ignored what happens after the reproduction and this is where we are coming in to really lay a lot of emphasis after the reproductive phase of a woman's life.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Well thank you so much and you have a great day and blessings on that website.
Speaker A:Hopefully comes out as a great Mother's Day gift for all the women in our lives.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Thank you so much.
