Why You Feel All Over the Place: Female Physiology w/ Jenny Swisher EP 62

[00:00:00] Well, hello. I'm your host, Shanenn Bryant and I may sound a little bit different today. Um, this is the second year in a row that my husband and I have had COVID in January after coming back from his conference. So last year, as you may know, if you follow the podcast was in Costa Rica and when we returned home, we both had COVID. 

[00:00:26] And this year I was in the Dominican. We returned home, both with COVID. So I have been out of pocket for a while. I've been recovering, which also made me very behind on the podcast. So first I just want to say, I'm sorry that I haven't had new episodes out, but secondly, you know, January was all about ironically physical health. 

[00:00:50] And this episode today from Jenny Swisher, I still wanted to share with you. It was supposed to be published the last week in January, but because I was so behind because of traveling and my illness, I wasn't able to get it out in time. So I wanted to still share this episode. with you because I think there's so much value in it. 

[00:01:15] And this will wrap up the physical health month of January, even though we are already in February. So I just wanted to say, thanks for hanging in there with me. I will do my best to never get behind again so that you're not missing episodes. Thank you for hanging in there and thank you for coming back to listen to another episode of Top Self here's Jenny Swisher. I can't wait for you to hear this episode to wrap up the January physical health month. 

[00:01:46] Here we go.

[00:01:47] Shanenn Bryant: Welcome Jenny Swisher. She is a personal trainer, nutrition specialist, and health practitioner, podcast host, course creator. You have all the things. You talk about something that I think is on a lot of women's minds. It's something that we go through all the time. And especially as Someone who experiences jealousy.

[00:02:12] I feel like when we have other things that are going on in our life, our physical health is like where we need to start and getting that in order and making sure I'm strong enough. I'm feeling physically healthy to then deal with some of the other things. And you're going to help us do that. You've studied women's hormones for decades and you're on a mission to help women become more hormone literate, right? And help us to understand what's going on. 

[00:02:40] I love the conversation because I just turned 50 this year and I feel like where were all the conversations? Like, there's so much that I don't know. You hear things here and there, but trying to put them all together to then deal with how you're feeling on a daily basis.

[00:02:57] So help us do that. Welcome Jenny.

[00:03:00] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. It's, uh, it's great to be here. people say, how did you become hormone health knowledgeable? And I say it was through unfortunate struggle myself. So I just turned 40 actually this week as of this recording. And, um, I'm on a mission to really teach women everywhere about the different transitions we go through hormonally and how that affects our energy and how it impacts our confidence and our relationships and our overall well being.

[00:03:25] So, thanks again.

[00:03:26] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah, well, happy birthday, and that's definitely something that we all look for, the people listening to this podcast are certainly struggling with feeling not so confident in their relationship. And then you add these other stressors that we have, things going on with our body that maybe we don't understand.

[00:03:45] your podcast is called Sync Your Life. You have a great course called Sync. So what does it mean to cycle sync? 

[00:03:54] Jenny Swisher: Yeah, well, it's interesting because when we created the course in 2020, um, before the pandemic ever started, uh, I had this desire to really serve women on a deeper level. So, prior to that, I have a background in personal training and nutrition and I owned a gym for several years before my kids were born.

[00:04:09] And I started to see not only in myself and my own story, but I also started to see in the women I was training that women and men are not the same. So when it comes to, you know, exercise and nutrition, we would see drastic differences between how men and women would, they would do the same things in the gym, and they would even sometimes follow the same meal plans, but they would get drastically different results.

[00:04:29] Men could say, I'm sure you're going to laugh when I say this, because every woman does, men will, will drop the weight so much quicker. And women tend to struggle sometimes, right? So that's just an example. It's not all about weight, that's just a great example of where I'm going with this conversation.

[00:04:44] So the reason for that is because decades of research, um, when it comes to fitness and nutrition and health in general, even in our healthcare system has been done on men. Because when researchers are asked, why don't you study women? Their answer is, well, women are too complex given their hormones. So when we look at treatments out there, like modern medicine treatments, when we look at medications that are drug trialed, when we look at, um, the research done on different types of exercise and exercise regimens and intermittent fasting and ketogenic diets, all of these things were done on men.

[00:05:16] And so here we are, like as women living in a society where everything is sort of catered to the male physiology and we're wondering why we feel off, right? We're wondering like, well, why don't I have the energy and why can't I lose the weight? And we, we take it very personally when in reality it's because no one has ever really taught us, um, because no one really knows.

[00:05:36] So it hasn't been until the last 10 to 20 years that we're finally starting to see research being done on women and incorporating the menstrual cycle. We're starting to see, that type of information come about. So, so let's start here with just, you know, you mentioned my migraines. That's what got me into hormone health I didn't know that they were hormonally triggered migraines.

[00:05:54] In fact, I did everything under the sun in my 20s to figure out where they were coming from. I didn't understand, you know, why I was having constant chronic migraine at the time. So, fast forward through years of struggle and, feeling like I wasn't getting any answers. And I landed finally in, uh, I was on a walk with my good friend, Jen, who's also my yoga instructor.

[00:06:14] I said, Jen, at this point, I've seen 14 different neurologists and spinal specialists. I've had four neck surgeries. I've done Botox for migraine. I've tried every possible migraine preventative drug on the market and nothing's working. So at this point, I'm just going to give in. I'm just going to take this pill every day that helps me with the pain.

[00:06:31] This is just, you know, this is just what I've been given. Like this is my life. And she said, you've got to try one more thing. Um, and actually she said some words to me that would be really pivotal for me. And it's really one of the main things that I teach in my course, which is you have to be your own best doctor.

[00:06:46] And so she was like, you know, you're, you're trying to find your doctor house. You know, you're trying to find that person who's going to be like, Oh, you have mold in the gutter. And that's why you feel so bad. You know? And I, I totally was, I was putting that authority on the doctors to figure out what was going on with me.

[00:07:00] And it wasn't until I had that mindset shift when I decided, you know what, I am going to look at this differently. And at that point, I made the decision to investigate a functional wellness approach, which is a root cause approach looking at what's causing this to happen in the first place. Like, don't just put me on birth control to treat the symptom or don't just do x, y, or z medication.

[00:07:20] Instead, let's look at why I'm feeling this way to begin with. So it was, it was literally just making a total 180 degree shift in my life from being in all the doctor's offices to saying, what are some things that I can do? Let's look at like food sensitivity testing and let's look at my nutrition and let's really dial in on my sleep.

[00:07:37] And let me start looking at experts that are in sort of the lifestyle world. So that led me to functional medicine and led me to a functional medicine doctor who, after five years of chronic migraine, uh, looked at me and said, we're going to do some testing that you haven't had done before. We started looking at stool, urine, saliva, things that no doctor had done with me before.

[00:07:55] And within a few months of working with her, I was essentially migraine free. Um, we started like off of all of the pharmaceuticals. I'm not suggesting people do this. I'm just sharing my story. But I went off of all the pharmaceuticals. I went on to different vitamins and things that I was deficient in. I started using bioidentical hormone replacement therapy.

[00:08:14] And my life was changed. Like it literally, I went from disability in a corporate environment, um, where I couldn't work to eventually within a couple of years of being pain free, opening my own fitness studio, preaching health and fitness, like digging more and more into this for myself. So my journey comes from sort of my own struggle, right?

[00:08:33] And so yes. I've gone on to become a personal trainer, nutritionist and integrated health practitioner. But I did that because I wanted to help women everywhere become their own best doctor. And I wanted to give them the tools to be able to advocate for themselves in a doctor's office, to know what questions to ask, to know what their menstrual cycle should look like, to know how hormones play a role in their energy, because most don't know they hit 40 or 45 and all of a sudden the symptoms come on and they're like, wait a minute, what's happening?

[00:08:58] and so I wanted to be able to be that person to help people step into that power. Um, So when we launched the course though, it was, um, originally, you know, my background was in fitness. So I was like teaching women. I saw where women were struggling in the gym. And I said, you know, I really want to teach this concept, which is really on the rise of cycle syncing, like how women can train in alignment with their cycle.

[00:09:20] And so that's how the course was born was a fitness approach. Like let me just take a fitness approach to this. Let me teach women. How they can cycle sync with the different energies of their cycle. And with very quickly within the first month of launching that soft launching that to my beta group, I learned that this is not enough.

[00:09:37] Like we cannot just have another fitness program because women will take that as. beating themselves up again if it doesn't work for them, right? So at the end of the day, I was like, you know what I have to do with this course, what I had to do with my body, which was, I've got to go deeper and I've got to make sure that we, we teach women what their bodies are designed to do, what their menstrual cycle should look like.

[00:09:58] We need to teach them proper testing, questions to ask in the doctor's office, all that kind of stuff. It really revamped the course. So it is called SYNC, how to fuel and train with your female cycle, because I find that's what women want to do. But I really give them in the course what they need to do.

[00:10:13] So it's both focus

[00:10:14] Shanenn Bryant: Right.

[00:10:15] Jenny Swisher: and nutrition. The very first module is just working with a functional practitioner and what that might look like and, and how to start that journey and how to know if it's the right person for you and all that kind of stuff. So it was a really long way of answering your question, but I want to make sure that I give the context because I think too many women out there are wondering why they feel off, you know, they wonder why their tech engine lights are flashing, or they enter perimenopause and they don't feel themselves and their relationships are suffering and If we had just given women the education that they needed on their bodies and their hormones, a lot of that could be prevented, right?

[00:10:47] But here we are, and now we know better, so we can do better. And it starts with things like my course and other things out there that can help teach

[00:10:55] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. Well, I like that you said, be, you know, be your own best doctor because, and I just went through this myself. I've probably been to. At least five or six doctors like trying to fit like, well, what is that? Why is this happening? Why is this happening? Why is this happening? And of course, you know running the gamut of this test and this test and this test and you do at Some point have to go.

[00:11:14] Okay. No one really is gonna connect all the dots for me that kind of has to be me and that has to be me to step in and say Okay. I've got this over here going on. I, I can see these test results because that's another confusing thing too. When you, they're also speaking language that maybe you aren't used to in your own life.

[00:11:35] So I think it's an amazing conversation, because there are things that that happened in your twenties that are different than happened in your thirties and your forties and your fifties, how early should women be thinking about this and trying to think about their cycle and really syncing up with it?

[00:11:48] How early should we be doing that?

[00:11:50] Jenny Swisher: Goodness. Yeah. So I think, um, society fails us as early as middle school when we go through sex education. Uh, I know for me, my personal experience. know, whatever it was, like sixth, seventh, eighth grade was learning how to not get pregnant as a teen, as opposed to understanding my anatomy and what's happening to me on a week-to-week basis.

[00:12:10] So I think it starts with our young girls. I mean, I'm a mom of two girls. I have a three-year-old and a seven year old. And I know the questions will come and. The more, you know, the more equipped I am to answer her questions, right? It's not always the school system that's to blame. It's just in general, right?

[00:12:25] We, we just all need to do better. But as I mentioned earlier, when research isn't done on women, we don't know what we don't know. So I think things are changing. I think we're starting to see. Uh, a lot of evolution in this, in this area, um, there's a new device out there that, that teaches teenage girls, young teenage girls, how to track their cycles and what their energy might be day to day, which I think is awesome.

[00:12:46] There are people out there in the field, Dr. Laura Bryden, Dr. Stacey Sims, a lot of people who are really pioneering this space to say, hey, no, let's talk about periods. Like, why don't women talk about their periods? And

[00:12:56] Shanenn Bryant: Well, and not to interrupt you, but if there's not research being done on women, then we also don't have examples of conversations to have with our daughters, too, about it, right? So then it becomes this weird conversation, like, this is what I was taught, this is what I can pass down. Yeah,

[00:13:13] Jenny Swisher: know, you and I maybe didn't get the information we needed, but now. We are starting to see that research emerge. So now we can tap into that. We can share that with our daughters. So I think, you know, from a year early age, we need to understand, that, that we as women are not intended to be a steady state energy.

[00:13:29] We are not intended to be always happy. I mean, we, yes, always happy, but like always, just tinker bell, right. Running around with high energy, high libido, high. You know, whatever. It's, that's not what we're intended to be. We actually do have hormone highs and lows. Um, I partnered recently with Dr. Paige Gutile. I love her to death. We, we do virtual consults for women and she likes to use, I'm going to credit her with this analogy. She says, if you've ever Googled female hormone chart, what you're going to see is what looks like three or four different roller coasters superimposed on each other over the course of a month, like literally Estrogen is high in the first half, progesterone is high in the second half We have a big surge in ovulation like we are literally living on a hormone roller coaster And that's a normal healthy cycle So It starts with early age education, and then from there it goes into individually really digging into your bio individuality. Understanding your unique menstrual cycle and what you're up against. Are you dealing with hormone imbalance issues? Are you dealing with, you know, X, Y, or Z? if you were to pull any 14, 15 year old girl out of class right now and say, you know, when was your last period?

[00:14:37] They can kind of like think about it for a second, they can tell you, right? But if you were to ask her, uh, when do you ovulate? She's not going to know that answer. And so my, in my opinion, what we need to start doing, the number one thing is that we can start doing with all women is tracking ovulation.

[00:14:52] Ovulation is our fifth vital sign. It plays a crucial role in our overall health, our brain health, eventually with our bone health and our bone density, if we are not ovulating. And that's, I understand that that could lead you to a thousand more questions for me about like birth control and all the things, but if we are not ovulating, then we're not harnessing those superpowers of those hormone highs and lows.

[00:15:14] So understanding that we're not meant to just be steady state Tinkerbell, we are meant to have these sort of highs and lows and we can leverage that. We can leverage that. We can pay attention to that. For example, when a woman bleeds, 99 percent of women tell me, and it's all true, right? These women who take my course, they're like, Oh, this makes total sense.

[00:15:33] Those first couple of days of your heavy bleed are typically days that you want to introvert, right? Like you, you feel like you just want to put on the big baggy sweatpants. It's not really a good night type of day, right? Like, it's just like, ah, I think I'll just turn on the Netflix and grab a bag of popcorn or whatever and this is my night, right? There's a reason for that because when your uterine lining sheds your estrogen and progesterone at the lowest that they're going to be for the month. So they literally bottom out. I like to say your estrogens have tanked, or your estrogen, your hormones have tanked and they're in the basement.

[00:16:02] So that's why you feel in the basement, right? But what do we do as a society? Well, our workout calendar or our fitness class says we meet at 8 a. m. regardless of what our cycle says. So we go to the workout class or we follow the calendar. Or we go to work or whatever, you know, and I mean, our society is very sort of, um, circadian.

[00:16:21] It's, it's, it's intended for sort of the male physiology. So if we look at females, we've got to start paying attention to that. We got to pay attention to, um, how we can really educate them from an early age, how we can tap into that understanding ourselves, you know, because health is individual. So what my cycle is different than your cycle and understanding that that's always going to be different.

[00:16:40] And when we do that, then we're better equipped to be able to go into those relationships with our doctors or our practitioners and, and, and ask, you know, I don't think I'm feeling the way I should feel here, or is there something I should be investigating, right? We know that 72 percent of women will deal with hormone imbalance at some point in their life, if not before perimenopause than during perimenopause.

[00:17:00] So what I see, unfortunately. Is women coming into my courts at the age of 40 to 45 because that check engine light is flashing, having no idea of what really has been happening for the last 30 years. And so, um, the sooner we can get ahead of this, the sooner we can educate and learn about ourselves, the better it's going to be.

[00:17:19] Uh, I always tell my women to like, if you're testing in your twenties, Sometimes people will say, well, I don't need your course. Like I have a regular cycle. I'm 25. You know what? I feel good. Like I don't need to do. And I'm like, no, you do, you do need to be testing in your twenties when you feel good, because you want to be able to compare that data when you hit 40, you're going to want to see what's my progesterone declining is my estrogen decline, you know, what's happening here and to be able to have those benchmarks.

[00:17:43] I don't understand. I truly don't understand why something like a Dutch test or a cycle mapping test is not something that is standard for women's health care. Like, I don't understand why that's not a standard. I mean, pap smears are standard, right? Um, breast exams, standard. I don't understand why we're not taking a look at the menstrual cycle.

[00:18:02] I think we will. I think we'll start to see that happening. So anyway, ovulation is our fifth vital sign. You know, aside from just those basic things of understanding our unique body, it's not about when did I have a period, right? It's about, am I ovulating, am I producing that healthy cycle that produces natural hormones throughout the 28 or 30 days, and that that is really going to be a very telltale sign of our, of our health overall.

[00:18:26] Shanenn Bryant: Great. Oh my gosh. So many questions that I have for you So one, I would assume when we are in that, as you said, like our hormones are, are tanked, they're in the basement and we're not feeling like doing that, but yet. My yoga classes this morning at 8 a. m. or my strength training with my trainer is this morning.

[00:18:47] Is it that like, hey, it's okay, and probably prefer that you're not going out there and exerting yourself doing strength training at that time, because that's when everything is at its lowest. Is that kind of the idea a little bit for that part, too?

[00:19:03] Jenny Swisher: So yeah, so the idea is, is ultimately at the end of the day, if the listeners take nothing else, it's this. You have a really strong female intuition and you know, if a workout you're about to do or a meeting you're about to go to or whatever is going to give you energy or zap your energy. So at the end of the day, I can sit here and tell you, and I will, I'm happily here to tell you all about how to cycle sync.

[00:19:26] I can tell you how, you know, what that looks like as far as when to rest and when to push in general, but on a day to day basis, it really comes back to checking in with yourself. Like, how did I sleep last night, right? If you only got four or five hours of sleep last night, you should not do the workout.

[00:19:40] It's actually counterproductive for you to do the workout, right? Sleep is priority. So, I can sit here and tell you, day one and two should be this, day three and four should be this, and I can give you a general outline, but it's really starting with that sort of self barometer of like, okay, well, where am I and what am I feeling?

[00:19:55] Am I exhausted? You know, could I use this? That type of thing. So, let me start there. But to give you just a really quick overview of the menstrual cycle and how we cycle sync menstruating females, the first two days are typically the heaviest bleed for most women, right? And that's when we, that's when we see the uterine lining obviously is shedding and we see the estrogen and progesterone have bottomed out.

[00:20:14] now I do have some women who say, well, I feel okay. Like I don't have a lot of symptoms. Okay. That might be different for you, but it's very rare that we see that most women are feeling really tired. They kind of feel that lower hormone energy. So this is me giving you permission to rest because ultimately that's what your body's trying to tell you.

[00:20:31] We have become so out of touch with how we really feel like we just do the things because we're supposed to do the things, so this is me telling you that. You have permission to rest. And usually when I tell women that they're like, thank you. That makes so much sense as to why I always feel that way.

[00:20:46] And I'm like, yeah, you have permission. You don't have to, you don't have to push. Um, and then starting around day three of a typical 28 day cycle, we start to see estrogen start to rise and estrogen is really our, uh, female superpower hormone. I like to call it our confidence hormone. So we love estrogen.

[00:21:04] She, she helps us feel outgoing, extroverted. Um, but just like our, our, uh, I like to say she's our confident friend, but you don't want your confident friend to be too confident. You know, like there's a level of like where you're like, this is toxic for me now. So estrogen is that friend, right? She's, she's helps you to kind of get into that competent zone, that extroverted zone, but too much estrogen.

[00:21:25] And now we're looking at a little bit of toxicity issue. So, um, estrogens on the rise and the first part of the cycle, as soon as our bleed is sort of finishing up. Right. And so as we head into what will become our ovulatory phase. This is when we can really leverage strength training. Um, our hormones are most like a man in the first half of our cycle, because they are starting low.

[00:21:46] And now all of a sudden they're starting just that estrogen is starting to increase. So we want to make sure that we're lifting heavy weights in general as women, right? We know that muscles atrophy muscle is the key to longevity. Um, the more that we are able to build muscle, the better off we are in our health as we age.

[00:22:01] So, but strength training, especially in this window, like days three through 10 ish are a really great idea leading up to ovulation. Now, when we get into the ovulatory phase, which a lot of people, it's funny, you know, um, I heard this recently on a podcast where it was a man interviewing and he and his wife were

[00:22:19] looking to conceive, and he said, I always thought that I could get my wife pregnant anytime. Like, he didn't realize that it was like, there's just this brief window of time. I'm laughing, but it's, we all at some point thought that, right? Because that's how we were taught in school. So, um, so the ovulatory window is very brief.

[00:22:34] And usually less than 36 hours long, right? But a lot happens in a woman's body in that 36 hours. A lot happens. Estrogen reaches its peak, which signals FSH and LH to release the follicle. LH has a very brief, less than 24 hour surge, And then immediately estrogen drops like literally it's like falling off a cliff drops for ovulation.

[00:22:57] And then we start to see about 24 hours later, progesterone start to rise. So right there, I just mentioned four different hormones that are all happening. And actually I didn't even mention testosterone, but testosterone plays a quick role at ovulation as well. But all of this happens right at ovulation.

[00:23:10] So people will always ask me what's the best workout to do when I'm ovulating. Well, if you are really dialed in and you know exactly when you're ovulating. If you're tracking through saliva, cervical mucus, body temperature, if you know this is my ovulation day, then my best piece of advice for you would be also to rest.

[00:23:27] And the reason for that is because Just like in the personal training world, we tell people you don't normally want to eat like a big steak dinner and then work out. The reason for that is because your body can really only do one thing well at a time. So if it's got steak and a potato to digest, and you're trying to do a HIIT workout, your workout's going to be pretty crappy, 

[00:23:47] So we find that most women and women in my course, they'll say, wow, I didn't believe you, Jenny, but now that I know I'm ovulating, I had a really bad workout today. So they start to see it happening where they're like, why did I feel so bad? Why did I feel so tired? Why did I feel so gassed? Your body is trying to like procreate.

[00:24:02] It's literally like working so hard internally. And now you're in touch with that. So now, you know, so now you can just say, you know what, today I'm going to do a long walk, or I'm going to do maybe a gentle yoga, or I'm going to just kind of take it easy today, get out in nature and let myself rest and let my body do its thing because ovulation really is that important.

[00:24:22] So what happens if we don't do that? Well, I'm, that's my story. I have a, uh, In 2017, my cycles really started to struggle and I was in my mid thirties and I'll fast forward to the part where I was over training. I was literally in this mindset of, well, I work out six days a week. This is what I do. Sundays are my rest day.

[00:24:40] This is how I operate. But guess what I was doing over time. I was feeding my body the story that I was not safe, right? When we over train or we under fuel, we're sending signals to our body. That's, you know, terror, like terror is here. Like something is happening. We're putting our body into a state of fight or flight and we're affecting that cortisol.

[00:25:00] So when your body doesn't feel safe, it won't ovulate. And it makes sense, right? Because your body prioritizes survival over reproduction. Your cortisol is always going to be more important than those sex hormones. So in fact, not to go too down, too far down a rabbit hole, but cortisol will actually steal from your sex hormones in order for, to, to survive.

[00:25:20] That was the key. My cortisol was literally in the tank from all the training. And it started to steal my sex hormones. So my ovulation stopped happening. So I say that because, I'm sure there are people listening who are like, well, I always, I work out during the ovulation. It doesn't bother me.

[00:25:35] Well, that's fine. And it may not, especially if you're working out in moderation, but for those of us who love fitness. It's something to be mindful of because if we really push, push, push with not enough rest, we can disrupt those menstrual cycles. so and 

[00:25:47] Shanenn Bryant: then now we're going, oh, my cycle's all messed up some reason, and I don't know what, and then I'm going to the doctor, and then they're putting me on whatever, rabies, right? To, to, to see it 

[00:26:00] Jenny Swisher: Right, because most of the time the doctor is going to put you on like oral contraceptives and, and a whole other conversation where, you know, ultimately, well, let me just say this. Most women don't understand that oral contraceptives. the purpose of them is to suppress ovulation from occurring.

[00:26:16] So for a doctor to tell you the story that, well, this will get your cycle back to regular, it's not even true because now on oral contraceptives, your, your ovulation can't happen. It's being suppressed from those synthetic hormones and you're not actually having a period, you're having a pill bleed. So your body is just literally kind of being masked, um, by the synthetic hormones at play with oral contraceptive.

[00:26:37] So that's just a side note. But back to the cycle. So after ovulation, progesterone becomes our superpower hormone. So progesterone kicks in. It's actually produced by the corpus luteum, which is the follicle that does not get impregnated unless, unless it gets impregnated. But the corpus luteum will start to produce progesterone.

[00:26:55] And progesterone is our superpower hormone because it is our calming hormone. So in the first half of your cycle, you might, like I said, estrogen is your friend, right? She's your, your extroverted, go out on a date night, high libido, hang out with my girlfriends type hormone. But in the second half of our cycle, she, she's still a player.

[00:27:14] But the progesterone is, is sort of the main player and progesterone is like that. Let's grab a book and read. Let's curl up with a blanket. Let's sort of introvert as we kind of get ready for that bleed and the process to start all over again. So when we can match up our workouts to our energies, right?

[00:27:31] When we can strength train with estrogen, we can do more mobility work and slow down with progesterone. When we can tap into the bleed and ovulation and we can kind of structure our rest around those things. When we can do these types of things in addition to. A lot of things we can do with nutrition too.

[00:27:46] We can do seed cycling. We can do, uh, we can focus more on omegas leading up to our period. We can do a lot of things to offset the uncomfortable symptoms that a lot of women complain about, right? PMS, bloating, headaches, all things. So cycle syncing is a really powerful thing. Um, I just shared a meme on my social this week that was like, the world's on fire.

[00:28:07] And then it had a picture of Will Ferrell and it said, but I'm over here shouting, have you tried cycle syncing? It's so true because you literally can change your productivity. Um, you, you can start to, instead of, I think a lot of women put pressure on themselves around getting enough done or, or, you know, enough, everything is all about enough.

[00:28:27] You know, am I enough? Is this, am I doing enough? If we can start to look at, I'm not really supposed to feel like doing a lot right now. Right. Or now I am supposed to, so now let's really push. if we can really tap into those energies. We start to take the pressure off of ourselves and we start to see that we are not meant to be just circadian as a man.

[00:28:46] We actually have that extra superpower of being infradian like a female. We have the week to week, um, to look at. So that's a lot, but that's in general a gist,

[00:28:56] Shanenn Bryant: No, I appreciate that because I think it also gives that permission to, you know, you talked about if you, if you looked at like, it's okay to be this high and low, and that's what you're even going to see when you're looking at the cycle. Also, just knowing like that is okay. I think a lot of times women go, I just, I feel crazy.

[00:29:16] I'm all over the place. And that makes them think there is something wrong with them. But if they understand that. That's how it's supposed to be. And lean into that and go, okay, like you said, this is my time where I'm gonna do this and that's okay. This is what's supposed to be happening. It's not that, oh my gosh, I'm just so all over the place and, you know, thinking crazy thoughts and feeling out of sorts.

[00:29:44] It's natural,

[00:29:46] Jenny Swisher: Right? And I'll say this too, the more that we can communicate this information with our spouses. And our significant others and our children, the better we are, right? Like my husband, so my husband edits my podcast and I'm obviously, I'm into women's hormone health. So he knows probably more than any man.

[00:30:00] He could probably be a guest on your show and answer these questions. Um, but it's helpful because he, and especially because we have two daughters, right, who are going to eventually, um, start cycling and all that kind of stuff. But he. He's very in tune with what my energy might be. Like he, he's like, Oh, you know, she may be more up for a date night this week, or, um, I'm going to make a move this week and not this week.

[00:30:23] You know Like he, he literally ends like when I need my space or, you know, how I'm feeling based on where I am in my cycle. I mean, we, we literally in this household, we talk about what day mommy's done. Like, I mean, I'm on, you know, I'll be like, I'm on day 14, I'm on day 15. Like we, that's how we talk about it because it just helps everybody get a better feel for.

[00:30:42] As opposed to being like, why is mom crazy? You know, like why, like she's some sort of weird, um,

[00:30:51] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah.

[00:30:51] Jenny Swisher: being that is just like possessed in different, different times of the month. Right. Like that's, that's not how it needs to be. And certainly there are things that we haven't touched on, like. There are hormone imbalances and perimenopause can cause those fluctuations to be even more dramatic, but we can be tapped into them when we're healthy and when we're cycling in our twenties and thirties, the, you know, like I said earlier, the easier that becomes for us in our forties to identify maybe areas of improvement.

[00:31:17] Shanenn Bryant: So one quick question before I let you go, and it may, you know, if it leads to a bigger conversation, I think that's still fine, but 

[00:31:25] what about the woman who is older and maybe has a hysterectomy and it's like, okay.

[00:31:30] Well, I'm not having the bleeding Then how do I gauge what's going on with me,

[00:31:34] Jenny Swisher: So the first, there's a couple of things I would say, most of the women that I talked to have had partial hysterectomy. So we kind of have to talk about this in different segments. So there's the partial hysterectomy, the full hysterectomy. And I'm a postmenopausal female with no cycle. Um, so the partial hysterectomy female, like assuming that you still have your ovaries or whatever, you are, you're still cycling.

[00:31:54] Um, so tracking saliva, tracking body temperature, you're still able to kind of see like when that ovulation is occurring. Even though you're not getting the bleed to tell you when that would be occurring, right? So one thing that I do with my ladies who are interested in cycle syncing is we have a saliva microscope, um, that we, we give our course takers that allows them to track their saliva patterns to see what those, when those estrogen highs are happening.

[00:32:18] So it's really cool to see this for women who are in this position because they may be, they're like, I don't know when I was ever cycling before I had this direct to me. Right. Because there's probably a reason that they have. Um, and so it's really cool to tap into that and see that. So I'll just mention that now, if you have had a full hysterectomy or your post menopause, and there's no, no more, is there any cycling or anything like that, um, the one thing I'd love for your listeners to learn today is that women in general, whether you're cycling or not, I've kind of alluded to it.

[00:32:47] We are infradian. What does infradian mean? It means that we follow the cycles of the moon. And so, don't hang up, like, don't be like, the sun off her rocker, like, this is it, she makes no sense, see you later. I'm telling you, like, nothing could be more accurate than this. So, I'll give you an example. Um, actually this is pure science.

[00:33:07] Close to 70 percent of women ovulate around a full moon, while 30 percent ovulate around a new moon. So, that doesn't mean exactly on the day of the full moon, it just means within a couple day window, right? So, the um, we know that the majority of women will ovulate around a full moon. Now, why do I say that?

[00:33:25] Because even in, even post menopause, right, when you're no longer bleeding, your body as a female still follows that infradian rhythm, it still follows those, those phases of the moon. So for my purposes, when, when I bring women in and I'm teaching them cycle syncing their fitness, for example, and their nutrition, we sync them to the moon.

[00:33:43] We literally say, okay, the full moon is on this day. This is the type of energy we're going to tap into. And we're going to, we're going to sync your workouts in the same way we would a cycling female, because we know when your energy is increasing, we know when it's decreasing based on the moon cycles.

[00:33:57] So it's really, um, it's a really cool thing. And I used to think it was crazy. I even had to hear it multiple times myself. I knew that I always ovulated around a full moon, but I had to hear it multiple times before I finally was like, okay. Um, but I started running these groups on social media of hundreds of women.

[00:34:15] And it was so funny because we did not intend for this to happen, but my SYNC certified coaches and I led this group in July and we happened to start the group on a full moon, we was not planned. It was just like, that was the date of the group. And so the first day was like, Hey ladies, you know, here's your information for the day.

[00:34:30] Like, please comment below when you've done your workout, whatever we're like, and please tell us what day of your cycle you're on. And literally it was like ovulation day, ovulation day, ovulation day. Like it was crazy. Um, how it all. So I say that because. You know, a lot of women will say, Oh, I can't take your course because I had a hysterectomy or I, or I'm post menopause and I don't bleed anymore.

[00:34:51] And it's like, Oh no, you don't understand. Like you're still female. You still have free flowing estrogen. A lot of people don't understand that after you, you know, when, when menopause happens, which by the way is just a moment in time. Like people will say things like I've been in menopause for three years.

[00:35:05] I'm like, no, honey, you're not in menopause for three years. You're in perimenopause for up to 10 years. But menopause is a birthday. It is a moment in time where you have not had a period for 12 months. And then it's like, congratulations, you've hit menopause and that's where we are now. So even then, even when you've hit that menopausal birthday, your body is still very much infradian.

[00:35:26] You still have free flowing estrogen. You still have free flowing hormones. Um, now, instead of being produced in your ovaries, they're being produced in your adrenal glands, which could be a totally separate podcast episode about adrenals and perimenopause and menopause. Um, but a lot of women, this is, you know, just to kind of, Leave this as a teaser when women are in their 40s leading into menopause was perimenopausal decade.

[00:35:50] The adrenal glands start to compensate for that sex hormone production. So I like to say your ovaries are like the cruise ship and they're like backing away from the dock slowly like they're like, you know what we this is it's been real. It's been fun, but we're done here, right? But they give you a nice long 8 to 10 year warning. That warning comes, uh, in the form of hot flash, hot flashes, night sweats, um, headaches, vertigo, um, sleep, trouble sleeping, right? Anxiety, all the things. That's, that is sort of that perimenopausal decade. It's because ovaries are now handing the baton over to your adrenal glands. So what's interesting, and it's worth mentioning, is What's interesting is that most women in that time of her life will, she'll look at, at her body, for example, and she'll say, why can't I get rid of this weight?

[00:36:37] Why is it that everything I was doing in my twenties and thirties is no longer working for me? And so what she will typically do is she will say, I must need to do that again. I must need to go work out harder and eat less. Because my body's not responding anymore, right? And so she goes back to the HIIT, or she goes back to the classes, or she goes, you know, she's, she goes back to what worked for her before.

[00:36:59] She cuts down on her, her calorie intake. And what do we see as a result of that? Worsening symptoms, worsening perimenopause, um, and weight gain because your adrenals. your adrenals are literally these little tiny glands that sit above your kidneys. They're throughout your life until menopause. They are responsible for your cortisol.

[00:37:20] They're responsible for your stress. So when you start to stress them further, when you start to work out harder and eat less, when you're going through this transition of perimenopause. That's when things like cycle syncing, things like lifestyle factors that we've talked about today, that's when that can really make a huge, huge, huge difference because those adrenal glands need help.

[00:37:42] They need help and support. They don't need you to push them any further, right? Cause your body needs to feel safe. Um, and so I say that just as a side note, because any woman who has. Gone through that, or they're going through that right now. They look and they say, well, cycle syncing isn't for me, or, you know, this is, I wish I'd had this when I was younger, when in reality it can really serve you now as well.

[00:38:03] Shanenn Bryant: Love it. Jenny Swisher, where can people find you? Cause I know they're gonna be beating down your door and go, Oh my gosh, help me more. Where can they find you?

[00:38:12] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. So I have a podcast, which is called the Sync Your Life Podcast. S Y N C. It's on all platforms. You can also find me just at Jenny Swisher. com. I have links there for my courses. I have three courses out as of the time you launched this podcast. Um, and yeah, I mean, you're also welcome to reach out to me.

[00:38:28] I'm on social media, Instagram, Facebook at Jenny Swisher.

[00:38:32] Shanenn Bryant: Thank you so much.

[00:38:34] Jenny Swisher: Thank you for having me.