Dr. Taz: Hormones impact brain health, how we think, how we feel, how we make decisions. ADD, ADHD. Hormones are impacting our relationships and how we interact with others, and we have to understand that our hormones are fundamental to our being and can change the way our lives play out.

Hi everyone, and welcome to Super Woman Wellness. I’m Dr. Taz. I’ve made it my mission throughout my career in integrative medicine to support women in restoring their health using a blend of eastern medical wisdom with modern science. In this show, I will guide you through different practices to find your power type and fully embody the healthiest and most passionate version of you. I’m here for you and I can’t wait to get started. This is a Soulfire production.

Welcome back everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Super Woman Wellness. We’re determined to bring you back to your super powered self, and today I am talking about my latest book, The Hormone Shift, now available for pre-order. My latest book, the Hormone Shift: Balancing Your Hormones Through Midlife and Menopause, has honestly been in my head for a very long period of time. I have been working with women and their hormones for over 15 years in my practices at Center Spring MD. But even before that, I had my own hormone journey, my own hormone story, that led me to this profound understanding of how critical hormones are to our entire bodies. If I look back at the age of 28 or so, my entire journey in integrative medicine and functional medicine was accidental. Many of you know this already. I was an emergency room doctor, an adrenaline junkie, ready to take on the world and do every procedure that was out there when it came to saving lives and really living in that adrenaline rush.

But my health took a toll and the end of that story of my health and what I uncovered, was it was my hormones that were forcing me to make a change. I found out after five years of trying to dig on my own and another five years of symptoms that were unexplained, that preceded all of that, that I had PCOS, I had hypothyroidism, and everyone kept telling me that I was fine or I was stressed or it was all in my head. Well, none of that ultimately was true. And the profound connection between my stress, which was real, my gut health, my hormones, and my nutrition, was ultimately what solved the puzzle for me and turned me into this super-powered engine, which really wanted to do so many different things. I had the energy, I had the drive, I had the vision, I had the clarity, to really move my life forward.

So the hormone shift probably began back then without my knowing it. But as I’ve continued to work in this space, and I’ve listened to the stories of women of all ages, honestly, whether it’s our young women or women in perimenopause or women going through menopause or women that are post-menopausal, their hormones and their hormone journey, ultimately defined their lives. It determined if they were going to get married, if they were going to have children, if they were going to be able to sustain energetic relationships, if they were attracting the right things in their lives, or if they were retreating with the feeling of shame and hopelessness and regret. I know those feelings. I’ve experienced them too. I experienced them, I now say fortunately, over 20 years ago, because it gave me the empathy to understand how each of you out there are feeling.

All right, Super Women, I know the drill. We all live the same lifestyle. We’re running around, we’re juggling. We don’t have time for 20 different products, 20 different bottles, trying to find information and put it all together. We want solutions and we want answers. That’s why I develop the East West Way. It’s my product and lifestyle line, full of formulas that I personally curated to really get us the answers we need. I couldn’t find anything on the market that adequately merged Eastern and Western medicine together and formulas that work and gave us the answers that we were also desperate for. I’m right there with you guys losing hair, having acne, hormones all over the place. I needed something that worked but also worked efficiently. I didn’t have time to take an herb over here and a supplement over there and a medication maybe somewhere else. The East West Way is the answer for all of us, and I couldn’t be prouder of the formulas that I’ve developed.

If you aren’t familiar with some of the products, I want to share some of them with you. I’ve been super excited about them and have taken a lot of time and energy to put them all together. Collaglow is one of the newer products as Collaglow C. It has collagen, Amla, and Goji berry, so now we’re merging together Ayurvedic and Eastern Medicine concepts there for beautiful skin and hair, getting that glow and that circulation we need, and also a massive antioxidant burst and maybe repairing the gut a little bit along the way with the collagen. The Defender was born out of my anger around the pandemic. It’s a combination of Astragalus, Vitamin C and zinc, and I use that every single day, especially when I’m traveling or worried that I might be exposed to more germs.

Boost is the hero, the hero product that started it all. The line started because I couldn’t find a methylated formula that really answered all our needs around hormones, mood, memory, and so much more. Today, Boost continues to be the product that so many people say they can’t live without. Belly Fix. Again, so much around gut health, I know my patients and even I, we were tired of having a bottle here, a bottle there, mixing things together, remembering to take four or five different things. Belly Fix is the gut kitchen sink. Has collagen, Spirulina, prebiotics, probiotics, and so much more. I love this formula. It has been a game changer for so many people.

Hormone Helper again hits close to home. I’m someone who has PCOS, as many of you know, a combination of Maca, Inositol, Saw Palmetto and Choline supporting the liver, lowering androgens. It’s our answer for really balancing hormones. Sleep Savior, another favorite has Magnesium Melatonin and Magnolia Bark, because oftentimes falling asleep or staying asleep or both, so we needed something to answer all of that. That combination is a triple punch. Works beautifully. Lush locks I take every day. Lush Locks has Ayurvedic and Chinese herbs that are known for regrowth and regeneration of hair and improving blood flow to the scalp, along with micronutrients that research tells us we should be focused on.

This month, I’m offering an exclusive discount for Super Woman Wellness listeners. Just go to theeastwestway.com and enter SWW 30 to get 30% off at checkout. Don’t forget, if you rate and review any of my episodes, you’ll get a free bottle of Boost. Just email me it’s hello@drtaz.com and I’ll make sure it gets to you. All right. I can’t wait for you guys to try these products. Let me know which one’s your favorite and take advantage of the codes, SWW 30 at theeastwestway.com.

Our hormones are driving our chemistry, and until we understand that in the medical model, in the exam room, and for each of us individually, we are going to continue this uphill climb of trying to be our best selves. Women today struggle with anxiety. They struggle with weight gain, belly fat, with trouble sleeping, with libido that impacts their relationships and marriages. They’re losing their temper. They are thinking about quitting their jobs or changing careers, but before you do any of that, you’ve got to get your hormones balanced. Because they can fundamentally impact your entire being. We’ve got the science that now proves that. We know that hormones impact brain health, how we think, how we feel, how we make decisions, ADD, ADHD. Hormones are impacting our relationships and how we interact with others. So instead of being labeled as batty or hormonal or that time of the month or the eye roll emojis or just sort of the side eye and all the other things that women today experience, how about we take action and really try to understand what’s happening with our hormones?

Think about this for a second. Here’s a real statistic. 80% of women, all women, I’m talking about all ages, all demographics, all races, all socioeconomic markers, if you want to look at them, all women, 80% are experiencing right as we’re talking today, some sort of hormone imbalance. I know this is true. I can look at my 15-year-old daughter and know that she has PCOS. I can look at myself and know I’m in that wavering place between perimenopause and menopause. I can look at my postmenopausal mother and see the symptoms that she’s experiencing because she’s hormone depleted. All of that to say our hormones are real and they have real impact on our bodies. 80% of women have some sort of hormone imbalance, but almost 50% of women are dismissed in the exam room. We call this medical gaslighting.

This is where your symptoms, we don’t pay attention to. We don’t hear. We’re not making eye contact as a medical team or medical providers, and you leave that feeling shameful and hopeless much as I did over 20 years ago. This has got to change, guys. We’ve got to start a movement. We’ve got to change the narrative around women’s health and hormones, and we have to understand that our hormones are fundamental to our being, and can change the way our lives play out. This is why I wrote the Hormone Shift, because I want each of you to understand the intricate connection of your hormones, to all five of your bodies, your physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and energetic body. I also want you to understand that hormones don’t exist in isolation. There’s a connection to how your hormones are going to operate, depending on your gut health, your nutrition, your emotions, how you live your life, your food, and so many other factors.

To not have this holistic approach to hormone health, is to really not honor ourselves as women. None of us are static in our journeys. None of us are static in our being. We flex and we’re fluid between the many different roles we play in our lives. At a moment we’re single, at another one we’re pregnant, in another one we’re in a new relationship. Then we’re entering a new phase of life where we’re caring for others. We’re all over the place. To be able to manage that and to be able to really put that all together means essentially you have to have a plan, and the only way to do that effectively is to blend the best of Eastern and Western medicine together.

And let me explain why that that’s so critical and that’s so important. Eastern medicine honored these different bodies and these different dimensions. They really placed a lot of value, not just on hormones, but on the power of food and nutrition and gut health, in hormone balancing. My Chinese medicine mentors looking at me back 20, 25 years ago, would wag their finger at me and say, “No chi. You have no chi. Where’s your chi?” And I had no idea what they were talking about. But what they were essentially trying to tell me is that my energy was weak, that I didn’t have the foundational elements to build hormones and to be balanced. I needed fat and protein. I needed B vitamins and magnesium, and only then could we really have a hormone conversation.

Hi there, superstars. I have an exciting announcement. My new book, the Hormone Shift: Balance Your Body Through Midlife and Menopause, is out this October and is available for pre-order right now wherever books are sold. Most women, let’s be honest, have been led to believe that entering midlife means existing at the complete mercy of our mysterious hormones for the next decade. When we take our concerns to our doctors, we’re told that our debilitating symptoms are normal or we’re fine, or it’s in our head. I’m here to tell you that fine is not good enough. I want women to thrive through every life stage. So I’ve devised a hormone reset plan that blends the best of Eastern and Western medicine together to bring your body back into balance, minimize unwanted symptoms, and have you feeling like yourself again. It’s not you, it’s your hormones. Are you ready to thrive? Go to prh.com/thehormoneshift, to pre-order your copy right now.

So Eastern medicine provided the gateway to understanding this holistic approach to hormone balancing. While Western medicine provides the technology, we can measure hormones, we can check them, we can understand where you are at any given moment in your hormone journey. What I want for all of us is to own and understand our hormones, and then as we graduate from that, to own and understand how they impact the many different dimensions of our health. If we can master that, that is the ultimate empowerment equation. It’s not about just a mantra here, an affirmation there. All of those things are important, yes, and they matter. But if your chemistry is not aligned, you’re swimming uphill, you’re moving against mud, and who wants that? And it doesn’t have to be that hard. So that’s why I wrote the Hormone Shift. I wanted to change the narrative around women’s health, around what we’re talking about when it comes to hormones.

I want to remove the stigma of women thinking that there’s nothing they can do about their hormones or that they can’t check their hormones, or that their hormones are a static point in time that needs no intervention from the other systems of their body. None of that is true. We are going to change this, and with this book, we are starting a movement to make sure, sure, every woman, every woman from your 13 and 14-year-olds all the way to 65 and over, have a firm grasp and understanding of what’s happening with their hormones and their hormone health. Each of us as women impact so many people in our lives. I always say that I haven’t met a woman who’s not a Super Woman because we’re usually caretaking for not just ourselves and our families, but for so many different members of our community. In fact, as I record this, I’m headed out to check on my dad, and that’s the job again, of the women in the family, whether we like it or not.

So as women, we have to own our amazing gifts and powers, and we have to step into it with our fullest ability, capability, and vitality, and it begins with hormones. I hope you pick up a copy of this book, The Hormone Shift. I hope you join me on this hormone journey and join me in the movement to change the narrative around women’s health. If you’d like a copy of the Hormone Shift, it is available for pre-order everywhere books are sold. Thank you all for listening and watching this episode of Super Woman Wellness. I’ll see you guys next time.