Speaker 1 (00:20):
PMDD shaped my life for 17 years before I could name it. I spent those years searching for answers, questioning my sanity and desperately seeking treatments that actually worked. My painful journey had an unexpected twist. Helping others heal from PMDD became my life's purpose. Hi, I'm Jess, a board certified nutritional therapist, coach, the founder of Her Mood Mentor and your host. This is PMDD Pep Talk, a weekly reminder that your suffering is real, your experience is valid, and your future is brighter than your symptoms suggest. Each week, we're going to explore the truths about PMDD that nobody talks about. The kind of truths that shift something deep inside you and make you think maybe there's more possible than I imagined. Whether you're in the depths of luteal darkness or riding the clarity of your follicular phase, you're exactly where you need to be. Because here's what I know for sure.
(01:18):
Healing PMDD isn't just about managing symptoms, it's about transforming your life. This challenge, as brutal as it can be, is an invitation to know yourself more deeply and live a more joyful, purpose-filled life. PMDD might feel like your whole story, but it's just a chapter and you get to write what comes next. Welcome to PMDD Pep Talk. Quick pep talk pause. Remember that everything we talk about here is meant to educate and inspire. Always team up with your healthcare provider for personal medical advice. All right. Now let's get into it.
(01:56):
Hello and welcome back to another episode of PMDD Pep Talk. Today we have an episode that you voted for on Instagram you ran a poll and the most wanted new episode was this episode. So here we are, we are recording it and I'm so excited. This is an episode that is near and dear to my heart. I'm very invested. I'm a Midwestern girl in my core. I am a DIYer. I am a lover of frugality. That's just something I have not been able to shake and I don't want to shake in my adult life growing up in the Midwest and just living that lifestyle. And so when we're looking at addressing hormonal mood symptoms and PMS and PMDD specifically, and when we exist in the modern world as we do, we are being sold all the time on this or that. And I'm also a product girl.
(02:59):
I love products. I love trying things. I love finding the best version of different little areas, whether it be skincare or supplements or things around the house. I also love being a consumer in many ways, but I love a DIY and I love that frugality at the same time. We have to hold capacity for all parts of ourselves, even when they can be conflicting. And today we're going to be diving into free things that support PMS, PMDD symptoms, and your hormonal moods. And I want to unpack this a little bit in the beginning because really to just give it to you straight, if you don't do some of these free things, you can spend all the money, you can implement the most aggressive and complicated protocols. If you're not doing some of these things already that are free, your medications, these protocols, these interventions, these products aren't going to move the needle as much for you because many of these free things are so foundational.
(04:06):
And in our work at Hermood Mentor and our programs, in our courses, foundations are key. We always start there. We're never going to bump you up to something more complicated, more aggressive if you don't have the foundations in place first because of this fact. It's just not. You're not going to get the results that you're looking for. So I want to just wave that flag and air that out because that's the truth. Something else that's the truth, again, holding capacity for two truths. When it comes to PMDD, you have to do the foundational things. And also we struggle with a sense of worthiness, with a sense of deserving and investing in ourselves, in putting our needs first and prioritizing ourselves. That PMDD brain can be telling us all of the meanest things that anyone could ever say to us are being said in our brains to ourselves.
(05:01):
So you may really struggle with feeling like you're not worth investing in. Whether that be time, energy, or a financial investment, I also want to hold space for that truth and call that out because even when it comes to these free things, I can see my clients and myself being like, "Oh, well, I don't have the time for that. Oh, that doesn't really matter." I don't need that. When if I was talking to a friend or I was parenting, I would have a different stance on that. Yes, you do need to take a break. Yes, you do need to drink water. Yes, you do need to go to the bathroom when you need to go to the bathroom. Yeah, I'll tell myself, no, probably not. That can wait. I don't need to invest in this new supplement that I found that I know is going to be beneficial for me based on my lab test results.
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There's so many ways you can talk yourself out of supporting yourself, whether the intervention be free, low cost, high cost, whatever it is, time, energy, that's at play. So I want to, again, set the stage as we have this conversation for the mindsets that you're going to be navigating, even when it comes to the free things.
(06:22):
And I also want to say, some of these are going to require a minimal investment potentially. Like for example, when we get to the food conversation, you're already buying food, right? You're still going to have to buy food, but there's also a range of, "Hey, here's the free way to do this. And also here are some other options that you probably are already aware of, maybe some that you're not, that you could use." But there's always a way to get there at a lower cost if finances are really the barrier. But when that's the case, it may come with more energy, more time spent. So you have to really look at the nuance of the whole conversation.
(07:15):
Something else I wanted to share as we're getting into this is a couple of other episodes that we've done play into this conversation as well. So I'm going to talk about them throughout, but I'm just going to talk about them here in the beginning as well because you are probably, if you like this episode, going to want to go back and listen to those other episodes. So the first one I'm going to be referencing is episode five. It's called The Secret to Healing PMDD. And this whole conversation in that episode is all about how small things add up. And just like our conversation today about these free things that you can do, these low cost things that you can do to improve your symptoms, it's going to be a cumulative effect of all of the small things. When you have really severe symptoms, it's logical to think I need a really severe intervention, but luckily, and I've seen this over the last eight years, I've seen this with myself, luckily that's not the truth.
(08:14):
You don't need a lobotomy. You probably don't need a surgery. You don't even potentially need invasive medications. Of course, that's always your choice, but small things can add up. And just because your symptoms are so severe, it doesn't mean you need a severe intervention to match that. The cumulative effect of many small changes and many small supports can make a huge difference. So I want to remind you again of that truth. So that's episode five if you want to go back and listen to that. Another one that I'm going to be referencing, I reference this all the time, is the rest versus distraction episode. Rest is free. Distraction is also kind of free these days, depending on what you're using to distract yourself, but understanding that conversation is really going to be a precursor to some of what we're talking about today. So that's episode six.
(09:10):
Another episode I'm going to be talking about and referencing is episode nine. That's called What Healing PMDD Actually Looks Like. And that episode is all about how you don't actually want to cure your PMDD symptoms, how your symptoms are a communication and you want to learn to listen to that communication in order to heal your symptoms.
(09:39):
And when I say heal, I do not mean cure. So in that episode, we also go into the distinction between healing and curing. Even the etiology of healing is to become whole with your experience. It is not never experience symptoms again. That is not what cured verse healing means. That's not what we're talking about. And I also get into why you don't want to disappear your symptoms forever, how they're actually a tool and a communication from your body about what your body needs and the next steps that you're going to want to take in order to address that symptom. All right, so let's get into it. And again, without these foundations, your medications, your supplements, your protocols, your other interventions are not going to work as optimally as they will if you have some of these foundations in place, which luckily are low cost, even free.
(10:34):
This is a basic analogy, but again, think of it like building a house. You can't skip the foundation and then expect the walls to stand up. You can't decorate the house and paint the walls without laying that foundation first. We want to jump to the fun stuff, right? We want to decorate, we want to paint, but no, we have to start with building that foundation. And many of these free and low cost steps are going to lay the foundations for you to then come in with the supplements, then come in with the more aggressive, systematic protocols based on hopefully your lab test results, your symptom assessment if you're working with us, your specific symptom pattern and presentation. In order to target that with more specific protocols, more specific approaches, it's not going to help you if you're not doing the things. Let me just say this again.
(11:33):
I say this all the time. You can meditate all day. You can pray all day. If you're not eating food, if you're not eating food regularly, if you're not eating to your total daily energy expenditure, if you're not eating macronutrient balanced meals, you will have symptoms. Praying, meditating, not going to solve your PMDD problem. Although those are fantastic, more targeted layer on top of the foundation, protocols that can come in and make a massive difference can absolutely help you once those foundations are in place.
(12:14):
I could also do an entire episode on each one of these points. So just keep that in mind. We're going to buzz through these. I don't want to take too much of your time here today. I want to give you what you came for, which are the free and low cost things that you can do to improve your symptoms, but there's so much more to each of these. Like for example, this first one, your light relationship is massively going to impact your symptom duration and your symptom severity and your moods in general, regardless of the menstrual cycle. So I teach an entire workshop on seasonal depression and PMDD, where we dive deep into the light relationship conversation. We're not going to do that here today, but if you want to go down that rabbit hole with me, please do. You can watch that workshop. It's so fantastic.
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It was so fun to make, but your light relationship has a lot to do with your symptoms. Your circadian rhythm tells your body and all of the organs and systems in your body to do things at certain times. So if you're inside, if you're on screens, if you're under LED lights, which are going to be exposing you to a lot of blue spectrum light, your body thinks it's midday, all day, not to get into the flicker conversation of what that's doing to your brain, you're going to have symptoms. It's going to happen. So many of us are suffering from this because we have moved over from incandescent light bulbs to LED light bulbs, and we're also spending a lot more time inside and a lot more time on screens. So this is something everyone is facing. And this is something that is even more important if you have children because let's set them up for success and not lead them astray with where we're starting from here in 2025, all LED lights, all screens.
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So correcting, monitoring, and managing your relationship with light will change your life.
(14:23):
Mic drop, end of story. There's so much to unpack here, but let's go through some quick basics. Getting outside as soon after you wake up, no hats, no sunglasses, no sunscreen to access the UVA rise is going to help set your circadian rhythm. It's going to improve your sleep. It's going to improve your hormone production. It's going to be a catalyst for all sorts of things happening in the body. Getting that morning light exposure Within one to two hours of waking up, ideally first thing if you can get out there, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, even three to five minutes, if that's all you got, but working that into your daily routine, getting out there as soon as possible after waking. It matters because it sets your circadian rhythm. It supports hormone production. It boosts your mood. It improves your sleep later in the day. So we're always working to start out in the morning getting that morning light because it's going to be impacting our sleep at night.
(15:31):
Even 10, 15 minutes on a cloudy day, you have to be outside. If you can't get outside, open your window. The window has a film on it that's going to block UVA/UVB light because that helps temperature regulation inside the home. So sitting in front of your window, even if the sun is coming through, is not getting you these UV spectrums that you need in order to entrain your circadian rhythm. Again, there is so much ... I mean, I just want to talk about this forever because I'm such a nerd for circadian biology. It's just, it's so fantastic. It's so fascinating. Oh my gosh, I just cannot. Even. So something else to know here, if you live north of Atlanta in the United States, you cannot access UVB light for half of the year.
(16:29):
From November to March over the winter, you could be outside all day naked. Sunny day, and you would make zero vitamin D from the sun because the way that the sun is hitting the earth isn't exposing you to that UVB light spectrum. You can only make vitamin D from UVB light. Vitamin D is key for moods. Go check out our blog post on this. Key for PMDD symptoms, lots of research linking low vitamin D to PMDD. We see this all the time when we're running labs for clients. And you can't just take a vitamin D supplement. There are many metabolic, like over nine chemicals that are created through vitamin D synthesis from light exposure to the skin that you can't get from taking a supplement. So yes, we're going to take a supplement because if it's indicated, if the need is there, if we don't have the access, if we haven't built up our UVB and melanin stores, when we have the exposure to the sun March through November and the summer, in the spring and summer, we'll use a vitamin D supplementation if necessary, but do not fool yourself in thinking that that's the same, that that's adequate because it's not.
(17:48):
Something else to shift gears in the light relationship is going to be blocking blue light at night. If you have just basic LED light bulbs, it's going to be emitting a blue spectrum light, which is telling your body that it's midday. As it gets darker and as it gets dark at night, that is going to be blocking melatonin production, which is your precursor to sleep hormone. So dimming lights, turning lights off, using lamps, getting incandescent light bulbs, getting circadian support light bulbs, like I'm always talking about where you can change what color is being omitted is going to support you in blocking that blue light. But do not confuse blocking blue light at night and using a red light bulb with red or near infrared light exposure. Those are two different things. Again, we unpack that in the sad and PMDD. Seasonal depression and PMDD workshop that I teach.
(18:47):
Go in depth on all of these topics. We get into the circadian biology of it all, but getting as much daylight, light exposure outside, no glasses, no sunglasses, no hat, no sunscreen ideally, because even glasses like I'm wearing here have that film that are going to block UVA, UVB light, even if they're not sunglasses. So I have to take these off to get that light spectrum in my eye outside. So getting morning sun, taking light breaks as much as possible, and then blocking blue light at night. You can also install for free on your devices a color filter that is going to block blue light. I have one on my computer right now. We have them on our Apple TV. It's just a setting. You can create a shortcut. If you're watching actually on YouTube or in a clip, if we make a clip of this, you can also use your phone like I have here.
(19:47):
I have a shortcut on the side. I press that three times, puts the light filter on. Now my screen is red. It's blocking all blue light. You don't have to go full Monty. We've been getting into circadian biology, my husband and I for six years now. So we've ramped up to this level of neuroticism with our light relationship if you want to look at it like that, but it has changed our lives. And so we didn't start with all of these gadgets and all of these shortcuts in place. We built that up over time, but installing light filters on your screens, on your desktop, on your TV, free way to block blue light exposure at night if you're using devices, turning off lamps, dimming lights, using circadian supportive light bulbs are going to be another option for blocking blue light at night in order to support natural melatonin production, deeper sleep and better stress hormone levels.
(20:51):
So key, which is going to impact your sex hormones and on and on. Circadian biology is everything.
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Clearly super passionate about it, so interested in it. So if you want to learn more, make sure to check out the seasonal depression and PMDD workshop where we dive into haplotypes, we dive into so many fascinating things that I would love to share with you. So let's move on to the second free low cost thing that you can be doing to improve your symptoms. And this is hydration. I have a Venn diagram of chronic and acute dehydration symptoms that overlap PMDD symptoms and almost every single symptom falls into the both category. So hydration is so underlooked, but it's really key for hormone signaling and that communication that's happening cell to cell because every single cell is encased in what's called a phospholipid bilayer. This is a fatty layer. So your healthy fat intake and healthy fat status in your body matters along with hydration, but if you're dehydrated, it's going to impact that phospholipid bilayer.
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And all of your cell hormone communication happens cell to cell. That's what hormones are. They're little chatters going around the body, telling the body what to do when, and communicating back to the brain. So when you're dehydrated, obviously you're going to have dry skin, you're going to have headaches, you're going to have mood symptoms, you're going to have food cravings, you're going to have fatigue, a lot of symptoms like this, but you're also going to be hindering the communication of your hormones and the detoxification of the hormones because everything has to move in and out of that cell. And if that phospholipid bilayer is becoming dehydrated, it's going to be harder for all of that communication, all of that detox to happen, which is going to be impacting your mood. Now, when it comes to hydration, this isn't just about drinking enough water and carrying around your giant Stanley like I have here.
(22:57):
It's about minerals. You need minerals to pull water into the cell and actually have cellular hydration. So yes, drinking water free, you can drink whatever water you have access to. Should you, probably not. Testing your water is really important. Making sure you're not drinking out of plastic bottles all the time is going to be very important for endocrine disrupting chemical exposure, but I'm putting it here because this is a low cost, potentially free option. I do encourage you to test your water. I do encourage you to implement remineralization for cellular hydration, for adrenal support, for mood support, the mineral. Again, I could and will do an entire mineral episode. I'm just as passionate about minerals as I am about light biology. So trying to keep this episode short, but just starting out, the majority of our clients are significantly dehydrated. And this is really just no foundation to stand on when you're looking to reduce and manage your symptoms.
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So we commonly recommend drinking half of your body weight and ounces, take your body weight and pounds, divide it in half. That's how many ounces you should be drinking. We're usually heading around 64 to 72 ounces for an adult female, around two liters. Now if you live in a hot climate, if you're pregnant, breastfeeding, if you exercise more, if you're sunnoing more, you're going to need more minerals, you're going to need more water. So that's a general recommendation. You always have to apply general recommendations to your specific body and your needs and how you're feeling. But I suspect the majority of you who are listening to this, if you're anything like our student client population, you're starting out dehydrated. So this is a simple practice to start correcting. It's something you have to do every day. It's not like you're ever hydrated. Check the box, moving on.
(25:05):
This is an all day, everyday thing, and it has to be on the list of foundations and it is free, if not low cost, in order to do this. Now when you get into installing filters and things like that, that can be costly, but it's in a one time upfront cost. Generally, you're going to have to change the filters, but that would be a worthy investment if you are finding a lot of heavy metals or contaminants in your water and things like that because it's just going to be hindering your healing process. The next thing I want to talk about free low cost thing that you can do is working on your sleep hygiene and reducing sleep noise. We have an entire module on this in PMDD rehab that walks you through all of this, but some free low cost ways are trying to make your room as dark as possible, continuing to support that light relationship, so you're getting healthy melatonin production at night, having a cooler room, you can open windows in order to do that.
(26:12):
You don't need to crank the icy necessarily depending on where you live. And then most importantly, having a consistent sleep wake schedule. So going to bed around the same time, waking up around the same time. Even on weekends, because you start to get into kind of a jet lag scenario, which you definitely have experienced if you've traveled, you've definitely experienced if you've had a big break over the holidays and your sleep schedule is getting off, things start to get wonky. So supporting your hormones is going to be supporting your sleepwake schedule and priororitizing the importance of sleep, making sleep non-negotiable because it doesn't take very long, one day, two days, a poor sleep quality where your moods and your hormones and your symptoms are starting to ramp up and the recovery from that takes time. Now my heart goes out to all the moms out there, right?
(27:09):
Because this is just your life is navigating this. So we're not looking for perfection in any of these areas. There are certain stages of life where sleep hygiene is definitely negotiable based on your circumstance at the time and your responsibilities at the time, but we just do what we can. And then most importantly, when you are in those seasons of life, you're offering compassion and you're holding that context as in I'm not broken, something isn't wrong with me, I'm not getting the sleep that's required to have healthy moods, healthy hormones, healthy energy levels, and I'm going to be nice to myself about that. And I'm going to hold that context in my reality every day, all day, until that changes because you don't always have control over some of these aspects. So we have to remind ourselves that this is a factor that's playing into the severity and duration of your symptoms, if it is.
(28:10):
And then work with the areas where we can to make any improvement. Even if you are a mother, you can support your light exposure and your natural melatonin production, right? Even if you can't get eight hours of consistent sleep. So there's always so much you can do and we're not aiming for perfection here.
(28:33):
The next thing that we'll talk about is some nutritional foundations, right? You have to buy food anyways. So instead of buying processed foods, start slowly shifting to choosing more whole foods. Shopping on the outer section of the grocery store, aisles on the inside are going to be more processed. We're looking to eat more things that come without a label. And of course, when you can choose quality options, but still eating a non-organic piece of meat is going to be healthier than eating a highly processed, something that comes in a box. So don't be scared of food. There's so much food fear in our client population and student population. And I just want to remind you that eating whole foods is supportive and we don't need to be scared of that. So again, not trying to tell you how to feel, but I see we work with a lot of OCD patterned clients who are managing that and have had poor experiences with diet culture, poor experiences with food fear, and we have to moderate that and nourish ourselves the best that we can, and please don't be afraid of whole foods.
(29:56):
So shifting from buying more processed foods to buy Buying more whole foods. Evaluating your total daily energy expenditure and making sure you're eating enough is also important. The majority of our clients are massively underfueling or massively dysregulated in their macronutrient balance, getting very little minerals, getting very little micronutrients because of that. So eat enough, eat enough of the right things. If you're like just, I don't know what that means. Again, we teach an entire program on helping you navigate this. We work one-to-one with clients, evaluating lab testing of various sorts, looking at your nutrient status, reviewing a food in mood journal and providing nutritional therapy. So if you need more support, we're there for you, but kind of evaluating if you're eating enough because you very likely aren't, or you're in a binge and perch cycle because of macronutrient imbalance, most likely. So you also need protein in order to build the feel good brain chemicals that your body needs, the serotonin, the dopamine, all come from amino acids.
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So if you're not eating protein, a. K.a. Amino acids,
