Ep. 140 Understanding Hormones and Anxiety and How Midlife Women Can Regain Control

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Are you focusing on the wrong hormones in midlife?

Many women believe estrogen is the key to feeling better, but what if the real secret lies elsewhere.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

1. The three essential hormones that impact your mood, weight, and sleep.
2. Why your ovaries act like The Odd Couple and how that explains your hormonal ups and downs.
3. The surprising connection between your thyroid and your reproductive hormones—and how understanding this connection empowers you to make better health decisions. 

🎧 Press play now to uncover the truth about midlife hormones and take the first step toward feeling your best!

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About the Host:
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 48,000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching her Mental Wellness curriculum, Inner Challenge. Four years ago she overcame her fear of technology to create a podcast that integrated her vast clinical experience and practical wisdom of cultivating mental wellness using the latest information from neuroscience. MJ was Social Worker of the Year in 2011 for Region 2/IN.

Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support.

Episode Transcript

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (2) (00:00):
In this episode, you'll discover

(00:01):
why estrogen isn't the queen ofmidlife, and the three key
hormones you must balance tofeel your best.
Welcome to Creating MidlifeCalm, a podcast dedicated to
empowering midlife minds toovercome anxiety, stop feeling
like crap and become morepresent with your family, all
while achieving greater successat work.
I'm MJ Murray Vachon, a licensedclinical social worker with over

(00:25):
48, 000 hours of therapysessions and 31 years of
experience teaching mentalwellness.
To the podcast.
I believe nothing definesmidlife for women quite like
hormones.
Today, I'm thrilled to have mytrusted colleague, Dr.
Connie Chacko, here to guide usthrough hormones.
Hormones 101.

(00:46):
By the end of this episode,you'll be able to name your
best.
Three basic hormones, and youmight be surprised to learn they
aren't the ones you typicallyexpect, like estrogen and
progesterone.
Learning about the big three isjust the beginning, as these
hormones are key to boostingyour energy, enhancing your
calm, supporting weight loss,and getting better sleep.

(01:09):
Oh, isn't that what we all wantin midlife?
Plus, Dr.
Chacko will reveal her threeessential truths about hormones,
empowering you to take charge ofyour wellness.
This is a bucket list episodefor me.
So Connie, I'm so grateful thatyou're here because I have not
really met anyone who can talkabout hormones in a way that's

(01:30):
so understandable, but oftenbrings a smile to my face.
So let's begin by having youintroduce yourself.
Thank you very much, MJ.
I feel the same way about you.
I am a clinical pharmacist.
I was a clinical hospitalpharmacist for 17 years.
I graduated from Purdue.
I have been a certifiedmenopause clinician for the last

(01:53):
27 years.
I ended up starting with hormoneconsultations, and

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (01:59):
kind of turned into a hormone detective
agency.
think

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (02:03):
excellent way because I often send people
to you who are in my office andsuffering, and I mean suffering
from anxiety, and you really area detective of helping them
parse out what of their symptomsare related to menopause or
perimenopause.
and You are as much an educatoras a sleuth.
This episode, we're going to tryto contain it or you would have
to give your whole weekend toallow Connie to give you her

(02:26):
incredible depth of knowledge.
Connie, from your experience,how do you want to begin.

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (02:31):
Most important thing that you need to
know is that we use the wordhormones a lot.
So if you go online or you'retalking to somebody and they're
like, I need to balance myhormones or there's something
wrong with my hormones,basically, in order to balance
your hormones, the three mostimportant hormones in your body
come down to insulin, cortisol,which is our stress hormone, and

(02:53):
vitamin D.
Many people don't know thatvitamin D is a hormone and here
in the Midwest, especiallynorthern Indiana, southern
Michigan, we have the lowestvitamin D levels literally on
the entire planet Earth becauseof the angle that the sun's rays
hit us, not how much sunlight weget.
When we start talking abouthormones, Yes, estrogen is

(03:15):
important, and so many timeswomen say there's something
wrong with my hormones, or Ineed hormones, or their doctor
says they won't give themhormones, they're saying
estrogen, and estrogen has over400 purposes in a woman's life,
and Even though estrogen has allthose purposes, you can never,
ever, ever let her think she'sthe most important person.

(03:36):
She'll just be annoying.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (03:37):
My burning question is anxiety and
hormonal anxiety the same?

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (03:43):
There's three basic truths that I say in
my consult.
First, every woman is different.
I don't care what your sisterdid and your cousin and your
twin.
Every woman's different and theyhave a different path.
The second one is that yourovaries are guys.
So you have these two guys thatlive in your body and your whole
life, one has been anoverachiever and the other one's

(04:06):
been a slacker.
So you could have these ups anddowns throughout your cycle with
your anxiety.
But, it's not your imaginationthat you could feel worse.
One month and the other.
And women who don't have auterus and still have their
ovaries, they truly thinkthey're bipolar.
Because they don't realize thatthese are all those

(04:30):
fluctuations.
And the third one is that yourovaries and your thyroid, never
invite each other to theirbirthday party.
So there's three truths.
Every woman's different.
Our ovaries are guys.
And the third one is that yourovaries and your thyroid, never
invite each other to theirbirthday party.
Those are some Hall of Famemetaphors.

(04:51):
I'm sure those of you listeningknow each of you has your own
unique path, but I want you totalk to my listeners about their
ovaries being guys, because forme, that is a completely new
concept.
For a long time, I couldn'tquite understand how somebody's
periods would be heavier or moreclotting or their migraines
would be worse.
And then the next month itwouldn't be so bad.

(05:13):
And we'd think, okay, now we'vegot it under control.
And then they would come back.
I was, Flipping throughsomething one time, and I saw a
picture of, Tony Randall andJack Klugman from The Odd
Couple, and I'm like, yes, thoseare a woman's ovaries.
One month.
That ovary is determined.
He is going to get out that egghe's going to clean out all that

(05:36):
extra tissue.
And then next month he's sittingdown in the basement playing
Nintendo going, eh.
Maybe I'll ovulate.
Maybe I'm not.
Eh, whatever.
So women are on this rollercoaster between these two guys.
Most women really do have anevery other month cycle.
They will also start skippingevery other month.

(05:58):
When they get closer tomenopause,.
Even if you don't bleed andperimenopause, you still cycle.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (06:04):
So tell me if I'm hearing you correctly.
Because what I see in my officeis women who, one month,
terrible period.
High anxiety, the next month,not so much.
And then they're Oh.
I don't really think it was allthat bad last month Which means
they often don't get the helpthey need.

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (06:21):
they cancel because they're feeling

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (06:23):
That's takeaway number one.
Because your ovaries are thisodd couple, you can expect
fluctuations to be normal.
So now let's move to the thirdpoint you make in your consult.
And that is the ovaries and thethyroid never invite each other
to the birthday party.
Again, quite a metaphor.
What do you mean by that?

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (06:43):
There's five times in a woman's life
she's most likely to developthyroid problems.
That would be puberty,pregnancy, going on the pill,
perimenopause, or postmenopause,which would be a total
hysterectomy.
If your estrogen is beingannoying, It is going to make
you look like you have symptomsof low thyroid.

(07:04):
If you have high thyroid, evenif it's from your medication is
too high, your periods are goingto stop.
If your high thyroid is too low,your periods are going to become
heavy and irregular.
They're like gears inside avery, very expensive Swiss
watch.
They all affect each other.
Throw in some poor nutritionwhere your blood sugars are

(07:26):
going crazy and high stress.
You got a mess.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (07:30):
Okay, so I get it.
While the thyroid and ovariesmight not invite each other to
the birthday party, as the ownerof them, you better figure out
what their relationship is ifyou want to feel balanced and
healthy.
Can we circle back to somethingyou said at the beginning of the
podcast that kind of blew mymind, and that is our main

(07:50):
hormones.
Are not progesterone andestrogen, which is what I would
have thought, but rather vitaminD, cortisol, and insulin.
Can you talk to us about theimportance of these three
hormones and how we should takecare of them?

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (08:07):
Have to fix those before you can do
anything else.
And that's where it comes backinto lifestyle changes to at
least get a good basic frameworkto start with.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (08:20):
Because that's all life, right?
People have cortisol, insulin,and vitamin D before they have
their period, before estrogenbecomes the queen.

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (08:29):
I do want to say one thing real
quick.
As a nana to I have fivegranddaughters, my son would be
Mom, she's got a headache.
She's in bed.
She doesn't feel good.
And then she'll get better.
These girls are maybe 11, 12.
They are cycling way before theystart we know, like, oh yeah,

(08:53):
it's probably your hormones,she's going to start her period
pretty soon.
Menopausal women are the sameway.
So just because your periodstopped does not mean that you
don't still these ups and downs.
You're not making hormone levelshigh enough to bleed, but you're
still cycling.
So you do need Make sure thatyou're taking care of the big

(09:15):
three first before you take careof other

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW (09:18):
let's stop Hormones 101 here.
I want to summarize what we'velearned in today's brief episode
because you and I both knowwomen in midlife have about 10
minutes to learn reallyimportant things to make their
lives better.
And you have shared with usthree takeaways.

(09:38):
One is that everyone is unique.
Everybody has their own path.
Second, You had us think aboutovaries like The Odd Couple
which normalizes the naturalfluctuations in our cycles.
And it also highlights that wemight need extra support in
order to manage thosefluctuations.

(10:00):
Thirdly, You uncovered therelationship between ovaries and
the thyroid, and that it's notalways a party.
And this really led up to thecrucial insight in which I want
us to continue on Thursday'sepisode.
And that is about the main threehormones, vitamin D, cortisol,
and insulin.

(10:21):
To be honest, I have never heardanyone say this so clearly That
if women in midlife don'tbalance the big three, vitamin
D, cortisol, and insulin, thenthe rest of their hormones will
not be balanced and happy.
Listeners, your inner challengethis week is to ask yourself,

(10:42):
how well am I taking care ofthese hormones?
And could their impact begreater than I realize?
Connie and I will be back onThursday to walk you through
exactly what you need to do tonurture these vital hormones.
It's not as difficult as youimagine.
I so look forward to continuingthis conversation with you on
Thursday.

(11:04):
Thanks for listening to CreatingMidlife Calm.