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March 20, 2025 13 mins

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Are your midlife hormones working for you or against you? 

What if you could become your own hormone detective and start with the right tests and lifestyle changes?

In this episode, you’ll discover:

1.     The three essential hormones that impact your midlife health the most.

  1. How to talk to your doctor and get the right lab tests without frustration.
  2. Three simple, doable lifestyle changes that can help balance your hormones and reduce anxiety.

Press play now to uncover practical steps to take control of your midlife health, feel better, and stop the hormone guessing game!

 




****

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.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW (00:05):
In this episode, you'll discover how to
get your midlife hormonesworking for you so you feel less
anxious, better rested, and havemore energy.
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.

(00:27):
I'm MJ Murray Vachon, a licensedclinical social worker with over
48, 000 hours of therapysessions and 31 years of
experience teaching mentalwellness.
Welcome to the podcast Todaywe're gonna follow up on
Monday's episode where Dr.
Connie Chalko visited creatingmidlife calm and helped you to
discover that your three mainhormones, insulin, vitamin D,

(00:50):
and cortisol, is where allmidlife women should start in
order to take care of theirwellness.
In today's episode, we're gonnacontinue that conversation and
talk about how you can partnerwith your doctor to become your
own hormone Detective Dr.
Chalko is gonna give you threepractical and doable lifestyle
changes that will help you feelbetter as you work to get your

(01:14):
hormones to function better dayin and day out.
My goal in these two podcasts isto help all of you in midlife
become more educated aboutanxiety, and that includes
understanding your hormones.
Thank you so much for joining usagain, Dr.
Chalko, and I'd like to beginexactly where we ended on

(01:34):
Monday.
How would you want women inmidlife to take care of the big
three hormones, cortisol,vitamin D, and insulin?
The first thing is make surethat you're taking care of the
basic labs.
You should, every year, ask

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (01:52):
your doctor to get a hemoglobin A1c,
which is, the most accurate wayto see what your blood sugar's
been doing.
Another lab would be, get avitamin D.
If you don't have a good vitaminD, you can't lose weight.
It increases your risk ofdifferent kinds of cancer.
People with low vitamin D are,more prone to diabetes and

(02:15):
absolutely for bone protection.
More women die fromcomplications of hip fracture
every year than breast, uterine,ovarian cancer together.
You really need to get thatvitamin D.
And it's a simple blood test.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (02:27):
What you're saying is you start with
the insulin, cortisol, vitaminD.
and Who do you recommend to goto?

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (02:35):
To get that basic information family
doctor is perfectly capable ofchecking, I do really like nurse
practitioners, but I'm tellingyou, there's a lot of family
practice doctors out there justhave a heart of gold.
The woman will say, he's a guy.
He doesn't understand.
Oh, let me tell you, honey, hemay have had raised three
daughters, had a mom, foursisters and a wife.

(02:59):
Them check the basics for you.
Because never before in historyhave women lived this long.
The average age of menopause hasalways been 51, there's so much
wisdom and, joy that can comewith this second half it, it's
not a death sentence.
And I think so many women.
Just feel like they give up.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (03:20):
What's a way to ask your doctor if they
are educated in this area?

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (03:25):
You don't want to do that because
you're going to put them ontheir defense.
You don't go in there saying, Iwant you to check all my
hormones.
That's not fair for a doctor.
Give him some guidance.
Do your homework.
Part of being a hormonedetective You honestly have to
find out what it's not beforeyou can find out what it is.

(03:46):
is your anxiety day in, day out?
Is it only on days at work?
Do you wake with it in themorning?
Does it come on in theafternoon?
Is it worse the week before yourperiod?
So many women at midlife,they're so freaking busy I call
it Swiss cheese syndrome, theywake up and maybe their hormones

(04:09):
are good and they're feelinggood and then by the end of the
day they have given so much ofthemselves away They feel like a
piece of Swiss cheese.
Start the conversation with yourdoctor saying, I'm concerned
about these symptoms.
I've been tracking them and whatI would be interested in is

(04:29):
could you check to see how myblood sugars are doing, what my
vitamin D level is, and how mythyroid function is, and make
sure I'm not anemic.
Can we start the conversationthere?

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (04:43):
Many of the people I've worked with,
expect the doctor to be askingthem all these questions about
where they're at.
They don't think about, oh, Ineed to give this doctor all
this information.

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (04:56):
Every woman is so different, you can't
just have him think, oh, wellyou're a 45 year old woman, you
must be doing this.
You need to start theconversation, and you need, to
play clue.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (05:08):
It's really encouraging women to step
into their agency.
And they become the detective.

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (05:16):
Bless their heart, the insurance
companies are not paying them todo this kind of detective work.
Insurance companies want them tofollow algorithms.
And sometimes you have to thinka little bit outside the box.
Do you need to go in and have anestrogen and progesterone and
all those things drawn?
Probably not, especially ifyou're perimenopausal because

(05:37):
it's going to depend on where inyour cycle you are.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (05:41):
The takeaways from this episode that
I think are helpful for somebodywho's trying to get a little bit
of super concrete informationAnxiety in midlife is start with
your insulin, start with yourvitamin D, start with your
cortisol.

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (05:57):
And if you're still having symptoms,
track them.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (06:00):
What are some easy ways for people to
track who are just really busy?

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph. (06:04):
Honestly, don't use your phone.
Period apps make me crazy, it'sgoing to increase your anxiety
because they're going to try toforce you into what normal is.
there are very few women in theworld, that have a 28 day cycle.
Remember, we have two ovaries,so you might be a 26 one month,
31 the next, and that is yournormal.

(06:26):
a paper calendar.
Day 1, and see where are yoursymptoms happening.
Just tracking it, because youhave to find out what it's not
before you find out what it is.
Bring it to your physician andyou could say, look at my
pattern.
This always happens in themiddle of the night.

(06:47):
It always happens on Wednesdayafternoons when We hear it's a
school bus pulling into theneighborhood, work with them as
a partner.
I just had a woman go on to somesite.
She had a, five minuteconsultation with some hormone
doctor or something like that.
And they were like, Oh, we'regoing to send you this cream.
Holy Moses.

(07:08):
These doses were so high and shedidn't even need any estrogen.
And they were giving her reallyhigh doses.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (07:15):
Wow.
That's scary.
So one really important thing inmidlife is labs aren't optional.

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (07:20):
they're really not.
We circle back to those threehormones and then after that, if
those are good, you've got tohave a foundation and then we
can start building walls orhanging curtains.
I think this is such a missingpiece of information in midlife
because people really do go toQueen Estrogen who talks about

(07:40):
vitamin D, cortisol, or insulin.
Let's move on to what women cando when it comes to making some
lifestyle changes that you thinkwould be really helpful for
their hormones, which of coursewould then help their anxiety.
Let's start with nutrition now.
Start with a protein containingbreakfast.

(08:02):
be peanut butter toast.
It could be eggs.
I know eggs are expensive, butthey're still a good deal.
It could be a leftover piece ofcold chicken Because that's one
of the most important thingsthat you can do, it's putting a
log on the fire or some fuel inthe tank.
If you went out in your car andit had no gas and you expect it
to drive you to work, it can't.
It's a machine.
So how do you expect your bodyto perform?

(08:24):
And so I'll ask you, do you eatbreakfast?
Oh, I don't have time.
I I'm getting the kids ready.
Are the kids getting breakfast?
Oh yeah, I make them breakfastevery morning.
What's wrong with this picture?
You're making them egg cups oryou're making them, peanut
butter toast.
You couldn't stick some in yourown mouth.
Which goes to the second thing.
No sugar or alcohol afterdinner.

(08:46):
Because you're just going toramp up your sugar and
everything.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (08:49):
Can you just explain why diet pop isn't
good for us?

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (08:53):
For one thing, artificial sweeteners
trigger fibromyalgia.
Irritable bowel and migraines.
one can of Diet Pop It Dayincreases your risk of obesity
by 40%.
On your Tongue you have allthese taste buds, so salty,
sweet, bitter.
When you have a diet drink,tastes intensely sweet.

(09:14):
It hits your taste bud and itimmediately sends a message to
your brain that you just hadsomething sweet.
what is it going to do?
Okay, let's go back to thosethree important hormones.
It's going to release insulinbecause you had something sweet.
there's nothing there for it.
So now your insulin level stayshigh, which can make you

(09:35):
fatigued, anxiety, headaches,sugar cravings, now you really
want to find a carbohydratebecause your insulin are high.
You have a diet drink andthey're sipping at it all day,
what are they doing?
They're crying wolf all day.
And at some point in time, yourbody's going to be like, I'm not

(09:58):
going to fall for that.
So now your glucose level stayshigh.
Your insulin level staying high.
And that's what insulinresistance is.
And our bodies were not wired tohave high glucose levels.
So what do we do with it?
Put it right on in the stomach.
And abdominal weight causes moreinsulin resistance, and then you
get into this whole viciouscycle.

(10:19):
And remember, hormones are madeat night while you sleep, which
comes back to get a good night'ssleep.
Try to honestly get 8 hours ofsleep.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (10:29):
Those are super doable,

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (10:31):
They are super doable, but how many
people actually do them?

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (10:34):
People come into my office and they
haven't done them.
They might not know to do them,

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (10:39):
Right.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (10:40):
I have never been successful with
clients giving them more thanone small change at a time, but
I've been crazy successful withclients who have done one small
change, incorporated it over twoweeks, then said, Oh, I'll do
the next small change.

Dr. Connie Chalko P (10:56):
Absolutely.
How about if we do just onething for two weeks?
Stop your diet sweeteners, andthat includes the Crystal Light
or the tablets you put in yourwater,

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (11:06):
it's interesting because we're ending
up talking about Diet Coke It'sjust not where I thought we'd
go.

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (11:12):
That's because when you talk to a
woman, and I'm making a generalstatement, but I've worked with
a lot of women in 27 years.
And if you have a woman thatsays that she thinks there's
something wrong with herhormones, she is almost always
saying she thinks it's estrogen.
But circle back.
Are you working on those three?

(11:36):
top hormones.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (11:37):
I think this is such a missing piece of
information in midlife.

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (11:43):
We also don't take care of ourselves.
You're making sure that yourmom's got nutritional meals or
that your kids are eatingbreakfast or that they're going
to their doctor.
You're driving your parents totheir doctor's appointments.
When was the last time you madeone for yourself?

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (11:57):
In closing, the one thing I've
learned, is the idea of being adetective is so spot on because
so many of the women that I'veworked with, it has taken a
while.
It's a journey and it can be,for some people a short period
of time because they have a lotof lifestyle things in place,
but for other people it is a bigdetective case and it takes a

(12:20):
while.

Dr. Connie Chalko Ph.D (12:20):
Find out what it's not before you can
find out what it is.
track your symptoms, fix theobvious things and start there
and see how you feel.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (12:30):
This has been fantastic.
Thank you so much.
In this episode, Dr.
Connie Chalko encouraged you tobecome your own hormone
detective.
Get your basic labs, vitamin D,cortisol, and insulin.
Make sure you're not anemic.
Partner with your doctor andstart with simple lifestyle

(12:51):
changes that will help you feelbetter.
Eat breakfast, no sugar afterdinner and get eight hours of
sleep.
I hope you have found these twoepisodes to be helpful because
at creating midlife calm, wejust don't want you to feel like
crap

Mom’s Powerbeats Pro-2 (13:06):
Thanks for listening, and I'll be back
on Monday with more creatingmidlife calm.
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